Reviews for Girls' Frontline

I'll be honest, I never expect much from anime that is a game adaptation. Sadly, once again my scepticism was totally justified. So what do we have on our hands? Story. To be put bluntly Girls Frontline, the source game, can be divided in two parts in terms of plot: horribly boring, dull and uncreative start and OH BOY WOW second part. And while it is to be expected, still going for the story from the start in a 12 episode show is a bad call - the whole story is so dull it makes me yawn and the season ends before the actually good partbegins.

Art. Ok, so you have no real plot - at least give us some cool action, so we can atleast enjoy the show? "Lol, lmao" was the answer. The art is simply horrible. All the models are potato faced, basic and lack details. The animation is not lacking - there is no animation in most cases. What could you expect from a firefight between gun wielding androids? Maybe you expected a lot of manuvers, flanking, cover, suppression fire? Jokes on you, lets just approach the enemies in wall-on-wall style and just shoot each other. Oh, and cause everyone dies from a single hit (even though those are supposed to be androids with at least SOME level of armor) - lets make said androids shoot with stormtrooper accuracy, while animating it in two frames - enough for a "tracer" to blink in and out of existance without doing any damage. Funnily the best looking animation can be found in the opening, even the art style differs by having well defined borders and much more depth to the models.

Sound. The exact same problem - the only good part is in the opening. All the bgm - pathetic, cheap, irritating. Most of the voice acting - really lacking, wich was an unpleasant surprise to be honest, as MICA got the whole team of VA that are used in the game. All other sounds - footsteps, gunshots, explosions - most likely taken from some free site, most of guns don't even sound like guns or like they have different calibers.

Characters. Once again - abysmal. While I know that most characters here are androids, yet according to lore all of them have their personalities, quirks and traits. Nothing of that is shown clearly. Even actual humans here feel more like robots with one defining trait, only the MC is different - she can be described in not one, but two words(!) - arrogant and irritating.

Enjoyment - none, zero, null. Even for me, who actually enjoyed the game and was interested in the world of GFL. For anime only it must be even worse, as there is simply nothing good in this anime. I remember watching Azur Lane and at least you could get some fanservice and more or less pretty girls, here you don't have even that.

Overall - a waste of time, potential and money. Who even thought it is good enough to be broadcasted - I have no idea.

As a massive fan of the mobile game this show is worse than disappointing; it is utterly abysmal. Story-wise, the anime is an adaptation of the early chapters, of which the story isn't good, yet they managed to make the general writing and the pacing somehow even worse. The game's biggest strength is the lack of exposition dumps and that is just the opposite with this show. It dumbs down characters to explain (poorly thought out) tactics. The opening and the ending are the only positive things about the show, and maybe the art style that is heavily inspired by Gunslinger Girl. The animation itself is averageat best, but it has a lot, and I mean a lot of gun errors from M4's infamous "bull-pup" to even simple things as reversing the metal and the wood parts of a G43.

The sound design is easily the most offensively pathetic thing. One egregious example I can quickly think of was when any time G36 showed up, they would use stock AK sounds for the gun.

Overall, the show was directed and made by people who have never consumed any media with firearms before; be it video games or movies. I wouldn't recommend it to anybody, let alone a GFL fan.

Probably the only review I'll write on MAL but as a long time fan of the game, I have to say this anime adaptation is a big disappointment. Don't get me wrong, the game has a fantastic story in my opinion, even though on the surface level it looks like a generic waifu collector gacha game. So what does the anime do wrong? 1. Poor pacing - It goes full throttle in the first episode right from the start, throwing out jargon new viewers wouldn't understand at a speed too fast to take in, even for myself. I would say that the anime stays true to the mangaadaptation however the manga has problems with pacing as well if you were to directly turn each panel into an anime keyframe.

The difference between a manga and an anime is being able to control the pacing of the manga, taking your time to read through the panels, which evidently makes the first episode feel like someone going for a world-record speedrun through the story.

After the first episode, it slows down yet it still feels fast, especially the action scenes (which should be a good thing for an anime themed around guns, but it isn't).

2. Inconsistent art - There are certain frames where the gun of, say, M4A1 look entirely wrong, or the gun of a character called PPSh-41 changes to a completely different gun between cuts (How do you mess this one up???).

The only good art is in the OP and ED, the anime's art itself lacks characteristics and comes off as bland and generic.

3. Weird music and SFX choices - With how fast-paced the anime is at times, the music/SFX follows suit and makes an already mediocre anime even worse.

I'm even sure I heard stock gun SFX being used.

4. Terrible action scenes coupled with poor animation - Who thought the gunfights with Hollywood-esque magazines would be fine when guns are the main identity of this series? OK that's a gripe I have with this anime, but the action scenes feel extremely short with uninteresting fight choreography and a total lack of tactics and strategy.

What did it actually do OK at?

1. The characters, even the side characters, were given characterisation and a role unlike your typical generic harem anime where each waifu character follows a trope, and serves no purpose to the plot but to be eye candy. I enjoyed watching the (brief) scenes where the characters show their daily life interactions, before the anime throws you back into the lackluster action scenes immediately afterwards. Though again, with the fast pace, it leaves barely any time to fit in more characterisation for every character at present.

2. The OP is the highlight of the show - Really nice art style and good animation, with a banger of an opening song.

Conclusion?

I would advise people who're interested in this anime's premise to just play the mobile game instead. The anime is very poorly done with its pacing, action scenes, art and animation. It does have its positives but it's largely overshadowed by its negatives. If you value your time, don't waste it on this anime in my opinion.

On the other hand, the game is actually very free2play-friendly, and the way the game resources work you can pretty much play the game like it's an actual normal game and not a daily chore of a gacha game. The story is quite long but has lots of details that may interest people who want a modern day/near future type of story regarding androids/robots, politics and war.

The game is set in 2062 in an alternate history timeline where the world is largely contaminated and uninhabitable after the events of World War 3. Russia (Neo Soviet Union), the US, and the Pan-European Alliance, left weakened after WW3, agreed to a reluctant ceasefire to rebuild their forces, while androids (Dolls) replace human workers out in contaminated zones.

Private military companies (PMCs) spring up to fill in the gaps where the weakened governments cannot. Griffin & Kryuger (G&K) is a unique PMC where they employ (yes they are employed and paid) civilian sector Dolls and adapt them to specific weapons to replace human soldiers.

The Dolls are provided by Important Operations Prototype Manufacturing Company (IOP) while the antagonists are rogue Dolls made by IOP's rival, Sangvis Ferri Industrial Manufacturing Company (SF). The rogue dolls have decided to eradicate humanity for reasons the game story will explain, thus leading to the start of the game.

While the story is mostly told through visual novel cutscenes, the game does a great job adding to the story via the story mission maps - each map is designed to help tell the story, as well as visualising the tactics and strategies the characters take.

I do hope people will give the game a chance.

Game adaptations work for various ways, but it's main objective would always get you to try out the game, which is its biggest selling point. And it's by no small means that MICA Team's KanColle-inspired crew of anthropomorphized firearm moe waifus is a small franchise, OH NO. Girls' Frontline is a massively popular mobage RPG that's insanely loved by its fans ever since its release in China in 2016, that year after year, expanded to more territories, and gradually released to English and Japanese players in 2018 as Dolls' Frontline due to trademark constraints. So, think of this as the equivalent to Yostar's Azur Laneand DMM Games' KanColle.

Usually, game adaptations will have their own story and plot that's conceived by the writing staff team in the anime's production, but you would be surprised to know that this adaptation is adapted straight from the manga version. Which as a non-GFL player, I feel that while fans have every right to criticize this move, at least there is but only one direction, and that is straightforward, which IMO does service the plot decently, even if it feels thin and slow on the pacing side of things. And as hardcore fans would say, to truly experience the game franchise at its best, the mobage would always be the superior version against the anime adaptation, and it's for this reason that this feels same same, yet different.

The anime adaptation follows the set of rigils: the common "good vs. evil" of the side of the Griffins vs Sangvis, the team of focus (which is AR Team: comprising of M4A1 (M4), ST AR-15 (AR15), M4 SOPMOD II (SOPII) and M16A1 (M16)) and their newbie Commander Gentiane. To hardcore GFL fans, this is already a red flag that the anime adaptation packs a side story that even then, under the watchful eye of wonky Asahi Production in-house director Shigeru Ueda, which if last season's travesity of a mess with last Summer's Peach Boy Riverside's adaptation is of concern, can be frightening. But somehow with the backlash that IDK if Shigeru Ueda have heard of laments after that entire ordeal, thankfully he chose to just make things simple and at least followed the narrative of the source material (albeit a different version of it) to the T. Good riddance Shigeru Ueda, because this should be a lesson as a director not to unnecessarily tamper with what's already given, plus adding things that break the flow whatsoever.

Even if the story was kinda of a fluke, the characters I'd say didn't felt polished as compared to reading the manga version of it (which I only discovered episodes in). In the manga version, at least most of the T-Dolls, given Griffin's or Sangvis's, they do at least exemplify their personality in whatever ridiculous ways possible with some infused comedy to even out the nearly-serious tone of the story. But while the tone is kept subtly in the anime, it mostly went too overboard with the seriousness of the situation of a sub-intended "World War III" between moe combat androids, so much so that the almost 25-minute runtime (plus OST) feels like a chore to sit through. Don't get me wrong, I love the insane battles here, but somewhere along the line, things doesn't seem to match up with the overall feel, and for better or for worse, makes or breaks the entire flow of the anime.

And that leads me to the entire production of Girls'/Dolls' Frontline. Asahi Production for one is a subpar studio, and they only make about 2 to 3 shows per year, so this shouldn't be a problem all things considered. And what this studio has done for this show, it's technically one of the better action-heavy shows ever produced, and it has stakes to make it feel that way. And for some happy reason, I must really give props to the team whom did the OP credits, because that is ingenious, almost game-like excellent quality MV right there, that is definitely a first for me to see this kind of disparity between the OP and the rest of the show (which sadly just drops quality bombshells like the obvious). But again, this is a double-edged sword to see such a MV that's so well-crafted that made me think that this was ripped off from the actual mobage OP montage, and the final production being a mediocre attempt.

The fantastic OP MV is backed by yet another fantastic OP song sung by former Little Glee Monster member Sakamoto Yuka, who's now a soloist and is currently known by her stage name yukaDD(;´∀`). Honestly, if the final product can match what the OP production is made off, then I will be even more happier. But obviously it wasn't meant to be, and with the mediocre production, came inconsistent BGMs, and especially those gunshots in battle, because it triggered me more than one occasion that I actually thought that they were ripped from other gunfight shows of the similar kind. Team Shachi's ED...felt like the stereotypical early 2010s songs when idol music was just starting to bloom in Japan, and though was a song fit for the occasion, it just couldn't match the insane values of the OP.

In the end, a game adaptation is a game adaptation, its objective unchanging and the shallow storytelling will always be its Achilles' Heel. But I praise Dolls' Frontline for actually doing something different (like a manga adaptation of the game), that while it doesn't shatter my thoughts of game adaptations being so bad at almost everything, the experience just mildly improved by a tad bit. It's definitely watchable, and not as bad as your typical shoe-horned game adaptation of few plans and many loopholes.

I don't know why many people disappointed about this anime. Now i want to , but i know this anime is based on game and also taking element of the manga too. And my expectation is already low enough. i also play GFL/DL so this anime feels like little bit summary of all i did on the game, and it is not that easy to translate game to anime. i always say that at least this anime understanable. some things bug me, like ep 1 is changing one of the character from Game/Manga because the VA have some trouble with certain community of people and ep2 have put wrong weapon, but ep3 at least following the game/manga almost perfectly and at least the anime follow the game/ manga, not some kind of Original story

summary: GFL/DL anime is watchable

Here we go again, another game adaptation, which gets too much hate for what it is. Now I'm not gonna come on here, and write that it's super amazing, or anything of the sort. As it's not. There are some flaws to this show, that really should be ironed out better. But in terms of what the show is about, the rating of it on here doesn't do it justice. For anyone new to the series, this is a good way to get involved in what this series is all about. Story: 6 It explains itself. Or well. It tries too, but it goes so fast, alongwith a info dump right from the get go in each episode, giving a watcher no real chance to properly get emotional about it. It also leaves tension out of certain scenes, as if they not only fly by, but to a point that a watcher may not care so much. This is downside to it's actual story, which is kinda curious and interesting. But there is a lot to be desired, if it's up to you. The anime will do a good idea in giving you a good view of the context, and within the elements, will provide for an entertaining watch as a whole with it's mystery involved within. But you are better off playing the game, or reading the manga.

Characters: 7

Despite this, they do have some pretty good characters. They're not waifu bait, they actually seem like characters you can not only root for, but appreciate. There are multiple reasons for such, within the story elements that are built for a decent set of characters. Cannot go wrong there.

Art and soun: 7

There is a lot to love when it comes to the art style. They really capture the dark and grity style, but while also providing a nice colour tone throughout the show in general. Matced by such a lovely and great OP, you cannot go wrong with either the art, or the sound department. While of course, it's not breathtaking, but it's certainly well done.

Dolls Frontline gets undeed disliking for, which it shouldn't. It's an interesting series, with an interesting concept, that surely deserves a watch.

So first of all you dont have to play the game to understand this anime. I myself play the game and im big fan of it so I had great expectations for this anime and I dont know what to say. Opening song and animations are 11/10, ED too. Its one of the best OPs i ever saw and the song just hits the spot. Lore of Girls frontline is godlike in my opinion, you have everything from depression to making you kicking your feet. If you want full Girls frontline lore go watch [Girls' Frontline] Backstory, 2012-2062 by Dokutah Shikikan and 【Girls' Frontline】Story Collectionby Shoul.

Art:

I dont know that to say characters and scenery and very good but GUNS LOOK LIKE MY DRAWINGS FROM 2nd GRADE. Its obvious that people without any gun knowledge where drawing these. 4/10

Sound:

Gun sounds are TERRIBLE 4/10, but soundtrack is AWESOME 11/10

Story:

Now the main part. Anime captures chapters from 1-6 which are pretty boring compared to the rest of it. At episode 4 things start to get interesting. I hope that they will create season 2 because even if they mess up animations totally they cant mess up the story if they just follow the game. 7/10

Summary:

Im big GFL fan so in my eyes its not as bad unlike for someone else. They need to create season 2 but right now they are making GFL 2 so I think that season 2 will not even come. All in all anime is fine, it has major flaws but its definetly watchable and if you get interested in the lore I absolutely recommend to whatch those videos i mentioned earlier. 7/10

This is my first review ever so please dont mind any mistakes and I hope you give this universe a try you wont regret it.

Oh and one more thing SOP II THE BEST

This one hurts. As a massive fan of the game I was hoping the story would finally get the adaptation it deserves as it pertains to what might just be my favourite sci-fi/alt-history world ever created and anyone who's committed the (admittedly large amount of) time to the game would surely understand. It was inevitable that at first the show would not reflect this as the story only picks up at around Chapter 8 but that is no reason to drop the ball on the first part of a narrative that certainly requires multiple seasons to be told well. Unfortunately, what we were instead met withwas a lazily-made, half-baked excuse of an adaptation where its only redeeming quality was its intro. It's a mess confused by what it wants to adapt (i.e. including the most 'controversial' element of the manga) while lacking in the artistry necessary to make its way through the most dull parts of the story. The sound design is lame and generic and the show outright refuses any of the games' stellar soundtracks rather relying on an uninspired and forgettable OST that says sci-fi and nothing deeper. The exceptions of course being the OP which are for more inline with quality of any of Vanguard Sounds' work.

Speaking of which, the OP is also the only place there is any effort put into the animation. Some character designs were simplified (read: neutered) and those that weren't were instead dragged into depressingly simple and poorly choreographed fight scenes filled to the brim with guns that constantly go off model and feel more blasters or water guns than proper real-steel firearms. How? The entire premise is based around androids named after the firearms they wield and the show can't get guns right.

My only hope for this show is that it becomes the Studio Deen Fate adaptation of Girls Frontline.

All-around not great but better than the rock bottom I was expecting. Starts at story chapter 0 in the game and works forwards chronologically. Extraordinarily slowly paced for the first 6 episodes or so, but it does get traction in the back half. Might be better in a season 2 (if it happens) since now the boring part of the story is out of the way and the crew making it seems mostly competent. The good: I like the ED and OP a lot, both the songs and the OP sequence itself. The animation isn't standout but it's consistently OK. The voice acting is good toexcellent with some fairly senior VAs all reprising their roles from the gacha. Yukari Tamura is a stand-out as SOPMOD II even if she's basically doing a more enthusiastic murder-themed version of the Rika voice (or maybe that's why it's good). Best girl M14 is here, but she doesn't talk so it cancels out. After the boring part (most of it), it whacked me in the head with some actual clever foreshadowing like a real show, and from there through the ending it's actually not bad and kept my attention.

The bad: For the first 6-8 episodes this show is boooooooring. You can skip through entire minutes of it and not miss anything. It's not incoherent or horribly written or anything, it's an accurate recreation of the famously story-light early game in the gacha except without any gameplay. Scenarios start boring and resolve to nothing important. A lot of sangvis ringleaders are introduced that die within an episode or two and they're all non-characters except maybe three of them, all of which show up at the end when the show is better in general. A LOT more of this should've been skipped. The depictions of how t-dolls fight are also strange. They're trying to split the difference between how it works in the game meta and how actual warfighting works and it doesn't really make any sense for either. Team comps are too random to be a good even in early game, and shikikan makes the tactical decision to send the handguns to a rooftop to be snipers. Huh?

The ugly: People made a big deal about shikikan becoming a named character with voice acting, it's mostly fine but doesn't really achieve anything for the show. She doesn't really do anything and is a passenger while AR team drives the plot around her. Other named shikikans are introduced and when they start talking to each other about their favorite t-dolls the show teeters dangerously close to becoming pokemon, but thankfully does not and starts being good after that. Pedantic point but all of AR team's guns are incorrectly drawn as AR15s.

Conclusions: Season 2 should steal Lycoris Recoil's homework and be about the moe adventures of [spoiler character] and SOPMOD. I would watch that and it would be good. Otherwise probably skip this, but if you want to watch it's less bad than it could've been and isn't a total disaster.

Some soldiers give their rifles female names. Here these rifles go alive as cute babes. While this show has flawed plot and dubious battle system, I still willing to rate it high because rifle-waifus are cute waifu material. Art is good and four main characters are rather likable. I particularly like M4A1. Other gun-girls are also mostly nice. Antagonists are well designed and very creative. Art is good, finally some good use for all this high quality art.It has similar over feel as Frame Arms Girl, but somewhat more cohesive and makes somewhat more sense.

Overall I can recommened it mostly for waifus. However these are good waifus.

This is my first review I will write on MAL. I’ll try to put little to no spoilers as possible. This anime really had a lot of potential, but its expectation is now long gone. The animation is just shitty low budget quality, and the plot couldn’t be explained more shitty. Now, let me explain in detail what are the issues. Story: 5 In the beginning, the battle started without any further introduction. The attack tricks were somewhat decent, but could of been done better. The game lives up to its expectation, but the story was not executed the best. Art: 4 The animation/art is very poor andprobably was a big mistake for them. The details are not as bad, but overall feels bland and boring. I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I asked for Trigger or Wit studio to try animating this since it’s probably most appropriate.

Sound: 7

The OP and ED is a banger, which I don’t know why they would put all their budget on that. The overall soundtrack is pretty decent, and that’s probably the only thing that is decent.

Characters: 6

The characters lack a proper introduction, but all have individual thoughts. The villains are very cliche, but at least they put up a fight. The characters undergo internal conflicts which does add value.

Enjoyment: 3

It did not feel very thrilling, below mediocre and plain out boring. There were really no cliffhangers or anything surprising. There was a little plot twist, but I didn’t feel that much enjoyment.

Overall: 5

This is as mediocre as it gets. Others will probably rate it 1-3, but I tried not to be that biased. If there was anything they could of changed it would be the introduction and animation as a whole. It was not as successful as the game unfortunately, but if there is a season 2 hopefully they improve.

At the moment when not even the name of the anime matches the game, you realize the torture that this crap will be... let's go by part as jack would say... history...? what story? it's crap it explains zero about the plot the rhythm of the anime is horrible and things happen so fast and random that it is... it shows that they didn't adapt anything, neither the game nor the manga, it's simply an "edgy adaptation" that is repulsive as they destroyed everything good about the game... Animation, musical and design are crap impossible to defend, just google doll frontline m4a1 desing and suffer with thatcurse weapon...

don't watch this crap it's a waste of time and it's not worth it at all...

The more detail review are written by other senpai reviewer. The animation is not that bad. No plot. No character development. The commander appear! She care for dolls. Why? No reasons. And the mighty frontier! Nth good. The doll are just walking and shooting. Or standing and shoot. And no strategy for battle are kid level. Nothing interesting. So the battle are so boring. If u like to watch the waifu are shooting , may be u will happy. But no sense. Really disappointed!!!! Waste of time!! If u are the one checking review to watch this anime, skip this and find another .

HI THERE. Are you interested in the Girl's/Doll's Frontline franchise and want to know the story with out the need of playing the game and the pain it comes with it? then LET ME EXPLAIN WHY TO WATCH AND WHY NOT Reasons to watch it: 1. YOU LIKE WAIFUS 2. YOU LIKE GUNS 3. YOU LIKE WAIFUS AND GUNS !!! 4. You do not have any knowledge of the game and the story itself but are interested in it 5. U are lazy and just want to know the general plot direction of the story.Reasons not to watch it:

1. U dont wan't to see inconsistent scenes that don't make any sense and may hurt your brain because of the oopsie woopsie the studio made. (Just poor quality for short)

2. U are a veteran player of GFL or atleast have read the manga.

3. You are an anti who doesn't like the franchise .... *sad noises*

Simply put, I'd rather recommend watching/playing the Game and its story on Youtube or if you don't have the time to watch more than 15 hour+ AND MORE of content, then just read the manga that is currently being released.

[!! From here on its just me whining about the anime !!]

Since I’ve watched all episodes, I will go through some of the points that really bugged me about the anime and the points that I actually enjoyed.

Enjoyment: 5

In form of overall enjoyment. The anime already got negative attention from the community (pre-release) due to the studio adapting the manga version of the game. Like stated in my old review, the options for the story’s freedom is severly limited due to the commander being a fixed character and not a faceless commander. (Take note, it is hard to implement a faceless commander with the way the GFL game story is written).

The anime genuinely lacked the ability to catch my interest and even my attention. Many scenes and scenarios just seem lack luster, rushed and with no climax (I mean it takes them 2-3 minutes to take out the Boss, while I malded for more than a anime episode to beat the enemy with my weak af team back then when I was new). Reason for such is the way is just the execution made by the director with many scenes just being bland and missing of something. The plotline of the story also is difficult to get at first but it slowly gets better with the episodes. (I’d recommend to watch the first 4 episodes to get the grasp of what it is about). The biggest thing I wan’t to rant about is, how they just censored and changed so much. Like with StG44 being completly erased and replaced from the main plot or two dolls from the Negev squad not looking like the original Ingame model (I don’t get why the anime gets censored and the game models not getting censored in China, Japan or else where AND NO IM NOT TALKING ABOUT BOOBA CENSORSHIP)

Art: 6

The art is ok with the anime looking like a 2010-2012 like anime from the art style. It is something to get used to when you are a newer anime watcher. Many episodes though are lacking in quality with lazy drawing/animation. The art sometimes also lacks in depth, detail and have some major inconsistencies. Some frames even have wrong data or detail what basically says that the animators have no clue what GFL actually is. They borderline looked into it and no I’m not saying that the animators should read into 15h+ or how long of story content. They atleast should have checked or let someone look oversome frames for such mistakes and so on. (fellow GFL players will notice those mistakes I'm talking about).

(and ngl papasha is hella cute tho in the anime and Micro uzi has a different vibe in comparison to her Game art).

Sound: 6

The OP is a banger and the MV it comes with is also pretty well made, but for the BGM itself, it is not what I've expected. The BGM of the anime doesn't really help in creating and building up the right atmosphere/tension, or support the situation the characters are facing and that's just somewhat lacking for me. They just could have used the original BGMs from the game. The sound effects are pretty sure are just taken from a random-free-to-use-sound-effects webside.

For the VA's tho I'm super happy that they finally get more lines for the characters they voice ingame! All the VA’s did a great job.

Character: 6

For the characters .... oof I just keep it short.

I have nothing against the Female commander gentiane but they way they protrait her is just not interesting. She just doesn't really catch the attention like she does in the manga. With the other commanders, they just didn’t do well. They got introduced in a better way in the manga than in the anime and are more humorous. (the commanders are all Anime/manga original)

Looking from a manga perspective, they straigt up reduced some certain characters to: Hi me exist, me shoot, me ded.

Also as stated in earlier the change and censorship of characters is just weirdly executed…

(B U T (T) PPK’s personality is just perfectly implemented in the anime *^*)

Story: 9

Saying that from the entire view and experience from the game, I can say the story is really really good. It may be not for everyone but for those who are interested, it surely is! The lore itself and story both blend in together pretty good and as itself there aren't to many plotholes that are being left unanswered. The story may have its up's and down's but generaly seen it is quite enjoylable and interesting!

The ending feels like turning on the light and then leave it there until the second season comes. The terrible cliffhanger ending just let newbies sitting there like what just happend and veterans in possible pain and agony (jk). It is not a good way to end an anime and this ending is a clear call for an upcoming second season.

At last for a total, The anime just scratches the surface of the gfl story, but holds some value. You won't get the TRUE and FULL experience out of it since the story telling format of the game is rather difficult to transcribe into an anime (thus the manga). This review is just my opinion and a reflection of it and may also make me sound like I'm just super picky (in which I'm not.... my standarts are below the freezing temperature lmao....).

The anime adaptation truly fulfills the trope of an game getting an anime adaptation, it's just not the best. What is for me a disapointment that me and many others already saw coming.

Thenkz for reading my shitty review of me mostly whining and complaining about some stuff and I hope that this helped you or will help you in deciding to waste 12 episodes of your life or not or make you regret reading this review lul.

Not just that, I also hope that you'd give the game or the story itself a chance. (the game story -> youtube vids or just playing the game)

Also I'm not good with english so I apologize hereby for any mistakes or hard to understand sentences, I’m always writing these during class.

Yeah so... the Opening intro music 10/10 , the anime ...not so much , i actually missed a few episodes and dint care to watch, because nothing hooked me to keep watching. towards the end the betrayal and the double cross, was something that u could see miles away ... i mean even if they added fan service and made it +17 rating with boobs and guns, it still be a very disgusting adaptation. I just dint feel the characters, i know they are war dolls, and not human, yet this anime tried at the same time to pass their emotions if you call "emotions"as human.

what a disappointment , they should just have left it a peasant tier mobile game with freemium incentives and move on...

6/10 OVERALL

No actual story to keep track off

No hook

Predictable situations

Story 4/10

Animation 8/10

Voice Acting 9/10

Would re-watch?: No

Side notes: i originally was going to give it a 5/10 to compensate for the lack of context and the story of the anime, but i decided to add 1 more rating, for the wifus =)

It's a pretty unique anime with a somewhat militaristic feel. It's nice seeing fights that actually utilize positioning and tactics, a pretty good adaptation of game's gameplay. I feel like Gentiane is a good addition to the story, Shikikan has too big of a role to be a silent protagonist. Even the game realized it later, introducing responses in story, and chibi version of commander in dormitory. The first episode sets up relationship of Team AR somewhat better than the game, but pacing is a bit too slow. Which is especially bad because Girls Frontline had a pretty average start, and got really good later on. Animation ismy biggest dissapointment. Not a lot of CGI, but a lot of weird looking shots, janky animation, and a lot of fights are just showing bullets falling, and muzzle flashing, for longer than feels right.

I enjoy it so far, but I'm afraid it won't be good enough to get the second Season, and GFL really only gets truely great at point that is definitly not being adapted in first Season.

Logged back in to this account just to make this review.. Soo.. Where do I start? Girls' Frontline (Alternatively known as Dolls' Frontline on JP) gives off an impression of cute girls doing tacticool things. Having said that, I've been playing the game since it was first released for Global back in Summer 2018. When the anime was first announced, I had the thoughts of: Finally! An actual anime adaptation is coming out! This is very exciting to see for a game I enjoy! What could go wrong? Story: 4 The story had an interesting appeal and catch for the new and curious viewers.. However, there is nogeneral direction of what is going on. As the show is adapted from the Manga, there are going to be deriving plot points that leave for more questions than answers provided. You're left feeling the confusion of what just happened, and what's going on? The story could be improved to introduce more about our antagonists, the backstory of our lovable main cast, and the world of Girls' Frontline.

Art: 4

One of my main gripes is the art. There are some nicely drawn shots that are extremely detailed of the firearms depicted and the T-Dolls. On the opposite side of the coin, scenes that looks like someone left handed tried to draw with their right and collect a paycheck. With a combination of these two in hand, you have a boat filled with tannerite ready to go off at any moment.

Animation quality is decent. You'll have a good chunk of goofy looking scenes, but that makes it up in the form of entertainment.

Seems like a good portion of the budget went into gun modeling, and they couldn't even get that right.

A fantastic amount of community made memes thanks to the art will be one of the few memorable charms of this show.

Sound: 3

The BGM really adds an immeasurable amount of disappointment. It doesn't help build the tension, or atmosphere of the scene for a good effect. There are definitely better choices of selection, but it doesn't sit with some of the scenes. The only few good things are the opening and ending songs respectfully.

Choice of SFX is also OK, and some of the sounds could be changed for other effects. There are a few times the generic stock sound effect used in every low budget films appears, but not noticeable or have any significant impact.

Character: 6

Character Development is about average, with some introductions of the main cast, and characters involved with the show. It's about the same you can expect with most shows out there.

Enjoyment: 7

So why am I giving an enjoyment of 7 with this show? Despite the shortcomings listed, there are quite a number of scenes that make me chuckle, along with the edits the community comes out with due to the inconsistencies and questionable art choices for some of the designs. With that said, I give it a 7 since it humors my funny bone.

Overall Rating: 6

I'm being generous with giving this show a 6, since I have my biases with Girls' Frontline being one of my main interests and content focused on. The anime itself is bearable to watch, and preferably more enjoyable with a group of friends.

If the story really catches your interest, I would recommend reading the Game's Story, which is more polished and introduces characters with additional background about them. There is also an established backstory of the world and how it came to be.

(Keep in mind, this review has been written after the 4th episode came out - it may not be representative of the entire series, though from how things are progressing so far, I don't see how that could change the validity of this review in any drastic way.) When I first came across this anime, I thought to myself "what a time to be alive!" Cute girls that are personifications of guns? Sign me up! I'm a shameless gun enthusiast, so this was supposed to be a dream-come-true. Little did I know it was going to be the most disappointing series of this season. The story isn'tbad or good, it's just kind of there. The one thing I'd say is that it's hard to follow at first because we are immediately thrust into what seems to be a major confrontation with no knowledge of what is actually going on and why, besides some cryptic voiceover explaining something about something. After 4 episodes I'm still not sure what's going on apart from that Sangvis are the bad guys with guns, and Griffin are the good guys with guns, and there was some AI rebellion or something. Sounds generic.

Art is ok-ish if you don't mind stills of cute girls. Most action scenes take no more than 3 stills spliced together, and larger set pieces rely on animation loops with an occasional, unimpressive explosion or a bunch of muzzle flashes and bullet trails. The characters themselves lack any expression, but I guess they're mechanical dolls so that kind of explains it.

Now, to get to the nitty-gritty: the gun models. For the most part they're well done for static models, though in some instances they lack detail or, as is the case with MG3, they are obscured most of the time so we never really get a good look at those beauties. Which is a shame, because that's the biggest selling point of this anime, and so far it's been a let-down. Especially since there are no moving parts on those guns, so the most dynamic you'll get is the muzzle flash. I don't think we even saw a single reloading animation so far. Or any kind of mechanical operation of the guns for that matter. They are just there, static models that you can't even get a good look of because they're mostly obscured or there for like 2 seconds before the scene cuts.

Moving on to the sounds, they are dreadful. The music is some horrible, generic synth-whatever that you'd only hear in a browser game. Dialogues and VA are fine, not much to say about that.

But the gun sounds... they're horrible. They're exclusively generic, stock sounds pulled from some royalty-free library that you heard a million times before while playing low-budget games. Whenever I hear a gunshot in this anime I literally have a flashback to the time I played a game that sound was used in before. It's a horrible, jarring experience and any gun enthusiast will be immediately put off by that. If they really wanted to sell those gunfights, they'd have sent a crew over to a gun range in the US and recorded the sounds those guns make in real life. It's not that difficult or expensive, but I guess they wanted to save money so they went with royalty-free sounds. Disappointing, to say the least.

Characters are there. Not much more to say. Just your typical array of tropes and stereotypes. But the biggest disappointment was the anime's focus on the AR15 pattern rifles as the main protagonists of the series. I mean, you have an anime about personifications of guns, and instead of showing of how diverse firearms can be, you choose a bunch of AR15 pattern rifles, which look almost the same, function almost the same, and are essentially different configurations of the same damn firearm. Sure, in the later episodes we get a few glimpses of other firearms, like the German MG3, G36 and MP5, we get a brief introduction to MAC-10 and a couple of Russian firearms like PPSh-41 and Mosin-Nagant, but for the most part they play minor roles and we only get a couple of short glimpses at them before the story picks back up with the AR15 family. So if you like AR15 pattern rifles, you may be somewhat satisfied, but not really.

Overall, it's a huge disappointment. Not only does this series fail to live up to it's premise, it somehow almost intentionally avoids it for the most part. In my opinion it's nothing but a cash-grab from whoever sponsored this nonsense. If you're a gun enthusiast like myself, you're not losing anything by skipping this one.

Have you ever bore witness to a passing acquaintance who had great aspirations and a bright future ahead of them, only to later find them washed-up or otherwise unheard of? If you take that sort of painful emotional contrast and bewilderment and mix in the morbid curiosity that comes from slowing down in traffic and rubbernecking to stare at a car accident in the side lane over, you get the experience of watching the Girls' Frontline (or Dolls' Frontline) anime. If you liked the ingame story and if you liked the manga, you're going to either hate the show or drag yourself through watching it whilein excruciating pain.

Story: about 4 Calicos out of 10 FN Herstals.

Imagine going for a decently-sized meal at a steakhouse. You're going to order a steak—maybe a New York Strip—but a steak is not without its sides. The richness of the steak may be overwhelming, and you need something to accompany it, or have beforehand so not as to screw up your appetite. Additionally, you should take your time, otherwise you're just gonna end up wasting away in that booth, letting your food get cold, and you'll have to take out. That's essentially how I'm feeling with Girls' Frontline. Biting into Girls' Frontline's story, going from Episode 1, was like swatting aside the side dishes and biting directly into that rich steak. Whoever's directing and storyboarding was seriously cashing in on the guys who have already read the manga or have been dedicating themselves to the lore, because the anime did the thing of just kind of throwing people into the fray.

People who already know the IP and the source material will still be perturbed in seeing that the feelings and tone conveyed in the anime betray the tones of desperation in the manga and in the game. For people who haven't touched the game, or have gone very superficially into it and/or the manga, it's pretty darn bad. You're just kind of immediately thrown into the ordeal, and only given the impression of funky-looking anime girls with guns running around in the snow rather than the more serious and threatening aura in the source material. It does very little to explain what's happening and what makes these characters special, and the first episode is so bad that it would have been better if the entire episode was just an exposition lore dump before they moved on. The pacing is a rollercoaster with a rocket engine strapped to the back of it, or a TV remote about to run out of battery so you have to shake it every now and then for a boost of energy. I can only pray it gets better later on, and that the storyboarders salvage this mess.

Art: 3 Kancolle potatoes out of 10 Arknights CGs. Incredibly choppy animation at times to where I think you can see the girls running cycle consisting of like 3 or 4 frames looped, and the guns can be so poorly drawn that it would make Gun Jesus Ian McCollum grip his chest in pain, and John Garand is purposefully clipping his thumbs off. I was originally forgiving of the guns being massively huge, until M4A1's... M4A1 began dissolving and the parts of the gun started playing leap frog in between scenes and cuts. None of the shots are eye candy, and there was very clear laziness with the dummy-linked dolls to where it's all copy-pasted and looped.

Sound: 2 Hollywood suppressors out of 10 ArmA 3 JSRS Soundmods. I don't know what to say. For an anime about girls that have guns, the guns don't bark, they pew and they sound weak. It's painfully less than average.

Character: 5 "em-fows" out of 10 "Junyahs". I feel like some of the traits of, for example, the AR team are too exaggerated. M4A1 acting too seiso, M16 seeming more carefree and reckless rather than experienced and wise. Sheesh. At least they have the archetypes down.

Conclusion: anime based on games tend to suck, and unfortunately not even a hyperborean lore giant of immense scale in the world of gacha games could break the spell. I can only wish for the best, but connecting to the steakhouse comparison: I can't handle the richness, so I'm letting the steak get cold and I'm reheating it at home later whenever I don't have food to eat.

I honestly feel the anime was a hugely missed opportunity. The idea of gun packing waifus kicking ass is pretty appealing but the whole anime is sub-par. The story was decent but it had way too many plot holes in it. Especially certain episodes where there were some new details introduced into the story, but it never really made clear how those details affected the story or it simply dropped it there. The animation during the fights wasn't the greatest but I personally didn't mind it, though it may bother some people, which is completely understandable. The characters were probably the only thing Iliked, not necessarily because of their personality and all, but because of the idea of them being named after the guns they used, which is pretty cool and their definite waifu material as well.

I haven't read the manga or played the game so I can't make a comparison to the anime, but I feel like they weren't done justice with this anime adaptation. Although the Opening animation and Ending song are awesome. To conclude, this anime could've been better but it fell out to be pretty average.