At its joint booth with parent company Sammy, Sega today held a special Sakura Taisen event, featuring the voice actors of Sakura Taisen V: Saraba Itoshiki Hito yo for PlayStation 2. First, series mastermind and producer Ouji Hiroi as well as executive producer Norikatsu Ouba took the stage and upon showing a trailer of the upcoming Sakura Taisen V Episode 0: Arano no Samurai Musume, talked about the development of the Sakura Taisen series' newest additions. Ouji Hiroi mentioned that the scenario for Sakura Taisen V alone took him one and a half years to complete. Since the development team had to wait during this time, the younger members of the team suggested to make a rodeo action game, which was the first step to the development of Episode 0: Arano no Samurai Musume. The action-oriented title will feature hidden characters and protagonist Gemini Sunrise's horse Rally will be a key to clear the game.

Hiroi then went on to talked about Sakura Taisen V, remarking that the a major influence for the soundtrack of the series' fifth installment was jazz. Pointing to the end of the cherry blossom period, executive producer Ouba basically confirmed the game's summer 2005 release date. The two were then replaced on stage by Sega's coordinator for both the Sakura Taisen and Shining Force projects, Tadashi Takezaki, who entered the stage by jokingly asking the two producers to not delay the game's release by doing too much post-editing. Afterwards, he introduced the voice actresses behind the game's five main characters: Sanae Kobayashi (Gemini Sunrise), Junko Minagawa (Sagitta Weinberg), Ayaka Saitou (Riketta Aries), Kaya Matsutani (Diana Caprice) and Mie Sonozaki (Kou Kujou). The girls first talked about their characters before performing Sakura Taisen V's main theme Chijou no Senshi.

• GameWatch