English Dub Review: Girls’ Frontline “WAKE UP”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

A new commander named Gentiane arrives, meets the T-Dolls, and is given her first mission. It goes successfully and the dolls like taking orders from her because she values their safety. But when Scarecrow pops up, they aren’t prepared and the group gets blown up when she self-destructs.

Our Take:

Do you like guns? Do you like girls? If you answered yes to both questions, than this show might be for you. If not, then welcome to hell. I exaggerate a bit, but for real: gun battles and a bunch of female-looking Androids are all this show has going for it.

Episode two introduces us to a human commander named Gentiane. She’s not super motivated at first, but she seems to be a good leader and she gets to know the T-Dolls who will be under her charge, which makes them like her. They go on a training mission of sorts and it goes well, but then on another mission they’re surprised by a rogue doll named Scarecrow who, while beaten, is able to self-destruct and take the dolls with her.

That’s the run of things in episode two, and I’m officially thinking this is probably one of the worst shows I’ve watched in a while. There’s no storyline, just the thinnest of background details: war, robots, rogue AI. There are no characters, just Androids who have no character traits beyond happy, scared, and hungry. (Why are robots complaining about being hungry?)

Commander Gentiane is the most interesting person in the show, simply because she’s basically the only human we’ve met so far. I doubt that we’ll be getting much backstory on her or even much character development, but I am curious as to why she’s so attached to these robots already when they can be rebuilt and instantly have their memories restored.

Not even the technical details can save the show because it just looks awful. Uninspired character designs and bland background art combined with passionless direction and some of the most boring battle sequences you can imagine makes for show that is actively difficult to watch. Thankfully, the dub is fine—I actually really liked Arryn Zech’s performance as Gentiane. It’s hard to imbue character into such a lifeless series, but she did a good job making me want to care about Gentiane’s success.

Girls’ Frontline is based on a mobile game and it shows. There’s no storylines. There’s no sense of tension or character. All of the characters in combat are robots who can be resurrected so there’s not even a sense of danger in the action. I really don’t know who would enjoy this to be honest. All I know is I sure don’t.