English Dub Review: Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut: “To the New World”

Overview: Lev (Stephen Fu) addresses the world about the truth surrounding his flight and the critical role Irina (Tia Ballard) played in it all. 

Our Take: Anya helps Irina escape from the UZSR guards in an attempt to try to reunite with Lev as readies for his ceremony. Lev’s lineage has never been a huge aspect of him with it only making sporadic appearances when necessary for building his character, such as how he came to look down on his country’s prejudice. However, Lev’s reunion with his parents, set up for the press and live Zirnitra news feed, is a short but compelling scene that is indicative of his kind and open-minded disposition as well as his conviction that is necessary for the future of the Zirnitra even if it goes against the oppressive country’s ideals. 

When Irina finally gets to the speech in that hot stupor as a result of the sun beating down on her, she is just on the brink of leaving when Lev does something exceptional in revealing to the audience that Irina was in fact the first cosmonaut in space and her incredible humanity despite that she is a vampire and people’s misinformed, stereotypical viewpoints of them. With Irina having raced over to Lev with the little energy she had left, it makes for an endearing reunion. Irina’s worldwide address is engaging in that prejudice is not sugar coated in that she is outright accepted just because Lev introduced her. Rather, it is not until Irina nervously explains her heartfelt and wonderfully down-to-earth relationship between her and Lev that her warmth is communicated to the masses. Helping carry the message of Lev’s progressive thinking is surprisingly that of UZSR. There is a looming tension throughout Lev’s speech and him reuniting with Irina once again on how they will handle either one of them. Thankfully, the UZSR’s hands are tied against Lev being a national hero now and they spin it in their favor to seem forward thinking and rub it in the face of Arnack. 

How did the higher ups account for Lev’s revealing speech? It turns out Lyudmila being the craft devil she is, took that into account along with the possibility they would succeed in assassinating Irina, having a story ready for both outcomes. It is also refreshing to see how they do not paint all of Zirnitra as cruel bastards with their being a gray area in the chief comrade sticking up for Irina with a flat out threat. With both Irina and Lev now heroes of Zirnitra, they set the stage for unity across both vampires and humans, with no borders between them. This nicely mirrors that of barriers we as humans put that takes place in that of Arnack and Zirnitra similar to our real world, U.S. and the Soviet Union. Although there is no definitive culmination to their romantic relationship, there is a hint of it with it being a subtle, sweet, and inviting ending for the two cosmonauts and sentiment for a topical issue that is still present today.