Guilty Gear: Strive - Dual Rulers

Writing, pacing, fights and choreography, bad guys motivation, all of it was straight up bad. Most of the Guilty Gear cast were not even implemented to the story while they could drastically change the course of it. Nothing ever happened that is relevant to the story at the first 6 episodes. Characters just appear, new character that will be released in the game gets introduced as a villain with an intent but there is no reasoning and explanation behind it for the first half of the show. You get crumbs of storytelling in each episode which are also full of recap scenes, yet you get to nowhere after all the minutes of "things happening". Some of the plot points are never explained and is just accepted as is. Characters act like they interact with people once every year sometimes. Last two episodes were just a badly written shonen script with tons of still frames in fight scenes. Conclusion of the story is also disappointing. Do yourselves a favor, do not spend your time with this sorry excuse of an adaptation.

I had been hoping for another "another story" type DLC in the game ever since Bridget was added, and this anime is pretty much that. Another over the top story with insane action, granted it's hard to tell what's going on and there's a TON of exposition at the start. But really if you're a fan of the game and the characters I think you'll enjoy yourself with this series.

Now I just realized I wrote this whole review and there's not much else I want to say without giving away too much but the required amount of characters in a review is 600 and I'm short so here's an extra super long paragraph.

I am a huge fan of the "Guilty Gear" series. I could not get into the latest one, "GG: Strive." This anime is a prequel to "Strive." I would have preferred an old school animation like the one we can see on "Guilty Gear XX2 Reload" trailer. However, "GGST: Dual Rulers" is not bad, it is not bad at all. Your favourite characters rock! Comic-like slides, powerful soundtrack, compelling story. The animation style follows the one we meet in the latest game. I expect to see some flashbacks / episodes about the "Crusades" war and the old design of the characters. It gets better with every episode; give it a go! "Heaven or Hell, Duel 1, Let's rock!"