First Squad: The Moment of Truth

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Pervyi Otryad, Первый Отряд

Japanese: ファーストスクワッド

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Information

Type: Movie

Episodes: 1

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: May 13, 2009

Producers: None found, add some

Licensors: Anchor Bay Films, Manga Entertainment

Studios: Studio 4°C

Source: Original

Genres: Action, Supernatural

Themes: Historical, Military, Super Power

Duration: 1 hr. 13 min.

Rating: R - 17+ (violence & profanity)

Statistics

Score: 5.95¹ (scored by 20,469 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #9923²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #3487

Members: 40,968

Favorites: 58

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Synopsis

As the Second World War rages on throughout Europe and the German forces advance closer to Moscow, the days of the Soviet Union seem numbered. Their only hope is the First Squad, a special unit operating within the Soviet intelligence service that consists of teenagers possessing supernatural abilities. However, the unit's sole surviving member Nadya Ruslanova suffers from memory loss and is unlikely to take part in any combat operation.

The next Moment of Truth—an event that happens once every 700 years, when the actions of a single man can change the entire course of history—is rapidly approaching the Eastern Front. In hopes of breaking the stalemate at the frontlines, a German occult organization called Ahnenerbe plans to summon Baron von Wolff, a medieval knight from the Northern Crusades, and his undead army from the underworld. To prevent this from happening, First Squad must gather once again, and it is up to Nadya to bring back her deceased friends to stop the Nazis from taking over the world.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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First Squad

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Characters & Voice Actors

Ruslanova, Nadya

Main

Valya

Supporting

Baron von Wolff

Supporting

Leo

Supporting

Zina

Supporting

Marat

Supporting

More staff

Staff

Tanaka, Eiko

Producer

Ashino, Yoshiharu

Director, Storyboard

Takahashi, Yuuichi

Key Animation

David, Alex Von

ADR Director

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Opening Theme

"Valor" by DJ Krush

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Ending Theme

"Blade Wind" by DJ Krush

Reviews

Jan 31, 2019

megafat

Recommended

Every now and again, there is an anime project done in conjunction with a country outside of Japan. With First Squad, the project was done in conjunction with Japanese animation studio Studio 4C and a Russian company Molot Entertainment. Molot Entertainment doesn’t seem to have done much else besides First Squad besides another animated film called Ivan about a post-apocalyptic world filled with magical creatures such as dragons From what I can find, the company seems to be focused on helping promote independent projects.

First Squad itself seems to have an interesting history by itself. Starting out as a music video in 2005 by both Studio ... 4C and Molot Entertainment, with the song for the music video done by MC Ligalize. It even won an award at the MTV Russian Music Awards for best hip-hop video in 2006. By 2007, the Russian studio behind the music video announced that they were working on a film adaptation of the music video.

2 years later, First Squad: Moment of Truth was released to the public. Apparently, is was well received enough in it’s home country of Russia that it even went on to win an award by the Kommersant newspaper’s prize. There was even a graphic novel adaptation the year after First Squad’s release. So with the surprisingly interesting history of First Squad out of the way, let’s have a closer look at it.

Set during World War II on the Eastern Front, a group of Nazi mystics plan to resurrect Baron von Wolff and his Teutonic Knights during the “Moment of Truth”, a moment that has appeared throughout various points in time that will determine the outcome of any significant conflict. To prevent this, Division Six of the Soviet Military intelligence has enlisted a group of young people with special abilities to fight the invading German armies and prevent the Nazi’s from reaching their goal.

The story follows a young clairvoyant girl named Nadya, who survived a deadly air raid attack only to be left shell-shocked. While recovering from her concussion, she soon discovers that she has a new ability, the ability to foresee said “Moments of Truth”. Soon, she is taken into Division Six, and is trained along with the rest of the rest of the squad to prevent the Moment of Truth from being used by the Nazis to win the war.

Unfortunately the whole movie is a bit of a mixed bad. While the premise is great, the rest of the movie is a bit underwhelming. The fact that this movie is only an hour long is the thing that unfortunately drags this whole thing down. I’m going to assume that the team behind First Squad not having a bigger budget, not having enough time, or not having both is the reason that the length of this movie is so short. I don’t know how much better it would have been having an extra 15 minutes, but I feel like the whole thing would have definitely felt a lot smoother.

As a side effect of the length of this movie, the characters don’t always get the character development they need. Nadya pretty much gets most of it because she’s the main character, but the rest of the characters only get the most minor of character development, something that could have been solved with a longer length. The few action scenes that this movie gets are just OK, nothing to write home about.

There is actually two versions of First Squad. A “Theatrical” cut and a “Director’s” cut.The only difference between both versions is every now an again in the “Director’s” cut there are a brief interviews done with veterans, historians, and other live actors in between the rest of the movie. These are basically just here to not only try and lengthen the movie with the meager budget they had, but these are more of a mixed bag than anything. Some of them don’t really add anything, such as the one interview that simply explains what sedatives are.

Maybe it’s to give it some authenticity, but considering that the whole thing flows much better without them, I can’t really recommend the “Director’s” cut unless you found something about the original interesting enough to warrant something more.

First Squad: Moment of Truth might be a rocky in terms of quality, but I don’t really hate it. It’s not something you should immediately go out and see, but it’s worth checking out if you some free time and it looks interesting to you.

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Aug 4, 2021

RauLeCreuset

Mixed Feelings

This is the very first anime that I have ever watched, that was based of the events of world war two, and I have to admit, out of all the gory and dark anime that I have seen before beyond this point, that I have to say I am most definitely quite surprised that anime creators could have came up with something such as this. This was bother schocking and honestly, if you ask me I didn't think it was that great after all, but it's the basically the last frontier with mechanics. In time there will no longer be a need for them as ...

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Feb 23, 2021

Blackmage03

Not Recommended

As a weeb of Russian descent I would've loved nothing more then to have put this anime in my top ten list and rub it into the face of every weeb I'll meet. But sadly, I can't do that.

On one hand Studio 4C did an incredible job with animation and sound design and honestly saved this movie from being a complete disaster. Where First Squad falls short is story wise.

If this wasn't a movie I feel like First Squad would've had a chance to be pretty good. The story utilizes a lot of strong story elements that in themselves can carry any story but ...

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Poll: First Squad: The Moment of Truth Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) georgi - Oct 4, 2009	99 replies	by Hound-of-MAL »» Sep 2, 2022 5:13 AM
Japanese or Russian? Deago - Oct 20, 2015	1 replies	by Deago »» Oct 21, 2015 4:58 AM
The live-action footage Fronzel - Dec 4, 2011	2 replies	by Fronzel »» May 4, 2013 9:43 PM
Is there any review from people who have seen it ? dtitov - May 25, 2009	15 replies	by RaymanM »» Dec 26, 2009 4:19 AM
Release Date? ShadowBlazer3000 - Oct 14, 2008	8 replies	by Reisenfag »» Sep 29, 2009 5:03 AM

First Squad: The Moment of Truth

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