Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
muratbasci
General Overview:
Snowy Moscow streets, children wielding katanas, and a Nazi ghost army... This anime, a Russian/Japanese co-production, attempts to bring together these seemingly crazy ideas, but the result is slightly above average.
By the way, since the main characters are a Russian unit, the film is in Russian. Being used to watching films in different languages didn't bother me, but it might be unsettling for others.
Good Sides:
- The film's story isn't bad, especially in its ability to clearly convey its messages. The destruction caused by war on people and cities is well-expressed. The plot's progression kept me in suspense at times.
- The depictions of Nadya's predicament between life and death, and her journey to the afterlife, are truly beautiful and creative.
- The artwor…
Read at the sourcejexyll
Truly disappointing. At first, I thought it was going to be a realistic war film depicting the tragedy of a protagonist during World War II, perhaps from Bosnia or Poland. But it turned out to take place in Russia—and ended up being just another film where the Japanese cram in their obsession with supernatural powers.
Black magic, ghosts, monsters, a mix of the living and the dead under clashing and shallow rules, interdimensional travel, mind-reading, and so on...
A complete mess with no solid foundations or coherent writing.
On top of that, the voice acting—especially the protagonist’s—along with the sound effects was poor, and the production was mediocre overall. Nothing stands out, really.
Read at the sourceRauLeCreuset
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 they will all be obsolete. .
Read at the sourceBlackmage03
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 in this case were rushed because of limited run time and didn't really let any of the potential shine through. They add magic and superpowers which under normal circumstances would make me so happy I'd spontaneously combust. But they don't establish…
Read at the sourceUsername3000
this is the first review i have written and i wish will be the only one
so the anime tried to do something it just couldn't i mean i am new to anime but i did accept crazy stuff and its not the crazy stuff . i hate but its the way the story is told the story is told in exposition dumps followed by a brief moments of something else followed by exposition dump . but to be fair the plot was would have been hard to explain in the given screen time. but what made it an even huge let down was the end fight it was just boring and cliché the entire films was built up to something which was nothing . but the sound was good and the art was okay.. what even sad is that it was edit from this anime what got me to watch anime in the first place
Read at the sourceMarsRed22
Really, this Anime is bad.
I expectd a nice short World War 2 Anime, with russians point of view, since there are already Anime sided by Germany or Japan.
But this was more a weird "middle aged magic with zombie" Anime, wich reminded me of some old Disney trickart films.
Don`t expect cool magic like in Youjo Senki, here everything seems a bid weird and random, like a bad fairy tale and a "hospital crucial experiment Frankenstein" mix.
Really, how can you create a world or a story like this ?
There were only 2 or 3 war scenes, and even they were bad, since they were only there, to bring the story on, but not to bring cool action into the Anime.
The story was bad, and the caracters just average.
I really didn`t liked any of them.
Normaly i would side with Germany in world war Anime, since i…
Read at the sourceJJR1971
The main reason I enjoyed watching this movie is for the visuals, seeing Soviet troops drawn and animated in Japanese anime style, and the Russian voice acting.
This is by no means a good movie. But it might be one of those so-bad-it's-good kind of films. You have to accept from the outset that this movie is completely absurd; it's a flight of fancy about an alternate WW2 where magic and occult mystical powers are real but kept secret.
It is well known that on the German side the high ranking SS were very obsessed with theosophy and occult matters and imagined themselves as the spiritual successors of the ancient Teutonic Knights. This actual quirk of history gets riffed on in this anime and made literal in the story.
The Russians for their part have their own quasi-mythic heroes of the…
Read at the sourcemegafat
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-ho…
Read at the sourceNekosenpaiii
Before I started watching this movie I had high hopes for it because of the art and the character designs but also the fact that this takes place in Russia during the WW2. As a fan of history and especially modern that attracted me a lot. This movie could have turned out way better if it was a series (wich would let us know the characters better) and if it wasn't that supernatural (I only liked the fact that Nadia can see the future ). You might get to know some things about the main character Nadia but what about her friends? The story should focus more on the characters background and the historical events in my opinion. I was kind of disappointed after watching this movie because it had a lot of potential. What I dysliked was basically the supernatural part since I'm not really a fan of…
Read at the sourceku258
Pervy orjad - First !ORDER!
The reason why I hate this anime is Because:
It is boring - THEY JUST TALK FOR F*** SAKE!
Story sucks - It is nonsensical, ends without point
History? - Yeah no match hear, It is... I dont even know.
Bonus:
Why the f*** is she having katana? Japan and Russia were enemies (russian WWII melee weapon was knife). They are speaking German, but not Russian. As a Czech history student and WWII book writer I found this really odd, in this anime Germans were not amused by cold. The art was fair, but soundtrack poor (I wanted to hear rap but no vocals).
This anime is waste of time
Read at the sourceingavittnen
I watched the music video with Legalize ( wich this anime is inspired by) and thought it looked extremely cool. Like possibly the best anime ever.
Watched this and it completely sucked. Spoilers might be included:
The story is boring. The characters are boring. It completely lacks emotions. The main character is not even too ovely excited to meet her dead friends, c'mon. Very bad how they tried to put i "interviews with soldiers" or whatever. Nah, not something I would recommend at all. I remember it as dull and without it giving me any further impact except that I felt scammed because it was presented as inspired by the music video.
The music video is absolutely stunning but it is nothing alike this anime.
Read at the sourceDesireless
This might come as a surprise, considering how nearly all reviews here seem to be so negative, but I actually enjoyed this anime.
First of I decided to watch it because the art appealled to me, I adored the art of this anime. I am generally drawn to this kind of art in anime so this is really a matter of taste. I do agree that considering the potential this had to be something great, it settled low on the bar and didnt live up to the potential. The characters lacked developement and the story was not as interesting as it could hve been.. However I did enjoye it nontheless because character developement and story is something A LOT of anime lack in, but this was visually and aurally pleasing
Read at the sourceWittmann
I'm going to start this off by saying I love anything related to World War Two, especially anything about the Eastern Front.
I'm willing to make a whole lot of exceptions for Eastern Front films, but in this case, even I couldn't overlook some glaring flaws. The film opened with an enjoyable ten minutes, and a very realistic depiction of an airstrike, I thought I was sold, and had the film ended there, I'd have given this a 10.
But then the rest of the film happened.
While I never expected them to play the setting straight, they could have at least taken the time to make a coherent plot. We are introduced to a number of characters in the underworld/afterlife who make a grand total of "zero" effect on anything in the story. It feels as if the writers came up with a bunch of different sto…
Read at the sourceTigrex22
Considering this is my first review, this is actually a hate mail. Why is that so?
You'll soon see why...
I started watching it believing this would be something interesting. What a fool I was. If you think this anime is going to be "interesting" because it has WW2 and Russia, you're damn wrong. You should avoid it.
I was almost interested for the first 10 minutes. But the acting was terrible. The characters showed no emotions. If you do want to call them emotions, be my guest. I one was rejected by the false interpretation of those "emotions". Oh well... we'll let it be.
Story 1/10
I have absolutely no words to describe what I just watched. The story was pathetic. How should I put this...
"Soviet teenagers with extraordinary abilities" - this is actually a phrase from the anime's detai…
Read at the sourceliteraturenerd
Overview:
Time to review a REALLY obscure anime that most people have never heard of. I recently reviewed the first Berserk Movie by Studio 4C and lambasted it for the terrible art. Has 4C ever made an anime with really good art? I found that the answer is yes. A few years ago a Russian film studio funded by the Russian government hired 4C to draw a Russian written, acted, and directed anime that would basically be a Soviet version of Hellsing Ultimate! This actually fucking happened!!!
Story and Characters: 5/10
The plot is fairly basic since this is a fairly short movie and half the time is spent on real world interviews of Red Army veterans that seem completely out of place and are inserted into random action scenes that not only take the viewer out of the story but break the viewer…
Read at the sourcenucblus
First Squad is a really bad movie. The only reason I even watched this movie is that it came as part of a box set, which I bought to get Paprika, Memories, Tekkonkinkreet, Steamboy and Metropolis. It was a good deal, although I also got some things I really didn't want. Like Cowboy Bebop the Movie and Tokyo Godfathers, that I already owned. And some random movie called Millennium Dragon and, you guessed it, First Squad.
I already knew this movie was gonna be bad going in. So I took the approach of 'Let's just relax with an hour of mediocre explosions and fun fights' attitude. And trust me, this was NOT what I got. So let's explain why:
There was no story. Nothing was resolved, there was never any tension and no character was interesting. They had a romantic subplot going on, but that was…
Read at the sourceDarknim3
This is my 1st recommendation I hope you like, First Squad is a film anime russian Japanese that I personally loved it, a totally great animation the action scenes are very well made although the plot is somewhat rare and out of the ordinary is what good enough the movie to keep you glued to your seat without taking his eyes off the screen, the OST is magnificent and the protagonist trapped in the well-known vortex of violence that was the 2nd World War is EPIC! history is not closed all hopefully the 2nd part of this incredible story was a fitting end to this great Russian-japonesUn anime anime with action, drama, a bit of gore and many loads of suspense is what awaits you in First Squad.
Read at the sourceNeonKazma
Before I review this anime, a little history: First Squad is a Russian / Japanese film collaboration with Molot Entertainment with anime studio Studio 4C and it was the ONLY anime that was entirely made by Russian filmmakers with little Japanese animators to work with. All I know is that nobody ever seen this anime, even Anime News Network never even bothered to review this and so, like a curious little kid, I bought the film, watched the whole film and......... I was very disappointed in this anime. Talk about a big bitch slap in the face, First Squad is so bland, forgettable and boring, that all of those interesting story ideas that this anime had just gets thrown away into a fucking blender and then gets shit out of some guys ass and it's never seen again. THAT is how I feel about this…
Read at the sourcefesc
This is my first review, so it may not be literary gold, but bear with me.
First Squad: The Moment of Truth is loosely based on a music video made by Studio 4C, who also made the movie. The story is set on the eastern front during the opening days of World War II. The main character is a young girl called Nadya, member of a secret unit of the Soviet army consisting of teenagers with supernatural powers, who have been drafted and trained to fight off the German advances. With all her squadmates dead, Nadya now finds herself alone in the barren and frozen Russian landscape.
She soon gets involved in a plot to fight against an SS officer who plans to raise an army of 12th century crusaders and have them help conquer the Soviet Union. The cast of characters is largely forgettable, save for…
Read at the sourceArrvilja
When I started watching this anime I did not have any expectations except strong disapproval of the topic. In fact, we study WWII and the Great Patriotic War as a part of it for many times (at school + college and uni if u attend them), leaving behind the fact that there are many subjects that provide with the information of the kind. Plus state holidays each year. That is why the topic held me somewhat tense and suspicious.
More detailed acknowledgement showed it was not that bad. The idea and the story were decent (mixing GPW and magic is interesting at least), moreover, the art was well-done. And watching usual anime stamps (like the scene in the garden, or Leo, or two Nazi agents) in the context of Soviet reality was quite unusual and fun (however, they made the story hard-to-believe i…
Read at the source
