Just like her character Hatsuho Shinonome, Maaya Uchida was born and raised in Tokyo.
Komachi Oba is from Osaka, located in the Kansai region. Her voice actress, Ryōko Shiraishi, hails from Kashiba, Nara, which is based in the same region.
Adaptation First: The manga adaptation was first published on September 12, 2019, exactly three months before the game's release.
Approval of God: The franchise's founding father and other developers who worked on previous Sakura Wars entries praised this game even before its release:
Oji Hiroi, the series creator and lyricist for the games, and Satoru Akahori, the scenario writer for the first four games, were very impressed with Sega's work on the game.
Naoki Morita, who designed the world settings for the first four games, commented on Twitter that he was excited about the game.
Awesome, Dear Boy: Tite Kubo jumped at the chance to be a part of the game after discussing it with Sega.
B-Team Sequel: This is the first game in the main series not to involve Red Entertainment; instead, it was developed by Sega in their first solo outing. Furthermore, it's the first entry not to be written by Satoru Akahori with Jiro Ishii taking up that role and the character design has passed from Kosuke Fujishima to Tite Kubo.
Toshihiro Nagoshi, the game's executive producer as well as the director for the first announcement trailer, revealed on the April 2019 Sega Nama stream that because of his initial unfamiliarity with the Sakura Wars series, he was the one who accidentally revealed that Sumire Kanzaki would be featured in the game. Sure enough, it was confirmed in Sega's first Sakura Wars live stream in June 2019.
When Koch Media released the French trailer for the game, it was actually an earlier prototype that included a Christmas storyline as well as Kamiyama, Sakura and Claris discussing the Flower Division's potential dissolution. They removed it not long after it was posted.
The Danza: Sakura Amamiya is voiced by Ayane Sakura. Granted, they're homophonous first and last names, but still.
Deleted Scene: An animated version of the "Miracle Bells" scene was originally included in Chapter 6. However, parts of that scene were repurposed for the end credits.
Demand Overload: The music video of the opening theme's instrumental version caused the YouTube link to crash for a few minutes because too many people were accessing the link.
Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: The Japanese limited edition release includes the game, a 72-page art book, and six CDs containing all 60 songs from the main series.
The first official trailer premiered on March 30, 2019, the ninth anniversary of the international release of Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love.
The third chapter of the manga was published on September 26, 2019, one day before the entire Sakura Wars franchise's 23rd anniversary.
The game was simultaneously released in Asia the year of the 65th birthdays of franchise creator Oji Hiroi and composer Kohei Tanaka, the 30th birthdays of Yui Ishikawa and Maaya Uchida, the 40th birthday of Rie Kugimiya, the 25th birthday of Ayane Sakura, and the 50th birthday of Sakura Shinguji's voice actress Chisa Yokoyama.
The international release of the game took place in 2020, the year that marks Sega's 60th anniversary, the 20th anniversary of the first Sakura Wars TV series, the 15th and 10th anniversaries of the respective Japanese and international releases of Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love, the 40th birthday of Tomokazu Sugita, as well as the 45th birthday of original scenario writer Satoru Akahori.
Newbie Boom: The game's worldwide release brought in a ton of new users to the Sakura Wars franchise.
No Dub for You: According to Sega's official press release, the western release of the game retained the original Japanese voice-overs with German, French, English and Spanish subtitles, in contrast to So Long, My Love, which had an English dub (with Japanese VO limited to PS2-exclusive launch edition copies). Its Sequel in Another Medium, Sakura Wars the Animation, however, was eventually dubbed by Funimation in 2021.
The Other Darrin: Everyone besides Yohei Azakami (Seijuro Kamiyama) was recast for the stage adaptations. For example, Sumire Kanzaki is played by Moemi Katayama, rather than her regular actress, Michie Tomizawa.
Permanent Placeholder: When the game was first announced in 2018, it was named Shin Sakura Taisen. That name would eventually become the official Japanese/Asian title.
Production Posse: Even though this was the first major Sakura Wars production without Red Entertainment, several series regulars were still involved in the game:
In addition to the old guard of composer Kohei Tanaka, scenario part director Takeharu Terada, co-lyricist Oji Hiroi and mechanical designer Mika Akitaka, main character designer Tite Kubo brought along Masashi Kudo who translated his style to the Bleach anime in order to work on the 3D models for the characters.
This was Shoko Fujibayashi's first assignment as a lyricist for the Sakura Wars series, but she performed similar duties on One Piece, including "We Are!", as well as the Super Sentai and Kamen Rider franchises.
Takayuki Negishi, Yasuhisa Murase and Akifumi Tada served as Tanaka's arrangers for the Sakura Wars stage plays and the video games. Negishi and Tada also worked on the arrangements for One Piece.
Yukiko Horiguchi, Bun-Bun and Fumikane Shimada respectively designed the characters for the Shanghai, London and Berlin Combat Revues.
Ken Sugimori, who designed the Grand Imperial Peanut, was also responsible for some of the character designs in the Pokémon series.
Noizi Ito, who designed Hiromi and Itsuki, was responsible for the original illustrations in the Haruhi Suzumiya light novels.
Scriptwriter Takaaki Suzuki also worked with Fumikane Shimada on the World Witches series.
Development supporter Yuji Uekawa worked as a graphic designer on the original 1996 game.
Hakushu Murasame's character designer, Shigenori Soejima, designed the characters for the Shin Megami Tensei franchise as well as the Persona sub-series. Fittingly enough, the SMT series was produced by Sega's subsidiary, Atlus.
The game also features several Sonic Team regulars who have worked on the Sonic the Hedgehog series (including producer Tetsu Katano, chief producer Eigo Kasahara, scenario writer Eitaro Toyoda, battle system director Shun Nakamura and battle designer Takayuki Okada).
Adventure part director Kazuhiro Matsuta was a programmer for the first two Sakura Wars games and the first two Valkyria Chronicles games. He would later go on to serve as technical director for Valkyria Chronicles 4.
Quite a few staff members from Sanzigen Animation Studio previously worked on Fire Emblem: Three Houses, including key animation directors Takuya Chanohara and Yuka Hachimori, 3D animator Ryosuke Ishida, rigging director Tatsuji Nishijima, lead compositor Daisuke Okumura, color designer Junko Kitagawa, key animator and in-between checker Yusuke Yoda and animation executive producer Hiroaki Matsuura.
Hiroaki Matsuura also worked on In Hot Blood as a CGI manager for Gonzo Digimation.
Several of the Like a Dragon/Yakuza voice actors also had roles in this game. Rie Kugimiya (Haruka Sawamura) voiced Margarethe, Tomokazu Sugita (Shinji Tanaka from Yakuza Kiwami) voices Reiji Shiba, Ryōko Shiraishi (Mai Sanada from Yakuza 3 and Saya Date from Yakuza Kiwami) voices Komachi Oba, Miyuki Sawashiro (Makoto Makimura) voiced Hakushu Murasame, Sumire Uesaka (Saeko Mukouda) voiced Yui Huang, Show Hayami (Reiji Ishioda) voiced Tekkan Amamiya and the narrator, and Ryōtarō Okiayu (Shoyo Toma) voiced President G.
Both Maaya Uchida (Hatsuho) and Hibiku Yamamura (Azami) are huge fans of the Sakura Wars series to the point where they even got to sing the series' first opening theme. Fittingly enough, they sang an updated version of said theme for the game.
Noizi Ito, the character designer for Hiromi and Itsuki, frequently played the original Sakura Wars games during her early life.
Zachary Reese, Sega of America's public relations specialist, is a longtime fan of the series.
Sakura Amamiya being a huge fan of Sakura Shinguji is a commentary on how the latter character was received in real life.
Komachi Oba originates from Osaka and her actress, Ryōko Shiraishi, was born in Nara. Both are located in the Kansai region of Japan.
Michie Tomizawa retired from voice acting in the early 2000s following her marriage: coinciding with this, her character, Sumire Kanzaki, retired from active duty in the Imperial Combat Revue, as depicted in her titular OVA. Tomizawa would come out of retirement to reprise her role as Sumire for the game, with her character now the commander of the Revue, as well as the Grand Imperial Theater's general manager.
Refitted for Sequel: Shanghai was one of the original Combat Revue candidates for the 1996 game, but it was scrapped before development began. The Shanghai Revue was eventually included in the canceled MMORPG as well as the 2019 game.
The game was originally planned to be released sometime before March 2019 and Sega wanted to release the announcement trailer towards the end of 2018. However, the release was delayed to December 12, 2019 because Toshihiro Nagoshi wanted to revise the trailer in time for Sega Fes 2019.
A stage play based on the game was originally scheduled to run from March 5 to March 9, 2020. Unfortunately, the then-ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic delayed the performances to November 19 to 23, 2020.
Role Reprise: Michie Tomizawa and Chisa Yokoyama respectively return as Sumire Kanzaki and Sakura Shinguji for the first time since their last in-game appearance in 2008's Dramatic Dungeon: Sakura Wars — Because You Were There.
Saved from Development Hell: A Sakura Wars game was on and off in development since composer Kohei Tanaka proposed the idea in 2008. Takaharu Terada, the scenario director for the adventure part, offered yearly proposals for a new game but Sega repeatedly declined them and the project went into Development Hell. It wasn't until 2016 that the game's development finally began.
Sequel Gap: There was a 14-year gap between the original release of So Long, My Love, the last official main series Sakura Wars title, and this game. Even if you count the Nintendo DS game, that's still nearly 11 years. Also, the main and supporting cast members, except for Nana Mizuki and Rie Kugimiya, were in their early-to-late teens when the last game was released.
Sequel in Another Medium: The Berlin Combat Revue was established around the time of Sakura Wars: New York, NY, an OVA. Their story picks up again here, in a video game.
The first main Sakura Wars game to be developed by Sega's reorganized CS2 R&D team, after the first four games were developed by Sega's original CS2 R&D/Overworks team and So Long, My Love was developed by the GE2 R&D team.
This is also the first Sakura Wars game for Sanzigen Animation Studio, which animated the FMV sequences.
While NIS America localized Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love for an international release in 2010, this game is the first Sakura Wars game to be localized by Sega themselves this time around.
Throw It In!: The team never intended for Kubo to design the characters' weapons, but he did it anyway. The team also took other creative suggestions from him.
Takaharu Terada once considered setting the game in Kyoto as well as in a future timeline.
Sega briefly considered making Hatsuho a Childhood Friend to Kamiyama.
Jiro Ishii's first draft revealed that Yaksha was conceptualized as a possessed Sakura Shinguji. When Chisa Yokoyama caught wind of this, however, she shot that idea down and successfully had Ishii rewrite the draft to make Yaksha an Evil Doppelgänger of Sakura.
Concept art for Claris depicts her frequently carrying a purse by the handles.
Sakura would have held the Amamiya Kunisada in a piece of cloth as depicted in concept art.
Sega briefly considered the addition of a destroyable generator that could summon demons, but it was scrapped during development.
Chisa Yokoyama and Michie Tomizawa almost made the decision not to be part of the game, due to how long it was since the games have passed and given that most of the characters from the first four games were not included. Chisa did mention that she met with the game production team and made suggestions (partly as a condition for her to consider the role of Yaksha) such as making Yaksha talk similarly to Sakura to preserve the mystery that Yaksha could be Sakura. Michie mentioned that she was worried about not being able to join with the original game's cast when she got the offer that Sumire was coming back.
Word of God: Quite a few people thought that Sonic Team would be developing the game. However, Sam Mullen, Sega of America's director of production at the time, confirmed in an August 2019 tweet that while Sonic Team is housed within the Sega CS Research and Development No. 2 division, it was developed by members from the original CS2/Overworks team who also worked on Valkyria Chronicles and the first five Sakura Wars games. Sonic Team's only involvement was through the game's use of Hedgehog Engine 2.
Working Title: Project Sakura Wars was the codename for the official international release of the game.
You Sound Familiar: Masaharu Sato voiced Yoichi in The Radiant Gorgeous Blooming Cherry Blossoms and Yattansai Mochizuki in the 2019 game.
Alternative Title(s):Shin Sakura Wars, Shin Sakura Taisen, New Sakura Wars
with Sega's work on the game.