Dolls' Frontline

Game adaptations work for various ways, but it's main objective would always get you to try out the game, which is its biggest selling point. And it's by no small means that MICA Team's KanColle-inspired crew of anthropomorphized firearm moe waifus is a small franchise, OH NO. Girls' Frontline is a massively popular mobage RPG that's insanely loved by its fans ever since its release in China in 2016, that year after year, expanded to more territories, and gradually released to English and Japanese players in 2018 as Dolls' Frontline due to trademark constraints. So, think of this as the equivalent to Yostar's Azur Lane ... and DMM Games' KanColle.

Usually, game adaptations will have their own story and plot that's conceived by the writing staff team in the anime's production, but you would be surprised to know that this adaptation is adapted straight from the manga version. Which as a non-GFL player, I feel that while fans have every right to criticize this move, at least there is but only one direction, and that is straightforward, which IMO does service the plot decently, even if it feels thin and slow on the pacing side of things. And as hardcore fans would say, to truly experience the game franchise at its best, the mobage would always be the superior version against the anime adaptation, and it's for this reason that this feels same same, yet different.

The anime adaptation follows the set of rigils: the common "good vs. evil" of the side of the Griffins vs Sangvis, the team of focus (which is AR Team: comprising of M4A1 (M4), ST AR-15 (AR15), M4 SOPMOD II (SOPII) and M16A1 (M16)) and their newbie Commander Gentiane. To hardcore GFL fans, this is already a red flag that the anime adaptation packs a side story that even then, under the watchful eye of wonky Asahi Production in-house director Shigeru Ueda, which if last season's travesity of a mess with last Summer's Peach Boy Riverside's adaptation is of concern, can be frightening. But somehow with the backlash that IDK if Shigeru Ueda have heard of laments after that entire ordeal, thankfully he chose to just make things simple and at least followed the narrative of the source material (albeit a different version of it) to the T. Good riddance Shigeru Ueda, because this should be a lesson as a director not to unnecessarily tamper with what's already given, plus adding things that break the flow whatsoever.

Even if the story was kinda of a fluke, the characters I'd say didn't felt polished as compared to reading the manga version of it (which I only discovered episodes in). In the manga version, at least most of the T-Dolls, given Griffin's or Sangvis's, they do at least exemplify their personality in whatever ridiculous ways possible with some infused comedy to even out the nearly-serious tone of the story. But while the tone is kept subtly in the anime, it mostly went too overboard with the seriousness of the situation of a sub-intended "World War III" between moe combat androids, so much so that the almost 25-minute runtime (plus OST) feels like a chore to sit through. Don't get me wrong, I love the insane battles here, but somewhere along the line, things doesn't seem to match up with the overall feel, and for better or for worse, makes or breaks the entire flow of the anime.

And that leads me to the entire production of Girls'/Dolls' Frontline. Asahi Production for one is a subpar studio, and they only make about 2 to 3 shows per year, so this shouldn't be a problem all things considered. And what this studio has done for this show, it's technically one of the better action-heavy shows ever produced, and it has stakes to make it feel that way. And for some happy reason, I must really give props to the team whom did the OP credits, because that is ingenious, almost game-like excellent quality MV right there, that is definitely a first for me to see this kind of disparity between the OP and the rest of the show (which sadly just drops quality bombshells like the obvious). But again, this is a double-edged sword to see such a MV that's so well-crafted that made me think that this was ripped off from the actual mobage OP montage, and the final production being a mediocre attempt.

The fantastic OP MV is backed by yet another fantastic OP song sung by former Little Glee Monster member Sakamoto Yuka, who's now a soloist and is currently known by her stage name yukaDD(;´∀`). Honestly, if the final product can match what the OP production is made off, then I will be even more happier. But obviously it wasn't meant to be, and with the mediocre production, came inconsistent BGMs, and especially those gunshots in battle, because it triggered me more than one occasion that I actually thought that they were ripped from other gunfight shows of the similar kind. Team Shachi's ED...felt like the stereotypical early 2010s songs when idol music was just starting to bloom in Japan, and though was a song fit for the occasion, it just couldn't match the insane values of the OP.

In the end, a game adaptation is a game adaptation, its objective unchanging and the shallow storytelling will always be its Achilles' Heel. But I praise Dolls' Frontline for actually doing something different (like a manga adaptation of the game), that while it doesn't shatter my thoughts of game adaptations being so bad at almost everything, the experience just mildly improved by a tad bit. It's definitely watchable, and not as bad as your typical shoe-horned game adaptation of few plans and many loopholes.

All-around not great but better than the rock bottom I was expecting. Starts at story chapter 0 in the game and works forwards chronologically. Extraordinarily slowly paced for the first 6 episodes or so, but it does get traction in the back half. Might be better in a season 2 (if it happens) since now the boring part of the story is out of the way and the crew making it seems mostly competent.

The good: I like the ED and OP a lot, both the songs and the OP sequence itself. The animation isn't standout but it's consistently OK. The voice acting is good to ... excellent with some fairly senior VAs all reprising their roles from the gacha. Yukari Tamura is a stand-out as SOPMOD II even if she's basically doing a more enthusiastic murder-themed version of the Rika voice (or maybe that's why it's good). Best girl M14 is here, but she doesn't talk so it cancels out. After the boring part (most of it), it whacked me in the head with some actual clever foreshadowing like a real show, and from there through the ending it's actually not bad and kept my attention.

The bad: For the first 6-8 episodes this show is boooooooring. You can skip through entire minutes of it and not miss anything. It's not incoherent or horribly written or anything, it's an accurate recreation of the famously story-light early game in the gacha except without any gameplay. Scenarios start boring and resolve to nothing important. A lot of sangvis ringleaders are introduced that die within an episode or two and they're all non-characters except maybe three of them, all of which show up at the end when the show is better in general. A LOT more of this should've been skipped. The depictions of how t-dolls fight are also strange. They're trying to split the difference between how it works in the game meta and how actual warfighting works and it doesn't really make any sense for either. Team comps are too random to be a good even in early game, and shikikan makes the tactical decision to send the handguns to a rooftop to be snipers. Huh?

The ugly: People made a big deal about shikikan becoming a named character with voice acting, it's mostly fine but doesn't really achieve anything for the show. She doesn't really do anything and is a passenger while AR team drives the plot around her. Other named shikikans are introduced and when they start talking to each other about their favorite t-dolls the show teeters dangerously close to becoming pokemon, but thankfully does not and starts being good after that. Pedantic point but all of AR team's guns are incorrectly drawn as AR15s.

Conclusions: Season 2 should steal Lycoris Recoil's homework and be about the moe adventures of [spoiler character] and SOPMOD. I would watch that and it would be good. Otherwise probably skip this, but if you want to watch it's less bad than it could've been and isn't a total disaster.

This is my first review I will write on MAL. I’ll try to put little to no spoilers as possible. This anime really had a lot of potential, but its expectation is now long gone. The animation is just shitty low budget quality, and the plot couldn’t be explained more shitty. Now, let me explain in detail what are the issues.

Story: 5
In the beginning, the battle started without any further introduction. The attack tricks were somewhat decent, but could of been done better. The game lives up to its expectation, but the story was not executed the best.

Art: 4
The animation/art is very poor and ... probably was a big mistake for them. The details are not as bad, but overall feels bland and boring. I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I asked for Trigger or Wit studio to try animating this since it’s probably most appropriate.

Sound: 7
The OP and ED is a banger, which I don’t know why they would put all their budget on that. The overall soundtrack is pretty decent, and that’s probably the only thing that is decent.

Characters: 6
The characters lack a proper introduction, but all have individual thoughts. The villains are very cliche, but at least they put up a fight. The characters undergo internal conflicts which does add value.

Enjoyment: 3
It did not feel very thrilling, below mediocre and plain out boring. There were really no cliffhangers or anything surprising. There was a little plot twist, but I didn’t feel that much enjoyment.

Overall: 5
This is as mediocre as it gets. Others will probably rate it 1-3, but I tried not to be that biased. If there was anything they could of changed it would be the introduction and animation as a whole. It was not as successful as the game unfortunately, but if there is a season 2 hopefully they improve.

Yeah so... the Opening intro music 10/10 , the anime ...not so much , i actually missed a few episodes and dint care to watch, because nothing hooked me to keep watching. towards the end the betrayal and the double cross, was something that u could see miles away ... i mean even if they added fan service and made it +17 rating with boobs and guns, it still be a very disgusting adaptation.
I just dint feel the characters, i know they are war dolls, and not human, yet this anime tried at the same time to pass their emotions if you call "emotions" ... as human.
what a disappointment , they should just have left it a peasant tier mobile game with freemium incentives and move on...

6/10 OVERALL

No actual story to keep track off
No hook
Predictable situations

Story 4/10

Animation 8/10

Voice Acting 9/10

Would re-watch?: No

Side notes: i originally was going to give it a 5/10 to compensate for the lack of context and the story of the anime, but i decided to add 1 more rating, for the wifus =)

Logged back in to this account just to make this review..

Soo.. Where do I start? Girls' Frontline (Alternatively known as Dolls' Frontline on JP) gives off an impression of cute girls doing tacticool things. Having said that, I've been playing the game since it was first released for Global back in Summer 2018. When the anime was first announced, I had the thoughts of: Finally! An actual anime adaptation is coming out! This is very exciting to see for a game I enjoy!

What could go wrong?

Story: 4
The story had an interesting appeal and catch for the new and curious viewers.. However, there is no ... general direction of what is going on. As the show is adapted from the Manga, there are going to be deriving plot points that leave for more questions than answers provided. You're left feeling the confusion of what just happened, and what's going on? The story could be improved to introduce more about our antagonists, the backstory of our lovable main cast, and the world of Girls' Frontline.

Art: 4
One of my main gripes is the art. There are some nicely drawn shots that are extremely detailed of the firearms depicted and the T-Dolls. On the opposite side of the coin, scenes that looks like someone left handed tried to draw with their right and collect a paycheck. With a combination of these two in hand, you have a boat filled with tannerite ready to go off at any moment.

Animation quality is decent. You'll have a good chunk of goofy looking scenes, but that makes it up in the form of entertainment.

Seems like a good portion of the budget went into gun modeling, and they couldn't even get that right.

A fantastic amount of community made memes thanks to the art will be one of the few memorable charms of this show.

Sound: 3
The BGM really adds an immeasurable amount of disappointment. It doesn't help build the tension, or atmosphere of the scene for a good effect. There are definitely better choices of selection, but it doesn't sit with some of the scenes. The only few good things are the opening and ending songs respectfully.

Choice of SFX is also OK, and some of the sounds could be changed for other effects. There are a few times the generic stock sound effect used in every low budget films appears, but not noticeable or have any significant impact.

Character: 6
Character Development is about average, with some introductions of the main cast, and characters involved with the show. It's about the same you can expect with most shows out there.

Enjoyment: 7

So why am I giving an enjoyment of 7 with this show? Despite the shortcomings listed, there are quite a number of scenes that make me chuckle, along with the edits the community comes out with due to the inconsistencies and questionable art choices for some of the designs. With that said, I give it a 7 since it humors my funny bone.

Overall Rating: 6
I'm being generous with giving this show a 6, since I have my biases with Girls' Frontline being one of my main interests and content focused on. The anime itself is bearable to watch, and preferably more enjoyable with a group of friends.

If the story really catches your interest, I would recommend reading the Game's Story, which is more polished and introduces characters with additional background about them. There is also an established backstory of the world and how it came to be.

HI THERE.
Are you interested in the Girl's/Doll's Frontline franchise and want to know the story with out the need of playing the game and the pain it comes with it? then LET ME EXPLAIN WHY TO WATCH AND WHY NOT

Reasons to watch it:
1. YOU LIKE WAIFUS
2. YOU LIKE GUNS
3. YOU LIKE WAIFUS AND GUNS !!!
4. You do not have any knowledge of the game and the story itself but are interested in it
5. U are lazy and just want to know the general plot direction of the story.

... Reasons not to watch it:
1. U dont wan't to see inconsistent scenes that don't make any sense and may hurt your brain because of the oopsie woopsie the studio made. (Just poor quality for short)
2. U are a veteran player of GFL or atleast have read the manga.
3. You are an anti who doesn't like the franchise .... *sad noises*

Simply put, I'd rather recommend watching/playing the Game and its story on Youtube or if you don't have the time to watch more than 15 hour+ AND MORE of content, then just read the manga that is currently being released.

[!! From here on its just me whining about the anime !!]
Since I’ve watched all episodes, I will go through some of the points that really bugged me about the anime and the points that I actually enjoyed.

Enjoyment: 5
In form of overall enjoyment. The anime already got negative attention from the community (pre-release) due to the studio adapting the manga version of the game. Like stated in my old review, the options for the story’s freedom is severly limited due to the commander being a fixed character and not a faceless commander. (Take note, it is hard to implement a faceless commander with the way the GFL game story is written).
The anime genuinely lacked the ability to catch my interest and even my attention. Many scenes and scenarios just seem lack luster, rushed and with no climax (I mean it takes them 2-3 minutes to take out the Boss, while I malded for more than a anime episode to beat the enemy with my weak af team back then when I was new). Reason for such is the way is just the execution made by the director with many scenes just being bland and missing of something. The plotline of the story also is difficult to get at first but it slowly gets better with the episodes. (I’d recommend to watch the first 4 episodes to get the grasp of what it is about). The biggest thing I wan’t to rant about is, how they just censored and changed so much. Like with StG44 being completly erased and replaced from the main plot or two dolls from the Negev squad not looking like the original Ingame model (I don’t get why the anime gets censored and the game models not getting censored in China, Japan or else where AND NO IM NOT TALKING ABOUT BOOBA CENSORSHIP)

Art: 6
The art is ok with the anime looking like a 2010-2012 like anime from the art style. It is something to get used to when you are a newer anime watcher. Many episodes though are lacking in quality with lazy drawing/animation. The art sometimes also lacks in depth, detail and have some major inconsistencies. Some frames even have wrong data or detail what basically says that the animators have no clue what GFL actually is. They borderline looked into it and no I’m not saying that the animators should read into 15h+ or how long of story content. They atleast should have checked or let someone look oversome frames for such mistakes and so on. (fellow GFL players will notice those mistakes I'm talking about).
(and ngl papasha is hella cute tho in the anime and Micro uzi has a different vibe in comparison to her Game art).

Sound: 6
The OP is a banger and the MV it comes with is also pretty well made, but for the BGM itself, it is not what I've expected. The BGM of the anime doesn't really help in creating and building up the right atmosphere/tension, or support the situation the characters are facing and that's just somewhat lacking for me. They just could have used the original BGMs from the game. The sound effects are pretty sure are just taken from a random-free-to-use-sound-effects webside.
For the VA's tho I'm super happy that they finally get more lines for the characters they voice ingame! All the VA’s did a great job.

Character: 6
For the characters .... oof I just keep it short.
I have nothing against the Female commander gentiane but they way they protrait her is just not interesting. She just doesn't really catch the attention like she does in the manga. With the other commanders, they just didn’t do well. They got introduced in a better way in the manga than in the anime and are more humorous. (the commanders are all Anime/manga original)
Looking from a manga perspective, they straigt up reduced some certain characters to: Hi me exist, me shoot, me ded.
Also as stated in earlier the change and censorship of characters is just weirdly executed…
(B U T (T) PPK’s personality is just perfectly implemented in the anime *^*)

Story: 9
Saying that from the entire view and experience from the game, I can say the story is really really good. It may be not for everyone but for those who are interested, it surely is! The lore itself and story both blend in together pretty good and as itself there aren't to many plotholes that are being left unanswered. The story may have its up's and down's but generaly seen it is quite enjoylable and interesting!
The ending feels like turning on the light and then leave it there until the second season comes. The terrible cliffhanger ending just let newbies sitting there like what just happend and veterans in possible pain and agony (jk). It is not a good way to end an anime and this ending is a clear call for an upcoming second season.
At last for a total, The anime just scratches the surface of the gfl story, but holds some value. You won't get the TRUE and FULL experience out of it since the story telling format of the game is rather difficult to transcribe into an anime (thus the manga). This review is just my opinion and a reflection of it and may also make me sound like I'm just super picky (in which I'm not.... my standarts are below the freezing temperature lmao....).
The anime adaptation truly fulfills the trope of an game getting an anime adaptation, it's just not the best. What is for me a disapointment that me and many others already saw coming.

Thenkz for reading my shitty review of me mostly whining and complaining about some stuff and I hope that this helped you or will help you in deciding to waste 12 episodes of your life or not or make you regret reading this review lul.
Not just that, I also hope that you'd give the game or the story itself a chance. (the game story -> youtube vids or just playing the game)

Also I'm not good with english so I apologize hereby for any mistakes or hard to understand sentences, I’m always writing these during class.

So I've been playing the Girls' Frontline mobile game for 2 years now, and with the amount of micro-transactions and gacha dumped all over the game I was expecting this anime to be pretty well funded and high(ish) quality but I'm pretty disappointed.

None of this is spoilers really because this is just events that take place within the first 3 episodes.

If you're not a fan of the mobile game, don't even bother with the anime, there isn't anything redeeming about it other than 'there is the character I like but now she's animated'

To start, Girls' frontline is two things: guns and anime waifus.

The ... first half: Guns. There isn't many good shots of them, the animation has little to no focus on the guns, and the rules they follow don't seem to be consistent, They're either pea shooters that the enemy can easily predict and block with their weapon or they can end a fight with one bullet... on the same enemy... They are both inaccurate and precise depending on what the plot wants. There is a fight where the enemy is surrounded by ARs and SMGs from all angles taking fire and just shrugging it off but Mac-10 comes out of the bushes opening fire and because she is seeking revenge on the enemy for her fallen comrades (who get rebuilt anyway because they're robots...), her bullets magically do damage for some reason.
And there are glairing issues with the portrayal of certain guns, I'm not going to get too nerdy with this because I think anyone could notice these, but there is a scene where Sopmod II shoots a 40mm grenade out of her rifle, despite not having a launcher on said rifle. Not too big of a deal, but there is also a scene showing PPS-43 holding her rifle, and it does a close up shot and somehow the Russian Made PPS-43 turns into a German UMP-45. could be overlooked if oh uh I don't know, the characters are literally named after the guns they carry.

Ok, maybe they didn't put in enough care on the guns, but the waifus. I mean the first word of GFL is Girls, so the waifus representation has to be top quality.

Nah.

While the game does have fan service, the anime, besides a boob shot of Sopmod II in the opening, is completely devoid of lewd scenes or shots. On the other hand the personalities of the characters are displayed pretty well, so I'll give them that.

There is a few other things, the music choice is per setting is poor. There is a scene where MP5 is talking to the commander about something fairly mundane or unimportant while this intense hyped up battle music is playing, The animation isn't all too impressive, just standard and unremarkable, and the plot is pretty bad, its extremely uninteresting and plain, almost as if a battlefield or call of duty story was ported to an anime, but not in a good way like black ops or modern warfare. The fight scenes make no sense, this partially goes back to the indecisiveness of how they want to portray guns, but each scene has you asking 'Why didn't they just...' or 'Couldn't they have...' to point of minor frustration.

Overall, its not that good, it could be better, I imagine they're gonna start taking clips from the anime and incorporating them into the game as flashy 'special moves' that you'll have to pay for, but other than that this entire anime just kind of seems like a gimmick.

I honestly feel the anime was a hugely missed opportunity. The idea of gun packing waifus kicking ass is pretty appealing but the whole anime is sub-par.

The story was decent but it had way too many plot holes in it. Especially certain episodes where there were some new details introduced into the story, but it never really made clear how those details affected the story or it simply dropped it there. The animation during the fights wasn't the greatest but I personally didn't mind it, though it may bother some people, which is completely understandable. The characters were probably the only thing I ... liked, not necessarily because of their personality and all, but because of the idea of them being named after the guns they used, which is pretty cool and their definite waifu material as well.

I haven't read the manga or played the game so I can't make a comparison to the anime, but I feel like they weren't done justice with this anime adaptation. Although the Opening animation and Ending song are awesome. To conclude, this anime could've been better but it fell out to be pretty average.

This review as someone who didnt play GFL/Read GFL manga etc

Story : its basically go here, kill someone, rescue someone, retrieve something and secure something, basically nothing important so far, at this mark episode 3, I still didnt know what the show want to show me. The story too bland right now, it always repetitive from first till third. Nothing special, just total bland

Art : This is good, no wonder, but they have many error during 3 episode air today, like Mosin nagant (rifle/sniper rifle) tag as Handgun for some kind reason, there is really funny weapon who got curse by warzone customization and many ... more.

Sound : This is the good aspect of this anime, Really bang intro song and outro song, probably gonna hear it again at sportify

Character : since story really bland, also character is really bland too

Enjoyment : It always good to see waifu fight with gun and action in this anime pretty good eventually i cant count how much bullet they miss when they shoot and how much bullet magazine can hold (like M4A1 episode 3, she didnt reload during that episode and somehow still have lot of bullet to finish mini boss)

Overall : I give it 5 average, people will enjoy it
if u are into Gun and Waifu and Military
but if u are into story, probably not, because yea i cant really find what the mc do so far

EDIT1 : So here we are, its too bland, lack of action, lack of animation, lack of art and lack of story, everything lacking. Tbh ending so bland. Even gore is not like in game

Also remember how curse gun when character look different direction, its inconsistent after all

Do you recommended it? No, if u are into gun and waifu and didnt care other? yes
Do you want another season? No, If they change studio and have better budget, Yes

Adios

Fembot Wars.

Have you ever watched the first Austin Powers movie? The one with Dr Evil’s android women army called Fembot’s which store machine guns in their nipples? That’s what this anime reminds me of… but instead of machine gun nipples, they have mini guns under their petite coats which is admittedly cool as fuck.

The premise is silly, but fun. World War 3 completely fucked up the world so now AI androids called “T-Dolls” of all various waifu clichés are used to fight instead of humans. The story follows “Team Anti-Rain” in their mission to take down an evil T-Doll Manufacture… I think.

I enjoyed the ... first episode. Its fast-paced, military and strategical action is probably a good reason why I stuck with this show for as long as I did, but episode 2 sort of ruins it by introducing a new cast of T-Dolls and their human handler which slowed the pace down to a crawl as the show tries to endear us to the new android gotcha game waifus with guns. They all have bland, cookie-cutter personality archetypes which bloats the cast and makes the show difficult to follow.

The animation isn’t the best and it does commit some of my pet peeves that most military anime do. The bigger shot-out scenes show bullets flying all over the screen without any thought of where troops would be placed off-screen and where they would be aiming. None of the flying bullets hit their mark whether it's the enemy side firing or the protagonist side. The enemy T-Dolls all look the same unless they’re important making some of the fights incredibly boring and predictable.
However, when the show needs to make a fight good it does deliver on that action and animation.

As for the characters, well most of them are anime waifu robots so they don’t have much going on outside of their archetypes. The four main T-Dolls M4A1, M4 SOPMOD II, ST AR-15 and M16A1 are the closet thing you’ll get to attachable characters, but it’s mostly up to M4A1 to carry the story and she's not quite interesting enough to do that. Even Gentiane who I keep calling Genitalia in my head for some reason doesn’t have much of a personality outside of commanding T-Dolls and being the one human who doesn’t want her squad to all "die".

Doll’s Frontline was a promising anime for the winter season. I don’t think it’s bad per-say. I can definitely see viewers enjoying the show, but episode 2 really killed its pacing for me and as much as I tried to stick with it I decided in the end that it wasn’t for me. Although considering ww3 could be a potential threat irl maybe I should pick it back up and study it so I know how to combat our new T-Doll overlords.

5/10 Mediocre.