Guilty Gear Strive: Dual Rulers

When I give a 1 out of 10, I generally put it in one of two categories: 1. It's completely devoid of worth. There is 0 reason to seek this out unless you are a DIEHARD completionist, looking for the worst anime regardless of entertainment value, or you're a masochist. This would be something like, say, FLCL Grunge. 2. It may have SOME value (although generally speaking, not much) but it pisses me off so bad that it doesn't matter, the bad outweighs the good by too far a factor for it to get even a 2. This is more subjective but I've had this happen to me before, see the first half of Beastars Final Season. I genuinely think Dual Rulers is the first to accomplish both. I'll preface this with the fact that I am a Guilty Gear fan. Rev2 is my favorite fighting game of all time, I currently have Strive at third. I own all 4 main games, I even have fucking Dust Strikers. So for this to be a ONE out of 10, I didn't even think that'd be possible. Hell, my favorite Guilty Gear character was guaranteed to be in the show and I was like "well, even if the show sucks ass (it does), at least Elphelt's in it". I'll get to that in a second but let's talk a bit about the production. It looks like crap. Even when it's generally functioning well, it looks worse than the game it's based on and worse than most modern anime you can find. But sometimes? My God, pour one out for Ramlethal fans, she gets one opportunity to shine in the series and it looks worse than Uzumaki and Blue Lock S2 combined. I think Episode 8 (conveniently the very last episode) is the only time I was ever amazed by any visuals they did and at that point, I was so over the series, it didn't even matter. And even then, it's less demanding than the normal scenes of the show, it's just a cool visual. The sound, for such a music fan's fighting game, is kind of forgettable? For better or for worse, there aren't a bunch of NAOKI Strivecore songs like the character themes, the only really notable one is the OP which has grown on me since I first heard it admittedly. The ED is forgettable ED #5409. The OST is nothing to write home about. How is the writing? Before I get into the characters, I wanna talk about the narrator. They explain everything in LABORIOUS detail. I'm pretty sure there's one episode where it's explained that since Sin was born after the Crusades, he wouldn't understand the impact of it three times in that almost exact verbiage. Not to mention any character who matters at all gets a title card explaining everything about them like you're sitting next to a GG superfan and they pause the show to loredump you. Shut the fuck up and SHOW US who these characters are. The characters aren't much better. Needless to say, if they aren't on the poster, they're a cameo at best. I think Leo Whitefang and Axl Low are the only ones who that doesn't apply to (outside of NPCs who aren't playable like Vernon or Nerville) and their roles are generously considered not a cameo tbh. Speaking of which, before we talk about the main characters, let's talk about the majority of the characters on the poster. A lot of these feel like characters there just to pop Guilty Gear fans because they're pretty much bit-timers or characters there to fill the runtime with fights against Unika or cannon fodder enemies. Johnny, Baiken, Elphelt, Ramlethal, even Dizzy and fucking KY KISKE, THE DEUTERAGONIST OF THE ENTIRE SERIES get very little to do. For a couple as crucial to the plot and main characters as Dizzy and Ky, they spend Episodes 2-7 sitting in Illyria Castle. Johnny's written basically as "I LIKE WOMEN I LIKE WOMEN I LIKE WOMEN", he genuinely has more defining character traits in his title card introduction than the rest of his screentime You could not make me remember a single thing Baiken contributed to the story other than helping during fight scenes and just kinda standing there, throwing out a couple lines when she's needed. Elphelt and Ramlethal are put on guard in Illyria Castle aka they do jack shit. Elphelt gets one scene on her own to shine but it just makes her look like a dumbass dweeb (which... I mean Elphelt was never very book smart, we love our 0 IQ wannabe bride) and she vanishes until she's needed for fight scenes at the end. As mentioned above, Ramlethal genuinely might as well not even be in the story. You could write the dead corpse of Bedman in the story and he'd be just as useful. I genuinely do not remember if we ever see Leo Whitefang in the flesh and blood, he's just... on council with the President the entire story. Axl's entire contribution to the plot is a passing remark about the future. I could remark about how cynical it is that there are precisely 2 characters from each DLC season (Jack-O and Baiken for S1, Sin and Bridget for S2, Elphelt and Johnny for S3, and Dizzy and Unika for S4) as if they're put in there to plug DLC in case they somehow by some grace of God convince someone to buy Strive off the back of this travesty, but that's just a conspiracy theory tbh I think there are, like, 5 characters who actually matter. Bridget genuinely does more to help Unika than any character in the story. If you're someone who has been shipping Unika and Bridget since they had that little T cross-section cut-in or whatever in the opening movie, you might be the only people who'd enjoy this show and even then, there's probably already a "Guilty Gear Strive: Dual Rulers but only the Bridget moments" and you'd be better off watching that. And in exchange, she doesn't even get to fight all that much, probably because animating her doing yo-yo shit wasn't in the budget. Sol Badguy at least gets to do something unlike Ky but he's just Sin's mentor, the "old guy". He does actually matter but if you had hopes of seeing a faithful Guilty Gear anime where Sol gets to shine: 1. Why, this was clearly Sin's anime 2. You don't get that Nerville Hammer is a dog-ass villain. I'm not even going to mark this for spoilers because I mean just look at him. It'd be more of a spoiler if he wasn't a villain. He starts out as just A Racist against Gears which sure, fine, whatever, but then the more and more we learn about him, he just kind of flops. I don't really understand his plan? He just transforms into "muahahahaha I'm going to take over EVERYTHING and kill both humans and Gears" and like motherfucker, what do you plan to rule over? Trees? Zebras? He turns into such a cartoonishly overkill villain that he loses all his credibility and become exhausting, not to mention a significant downgrade in animation quality. Quite frankly, the biggest reason I saw this at all was, as a Strive fan, Unika was coming to Strive, so I had to know what her deal was. And it does not succeed in endearing her to me. For the majority of the story, she comes off as either a racist or a dumbass puppet and whatever attempts to sympathize her to me don't work. Apparently all it takes is naked Bridget and you go from "all Gears must die" to "you know, maybe my father is a jackass". Her connection to Sin never feels real and, as mentioned above, it feels more like Bridget saves Unika than Sin does. I saw a meme during the show's runtime that Unika felt like a Guilty Gear OC that's given a bunch of Cool Traits to make her seem Cool, like if you wrote your JJK OC as Hitomi Gojou who is Gojou's favorite younger sister and Megumi Fushiguro's lover and goes shopping with Nobara Kugisaki on the weekends and that's genuinely what Unika feels like to me. If she was meant to be some sort of new age deuteragonist, it doesn't work. Hell, even as a "normal" member of the cast, I would've been MORE excited to play as her in Strive if Dual Rulers never existed. Speaking of new age replacements, I wanna go on a bit of a tangent about "new" protagonists in fighting games. I feel like these are generally misguided. It's worked occasionally (see: Jin Kazama, Rock Howard [although considering it took like 25 years after …

It's perfectly aight. The characters are real goofy and over the top but likeable and the dynamics between characters is interesting and deep. The characters are the best part of this show. My favorite is the relation between Sol and Sin. It has a real mentor-kid dynamic and I love how non-verbal it is. You don't need to be told to see the layers and how each of their personalities rub against each other. Good stuff. You can tell this was made on a budget as they rely heavily on zoomed in faces and still shots. But the 3D is really good and they do a good job of blending the two together. The backgrounds are great. It's a well made budget anime and it's only 8 episodes, so. The plot feels like it is moving really fast and I feel like it would benefit from having more episodes to let things build up more so we could get bigger and more emotionally impactful pay offs and more character moments. The trick to liking this anime is to not take it too seriously. It's real stupid but enjoyable if you give it a chance, especially as the plot picks up half way through. It's not a plot that makes logically sense all the time and is a bit contrived sometimes but it does spark emotion. They where going for something here. It's a trip. FYI: I'm not caught up with the story from games at all and it is not necessary to enjoy this anime in my experience.

I can't imagine anyone who isn't already a Guilty Gear fan enjoying this anime, truthfully. If you're already familiar with Guilty Gear lore, then the story is pretty good, and has cool implications for the future of the game's story. But that is really the only praise I can give it. The music is very forgettable, which is a crime when you consider how iconic the game soundtrack is. Secondly, the animation is just not good. It is very apparent that the studio was given a limited budget. There are a lot of scenes that are just slideshows of still images. Even the fight scenes, which you would expect to be the main focal point of a show based on a fighting game, are very sub-par and full of still images instead of actual animation. The only episode that had legitimately decent animation was the final episode. Overall just mediocre. It's not offensively bad, like Ex-Arm or Hand Shakers, but it's not good, either. As stated at the beginning, I would only recommend this anime to pre-existing Guilty Gear fans who want to keep up-to-date on game lore. If you aren't already a fan of the games, this anime will do nothing to persuade you. Best spend your time watching something else.

It's just not worth it. Like the character interactions can be good, but generally none of these characters do anything interesting. The conflict and villain are so just not worth it that I just couldn't care about the rest of the story The depth of the characters actions are not... well not that deep. The per-character conflicts feel flat and impossible to engage with The worst part is this is Guilty Gear, nothing should be uninteresting. The in-game interactions and arcade modes made a stronger story showing then this show, I think this was made by people that just didn't really care all too much about the games and their story.

This is my first review and it's for a series which is dear to my heart. This anime had all the right things going for it until you realize it doesn't do justice to them. The games series which it is based on feature a wide roster of characters - each with different traits, goals, motives and charm. The first fault is not taking advantage of these characters. Only about one third of them are present. I understand that this wasn't meant to be a big budget. But everyone aside from the main main main cast only serve as plot points and/or comedy relief. The way this should have been handled is either focus on specific characters or go deeper, with more episodes, so that more context can be present. The VA are magnificent. I cannot stress this enough but they are one of the reasons I recommend this series. Authentic and unique, just like in the games. Even if you have no prior experience, surely you would enjoy them. The visuals are mixed. The 3D sections are unexpectedly well done and the overall style and execution are consistant and good. That said there are many questionable decisions with the way some of the action sequences are presented and the many, many MANY still shots, that are likely there to save on budget. The soundtrack is very underwhelming for the most part. The opening and ending are above average and are enjoyable. I am not too familiar with licensing for songs of games that are made anime but presumably there is a reason not a single song from the games made it here. That is a shame because (totally not biased) it is the best soundtrack out there. The plot itself is nothing impressive, quite shallow to be fair. Alot of the interesting lore is alluded to but never expanded on, which makes sense for the amount of episodes but still leaves a sour taste in the mouth. Furthermore, many key plotpoints of the series are served right up in a very linear way without much context which may or may not confuse viewers that have not played the games. The narrator, while excellent as presentation, fails to be useful as it brings up points that anyone should be able to tell for themselves. This is not a fault exclusive to this anime and I get why it is placed there, but it was poorly done. Honestly, this series gives mixed feelings. The reason I give it a recommend is because the games are nothing short of phenomenal and for me - the finest fighting game series out there, by far. The 8 I gave is somewhat biased but hopefully, through this medium, some people would get invested in it. Hopefully.

I know that Guilty Gear isn't exactly known for its amazing story. But this might be one of the dumbest stories in any show I've seen in a while. The plot is horrible, it develops at a distractingly fast pace in the second half and its centered around a relationship that has no time to build itself up. And if you expect any of the characters you like from the game to matter, well though luck, because they are all glorified cameos And the villain is just awful, its like if you grab every terrible villain in fiction and smush it together into one terrible, cliched, mess, who has the dumbest plan and the most confusing motivation of every villain you've ever seen. His plan is to destroy the gears in the past to avoid the detruction of the world that has happened in the future, but then he goes to the past TO DESTROY THE WORLD ANYWAY? WHAT? WHY EVEN GO TO THE PAST, THEN? Unlike a show like Arcane, for example, this show doesn't feel like it takes place in a world that is independent from the characters from the games. It feels like the world is an excuse to put a bunch of quirky videogame characters together. And their designs make no sense for the setting and situation they are put on. Surprisingly, the 3D animation is really solid, even great at times, it uses the camera for its action sequences really effectively, and it adapts arc system works' style from the game pretty well (even though it doesn't even come close to the animation fidelity of Strive). But the 2D animation and the compositing are just awfull, take a shot every time this show drags a 2d shot across the screen 3 times for "dramatic effect", you will be in a coma in half an episode's time. It's terrible. I think this one example of a show that for some can be "so bad that its good" but I personally think its way too boring to be even that, besides some great action sequences sprinkled in, its really bad

A monstruous insult to the Guilty Gear series. It was painful to watch and my heart aches that the chance to finally bring GG to a proper animated show has been screwed up this bad. If you enjoy the games, watching this will feel horrendous. If you don't, this is just a big waste of time. A special mention to the comically lazy way this show introduces characters from the games, litterally pausing the action every times to let the narrator give you an AI-slop like introduction as if it were a powerpoint. What a sad waste. Guilty Gear deserved better.

It's a shame. When I heard that an anime adaptation of this great franchise was being made, I thought it would be the beginning of a long-term animated project that would tell the canonical story from the very first game. Such an adaptation could have attracted viewers unfamiliar with the series, encouraged them to try the available games, expanded the fandom, and potentially increased interest in future installments. Instead, what we got was a failed project that mainly appeals to veteran players or those who have only played the latest game. As its title suggests, this anime is based on Guilty Gear Strive, which immediately limits its audience. Rather than serving as an entry point for newcomers, it assumes that viewers already own the game or are experts on the franchise who understand the lore, the world's history, the power system, and the cast of characters. The anime explains only the bare minimum necessary to move the plot from one episode to the next. Because of this lack of context, new viewers are unlikely to become interested enough to buy the game. Instead, they are left with a repetitive and empty story that has been told countless times before. The biggest problem is the pacing. Character development and motivations are difficult to understand because everything moves at an absurdly fast speed. Events happen one after another without giving the audience enough time to process either the story or the action scenes. The anime does have a few strengths. The character designs look great, the animation is fluid, and the 2D backgrounds are visually appealing. However, all of that falls apart during the final episodes. The main villain appears with a design that looks as if it came straight out of a PlayStation 2 game, and the excessive use of bright, saturated colors becomes distracting rather than impressive. Instead of enhancing the climax, these choices undermine everything the production had built up beforehand. What surprises me the most is that this came from SANZIGEN, a studio that specializes in blending CGI and traditional animation. This is the same studio behind works such as Black Rock Shooter and BanG Dream! Ave Mujica. Given their experience, I expected a much more polished result.

I don't really know for whom this anime is. For newcomers it'll be confusing even with all narrated explanations and expositions. For fans of the game the series wastes time for those. The anime has only 8 episodes but tries to pack a big story into them which results in ridiculously fast pacing, absurd story, shallow characters, and nonsensical interactions. But I must admit, in a true anime fashion, it did manage to create a few moments that pull on your heartstrings or feel like they're awesome, but they do fall into stereotypical shonen category of "love and friendship gives you unlimited power". Music is forgettable, animation is pretty.