You've seen me give great praise to season one and two of the samurai drama Hakuoki but now it's time to move onto the third set which is not a third season but a OVA (Original Video Animation) collection consisting of six episodes about the same story but seen from the perspective by six different characters from the show.  Anyway I'm skipping too far ahead but continuing on...  Hakuoki: A Memory of Snow-flowers is a special mini series about a local geisha bar coming to the Shinsengumi for a job to spy on a gang of swordsmen staying at the bar who plan on attacking the Shinsengumi's Headquarters and they need someone to keep watch so they know when they plan to attack so they can prevent it.  They choose to send Chizuru to pose as one of their geishas but they greatly fear that she will get herself in danger and become more protective of her than normal as if she was their sister or daughter. (Click "Read More" to see the full article).

While the idea sounds like it would get tiresome fairly quickly but you'd be surprise how fresh it feels in most episodes.  Yes you do see paths collide but for the most part each episode is very unique with plenty to offer.  However don't expect it to add anything to the main experience after watching the first two seasons as it really doesn't join up with them but it is still fun to watch once you've finished the other sets.  This series is also more romantic comedy rather than a strong samurai drama series which would of bothered me if it was in the main series but it was oddly appropriate here.  Complaints I have with this series is the sixth episode as the first half is just a re-cap of episodes one through five and the other half is taking from the point of view from a character named Chikage Kazama, to put it bluntly it was quite boring as there wasn't anything interesting as it's everything we saw in episodes one through five.  Well that's no totally accurate as there is a scene that was an alternate version of a scene from season one but there isn't anything much different about it except for a different lead in to the scene so this episode is not only everything we saw from episodes one through five but also season one (try reading this paragraph five times nonstop).  That's such a shame as the first five episodes were building this to be quite a good episode but nope.

Animation and artwork is the same as the last two seasons which is very good but it also means it shares the same problems as those episodes, with some graining that is doomed to make it not age well.  English dub is pretty good with it being a little bit more livelier than what it normally is but there are also some characters that just sound very irritable and cheesy.  This OVAs soundtrack uses the same one as the television series which is a very good thing as it has a very wonderful sound to it.

There are some special features that include the typical text-less opening and closing credit sequences which is honestly more than what I expected as I was just expecting it to be a bare bones release with nothing else added.  Overall this one is for the fans of the series but people who aren't famiuler with the show can enjoy this too but some things will fly over their heads.  Good side series that is worth a watch.