First Squad: The Moment of Truth

[Aaron B.]

A.I. Review: First Squad: The Moment of Truth

Review for 'First Squad: The Moment of Truth.' In an alternate 1942, Hitler recruits the powers of the occult to summon an army of dead soldiers to help finally break through into the USSR. The Soviet Union's only hope is an elite group of superpower teens called "First Squad" -- the only problem is, all but one are dead. Can Nadya recruit her fallen comrades to defeat the powers of the undead and Hitler?

[McConnohie]

Just read the review of this dub by Kimberly Morales, and truthfully I wish I remembered more about it. Unfortunately when we're working, all too often the producers and studios are so paranoid about -- well, whatever it is they're so paranoid about -- we aren't even given the names of the projects we're working on, much less the chance to see anything but the scenes we're in. So we have to go by fan info after the fact.

From Kimberly's rave over the look of the film, but rather tepid approval of the voice acting in general (other than the solid backhand at me), I'd say it's likely she prefers subs to dubs -- and that's fine. Many fans do greatly prefer the original Nihongo dialogue. Nothing wrong with that, and I'd never intimate otherwise.

But as an observation from the slightly bruised side of my ego, the dubbing performances of voice actors aren't really under their control. There's always a producer and a director involved, and most often these days the "producer" is someone from the licensor or distributor, passing final judgment on characterizations and sound.

I'll take Kimberly's word that the final product may have been a little more cheesy than not, but I know better than to tell an employer they don't know what they're doing!

I am, like my colleagues, just grateful that there are dedicated fans still keeping this art form alive.

Regards,

Michael McConnohie

[Kimberly M]

I appreciate your thoughts!

Actually, I have no preference of subs vs. dubs. Back when I first got into anime (in high school), I preferred dubs more so than subs until I began joining anime clubs and going to conventions where I was able to see new titles fresh from Japan. From there, I began to prefer whatever track I heard first, because first impressions say a lot.

Really, the only VA I had issues with was the one character (Colonel Belov). Opinions are entirely subjective. I did not watch the original Japanese track; if I had, perhaps I would have seen that the original VA sounded similar in Japanese. Or perhaps it's just a particular kind of character that comes off as sounding out of place? Nothing personal at all!