GUILTY GEAR STRIVE: DUAL RULERS

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA AdventureGuilty Gear Xtra
MUSIC ActionFind Your One Way
MANGA ActionGuilty Gear Series Digest Comics
NOVEL ActionGUILTY GEAR BEGIN

REVIEWS

• 

  jahver

  10/100
  Reflecting on the failures of the game and the anime

  Guilty Gear hasn’t been “metal” for years now. It’s hard to remember the last time the franchise lived up to that descriptor considering Strive’s been clinging to life as fuel for internet culture wars in between DLC releases that get leaked half a year before they come out. I remember a time where people refused to shut up about these games and what they represented, and the world was better off for it. There was an unsurpassed edge to Guilty Gear that attracted an audience of players as eclectic as the range of its aesthetic inspirations; metal, punk, 2000s rock bands your emo friend always played in the car, sexy men and women and men who looked like women - the cast of characters had something for everyone, and a self-awareness and optimistic outlook on the world and the people in it that was deeply uplifting underneath the kickass heavy metal veneer. Throw in rewarding gameplay that emphasized technical mastery, a phenomenal OST and a storyline that became more realized and complex with each entry and you had a series that diehards absolutely raved about. Daisuke Ishiwatari (the driving artistic force behind the series, basically the ideas guy, the concept artist, the music writer and even voice actor all rolled into one!) was heavily inspired by music and manga including Yasuhiro Nightow’s Trigun and Kazushi Hagiwara’s dark fantasy epic Bastard!! which had a similar inclination towards hard rock and heavy metal - not that you’d be able to tell by looking at Strive. On all levels, the newest game in the series is a far cry from its predecessors - artistically, mechanically, and spiritually lacking, devoid of the divine spark that animated Daisuke’s creation for all these years. The gameplay is “accessible” (read: casualized) beyond the limit of acceptable player hand-holding what with the homogenized character playstyles, autocombos and comeback mechanics, the storyline is the most convoluted it’s ever been, the character design philosophy was sterilized to remove any trace of sexuality unless your name was Baiken - the worst part was that by the time Strive’s story mode was over, the escalating conflict and stakes were practically negated so the cast can be all buddy-buddy all the time. It’s marketable, but it’s not memorable. I can’t emphasize how drastically opposed GGS is to its predecessors, it’s like tuning in for Kill la Kill and getting Steven Universe. It’s utterly castrated. And like I expected, these flaws are more apparent than ever when it comes to the “anime adaptation”, or else you’d be reading this on Backloggd.

  The main question I have to ask is “Why are we here?” There was no need to keep this going. Strive’s story was a paradigm shift for the franchise, trying and mostly failing to explain six games’ worth of lore through a miniseries’ worth of cutscenes (and sometimes fights) while flipping character dynamics on their head for the sake of subversion: old players felt alienated while new players were left scratching their heads. Sure, you can tell them how “That Man” created “Gears” and started a world war, or how science was outlawed and replaced by magic, but what about Sol Badguy or Dizzy or Ky Kiske or Justice or Testament or the Valentines or I-No or Universal Will…add onto all this loredumping, we have the end of Sol Badguy’s story, loose ends being tied, and so many character interactions it’ll make your head spin. But for better or worse, it’s done. The story’s basically concluded. GGS was as good a time as any to close up shop and move on, but we’re still here for some reason. And for what? Money? If that’s the answer, it doesn’t show here.

  Anyways, the cast: Who even is Sin Kiske? Basically…he’s Gohan but boring, and he’s the main character now. So lemme break it down for you; there was a big war with the Gears, people hated them and then people liked them, Certified Man of God and best theme in fighting game history holder Ky Kiske knocked up a Gear (homunculi, basically) named Dizzy (thankfully not sporting her soulless redesigned outfit) - not that it matters because they do NOTHING for over half the runtime - and thus Sin was born because main character Sol Badguy could only be examined under so many lenses.

  So his parents are getting married now and suddenly, gasp, there’s this new donut steel OC named Unika (GET IT?? UNIQUE???!) who wants to kill all Gears because, gasp, she’s from the FUTURE and she’s actually Ky and Dizzy’s DAUGHTER and Sin’s SISTER and she can CONTROL GEARS and THE MAIN VILLAIN IS CONTROLLING HER and she is the STRONGEST and she’s BEST FRIENDS with fan favorite BRIDGET - just write a fucking fanfic at this point, what are you doing? The entire show revolves around this unironic Mary Sue, a term I never thought I’d have to use while discussing Guilty Gear, because the writing was never treading the depths of AO3 before Strive. Unika and everything revolving around her are just completely fucking pointless to the overall canon and the fact that 90% of the show’s screentime is dedicated to her nonsensical time travel plot instead of characters anyone likes or cares about makes me ANGRY. There’s no fun cameos to be found outside of a few shots on computer screens in episode 7 and the massive list of characters is totally ignored in favor of the most recognizable ones in GGS. Sin is boring and unfunny, Jack-O and Ramlethal amount to nothing, Sol, Ky and Dizzy are irrelevant until the plot needs them for a hype moment and Bridget’s there to be cute because she’s popular online. Baiken’s tits are still awesome, thankfully. But the atrocious dialogue and “humor” do little to carry the filler that is the overarching narrative of this horribly paced and structured show, which spastically jumps from point to point every five minutes like my reviews whenever it’s about something bad like this.

  Speaking of nonsense, remember that main villain I mentioned? Nerville is about the furthest thing from complex, but he’s incomprehensible all the way through the show. He’s terribly designed fop who wants to destroy Gears because he’s a racist, but actually a self-loathing racist because he’s actually a Gear who can time travel and his future self is more evil than his present self and actually wants to kill everything, except no, he’s actually a multidimensional entity who can - fuck this, who cares? Why are we doing this? We already did Gears, we already did Gear racism, we already figured out how to control Gears, why do we need to go through all of this again? Do something else. Do anything other than this. This show is so lacking in confidence that instead of doing something the fans old and new would like, it just rehashes the plotline of the average Naruto movie - main character meets new character, new character gets manipulated by unmemorable villain, everyone gets together for a big MCU-style climax to beat the villain, new character goes back to being non-canon and then it's done. At least Naruto movies LOOKED good.

  Among Guilty Gear Strive’s accomplishments is that it’s a phenomenally animated game with energetic cinematic ultimates and gorgeous story mode cutscenes. Dual Rulers is perhaps the biggest disservice to the merits of a game that did not need any more insults piled on - it’s cheap. I never comprehensively watched any of Sanzigen’s Bang Dream anime, but the clips I have seen impressed me with how their visual language was translated to 3D animation. Dual Rulers has zero excuse to be as stiff, poorly choreographed and lazy as it is considering it’s merely eight episodes - I refuse to believe a reputable studio could stretch its talents THAT thin in such short order. When I say this show is lazy, I mean it’s LAZY. It’s panning shots over closeups over speedlines over single frame over a thousand more panning shots and closeups every single episode. Episode 7, the climactic battle, literally STOPS BEING ANIMATED ENTIRELY and becomes a slideshow presentation during what’s supposed to be a climactic battle. (seriously if you don’t believe me it’s right here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFN0Ches0yU , why are we allowing this level of incompetence from a major studio in 2025??? look at this and tell me it’s anything other than disgraceful)

  How do you manage to squander the supposedly unlimited potential 3D animation brings to the table? The posing is awful compared to the games! There’s no dynamism like the character intros and win screens. This entire show could’ve been done in digital 2D with the same budget as every other seasonal cashgrab, because that’s all this is, a cashgrab. There is none of the iconic music from the games, 90% of the game’s legacy is either violated or ignored, it’s disgustingly cheap and does nothing to justify its existence as a continuation to a game that is honestly undeserving of this kind of degradation. This show is such unfettered dogshit it made me actually start defending Strive unprompted, I’m keeping that in because I want you all to understand how much I actively hate this show.

  With all this time travel it’s impossible not to imagine a timeline where this wasn’t the end result of the Guilty Gear franchise. Dual Rulers is the absolute worst outcome imaginable; newcomers will be stuck wondering what’s going on half the time, veteran fans will be infuriated by how little it amounts to anything in the grand scheme of things, and casual watchers who came expecting sakuga will be let down if they don’t drop it after the first two or three episodes. After watching Dual Rulers, I can imagine why Daisuke must feel burned out. Guilty Gear needs a ten-year moratorium. I don’t want people to argue about the game more than they play it anymore. I don’t want to buy the new Unika DLC. I don’t want to see more beloved characters get retooled into safe, toothless facsimiles of their former selves. Either do it better or don’t do it at all.

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• 

  Scrunglo

  47/100
  It has great moments but Underwhelming. One of the least bad FG based animes.

  Quick warning, English isn't my first language. Im a big Guilty Gear fan, started around Xrd Revelator 1 and love the lore and world, it's not complex or something grand but for a FG, GG's story and world tends to stand out for how interesting and unique it can be, though the quality is a bit of a diceroll. Be it the early stuff during X/XX era with X Plus story mode having a pretty solid story in it along with Sign and Revelator's story modes being pretty fun to watch, they all have their flaws, some more then others (Xtra) and GG has some problems in not explaining things, shoutout to the 10th memorial book having both a lot of information on characters in the world but also trying to go 'oh it's a mystery whatever this thing is' which was really weird. Strive itself I like it and while I am more of a +R fan, I still enjoyed it though there are a lot of flaws on it, especially how it tells the story for a lot of characters in the Arcade modes. When I heard there was a anime, I was kinda excited and curious how they would do a lot of things for the series and I must admit. It has it's moments but it's a very clunky show in general.

  The writer for the show Norimitsu Kaihō, basically wrote everything story related during the X/XX era of Guilty Gear, along with GG2, the quality of his writing when it comes to GG is a little strange, as half of it can get pretty interesting as I mentioned before with X Plus story and also the Lightning the Argent book and the other half is bad, see Xtra. For the anime it felt very much like the XX story mode, a very wonky thing with a lot of potential but not really doing much with it or anything that it shows.

  A part of me kinda hope they would focus on the Gear side of GG in story since it hasn't been a big deal since GGX and like all the trailers promised but that was only for a little while until we find out more that the guy that the we saw as the Big Bad of the show on the first few minutes of it is with him insulting Dizzy and Ky in front of everyone is, in fact, the Big Bad, which is very strange when they try to make it a mystery. Nervile seems like a interesting enemy for a second or two but he quickly just becomes a rather generic bad guy that is just super duper terrible and honestly just looks completely out of place, his monster design just looks like something from a Sentai then from Guilty Gear. Oh and somehow he's godly powerful? How ? good question! they litteraly just go "yeah he did terrible things to become strong like that"! The show likes to sometimes stop the story to just explain stuff and do a little explanation about the GG lore which while is a neat idea, it makes the pacing really crappy and other times, things get Barely touched upon or get completely forgotten, shoutout to how Axl's side story barely has a conclusion and he just appear near the end of episode 7 going 'yea naw mate im fine', they make a whole deal about the Gear virus and when we see Dizzy again despite her getting it, she's all fine! Also Episode 4 where while we did have some interesting minutes with both Bridget and Unika, the rest of it was mostly just recapping everything that happened and finding out that the guy that insulted the leaders of the biggest country in the world and publicly hates Gears was the bad guy all along. Oh and the show loves Asspulls, sometimes problems that seem like they would take 1-2 episodes get dealt with suddently have a flashback with one character remembering this one detail of a few years back and then quickly deal with it which make the whole ordeal seem kinda pointless.

  What about the characters ? It has been a bit of a mixed bag, Sin sometimes felt a little too dumb even compared to the games especially when you consider that he was a Bounty Hunter during the GG2/Xrd era, Sol was cool but despite being more focused on Sin he was basically the guy that solved almost everything and sometimes just had a asspull for most problems, Johnny has honestly been the best he ever been in any of the stories which goes to show how weird they make him, Baiken is there as fan service and makes everyone confused why Giovanna and Goldlewis aren't dealing with the situation, the Valentines are there for too little to be noticeable but they sometimes do stuff, Ky/Dizzy exist but have a few cute seconds together, yes seconds and Bridget had some surprisingly good scenes with Unika and she's actually important for the story for once, with her helping Unika to become less of a tool! Unika herself ? Another mixed bag, her reveal of her true identity is kinda out of nowhere though it was a little spoiled before by them putting some stuff with her and Justice. A lot of times she felt a little too much like Ramlethal 2. For the rest of the cast ? Yeah they get 1 second, Vernon gets way more then a lot of the playable cast.

  THere's also the fact that the whole thing felt too much in one place, we only got anything happening with the rest of the world outside of US and Illyria for 1 frame, it was strange that neither the PWAB, Chipp's Kingdom, Zepp or any other factions that do play big roles in the GG world not really get mentioned during the events, only 1 second of some really bad Jpegs with a few characters despite the fact that in every other GG story, when a big event like the one for DR happens, these factions at least appear to help out the main characters. Also seeing those 1 second frames of a lot of characters felt odd, feels like they wanted to do something with them but they were out of time.

  And the animation, it has it's moments and it's the fight scenes where the anime really gives a good show of the characters, though it's sometimes stopped by some weird choices, a few times it just stutters or decides to stop the fight to show a artwork and there are a few moments where it felt like it should have been animated but they didn't have the time and considering how badly paced things are in the show.

  Overall ? I only recommend this show if you really want to see some cool fights, for a casual viewer ? I'd imagine they would just feel completely confused with it and for a GG Fan ? It feels very underwhelming like they somehow decided to animate Guilty Gear Judgment, a PSP Spin off where the main bad guy feel barely connected to the series. I would recommend if you want to see some fun fight scenes though!

  Looking back at this review I do think I was a little too harsh mostly because I focused heavily on the story and writing, I cannot deny that this is the kind of anime that it's highlights are real big, ESPECIALLY when it comes to the fight scenes but the rest is not great and can make the whole experience very wonky. Once again if I have to compare to anything in GG itself, I'd compare it to XX console port Story mode, has some interesting moments and plot points but they either go nowhere or feel all that impactful.

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• 

  May

  90/100
  LOVE CONQUERS ALL: Ishiwatari's unique vision amplified by unconventional direction choices; clumsy but very earnest

  

  Amazingly clumsy; painfully earnest. Despite never having played the Guilty Gear story mode, it feels like the the most natural extension of series creator Daisuke Ishiwatari's vision. The expository storytelling, even at critical moments, is clearly from a glamrock adoring auteur who is primarily -- quite impulsively -- driven by the desire to evoke cool images and even cooler characters. So while Dual Ruler's necessarily stringent (economical) script tends to get outpaced by Ishiwatari's rapidfire plot contortions and grandiose loredumps, all is forgiven when the 'Flying White House' suggests an infinitely cool universe beyond the scope of this story, or when frivolous characters get to drop all-time aurafarm lines such as, "don't worry, my being here means history has already changed."

  Ishiwatari's theatrical tendency seems to interpret tragedy as a force all-enconsuming: a conviction that -- especially in respect to his enormous worldbuilding -- imbues every character, every line spoken, and every location visited with historical gravitas. All of these elders possess superpowers yet cannot shake the weariness of mourning; all of the people they couldn't save looms over every bit of dialogue. Even the places they go are rendered as Ozymandias-like mirrors; as if saying that if they aren't destroyed and forgotten yet, they soon will be. Extensive gazes upon these impermanent landscapes and regretful glances of battle-hardened veterans suggest inevitability. Though the next generation has not experienced the war directly, they are nevertheless victims of its consequences, almost as if condemned to fateful misunderstanding yet again.

  

  But so must love be a force all-conquering. For the parents, violence etched into the world as a reminder of their failures. For the children, it is a world that has left them behind before they started. But this does not necessitate despair nor condemnation, for they still have one another. These misfits upon a mirrorless world can seek mutual understanding as a remedy against intergenerational suffering. It only needs a glance; a hand reaching out; a persistent dialogue wherein the misunderstood kin is given an opportunity to find and unequivocally become themselves instead of roleplaying as a consequence of war and hate. It's going to be difficult, almost impossible, put perhaps there is still time for the next generation to save themselves. We'll just have to believe they won't make the same mistakes.

  

  Feels enormous in magnitude despite its strenuous limitations... or perhaps it's beautiful exactly how it maximizes expression within these boundaries? The breathy, elliptical editing, Dezaki frames (& other subjective stylization), and gorgeous out-of-focus images [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] across excellent backgrounds are at once economical direction choices as they function to amplify Guilty Gear's most potent feelings: a sentimental rockstar mishmash of truly unique, evocative imagery of those -- almost metatextually -- saving themselves against all odds. It's awkward and imperfect at many times, but I still cried at every episode, even the clumsiest ones.

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