‘Guilty Gear Strive: Dual Rulers’ release window, cast, plot, and more

Guilty Gear is a Japanese 2D fighting game that was released in 1998 and quickly achieved a cult status in the US and Europe. Since the first game the series has only continued to grow its fanbase over the years with the seventh mainline installment, Guilty Gear Strive, releasing in 2021.

So many great fighting games made their debut in the nineties with the most popular being the likes of Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. However, it’s nice to finally see Guilty Gear getting some much deserved love and attention. The recent games in the series have been selling well outside of Japan and in even more good news, fans of the games are going to be treated to a full length anime series based on the 2021 game!

What do we know about the Guilty Gear anime?

The announcement was made via a post on X (formerly Twitter) as well as the game’s official site, by Arc System Works America, Inc., (the studio responsible for the games) and Sanzigen Studios on Friday June 14. The news is still relatively fresh and we will likely learn more in the coming weeks and months. There is set to be a panel at the Anime Expo 2024, where new details as well as a teaser trailer will be unveiled.

The show will be titled ‘GUILTY GEAR STRIVE: DUAL RULERS‘ and is set to be an adaptation of the video game series. However, according to an article from Crunchyroll, it will feature an all-new story.

Who’s involved?

The project will be helmed by Shigeru Morikawa, the director behind Chrono Crusade which is certainly a promising piece of news. However, at the time of writing there have been no hints or anything that may confirm who else is involved. We don’t know who else is working on the anime and we have no information on the voice cast. Logically, it would make sense to bring the voice actors over from the most recent game, and while that’s certainly a possibility, Arc System Works have yet to confirm the cast.

Do we have a release date?

Once again, there isn’t a whole lot of info. The official Guilty Gear website promises more details at the Anime Expo – there’s actually a countdown on the announcement page for the panel which will be on the 4th of July in LA. It’s likely we’ll be given an actual release date along with a teaser during the panel next month.

Do we have any plot details?

Once again, it’s the same story, nothing official – but fans have been speculating based on the few pieces of promotional material we do have. Over on Reddit, one eagle-eyed fan spotted that on the poster for the anime, Sol didn’t have his ponytail, suggesting the events of the show take place after the 2021 game. Could the story of the anime be a continuation of the games? It certainly seems possible.