Project Sakura Wars is the newest title in the Sakura Wars series. It is a soft reboot of the long-running series featuring several returning characters, along with a few newcomers. The title is the first mainline entry in over a decade.
Sega recently hosted a lifestream on November 20, showcasing the characters, along with new information.
The Sakura Wars series has become popular among fans due to its combination of action role-playing and romance visual novel content.
Sakura Wars takes place in the 1940s. A group of young adults teams up to take down a group of demons who have threatened to disrupt humans’ decade long period of peace. The series stars Imperial Japanese Navy captain Seijuro Kamiyama, a 20-year-old man assigned to lead the reborn Imperial Combat Revue: Floral Division.
In the two-hour-long livestream, various characters were shown, including newcomer Hakushu Murasame. Not much of Murasame was shown in the trailer, besides chatting with a few other characters. Her personality is more laid back and reserved than others.
Murasame stands out for another reason. She is a new character designed by Shigenori Soejima, who has worked as a character designer for Persona 3, 4, and 5.
Murasame’s Japanese voice actress is Miyuki Sawashiro, who also has ties to the Persona series. She is the voice of Persona 3’s Elizabeth and also portrayed Isabeau in Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse.
There are also other guest artists attached to the project, such as BUNBUN, Pokémon’s Ken Sugimori, Girls und Panzer’s Fumikane Shimada, and Haruhi Suzumiya’s Noizi Iro. Their art will be included in the artwork packaged with the Limited Edition of the game.
Also joining the series was Tite Kubo, creator of the manga series Bleach. He designed the main characters along with the weapons.
Also part of the project is mecha designer Mika Akitaka. The artist has had a long history of designing mecha for series like Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ and Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory.
Not only will Project Sakura Wars be released soon, but an anime adaptation is planned. Manabu Ono, who is currently working on Sword Art Online: Alicization, will direct the series. The anime adaption is officially titled Sakura Wars the Animation.
Project Sakura Wars will be released on the PlayStation 4 in Japan on December 12 and internationally in Q2 2020.
