Anime Spotlight #18: RWBY Tuesday

Article by Sean Wilkinson,
a.k.a. The Animeister

I was originally going to put this off until next Monday, but just by chance, I happened to hear a certain Rolling Stones song on my local, classic rock station, and smacked myself in the forehead for not thinking of this sooner. If I can't do AniMonday and Halloween on the same day without killing my analytics (and because RWBY was only anime-inspired in its original form), I would do RWBY Tuesday. So here, without further ado, here are my summarial thoughts on the first eight seasons (called Volumes to keep with the fairy tale inspirations of the show) of RWBY so far, as well as the recent anime adaptation, RWBY: Ice Queendom.

Actually, there's a bit of ado because I'd like to remind you at this point to like and comment down below, beware a few spoilers, and tell you that RWBY is available to stream on Rooster Teeth, and its Japanese dub and Ice Queendom adaptation can be found at CrunchyRoll.

Created by Rooster Teeth, RWBY is a CGI magical girl/shonen/school web series that takes inspiration from steampunk and fairy tales. With its on-the-nose character names, deceptively simplistic animation style (which has caught a lot of criticism despite how fluid and epic it is), short episode time, frenetic action scenes, slapstick comedy, and somewhat predictable plot mechanics, RWBY seems to be geared toward a younger audience, but is in reality, better, deeper, more complex, sometimes darker in tone, more socially aware, and more badass than it has any right to be.
RWBY follows the titular four high school students (peppy team leader Ruby Rose, proper ice princess Weiss Schnee--that’s Snow White in German, and yes, she has powers to match--prideful powerhouse Yang Xiaolong--who is Korean despite having a Chinese name, blonde hair and blue eyes--who is also Ruby’s stepsister, and secretive, introverted Goth ninja cat-girl Blake Belladonna) through many trials typical of its anime genre, keeping a light and humorous tone through its first two Volumes despite escalating threats to their city, school, and surrounding territories from Grimm (ink-black animal-like monsters that can sense negative emotions) and more humanoid foes.
Perhaps due to a change in management after series creator Monty Oum’s passing, the third Volume (the obligatory fighting tournament/festival season) takes a sharp turn into darker subject matter and larger stakes (which both pissed me off and pleasantly surprised me).
After heavy losses in Volume Three, Volume Four shifts character dynamics and focuses heavily on recovery, coping, and journeys both physical and metaphorical, but otherwise doesn’t really resolve anything. It feels necessary, but ends too soon with too much unexplained, and is just there as a bridge from Volume Three to Volume Five.
Volume Five, on the other hand, ties up almost everything that Four left hanging and brings the core team back together for some action set-pieces that are bigger by epic degrees than anything the series has done up to this point.
Volume Six is sort of the villains' Volume Four, dealing with shifting alliances, motivations, and the consequences of their resounding defeat in Volume Five's finale. On the heroes' side of things, it's mostly a MacGuffin escort mission with some polarizing lore dumps, a heart-wrenching bit of closure for one of the supporting characters, and the introduction of a charismatic new mentor for Ruby, ending with a hilarious, multi-episode heist plan and a three-way battle between our heroes, a Godzilla-like Grimm, and a giant mech.
Following their successful aircraft heist, Volume Seven sees the heroes make their way to the slums beneath Weiss' home city of Atlas (a floating aristocracy akin to the one in Elysium), where new and old foes try to sabotage local politics and exploit the region's institutional classism, an old friend and fan favorite character makes an unexpected return, and the series' main villain (and long-time narrator) finally decides to take matters into their own hands. Meanwhile, Team RWBY are introduced to the Ace Ops (name inspired by Aesop's Fables), a by-the-book military squad that serve as mentors and shaky allies to our titular team, but are so obviously set up to be rivals when circumstances go full-on Season Three dark once again.
The dark tone, scheming, and distrust reach a fever pitch in Volume Eight, as personal motives lead to disastrous consequences on both sides in the midst of a massive Grimm invasion. Considering the focus on MacGuffin hunting, the main villain taking a more bold, direct approach in achieving their goals, and the "no one is safe" ending, think of this Volume as RWBY's attempt to capitalize on Infinity War and Endgame hype. Of course, RWBY has gone fatalistic and defeatist before, and there is a ninth Volume scheduled to release in early 2023, so don't expect death to stick for everyone.
Despite its sudden, drastic tonal shifts, RWBY is an enjoyable thrill ride from start to finish and features some amazing theme music from Casey Williams (a new song every Volume, and all of them bangers). Going back to my rating system from the Anime-BAW days, RWBY is not a perfect show, but definitely one of the Best.

The same cannot be said of the Ice Queendom anime so far. While it features much of the original voice cast providing their services for the English dub (also, the original series' Japanese dub actors voice their Ice Queendom counterparts), the attempts to recreate classic action scenes with hand-drawn animation lack the smoothness of even the early Volumes' computer-generated animation, the theme music doesn't feel right (more jazzy, whereas the original themes were high-energy, chick metal anthems and power ballads), the plot beats of the original are choppily edited together and rushed through to accommodate a new storyline about a species of Grimm that feeds on dreams and personal insecurities, and a new Huntress character who looks like a villain and specializes in capturing (but not killing) these new Grimm. I'll still watch to see how this new story unfolds, but as a long-time fan of classic RWBY, I am biased against Ice Queendom for its unfaithful treatment of the source material and inferior animation.

Stay Tuned for next Monday, as I revisit the harem genre as filtered through a very popular shonen series.

Animeister,
Out.