The trailer mixes scenes featuring fearless teenagers engaged in a violent battle with archive shootings of Nazi planes over war-torn Moscow and – all that accompanied by a rap song performed by the Russian singer Legalize.

“She waits for me and I will come back. For the first time I'm not afraid. Thank you, mother, that you gave birth to your son. Moscow, thank you. The snow is so white, the ice is so clear. The forest, where every sound is alive. I've never seen such a sky, and our victory is waiting for us,” recites Legalize in a typical manner easily understood by every modern youth.

Superheroes that rose from the dead

The authors say it is not by chance they have chosen such stylistics to portray their account of this bloodiest war. They believe they can’t appeal to a 21st century audience using old language.

In fact, except for the settings, the fantasy movie has little to do with the real war. And the authors say they did not aim to show real events, their main goal being experimenting with the form. They have merged different mythologies, creating a ‘cross-cultural’ product.

It took several years to create the film, which is expected to become one of the most discussed premiers of this year. The exact date has not been set yet but there is already talk of the controversy it is likely to cause.

“It’s not only an artistic, but also a cultural project which, no doubt, will draw public attention both in Russia and Japan. Don’t forget that in Japan, perceptions of that war and the Russians vary a lot,” Aleksey Klimov told Ren TV channel.

For Russian people, the memory of WW2 and the Great Patriotic War – fought on Soviet soil – is sacred and any ‘disrespectful’ depiction is fraught with controversy and accusations of ‘sacrilege’.

But the authors say the film is in no way offensive.

“Our grandfathers fought in that war,” said Mikhail Spritz in a interview to Russkiy Reporter daily. “We do not have a light attitude to the war but we think that various artistic forms can be used to render the pathos of those events.”

Russians and Japanese: mutual love

Anime first came to Russia in the early 1990s, but it was not until 2000 that Japanese animation became really popular. The boom is due significantly to the Pokemon series shown on Russian TV.

Russian anime lovers started to form special clubs and held a number of gatherings dedicated to the subject. Since 2002, annual anime festivals have been held in large cities like St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Voronezh and Ekaterinburg. The most recent took place in St. Petersburg in April this year.

For their part, the Japanese are fond of Soviet animation films. In particular, they love Tcheburashka, a fictional animal invented by writer Eduard Uspensky and personified by artist Leonid Shwartzman. The creature appears in four movies created over the period from 1969 to 1983.

Tcheburashka… You can't help loving him

“Hedgehog in the Fog”, directed by living classic Yuri Nornstein, is also extremely popular in Japan.

Images of these animation characters can be seen on various goods from stationary to clothes.

If, with all their differences, the Russians and Japanese are so sensitive towards each other’s cultures, there’s hope that the First Squad project will be a success. And with their cosmopolitan background, Mikhail Spritz and Aleksey Klimov – both of them finished school in Moscow and pursued art education in Europe – are likely to overcome cultural distinctions.