Girls' Frontline

Did You Know?

• The game was the 3rd top-grossing game on Google Play and 5th on the Apple App Store in South Korea in 2017.
• The sequel Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium released in 2023 for the Chinese market and in 2024 worldwide.
• Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery is a remake of the original dōjin game Code Name: Bakery Girl, set 30 years after Girls' Frontline.

Development and release

MICA Team began as a dōjin club of three people and expanded to 117 employees during development. The parent company Sunborn secured government support and tax exemptions following Chinese premier Li Keqiang's 2015 proposal to support domestic entrepreneurship. The game's premise was inspired by Kantai Collection, but with anthropomorphized warships replaced by firearms, based on the team's expectation that similar moe anthropomorphism games would become popular in China.

Game producer Huang Chong (pseudonym Yuzhong) worked with former university confidant Yao Meng, who handled operations. The game was originally to be published under Yao Meng's company Array Network Technology, but personal conflicts led them to part ways; Yao Meng later founded Yostar, which published Azur Lane. A major conflict arose from network issues during testing, with both sides blaming each other. Yuzhong later said his team had only dōjin game experience and limited understanding of online games and backend development. Art director Zhong Qixiang (pseudonym Haimao) left MICA Team in 2016 to form Hypergryph, which released Arknights.

Collaboration events

Girls' Frontline has held several collaboration events with other games and franchises. In September 2018, the PlayStation 4 rhythm game DJMax Respect added three Girls' Frontline songs as DLC, and time-limited DJMax Respect missions appeared in the global Girls' Frontline release in May 2020. A Guns Girl Z collaboration in November 2017 for the Chinese release featured characters as guest T-Dolls. In November 2018, a crossover with Arc System Works brought Noel Vermillion from BlazBlue and Elphelt Valentine from Guilty Gear as recruitable allies.

A 2019 collaboration with VA-11 Hall-A added mission events and characters as obtainable T-Dolls. In 2020, a Gunslinger Girl collaboration made five cyborgs obtainable with themed missions and puzzles. In January 2020, a collaboration with Tom Clancy's The Division saw T-Dolls join an online tournament, introducing Agent 416 and Agent Vector. A February 2023 Zombie Land Saga collaboration added seven anime characters.

A Dropkick on My Devil! collaboration began November 16, 2021, featuring Jashin-chan and four others. In May 2024, a Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 collaboration added Motoko Kusanagi and two others. A November 2024 Arena Breakout collaboration launched on the Chinese server, releasing elsewhere the following year. In July 2025, Call of Duty: Mobile season 7 implemented Girls' Frontline cosmetics.

Media

A chibi-style anime series with 12 short episodes ran on Tokyo MX and BS11 from October 5 to December 21, 2019. A follow-up set of animated shorts followed, streaming on Bilibili and airing on the same Japanese channels from December 28, 2019, to March 14, 2020. The Bilibili versions use Mandarin Chinese voice acting, while the Japanese broadcasts are in Japanese. A full anime television series was announced on January 22, 2021, produced by Warner Bros. Japan and animated by Asahi Production.

Directed by Shigeru Ueda, with Hideyuki Kurata handling series composition, Masaki Yamada designing characters, and Takashi Watanabe composing the music, it aired from January 8 to March 26, 2022, on Tokyo MX, BS11, and AT-X. The opening theme is "BAD CANDY" by yukaDD, and the ending theme is "HORIZON" by Team Shachi. Funimation licensed the series outside Asia, while Muse Communication handled South and Southeast Asia. An English dub appeared on Funimation's website on February 4, 2022.

An official manga series illustrated by Miharu began monthly online in Chinese on Bilibili in July 2019, and is also serialized in Japanese in Monthly Comic Rex. Four official manga anthology volumes titled Dolls Frontline Dengeki Comic Anthology and another four-volume anthology by Ichijinsha called Dolls Frontline Comic Anthology have been released. The game's theme song "Frontline!" is performed in Korean by Guriri with music by M2U. A second theme, "What Am I Fighting For," features vocals by Akino.

The soundtrack includes guest tracks from Basiscape. A character song collection titled "ECHOES" came out on August 26, 2020.