I'm someone who seeks knowledge of what I like. Anime, manga, games such as JRPGs, etc.. Whether its themes in the story, the production or the creative process, I often look into works that have been... well, overlooked in one way or another. 日本語まだまだです。
So there's been some buzz lately about some guy on Youtube makin' & up uploadin' a video that's about RWBY, Monty Oum & letters. But I'd figured now would be a good time to remind everyone that last year, I've made a few videos of my own dissecting to the best of my ability on what Monty Oum's vision for RWBY was.
Part 1 is where I touch on how RWBY got started, when each person was recruited and the months of development prior to volume 1's premiere. Part 2 dives into what was actually intended during the creative process. What works of fiction Monty took inspiration from, which people he took inspiration from, how he approached coming up with various ideas and most importantly, what he wanted viewers to take away from watching RWBY. And finally, part 3 gets into the nitty-gritty about how much of his vision was preserved since his passing and addressing & counter-arguing certain criticisms, including a rather well-known document.
Now, having said all that...
Are these videos put together long? Oh yeah & I'm sorry for that, so no pressure taking your time with them (there's been a lot of those over the years).
Is the audio mixing & video editing great? Eeeehh, could've been better. I've definitely been learning more since then.
Do they tackle a very sensitive subject? Oh don't even get me started on how self-conscious I felt when writing the script alone! Heck, I don't feel comfortable about putting those sentences on the video thumbnails!
But I guarantee you that I was very careful to do (among other things) something most critics & fans would NEVER think to do: research! As proof, here's a document of most of the sources I used
that can be found online, all in one available place!Also, these videos have attracted some of the same copy-pasta responses and most were unfortunately not the ones I hoped for, but definitely the ones I saw coming. I've made a pinned comment that addresses all of them under my videos on Youtube, but let's go over some of them:
"In the end, Monty really wanted to [insert thing that everyone assumes he wanted]." - Cool, you should still watch all three videos. This is part 1 for a reason. It's a dense topic and not everything will be covered here.
"In the end, we don't really know everything that Monty wanted." - You're right, we may never know EVERY little thing that he wanted (I mean, I don't know how RWBY is suppose to end, do you?). You should still watch all three videos. I'll respect you more if you do. You may even learn something that you didn't already know.
"In the end, Monty didn't even know what he wanted." - Nice try. Watch all three videos please. I'll respect you more if you at least tried to pay attention.
"It doesn't matter if they follow Monty's vision or not. The story sucks." - Boy, do I have a LOT to say about that. All I'll say for now though is a) Cool to know that you don't care. I do though, hence why these videos exist. Also, hardly ever talk about the quality of the story across these videos.
Again, that's just some of the responses I've come to expect.
Tales of Berseria Remastered announced for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC via STEAM.
Coming February 27, 2026 for the West (February 26 for Japan).
Similar to other games in the Tales of Remastered Project, Tales of Berseria Remastered highlights its quality of life improvements, such as a destination icon during exploration, original DLC costumes included, the grade shop being accessible from the start, and encounter toggling.
I've recently had to go through the horrifying task of pirating NFS U2, since it isn't sold anymore. wading through keygens that contain malware, I finally found one that worked. I could have, and preferred, to pay 5 - 10 bucks to just buy it on origin, download and run it, since it works perfectly fine, if you don't mind the resolution options. So why isn't this an option? am I missing some major hurdle to overcome before raking in basically free cash?
When a popular (but old) game doesn’t get a re-release, it’s usually one of two possible options here.
Option 1: The numbers aren’t financially feasible
Somebody probably crunched the numbers and decided that there wouldn’t be enough sales to justify getting a small team of engineers and artists to go and update the game to run on current hardware. Remember, NFSU2 came out in 2004 and was targeted at PS2, Xbox, Gamecube, and Windows 98/XP. A lot has changed since then, and updating the software to run on 64 bit architecture via Origin is a nontrivial task.
Option 2: The old archived data are lost
This is a far more likely scenario. NFSU2 was developed by EA Black Box, which had a large round of layoffs (as well as studio consolidation) in 2008, and was eventually closed in 2013. Most of the old devs have scattered to the winds, meaning almost nobody available knows how the game was constructed. Furthermore, there’s no guarantee that the old data archives were actually kept in any good or working order. Sad and scary as it might seem, there’s a lot of old games that are essentially lost to history because we no longer have the original code or assets available due to archival failure. I remember my studio was once looking into doing a remaster of a much-beloved game from their own past, but that project was cancelled because the archived data had been corrupted. Other devs I’ve spoken to about the matter told me that several times, they had to reverse-engineer the assets from the retail copy of the old game because those assets were unavailable due to corrupted archives.
Sadly, this is a lot more commonplace occurrence than you might think.Hard drives fail. Contracts expire. Old storage gets lost or corrupted. People who know how to do things end up leaving the company. Publishers pay much closer attention to the projects that are currently in development than they focus on maintaining their archives, especially when the archives are only worth a fraction of the revenue of a new product. The sad fact of the matter is… we’ve lost a lot of gaming history this way, even if nobody will ever admit it.
The other thing is, specific to games like Need For Speed Underground, is that the music for the soundtracks are often only licensed out for a single release of the game. In order for a publisher to put out a re-release or HD remaster of some description, they’d need to re-license every single song. Which can be a nightmare because the asking price will have gone up and the rights may have changed hands in the past few years.
So what was once just a deal with one or two record labels can turn into a real wild goose chase as rights have been scattered to the winds.
We really don’t plan ahead in the entertainment industry…
This is actually a very salient point that I had forgotten when writing the original post, and it applies to far more than just music. When we build games, we often license other intellectual properties (e.g. Batman, Lego, NFL, etc.) and software suites (Bink, RAD, Unreal Engine, Havoc). Licenses are legal contracts that allow us to use those things for a certain amount of time in exchange for money (usually some up front payment, plus a percentage of the sales). After the license expires, we lose the legal right to sell those things.
This happens reasonably often, too - the changeover from EA Sports’ Tiger Woods Golf to Rory McIlroy PGA Tour was due to the licensing contract with Woods not being renewed. The MMOG Warhammer: Age of Reckoning was shut down because the license with Games Workshop was not renewed. You can’t buy digital versions or DLC for Marvel vs Capcom 3 or Activision’s Deadpool game anymore because those licenses expired, and so on and so forth. Whenever a game uses licensed music, we’re looking at an individual license for each rights-holding record label involved.
Hi y'all! Recently, RWBY YouTuber Faboover made a new RWBY video in the style of the American programming block, Toonami. This time it's of volume 9, chapter 5 of the Japanese dub and I once again helped provide English translations. Please take a look.
End Card made by Samster299
Music: "Music: "Arpeggio" by Jackson and His Computer Band
Prior RWBY Toonami fan-made promo from Faboover that I helped provide translatons for:
(JP) RWBY Volume 9 - Toonami (Fan-Made) Promo
Music: "Rosies" by Amon Tobin
Other fan-made RWBY Toonami promos from Faboover:
English & Japanese versions of RWBY: Ice Queendom [Prologue] - Toonami (Fan-Made) Promo
Music: "Everything Is Under Control (DJ Kentaro Remix)" by Coldcut
English & Japanese versions of RWBY: Ice Queendom [Main Story] - Toonami (Fan-Made) Promo
Music: "Toxisphere" by Ethereal Universe
English & Japanese versions of RWBY: Ice Queendom Ep. 10 - Toonami (Fan-Made) Promo
Music: "Mayuri" by Gold Panda
Thoughts - RWBY Vol. 6: Design Pt. 2/2 (Feedback of editing of script provided by me)
The Apathy: Influences, Design & Implementation
Ruby VS The Furious Cat - The EVOLUTION of Shot | Reverse Shot
Yang VS Adam - A Brief Animation BREAKDOWN
Over-Analyzing Kissing in RWBY for ALMOST 15 Minutes
Hi y'all! Recently, RWBY YouTuber Faboover made a new RWBY video in the style of the American programming block, Toonami. This time it's of volume 9, chapter 5 of the Japanese dub and I once again helped provide English translations. Please take a look.
End Card made by Samster299
Music: "Music: "Arpeggio" by Jackson and His Computer Band
Prior RWBY Toonami fan-made promo from Faboover that I helped provide translatons for:
(JP) RWBY Volume 9 - Toonami (Fan-Made) Promo
Music: "Rosies" by Amon Tobin
Other fan-made RWBY Toonami promos from Faboover:
English & Japanese versions of RWBY: Ice Queendom [Prologue] - Toonami (Fan-Made) Promo
Music: "Everything Is Under Control (DJ Kentaro Remix)" by Coldcut
English & Japanese versions of RWBY: Ice Queendom [Main Story] - Toonami (Fan-Made) Promo
Music: "Toxisphere" by Ethereal Universe
English & Japanese versions of RWBY: Ice Queendom Ep. 10 - Toonami (Fan-Made) Promo
Music: "Mayuri" by Gold Panda
Thoughts - RWBY Vol. 6: Design Pt. 2/2 (Feedback of editing of script provided by me)
The Apathy: Influences, Design & Implementation
Ruby VS The Furious Cat - The EVOLUTION of Shot | Reverse Shot
Yang VS Adam - A Brief Animation BREAKDOWN
Over-Analyzing Kissing in RWBY for ALMOST 15 Minutes
My Main RWBY IQ Toonami Promo is now up. This wraps up all the Promos I had planned from V9 to JLXRWBY and IQ. I think I did pretty well with this one.
There is something really weird about people who bailed on RWBY because they felt it wasn't queer enough for them. Only to go and stan a series with like, literally one canonized gay character and very limited story but act like its the gayest thing in the world.
Like what you like.
But I think in this case its pretty clear they were more interested in having something akin to a toy box or sandpit to play with; rather than an actual story.
But they don't want to admit that and so have to pretend there's something wrong with RWBY's queer rep to justify their interest in the new thing because media engagement is a contest I guess?
It’s cool to see an anime studio with a following like Shaft work on RWBY Ice Queendom. But what do all of these other names like Good Smile Company, Bandai Namco Music Live and KLab have to do with the Ice Queendom anime.
They’re not anime studios, so they’re not important. Or are they? You can find out in my video where I examine more closely the planning behind RWBY Ice Queendom.
Sources used for the video included here and will be updated over time.
Depending on where you frequent, you may have heard from either showrunner and director of the main RWBY series, Kerry Shawcross that talks for what would eventually be the RWBY Ice Queendom anime started at either an Anime Expo or another big convention several years ago.
But, did you also know that Monty Oum and the president of Good Smile Company met up at a New York Comic-Con once and that the same president of Good Smile Company was the one who offered Gen Urobuchi to be involved in the Ice Queendom anime? Find out all the details in my new video where I attempt to figure out the planning behind RWBY Ice Queendom.
RWBY Ice Queendom will be collaborating with Cure Maid Cafe (キュアメイドカフェ), located in Akihabara, Japan, the first maid cafe establishment in Japan.
The collaboration is scheduled from August 19th to September 4th, 2022. Of course, it will be in Japan only.
This is not the first time RWBY has had an official collaboration with a restaurant. Back in 2017, to commemorate the release of the Japanese dub of volume 4, a tie-up campaign was announced
with Akihabara Sight-Seeing Map "Ad Street” (「アド街っぷ」), featuring RWBY-themed dishes and free limited postcards to any customers. Various Japanese fans had posted pictures of their respective visits at the time or at the very least have talked about it.
Kemikake
Talbain
Sorsan
Peiyang
bagmanOtaku
Takabaji
But this upcoming collaboration will be a bit different in that it will be the first event from a maid cafe proper.
With the 4th episode of RWBY Ice Queendom about to premiere, I wanted to take a moment to talk about the opening theme. I don’t know what exactly the general response is (nor do I really want to know), but it’s worth understanding that the opening for episodes 1-3 is likely a placeholder.
I’m not the first person to bring this up, as others have already mentioned this elsewhere. Having an opening theme for an anime premiere with reused footage and then be updated with new footage is a fairly common practice in the anime industry. This can be either due to scheduling issues or to coincide with a phase in the story or some other matter.
RWBY Ice Queendom is not even the first anime directed by Toshimasa Suzuki to have updated footage. I mention this previously on Twitter, but the 2012 anime Rinne no Lagrange is a good example of this. The second opening in particular reuses footage from the first opening. However, by episode 15, it updates with new animation and even slight change in the compositing, as seen in the above video.
With a new promotional video for the next phase in RWBY Ice Queendom’s story, don’t be too surprised if new footage for the opening will be shown, maybe even with storyboards done by Suzuki this time.
By the way, for those interested in learning about the likely planning that went into getting RWBY Ice Queendom to exist, I made a video on the subject. It comes with English subtitles too!
