Game Adaptation by SANZIGEN
Streaming on Crunchyroll

Premise

Taking place between the events of Guilty Gear Xrd and Guilty Gear Strive, Ky Kiske and Dizzy are soon to be married. But not all approve of the joining of human and Gear. Old wounds remain from the cataclysmic war between humanity and its creations that nearly ended the world. When a mysterious girl with a hatred for Gears declares war against the Gears and any who would aid them, Sin Kiske and Sol Badguy must go on an adventure to stop her.

Gee’s verdict: Limp

Guilty Gear has always been the maximalist anime expression of fighting games. Priding itself on taking every element familiar to the genre and pushing it further and to occasionally more awkward places in the name of achieving a certain kind of unparalleled spectacle. While Strive is a lot more buttoned up compared to its past incarnations, it’s still Guilty Gear through and through. As a result, Dual Rulers is kind of a disappointing introduction to the setting and characters. If this was meant to get new fans into Guilty Gear, I don’t think it leaves the greatest first impression. Dual Rulers chooses to focus on Ky Kiske and Dizzy’s relationship and how that relates to Guilty Gear’s relation between humanity and its artificially engineered bioweapons.

This could be mostly forgiven if Dual Rulers at least channeled some of Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie’s energy, focusing on high flying action and cool moments at the expense of narrative. Unfortunately, Dual Rulers also doesn’t look that great either. This is especially egregious because modern Guilty Gear is renowned for having cracked the code on cel-shaded 3D animation in games. Regardless of how one feels about Xrd and Strive, nobody is going to deny ArcSys makes the best looking fighting games currently on the market. In comparison, Dual Rulers’ action is stiff and lifeless. While I wasn’t expecting anything on the level of the game’s outlandishly stylish animations, I thought the TV anime would be able to evoke some of that feeling. To be clear, it’s not the worst anime adaptation of a fighting game, the nadir is so much lower than any of Dual Rulers’ missteps so far. It doesn’t break the curse either though.