Sakura Wars, also known as Sakura Taisen, is a popular series of video games, manga, and anime created by Sega. The title is literally translated as "Cherry Blossom Great War", but it can also be translated more loosely as "The Great War Among the Cherry Blossoms", sakura being the Japanese word for "cherry blossom".

The first OAV mainly tackles the background of each main character and how the team was recruited and formed. It was set in the Taisho Era just after the first demon war. A prologue to the anime series, the story concebtrates more on Sakura the heroine and jumps off later to the other characters – Sumire, Kanna, Iris, Koran, Maria, and Ogami.

The story is just fine though kinda slow-paced and there's a part a bit confusing. That was when in the OAV, Maria suggested to Ayame that they should have a captain but in the anime series it was the opposite. She was actually angry and offended when she found out that Ayame and their manager had to choose a guy to do the job. Hmmm.. Anyway, it seems like most of the time, the OAV differs from the anime series itself (think of Tenchi Muyo). With regards to character design and animation, it's quite good. It adopted the way movies were made in early 90's, there are some scenes in black and white and no words spoken but the lines were flashed in the screen. The ED song is also nice sung by Ai Orikasa (Ayame, aka Ryoko in Tenchi Muyo)