Editor's Note: I have no idea what Kurtis is talking about in the last two paragraphs, but this seems to be something some of y'all may like. -Shoe

This is a mirror of my blog found on 1UP's The Grind.

Last night was NIS America's "Holy Drunken Shenanigans, Badman!" event. The title is very fitting, as it's no secret that I mainly attend these events simply to gorge myself on food and booze. If you're ever in San Francisco, Zebulon (where the event was hosted) has some fine fried shrimp and beef eggrolls. Hell, I would have completely forgotten about the shenanigans if I hadn't noticed Jeremy, Justin, and Ray forming a salivating man-train out of the office.

As the name of the event implies, NIS was mainly showcasing Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman! What Did I do to Deserve This? But there were some other titles such as Last Rebellion and A Witch's Tale. However, the one that really caught me off guard was the announcement of bringing Sakura Wars 5 to the States.

For those that aren't familiar with the Sakura Wars series (known as Sakura Taisen in Japan), the games are SRPGs that take place in various countries and cities (Tokyo, Paris, New York) during the 1920s, but with the added twist that everyone seems to pilot a giant robotic mech. When not battling to save the world, you also seduce and date your teammates, all of whom happen to be cute attractive females. The women typically tend to be diverse, unique, and bizarre enough that those of us at the event made comparisons to the members of the Burger King Kids Club.

For myself, at first I wasn't too excited about the series, and mostly just remembered it for the whacky commercial featuring Segata Sanshiro and Sakura Shinguji prancing through a forest.

It wasn't until some time later that I became interested in the series. It mainly happened when an artist I followed, possibly a hentai one, had a crazy obsession with Maria Tachibana. At first I thought this was some sort of original character he happened to stick in all of his work but soon realized that she was a Russian marksman from the Sakura Wars. So, after that revelation, I started on my quest to learn more about this SRPG series.

Oddly enough, I didn't wind up playing any of the actual RPGs, but instead ended up watching the anime series based on Sakura Wars 3, which takes place in France and featured the Paris Kagekidan. Once again, the team consisted of mostly Super Sentai Maho Shojo but with huge ass robots and a blatant disregard for collateral damage. There was Erica, the nun and cabaret dancer; Glycine the spoiled brat; Lobelia the thief; Hanabi the student; and Coquelicot the magician. The story was mostly about how protagonist Ichiro Ogami would work, fight alongside, and try to woo them, though mostly in a clueless manner. The anime was like a badass robo version of Tenchi Muyo or Love Hina.

So, four years after its original release in Japan, I'm looking forward to trying out Sakura Wars 5 as my first real frolic in the series. Here's to riding Sunrise for the safety of New York City!