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One June 14, 2024 Arc System Works announced that it would adapt Guilty Gear into an anime with the help of Sanzigen Studios. An image featuring Sol Badguy, Sin Kiske, and a mysterious new character was shared, teasing who would potentially play an integral role in this upcoming adaptation. Siliconera had the opportunity to sit down with Guilty Gear Strive Producer Ken Miyauchi, Guilty Gear Strive: Dual Rulers Associate Producer Seiji Mizushima, and Guilty Gear Strive: Dual Rulers Series Composition Writer Norimitsu Kaiho.
Given how expansive the lore and narrative of Guilty Gear is, with the first title in the series released in 1998, I asked what the challenges were in adapting the “rock and roll” action and intricate lore into something comprehensible for those unfamiliar with the fighter. Guilty Gear Strive: Dual Rulers Associate Producer Seiji Mizushima had an answer.
“Guilty Gear has a twenty-five year history, and it’s quite a difficult question of how do you turn that into an anime. But we want a new audience to be able to get into Guilty Gear series, and also do something that satisfies the old fans. The big challenge was really how do we protect the world and setting of this IP. ” Mizushima went on to state that the production team for the anime worked closely with Arc System Works to ensure that this was done.
“Originally, this came together because the former BlazBlue Producer, Mori Toshimichi, approached me and asked how could we make something like this work. More than anything, we needed to have a strong and solid vision moving forward, otherwise it wouldn’t succeed. That was the original discussion we had around the production of this project.” He shared. “We ended up working very deeply with both the creators on the side of Arc System Works and the people on the animation side as well. So if you want to talk about how intertwined they are, I would say it’s an almost one-hundred percent collaborative effort.”
Guilty Gear Strive Producer Ken Miyauchi also weighed in saying, “Once we formed that team and assured that level of collaboration, we had the Guilty Gear Strive narrative director looking at the story and we also decided to bring in Norimitsu, who is a script writer and very well known for his work on Guilty Gear.” Miyauchi stated that Norimitsu is one of the most trusted script writers when it comes to Guilty Gear, as he had worked as a script writer on previous Guilty Gear related projects. He also revealed that Norimitsu helped write the scenario for the anime. “Norimitsu would write the scenario and bring it to Arc System Works and we would have weekly meetings for quality and lore checks.” This even included making sure that characters wouldn’t say phrases they otherwise wouldn’t say.
“We didn’t want players of the Guilty Gear series to feel like the anime wasn’t in line with the storyline they were already familiar with. We wanted to make sure everything was aligned. At the same time, we also focused on bringing in newcomers from the anime.” We want to make sure that there wouldn’t be a reliance on understanding ” Miyauchi also stated that they wanted to create something that wouldn’t rely too heavily on newcomers needing that deep understanding of Guilty Gear lore for them to get invested, making it more accessible to people that may be exposed to the series for the first time.
Regarding Guilty Gear Strive: Dual Rulers, Series Composition Writer Norimitsu Kaiho stated that it will be tied into previous established Guilty Gear narratives and lore. “It’s a standalone in a sense that newcomers will be able to jump right in and enjoy it for what it is, but is connected to the old lore which will have a few things long-times fans may find exciting in the story.” On the subject of characters that have long since been missing from the main roster of Guilty Gear, I asked if we would see some of these faces (like Robo-Ky) return. Both Norimitsu and Miyauchi laughed, Miyauchi telling me that they couldn’t answer that specifically. However, he did mention that there are a few characters that didn’t appear in Guilty Gear Strive that would show up in Dual Rulers. He did not specify as to which.
When asked about a prospective sequel series, or a film, if Guilty Gear Strive: Dual Rulers performs well, Norimitsu said he would love to create another story if given the chance. “I would like to see a possible sequel.” Miyauchi added on. “Maybe the story of someone like Chipp, or something more character specific, or another type of drama. But all of these ideas are just something we’d like to see, and realistically, the first step we’d need to see is success with the anime.”
We ended up moving the conversation into something more focused on Guilty Gear Strive and the growing popularity of the franchise. I had played several Guilty Gear games in the past, but I had always known the community to be relatively small. However, that’s changed with Guilty Gear having an incredible presence at EVO and other fighting game tournaments. Miyauchi shared that he was elated to see that Guilty Gear Strive had surpassed 3 million players. “Some of our teams are quite surprised, I think the Arc System Works executives were not really expecting this level of success. Before I joined Arc System Works in 2018, I was just a casual player who liked playing fighting games. From that perspective, I knew that Arc System Works IPs like Guilty Gear had the potential of reaching this level of success. That’s why I joined the company and became a Producer.” He stated. Miyauchi mentioned that when Arc System Works announced Guilty Gear Strive had one million players, he knew it could do more and that when that number eventually jumped to three million, that it surprised him. However, he continues to aim high and hopes that five million players will be reached sometime in the future.
When asked about the hope that Guilty Gear: Dual Rulers will attract entirely new fans to Guilty Gear Strive, and even entice them into playing older entries in the series, Miyauchi shared his thoughts. “I’m not expecting all of these new fans to get into the fighting game, because even some long-time fans don’t necessarily play a lot of fighting games and are instead attracted to the characters, lore, and music.” He says. “I just hope that they will like what they like.” I know that the level of success behind Guilty Gear is because of our very strong and enthusiastic community from previous entries in the series, and many of those fans discuss various things about Guilty Gear. ” Miyauchi also said that he recognizes the success of the Guilty Gear franchise is largely owed to its dedicated and enthusiastic community, and that he knows that the various facets of this community will be more than willing to help newcomers come into the fold.
The Guilty Gear Strive: Dual Rulers anime series is currently in development with no known release date. Guilty Gear Strive is readily available for the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, and Windows PC.
