Quick warning English isnt my first language. Im a big Guilty Gear fan started around Xrd Revelator 1 and love the lore and world its not complex or something grand but for a FG GGs story and world tends to stand out for how interesting and unique it can be though the quality is a bit of a diceroll. Be it the early stuff during X/XX era with X Plus story mode having a pretty solid story in it along with Sign and Revelators story modes being pretty fun to watch they all have their flaws some more then others Xtra and GG has some problems in not explaining things shoutout to the 10th memorial book having both a lot of information on characters in the world but also trying to go oh its a mystery whatever this thing is which was really weird. Strive itself I like it and while I am more of a +R fan I still enjoyed it though there are a lot of flaws on it especially how it tells the story for a lot of characters in the Arcade modes. When I heard there was a anime I was kinda excited and curious how they would do a lot of things for the series and I must admit. It has its moments but its a very clunky show in general. The writer for the show Norimitsu Kaih basically wrote everything story related during the X/XX era of Guilty Gear along with GG2 the quality of his writing when it comes to GG is a little strange as half of it can get pretty interesting as I mentioned before with X Plus story and also the Lightning the Argent book and the other half is bad see Xtra. For the anime it felt very much like the XX story mode a very wonky thing with a lot of potential but not really doing much with it or anything that it shows. A part of me kinda hope they would focus on the Gear side of GG in story since it hasnt been a big deal since GGX and like all the trailers promised but that was only for a little while until we find out more that the guy that the we saw as the Big Bad of the show on the first few minutes of it is with him insulting Dizzy and Ky in front of everyone is in fact the Big Bad which is very strange when they try to make it a mystery. Nervile seems like a interesting enemy for a second or two but he quickly just becomes a rather generic bad guy that is just super duper terrible and honestly just looks completely out of place his monster design just looks like something from a Sentai then from Guilty Gear. Oh and somehow hes godly powerful? How ? good question they litteraly just go yeah he did terrible things to become strong like that The show likes to sometimes stop the story to just explain stuff and do a little explanation about the GG lore which while is a neat idea it makes the pacing really crappy and other times things get Barely touched upon or get completely forgotten shoutout to how Axls side story barely has a conclusion and he just appear near the end of episode 7 going yea naw mate im fine they make a whole deal about the Gear virus and when we see Dizzy again despite her getting it shes all fine Also Episode 4 where while we did have some interesting minutes with both Bridget and Unika the rest of it was mostly just recapping everything that happened and finding out that the guy that insulted the leaders of the biggest country in the world and publicly hates Gears was the bad guy all along. Oh and the show loves Asspulls sometimes problems that seem like they would take 12 episodes get dealt with suddently have a flashback with one character remembering this one detail of a few years back and then quickly deal with it which make the whole ordeal seem kinda pointless. What about the characters ? It has been a bit of a mixed bag Sin sometimes felt a little too dumb even compared to the games especially when you consider that he was a Bounty Hunter during the GG2/Xrd era Sol was cool but despite being more focused on Sin he was basically the guy that solved almost everything and sometimes just had a asspull for most problems Johnny has honestly been the best he ever been in any of the stories which goes to show how weird they make him Baiken is there as fan service and makes everyone confused why Giovanna and Goldlewis arent dealing with the situation the Valentines are there for too little to be noticeable but they sometimes do stuff Ky/Dizzy exist but have a few cute seconds together yes seconds and Bridget had some surprisingly good scenes with Unika and shes actually important for the story for once with her helping Unika to become less of a tool Unika herself ? Another mixed bag her reveal of her true identity is kinda out of nowhere though it was a little spoiled before by them putting some stuff with her and Justice. A lot of times she felt a little too much like Ramlethal 2. For the rest of the cast ? Yeah they get 1 second Vernon gets way more then a lot of the playable cast. THeres also the fact that the whole thing felt too much in one place we only got anything happening with the rest of the world outside of US and Illyria for 1 frame it was strange that neither the PWAB Chipps Kingdom Zepp or any other factions that do play big roles in the GG world not really get mentioned during the events only 1 second of some really bad Jpegs with a few characters despite the fact that in every other GG story when a big event like the one for DR happens these factions at least appear to help out the main characters. Also seeing those 1 second frames of a lot of characters felt odd feels like they wanted to do something with them but they were out of time. And the animation it has its moments and its the fight scenes where the anime really gives a good show of the characters though its sometimes stopped by some weird choices a few times it just stutters or decides to stop the fight to show a artwork and there are a few moments where it felt like it should have been animated but they didnt have the time and considering how badly paced things are in the show. Overall ? I only recommend this show if you really want to see some cool fights for a casual viewer ? Id imagine they would just feel completely confused with it and for a GG Fan ? It feels very underwhelming like they somehow decided to animate Guilty Gear Judgment a PSP Spin off where the main bad guy feel barely connected to the series. I would recommend if you want to see some fun fight scenes though Looking back at this review I do think I was a little too harsh mostly because I focused heavily on the story and writing I cannot deny that this is the kind of anime that its highlights are real big ESPECIALLY when it comes to the fight scenes but the rest is not great and can make the whole experience very wonky. Once again if I have to compare to anything in GG itself Id compare it to XX console port Story mode has some interesting moments and plot points but they either go nowhere or feel all that impactful.