The Spring 2025 Anime Preview Guide

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 pass, 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.

Guilty Gear Strive: Dual Rulers is based on Guilty Gear Strive fighting game by Arc System Works. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Saturdays.

As I was wondering why Dual Rulers didn't make much sense to me, I decided to do a bit of research, and lo and behold, the game it's related to (Guilty Gear Strive) is a direct sequel to a previous game (Guilty Gear Xrd) and the conclusion of a storyline involving the character Sol Badguy. That makes this pretty unfriendly for viewers who aren't up to date on the games, although I will give the first episode at least a little credit for attempting to bring us up to speed. It's probably not their fault that it doesn't quite work. The easiest thing to grasp is that Gears are non-or-demi-human beings who fought against humans in a crusade, and then Ky Kiske married a Gear named Dizzy and they had a son named Sin. People don't like that. Attacks ensue.

As to why Sin has been raised by Sol Badguy instead of his parents, well, I suppose you'll have to play the game. At this point, it looks mostly like this is important because a rogue human named Unika bursts into Ky and Dizzy's royal event (Ky is king? Did that get mentioned in the character-heavy recap?) and tries to kill Dizzy. Sin shows up just as they've been frozen and assumes they're dead; Sol tells him otherwise. And, uh, I think they go off on a motorcycle to save them? Or to stop Unika? And this has something to do with Vernon, the president of the U.S.? I dearly hope it makes more sense to game-players, because I just felt lost for most of the episode.

Visually, this is a mixed bag. It's not the worst CGI out there, although it does retain the look of a game cut scene, I could see that being viewed fondly by game fans. It's mildly uncanny, but not nearly as bad as it could be, and my biggest gripe is with the thick black outlines that make the characters stand out from their backgrounds unnecessarily. There's some real fluidity to some of Unika's moves, and if I want to take all of the ladies' bra shopping for some supportive undergarments, that's hardly an issue unique to this show.

To be perfectly frank, I wouldn't suggest attempting this without game knowledge. It's not terrible, but it also doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and that feels solely because I'm missing so many pieces of the narrative. I would hope that those who have played the game might find this more entertaining.

According to my Nintendo Switch, I have played exactly 34 minutes of Guilty Gear in my life, and all of that comes from the time I spent noodling around with the first two games that were on sale from the eShop recently. Neither of those games has a Story Mode, so far as I know, and I never took the time before to dive into any lore essays on YouTube or the like. My point is that, from the outside looking in, Guilty Gear's story is wild as hell, and I'm not sure how much sense this anime is going to make to anyone that hasn't played catch-up with the past thirty years of backstory.

That said, I am a child of the 90s. I spent more hours than I can count watching my copies of the two Mortal Kombat movies on VHS. I rented the Street Fighter OVA from Blockbuster plenty of times, too — and I swear to you that it wasn't just because of the Chun-Li shower scene. The point is, I don't need my fighting game adaptations to “make sense” or “tell a coherent narrative with themes and complex character motivations.” What I expect, when you get right down to it, is an overly convoluted plot that goes out of its way to put a bunch of ridiculously dressed punch-kickers in a room together so they can wail on each other with their superpowers. To that end, GUILTY GEAR STRIVE: DUAL RULERS gets the job done with gusto.

Could I tell you the difference between Sin and Ky Kiske? Outside of the fact that one of them has an eye-patch and is either the father or son of the other, absolutely not. Do I know for sure whether or not Sol Badguy is meant to be a good guy? Nope. Could I explain why, exactly, a girl with a cat-ears robot mask and an army of what I think were zombies attacked the wedding of one of those Kiske guys and the lady with angel wings, even if you put a gun to my head? Not a chance. I'm not even sure I even know what a “Gear” is, yet, to tell you the truth.

What I can tell you is that Sanginzen, Inc. is putting their CGI animation skills to good use with some slick-looking fights, and I can also say that the characters doing the fighting are all pretty neat! I also fully recognize that all of this narrative gobbledygook might be perfectly comprehensible to fans of the games, and that counts for something (in theory, at least). I don't know if all of this flashy spectacle is enough to get me to watch any more of DUAL RULERS that I already have, but it might just have convinced me to boot up those old ports on my Switch for a couple of go-rounds. In the end, is that not exactly why this anime exists, in the first place?

I'm not going to pretend that I'm a hardcore Guilty Gear fan. That said, I played Guilty Gear X on the Dreamcast back in the day and put more than a few hours into Strive—along with watching its story mode (which is basically an anime made using the in-game character models). It's fair to say I understand the basic story of the whole series—I know who Justice is, her connection to Sol, and the whole love story between Ky and Dizzy. I'm also familiar with the setting and all the important proper nouns like “Gears,” “Valentines,” and “The Backyard.” I can't possibly imagine trying to watch this anime without at least this level of knowledge.

Sure, you might understand that Sin was raised by Sol and that he is the son of star-crossed lovers Ky and Dizzy (and that there is major prejudice against Dizzy for being a Gear) but you know none of the “whys.” Why does Sin act like a little kid? Why wasn't he raised by his parents? Why does he have an eye patch? Why would the world hate and fear Dizzy (and the other Gears) so much if the war is long over?

But all of this pales in comparison to the big question plaguing anyone watching this show with no prior knowledge: Who the hell are the rest of these people that keep appearing? What are their relationships? And what is going on in this setting where both magic and sci-fi technology exist—not to mention a world with both fantasy-ish kingdoms and the USA?

What I'm getting at here is that this is a series for Guilty Gear fans and Guilty Gear fans only. This anime is about as un-newbie-friendly as it could possibly be. The only thing the uninitiated will get out of this one are some flashy fight scenes and a whole bunch of awesome music to add to their personal playlist—which, admittedly, is one hell of a consolation prize.