Ask John: What Is “First Squad”?

Question:
I have seen a trailer for an anime named “First Squad.” The trailer astounded me and looked really promising, but I can’t seem to find any further information regarding it? I was wondering if you could help.

Answer:
As far as I can tell, through a bit of web research, “Pervyi Otryad” (“First Squad”) is a short anime directed by artist and animator Daisuke Nakayama. Nakayama’s most obvious contribution to anime has been the character designs for the 2004 Mahou Shoujo Tai Arusu anime television series. Nakayama has also worked with Production IG on films including Ghost in the Shell and Blood: The Last Vampire; with Studio 4ºC on works including Mahou Shoujo Tai Arusu, Mind Game, and the Animatrix segment “Beyond”; and with Studio Ghibli as an animator on Princess Mononoke. The short First Squad anime was produced by Studio 4ºC, the acclaimed studio that’s well known for creating brilliant short anime works.

The First Squad anime seems to be a 3:27 music video for the song “Pervyi Otryad” performed by Russian rapper Ligalaiz. The “trailer” seems to be a shortened version of the music video. While it may not be authoritative, the Japanese Wikipedia encyclopedia’s entry on Studio 4ºC lists “First Squad” as one of the studio’s numerous self-contained music videos. Director Daisuke Nakayama is also no stranger to helming short anime music videos, as he also directed the 35 second long anime TV commercial for Hikaru Utada’s song “Let Me Give You My Love,” and is the director for an upcoming M-flo animated music video that will be included on the Japanese “Amazing Nuts” DVD.

Regrettably the short music video may be the entire project. The First Squad website and trailer first went online in July 2005, and I can’t find any discussion of plans for a forthcoming release. The First Squad “trailer” certainly looks promising, but unfortunately every bit of information I can find about it suggests that the music video is all there is, and all there ever will be. In this case, hopefully I’ll turn out to be wrong.