Guilty Gear Strive: Dual Rulers

After the decline of the once robust fields of science and technology, a new energy source known as magic fuels the modern era. Humanity creates forbidden biological weapons: Gears. Those Gears eventually stand against humanity in a rebellion. Although they manage to overcome in the struggle for survival known as the Crusades, humanity's losses are so great that even after several decades , their emotional wounds remain unable to fully heal.

Sin Kiske, the child of a human and a Gear, heads to his father Ky and mother Dizzy's wedding ceremony. Their wedding breaks the ultimate taboo: a union between a human and a Gear. Even with the world at peace, it took many years for such a ceremony to come to fruition. Despite the complex array of emotions surrounding it, the wedding ceremony is met with blessings. When suddenly, a mysterious girl appears... The fated child inheriting Gear blood–and the mysterious girl who despises Gears. Their meeting would shake the world.

(Source: Official site)

Badguy, Sol Main

Nakata, Jouji Japanese

Kiske, Sin Main

Miyazaki, Issei Japanese

Unika Main

Ishikawa, Yui Japanese

Groubitz, Vernon E. Main

Endou, Junichi Japanese

Bridget ing

Iwami, Manaka Japanese

Kiske, Ky ing

Kusao, Takeshi Japanese

Baiken ing

Asano, Mayumi Japanese

Dizzy ing

Fujita, Kazue Japanese

Valentine, Ramlethal ing

Han, Megumi Japanese

Valentine, Elphelt ing

Suzaki, Aya Japanese

Kou, Yuu Director

Ootera, Fumihiko Sound Director

Kaihou, Norimitsu Script, Series Composition

Nowlu Theme Song Performance

Reviews

May 3, 2025

SiegeMelody

Recommended

Preliminary (4/8 eps)

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

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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May 7, 2025

2HalfSandwiches

Mixed Feelings

Informative

Preliminary (3/8 eps)

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

I'll it 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.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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May 27, 2025

BlamedAxis

Not Recommended

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.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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