Brave Soldier (found English dub of North Korean cartoon "Squirrel and Hedgehog"; date unknown)

Banner on the official Mondo website.

Status: Found

Date found: 13/14 Feb 2018

Found by: Mondo TV

Squirrel and Hedgehog is a North Korean produced propaganda cartoon which shows a conflict between communities of anthropomorphic animals. The series revolves around the community of Flower Hill and its many enemies. The citizens of Flower Hill are a metaphor for North Koreans and the enemy forces of mice, weasels, and wolves metaphors for South Korea, Japan, and the United States, respectively.

The Basics

Two series of the cartoon are known, but it is not known when exactly the series was produced, due to the lack of information about North Korea and its animation industry. What is known is that the first series used traditional animation, while the second utilized computer animation instead. According to a Saberspark video on the series, Squirrel and Hedgehog were produced by a studio named Scientific Educational Korea (SEK), which is based in Pyongyang.

The Italian company Mondo TV S.P.A. (better known for producing two animated Titanic films, The Legend of the Titanic in 1999 and In Search of the Titanic in 2004) produced an English and a Spanish dub of the first series (26 episodes) of the cartoon.^[1] While the entire Spanish dub was uploaded onto their YouTube channel, only the first English dub episode was uploaded onto their Vimeo. The dub renamed the cartoon to Brave Soldier. For a while, it was uncertain if Mondo TV only dubbed the first episode or the entire series. It is likely, although not certain, that Mondo acquired the rights to the series through their previous partnership with SEK.

Mondo TV changed the series' plot for the dubs in an attempt to remove any blatant propaganda or subtle references to North Korea. In the dubs, the animals of Flower Hill and elsewhere agreed to set strict non-aggression policies, only to be forced to go to war.

Findings

On February 13th and 14th, 2018, Mondo TV uploaded 26 episodes of Brave Soldier on their YouTube channel, proving that they dubbed the entire first series. It is currently unknown if they dubbed the second series as well.