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 his first game to get a sequel and that game seems to have drastically underperformed, one questions if even he works]) but a lot of the time, it at best makes a successful side character (K', Ash Crimson, Alex from Street Fighter) and at worst creates complete flops (Abel from Street Fighter, Pyrrha and Patroklos from SoulCalibur 5, the Kombat Kids from Mortal Kombat X).

Why do I bring this up?

I feel like this, other than to introduce Unika, was supposed to be a way to be Sin Kiske's coming out party as the new Guilty Gear protagonist and it does not work.

I like Sin, generally speaking. He's fine, has an enjoyable enough gameplay style, he works as a side character in the cast of wacky characters.

As the protagonist, he's kind of insufferable.

He's a big dumbass and wants Everyone To Get Along but he fails to have a compelling reason to be the protagonist. As I've said a couple times, he doesn't really get to do much to help out Unika, he has to be given a special powerup to be anything more than "guy with a flag who happens to be a nepo baby" and even then, he fucks up and Sol has to bail him out (in a very bullshit way, mind you). Sin's quite literally only the protagonist because of who his parents are, which doesn't make him endearing at all. He's a dumbass, overly idealistic, and naive. It's fine for him to be those traits when he's A Character in the cast. It gets increasingly Not Fine when he's THE PROTAGONIST.

ArcSys wants Hiroshi Tanahashi but all they got was Shota Umino.

It's just not a good show.

It doesn't attract people who haven't played Guilty Gear because, despite trying their hardest to explain what's necessary (and a lot that's not), there's no reason for non-GG fans to see this. It's another chapter in the story, not the start or even a particularly popular part.

It fails to establish Sin Kiske as a worthy successor to Sol Badguy.

It fails to make Unika a very compelling character.

It doesn't really do much to make any of the other characters look good.

It doesn't look good or have exciting fight scenes, which seems weird for an anime about a FIGHTING GAME.

I've only really seen UnikaxBridget stuff come out of this and to me, that seems like a fitting condemnation in of itself.

Give this one a skip.

If you know the games and what happens in them, this is really solid, 7.5/10, definitely recommend!
If you're not caught up on lore, this will be a confusing watch at best.

Animation: 9/10, It's sometimes single frames over seconds, but excels during other moments. The 3D animation is barely noticable as 3D sometimes, and the hand drawn backgrounds look amazing.
Story: 8/10, It's aite. as of episode 5, the story has just turned, and it's shaping up to be magnificent!
Characters: 10/10, guilty gear has a well-rounded, goofy, and diverse cast overall, but this should not be your first time seeing these for you to really follow them. ... They're deep and interact well.

Also brisket is there :3

Not a great show to watch, unless you're already enamored with Guilty Gear.

I'll admit I had incredibly low expectations coming in, from a general rarity of strong video game adaptations; however, this show was better than expected. This show is better than the average video game-based show.

Overall, the show comes off as somewhat ham-handed in how it tells its story. For example, every major character is announced with a title card when they are introduced. While it works and does get its point across, it can be pretty jarring to be constantly hit with title cards. In one instance, titles appeared within a minute of ... one another, between Johnny being and the presumed antagonist Hammer being introduced in episode 1. And, it's a pretty clunky way to introduce someone:

You don't need to directly tell the audience the guy with no shirt and a katana is named Johnny. You can simply have Dizzy call him that. You don't need to directly state that he's essentially a surrogate father to Dizzy, if she's ecstatic he's at her wedding. And you don't need to say Johnny is a robin Hood-type character if you show him doing Robin hood-type stuff. If any of that didn't need to be established, then you didn't need to break the flow of the show to mention it in a title card; you can have him just be a cool cameo for the established fans. This is just an example of how the show can be somewhat blunt in how it conveys its narrative. That said, I suspect that this particular problem will diminish the further into the series, as the major players will all be introduced.

The animations, while serviceable, are underwhelming. While not as egregious a The Way of the Househusband's adaptation, there is a heavy reliance on still images that becomes more and more noticeable as the show goes on. While the 3D animation is usually fine and often good, it's a pity we don't get to see more of it. That said, it's clear this show was operating on a shoestring budget, so these flaws are reasonably forgivable, but shows can certainly do better, even with such limitations.

Overall, an average show that's honestly better than most video game-based anime, but still isn't really strong enough for mass appeal; I can recommend you give it a try if you're a fan of Guilty Gear, but I can't really recommend it so far otherwise.

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.

To be straight, you'll get the most enjoyment out of this anime if you're familiar with Guilty Gear or have played -Strive- at least. If not then the show is not for you.

Animation/Visuals - 10/10: The 3D and 2.5D from XRD and Strive are a beautiful step up from the games storymode

Story - 7/10: The plot is a bit cookie cutter or cliche, resistance lonewolf character vs progressive outgoing character, Unika can be a little bit over the top and can rub off as corny sometimes

Characters - 10/10: For those who bash on Sin likely have no clue about his lore, Sin is canonically ... 10 years old, but his gears accelerated his physical aging process to a much more mature appearance, so its a given that he's gonna act a bit like a child.

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 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.

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

It's a shame when I heard that an anime was going to be made of this great franchise I thought that they were going to start building an animated adaptation that would tell the canonical story from the first game making many people who don't know the games interested in the franchise making them go for the available games increasing the fandom and the creation of new games but the only thing that was achieved was a failed project that only attracted a part of the public of experienced players or only those who played the last game since this project is based as its ... name indicates on the last game Guilty Gear Strive making sure that no new audience is added since the Anime treats all viewers as people who already have the game or experts of the franchise who know all the lore of the world, powers and characters only explaining what the script needs to put together the chapter so that thanks to the lack of information the new public that will see the anime buy the game that ends up being rejected since the only thing we saw a repetitive, empty plot told like a million times, without understanding the development or motivations of the characters due to the bad pace of the plot, everything is so accelerated that it doesn't let you process the plot or the animation, the only good thing it has is the design of the characters with the fluid movements they have and the 2D backgrounds, but everything falls apart in the last chapters where the final villain is seen with a Play2 design and a saturation of bright colors, annoyingly, it kills everything that was worked on, how could the SANZIGEN studio fail, which is specialized in animation that mixes 2D and CGI, which made Black★Rock Shooter (TV) and this year BanG Dream! Ave Mujica

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.

The """animation""" is incredibly poorly done... about 80% of the backgrounds look like placeholders, and honestly, I wouldn't even call it an anime. That term implies there's some kind of animation involved. But here? Nah. Around 95% of the scenes are completely static, it feels more like I'm watching a PowerPoint presentation of screenshots than an actual show.

The history is very confusingm feels like it is a second season (maybe it is?) i dont know its not clear, but i wasnt interested in the history cuz fighting games dont have the best lores anyway...

My expectations were already on the floor. I just wanted to see ... the characters I like doing something cool. But somehow, this "anime" still managed to disappoint me. Bravo, I guess?

Personally, I'm not a die-hard Guilty Gear fan — I just enjoy the game and occasionally catch a tournament or two. But honestly? I don't think this show is going to satisfy the actual fans. And if you're not already into Guilty Gear, there's literally nothing here for you. No charm, no hook, no appeal.

A complete waste of time.

I don't know what this anime is supposed to accomplish, whatever it was, it failed completely. If it's for GG fans, the story is complete innacurate and infuriating that they skip several key points. If it's for new people, it makes absolutely no sense at all as it relies on you knowing the games lore that's very convoluted and spread across several pieces of media.

Animation: Blue Lock levels of bad animation. It looks like ArcSys sent the studio a storyboard, the studio thought it was the entire anime, so they painted and dubbed over it. I can't even call this an ... animation, it's a glorified slideshow, several close-ups, a lot of cuts, a pace that makes no sense.

Story: I don't have one tenth of the experience in GG lore that's needed to explain how much is wrong there, so I'll leave this to the experts. If you know nothing about GG, forget about it, NOTHING will make sense for you, even with the absurd exposition dump.

Sound: Is there any sound in this aside from the character voices? I haven't noticed.

Characters: If you're here to see your favorite character from the series, there's a huge change they won't appear, if you're hoping to see your 5 seconds of Potemkin, sure, go ahead, why not?

Overral: 1/10.

I am only watching for Bridget to see their story progression from femboy to girl, but it’s sadly a footnote at the end of episode 3 (or 4?)

Quite unfortunate.

(I also skipped 10 seconds except in any scene she was in)

- The animation is cute and colorful on Bridget but not too good on other characters. They all seem very hit or miss.

- I did not notice the music in scenes I did watch. Not very memorable.

... - the opening song didn’t grip me as much, sadly

- the story seems to be a typical creatures vs humans, and one madman trying to end the world. Not very interesting.