Guilty Gear Strive Dual Rulers Shows That This Season Can Still Have Good Game-Based Anime

Guilty Gear Strive Dual Rulers has decided that, if nothing else, it will hold up the consistently weird banner that is Guilty Gear. While the fighting game series is best known for starting a culture war every 5 seconds in one camp and starting discourse every 5 minutes in the other, the new anime seems to not be interested in necessarily pulling new people into the complicated vortex of Guilty Gear.

Instead, Guilty Gear Strive Dual Rulers takes the more Cyberpunk-style approach to its adaptation. Hey, the anime says. This is one of many stories that takes place in a weird world where magic has overtaken science and said world has nearly ended like twice in the past month.

Guilty Gear Strive Dual Rulers Is The Guilty Gear Formula Made Anime

Streaming on Crunchyroll, we're only one episode in on Guilty Gear Strive Dual Rulers, but the plot seems to have been pretty well laid out: Ky and Dizzy are finally having their dream wedding, which gets crashed by Gear-hater Unika trying to start (another) race war. This shifts the spotlight over to Ky and Dizzy's son, Sin, as he presumably gets to finally be more than just the goofy sidekick character with a heart of gold.

While episode 1 is mostly introducing the cast of characters, it's also surprisingly Guilty Gear in its approach- almost everyone you see on the poster gets their bit of screentime, and most of them look incredibly cool doing so. A special shoutout especially goes to Johnny: A character so cool he doesn't get taken out by Unika simply because he's used to women trying to slap him in the face.

There's also the overall approach itself: Aside from a pretty solid art style from D4DJ studio Sanzigen, the anime absolutely loves these cuts to hand-drawn 2D frames for really dramatic shots. It's such a 90s design choice that feels absolutely indulgent.

I mean, even the start of the episode features a cartoony bear chase with an impeccably good soundtrack. You might argue that overall, the episode is slow. But sitting around pondering the meaning of freedom while rock music plays in the background? That's Guilty Gear, baby.

Does It Need To Pull In New Audiences Though

That being said, my biggest concern with Guilty Gear Strive Dual Rulers is just how you'd supposedly get casual audiences in on it. Like obviously I'm all in for an adventure with Sin Kiske because Sol's too busy being happily married and working on his bike.

I clap at the thought Leo Whitefang doesn't get to have screentime because he has to finish up all of Ky's paperwork. But if I was trying to get a non-Guilty Gear player to check it out, I'm worried that episode 1 is almost too indulgent, to the point that it doesn't really fully capture the gravity of what Ky, soldier-turned-king, marrying a Gear like Dizzy actually means.

But then, maybe that's not a problem to be solved. Guilty Gear Strive pulled in a massive new audience despite being ostensibly the final chapter of Sol Badguy's story, maybe that same faith can be awarded to an anime whose current selling point is just how cool every character looks and an urge to see them beat up some bad guys.