#reviewby

[i-am-the-entertainer]

So uh...I stopped writing RWBY reviews because I’m liking this season so much I don’t feel like doing a deep dive.

[freevoidman]

So, I just saw the Adam Character Short and I’m... surprisingly okay with it? But I’m also disappointed in some regards.

SPOILERS FOR THE CHARACTER SHORT BELOW

POSITIVES

Okay, so my biggest fear for the short was assuaged: we didn’t see Adam’s face, nor did we get a horribly contrived explanation as to why he wears the mask. I’ve had problems with the masks for the White Fang members being based off of the Grimm for YEARS (probably ever since Volume 2) since the Grimm are essentially cannon fodder, but at the very least, Adam’s reasoning wasn’t that he wanted to remind humanity of “the real monsters” or some shit.

(as a side note, I am also relieved they never showed his face in this short. There were two scenes where they could’ve done it, and it got close, but they didn’t and I’m so damn happy. I don’t ever really want to see this asshole’s face)

Both fight scenes (the townsfolk vs. the white fang and the White Fang invading the Schnee Dust Company) were both great compared to Volume 5′s abysmal fight scenes. Everything was quick, people felt like they had weight behind them, and Adam really fucked shit up. We FINALLY get to see blood from a person who’s dead, which in my mind is a massive improvement, as before there was almost a reluctance to show a lot of blood. Even when Weiss was wounded, there wasn’t much blood to show this (though I personally think its because the spear cauterized the wound but, whatever). I’m hoping now that there won’t be as much of a reluctance and we’ll see more during big fight scenes (bloody nose, blood dripping down a face, SOMETHING other than a pained grunt indicating a person’s hurt).

Finally, and this one was a big good for me, was that we got to see Adam being manipulative and emotionally abusive to Blake during their relationship. Even in Volume 3, I could brush Adam’s harsh lines off as Blake abandoning their cause and Adam thinking he betrayed her. Now it is very clear that Adam was not a great boyfriend during their relationship during the show that wasn’t Blake telling someone “yeah he was a dick.” It’s a small scene where there’s a bit more show than tell, and I’m happy that it was included.

This also cleared up, for me, why Ghira would be willing to hand the title of High Leader off to Sienna Khan when she... didn’t exist before Volume 5 killed her off after five minutes. They were colleagues and, clearly, Sienna was much less violent than Adam, but more violent than Ghira. I’m just glad the two had some kind of relationship, instead Ghira just leaving and handing the title to a no-name person and hoping for the best.

Along with this, it also clears up why Sienna pardoned Adam so much and allowed him to continue with his violent methods. She approved of most of it, especially since he had a good reputation before she was appointed to High Leader, and she held Adam in a very high regard. She considered him a valuable asset to making progress, and never thought that he’d turn against her, which is probably why she let him continue with his more violent methods.

NEGATIVES

Okay, minor things out of the way first:

There’s a bunny Faunus that jumps out of a vehicle into the path of the gunfire, who then magically runs around the camera only to teleport behind the car he was initially driving. It doesn’t look like he made a mad dash around the car, it straight up looks like teleporting.

In the Schnee Dust Company Fight scene, a team of humans throw a smoke grenade to disorient the White Fang, but don’t immediately start shooting. They’re in a straight hallway with only two ways to go, they have no reason not to shoot, and yet they don’t.

At the end of the trailer (which is supposed to be a post-Battle of Haven scene) we see Adam stumbling away like he’s exhausted and just got the shit kicked out of him. I think Adam, out of all the ‘bad guys’ in the battle, was hit the least. Emerald didn’t get hit at all, Mercury got headbutted (or... chin-butted?), and Adam got a really bad knock on the head from Blake but other than that he parried every shot so... why is he so affected?

The scene transitions in the short range from semi-okay to terrible, in that there’s no way to exactly tell how much time has passed, and in one instance, you don’t even know that a transition has happened. The main transitions I’m talking about are the White Fang vs. Townsfolk to Blake and Adam talk, and the Sienna and Adam scene to Adam being the High Leader.

In the first, you can’t immediately tell Adam and Blake talking probably occurs several months after the fight scene. I genuinely thought that this was within the same day, or maybe the day after. Granted, it’s in Forever Fall (probably???) but since the audience doesn’t know where Adam is going in the prior scene, the transition makes it appear as if this happens shortly after they arrive at wherever they were going to. It took Adam bringing up Ghira stepping down for me to realize that a lot of time had passed, and that’s... really bad. I should’ve been aware much sooner that probably several months, maybe even years had passed. It’s not apparent, as Adam doesn’t age throughout the short, and there’s nothing to indicate a large passage of time at the start. Remember, Forever Fall is... forever in fall. Seeing the red leaves doesn’t tell me that time has passed, it just tells me I’m in a new location in this scenario.

The second is easily the worst transition holy shit. If you thought my complaint above was bad, the second is even worse. There is absolutely nothing between these two scenes that tells me time has passed, or that I’m in a new scene. It’s a still image of the main door, which Adam just walked through, a moment of silence with a torch flickering, and then a group of White Fang soldiers run in calling for the High Leader, WHICH IS NOW ADAM TAURUS, to tell him that the attack on Haven might be a bit more complicated.

THERE ISN’T A TRANSITION HERE. IT’S THE WORST. AT LEAST HAVE THE SCREEN FADE OUT A BIT, OR HAVE A DIFFERENT CAMERA ANGLE, OR START THE SCENE OFF WITH US STARING AT ADAM ON THE THRONE. SOMETHING.

Ghira and Sienna never wear a White Fang mask at any point in the short, which is just baffling to me. They both have distinctive faces and body types, and they’re probably two of the more important people in the White Fang, so anonymity would make sense. Ghira I can sort of understand, as he was all for peace and he wouldn’t want to hide behind a mask, but... Sienna is never seen with one. Even when Sienna and Adam are storming the Schnee Dust Company, she doesn’t wear one, and she’s more than likely the High Leader of the White Fang at this point. She also doesn’t cover her body’s tiger stripes, which makes her even more recognizable. Wouldn’t she want to keep people from recognizing her, especially since she’s so important to the White Fang?

My biggest problem with this is that it’s setting Adam up to be a badass, but after getting his ass kicked and running away in Volume 5′s finale, it has little-to-no affect. The first 75% should have been the trailer for Volume 5, as it maintained Adam being a bad-ass and tough to beat, but it also would’ve set him up as a big antagonist. Granted, the let-down would’ve been the same, but god damn it’s disappointing to watch this bad-ass short with actually good choreography, but know that Adam’s been kicked down so many pegs he might as well just be a gun-for-hire at this point in the story. It’s... disappointing. Especially since I can’t see Adam being an antagonist with a major role this volume.

[i-am-the-entertainer]

RevieWBY Volume 7, Chapter 1: “The Greatest Kingdom”

Weeeeee are back, people!

This is the first episode of RWBY we’ve had in 8 months, and it’s coming on the heels of a year where RT finally had to reconcile with its many changes: the Glassdoor controversy, the general less-than-expected success of gen:LOCK, and of course the layoffs, all this culminating in the complete restructuring of the company last month. A big question on everyone’s mind was “Will this restructuring, which is supposed to allow better quality of life for Rooster Teeth’s animators, equal a better-made show?”

Well...the answer in my eyes is actually a little complicated...

You Had Me At “Sal”

So right off the bat I want to say that from an overall story perspective, I wasn’t particularly impressed by this premiere––I’ll go into more detail about that later. But from a technical standpoint, this was a very well-made chapter. The attention to detail, from small movements the characters make in their reactions, to little particle effects that give weight to a fighter’s actions, really showed off just how much polish you can get when you give animators the time to give the work their all, instead of rushing everything to meet the arbitrarily chosen deadline. Jury’s out on whether this will remain consistent for the whole volume, but in comparison to the animation in Volume 6′s premiere “Argus Limited,” which was already a pretty impressive installment from a technical standpoint, this is loads better.

That being said, this definitely isn’t my favorite of the RWBY premieres, and I think that’s because the stakes of the show as previously mentioned don’t seem as present in this as they should be. Sure we were introduced to Atlas/Mantle under a paranoid Ironwood, and we were reminded on the importance of protecting the lamp, but after finishing the episode it felt like those took a backseat. And I think that might be the fight’s fault. Because the fight sequence had to do more with a general attack by Grimm, which our heroes have faced many, many times. Because it ultimately had little to do with the events leading up to this moment, it had a lot of flash but little weight to make me truly care about it. Compare it to previous opening fights:

Volume 1: Introducing the dynamics of hunters and huntresses and a basic idea of what the series’ conflict was.

Volume 2: Pure fun, but in an innocent era of the show it was important to see the kids getting to be kids.

Volume 3: Introducing the Vytal festival.

Volume 4: Showing off team RNJR’s dynamic after the events of Volume 3.

Volume 5: Didn’t have one...but then again I think everyone (including the writers) are on the same page that it was a poorly written and rushed volume.

Volume 6: A first fight with the combined teams together again, and also a demonstration of the problem of Ozpin’s continued secrets.

We didn’t get any sort of weight like that in this fight. Grimm are attacking. It’s par for the course in Mantle, except Penny’s apparently the one fighting them off! Okay, but that’s not exactly the most inspiring reason to feature this fight. Now, if there had been something like “The Grimm seem to be attacking even more now” or if, say, the attacking Grimm were the new ones Salem made at the end of Volume 6 and everyone was like “What the hell are these, we’ve never seen these before?!” that might have added some weight. (Though I will say I’d understand if the writers were waiting to play their cards regarding those Grimm.)

The re-introduction of Penny constitutes a different issue that I think speaks to RWBY as a whole. I actually was gonna write an essay on this after Volume 5′s Weiss death fakeout, but never got around to finishing it, and it lost relevance in Volume 6 so I abandoned the thought altogether. The issue, which came up again due to Penny’s return, is that death seems to have lost meaning in this show.

Let me explain. Volume 3 changed the game in RWBY for multiple reasons due to the fact it completely blew up the premise up to that point, and part of that lay in the major character deaths. I remember the utter shock that rippled through the FNDM when Penny was killed: the show had lost an established character in a viscerally shocking manner. Then Torchwick, the first villain the audience had even seen, was dramatically killed off in a climactic battle, showing even the villains could be removed from the equation. The most shocking was Pyrrha: she was one of the lead characters, and her death thematically demonstrated that not even the leads were safe. People went into the next volume chattering, wondering “Which one of my faves is gonna get offed now?”

And then...nothing really happened. All we got for a while were: the deaths of some recurring characters either within the season they were formally introduced (Vernal and Lionheart, for starters) or after two seasons with little time devoted to their plots to really care about their deaths (Fennec Albain); major death flags but ultimately the heroes being triumphant (the Belladonna household fight); and of course, death fakeouts. With the last one, it was a cliffhanger that no one seriously believed it would be followed through with said character actually dying (Weiss––this is what my essay was gonna be about), and then a character who seemed to suffer no real consequences from getting defeated in that way (Cinder). The only major recurring character death was Adam, but that was basically being set up since Volume 5: it wasn’t an unexpected death unless you were really bad at taking the hints (coughEruptionFangcough), and at that point Adam’s role in the story was increasingly extraneous to the main plot – the show needed to get rid of him.

Which brings me back to Penny. Penny was the catalyst for the domino effect for death to have meaning on this show. By bringing her back that effect feels somewhat cheapened, especially because there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of emotional weight attached to her return: she comes back, everyone’s happy to see her again. Granted, if any of the characters from Volume 3 were able to come back it’d be Penny (I mean for god’s sake, she’s a robot), but the fact that she was the first of them to die really puts the stakes of this show in danger by seemingly suggesting “These characters are actually out of danger!”

(I’m left wondering if there will ultimately be a trade-off later this volume because of Penny’s return. Now that...that would really change things.)

Now of course, we are just in the first chapter, so maybe Miles and Kerry just haven’t played their cards yet. But considering this is something I’ve been concerned about for the last couple of volumes, it does leave the whole “Penny is back” thing feeling a bit cheap in the immediate aftermath of watching this.

Conclusions

From a story standpoint? I’m not impressed, but more on how it compares to previous RWBY premieres. Overall I think this is definitely one of the best-looking premieres RWBY has had in a while, but lacked enough stakes that would’ve made it a truly great episode.

[i-am-the-entertainer]

The Power of Ambiguity: When Some of RWBY’s Questions Are Better Left Unanswered

So, full disclosure: Volume 6, Chapter 9 “Lost” is one I have mixed feelings about. I think it fails to deliver on some major story threads this volume has introduced, and thus it stands out as a disappointing installment in what has otherwise been a stellar volume (I go into more depth about that in my full review).

But, paradoxically, I also think it contains the best scene in the volume, potentially in the show as a whole. And that scene is the one with Jaune and the Red-Haired Woman.

If upon her appearance you assumed that she was Pyrrha’s mother, you may have been left confused by her sudden disappearance and her credit as merely the “Red-Haired Woman.” I certainly was among that party, and there are still people who are unsure what to think: I’ve seen comments on the video from people who legitimately cannot figure out why the scene is framed so mysteriously.

It took me a little bit of time to realize the implications that there was more to the woman than you’d think at first glance. First up was that an autumn leaf just like the one Pyrrha saw in Volume 3′s “Destiny” was the thing that led Jaune to her statue; how does a leaf like that just magically turn up in the middle of the winter? Then there was her sudden appearance, right when Jaune was tempted to just walk away. Then we have her not introducing herself to Jaune despite clearly recognizing he knew Pyrrha, and then inexplicably disappearing right when Nora and Ren showed up with no apparent time to have left the flowers and walked away liked that. All in all, there were a lot of things about the woman that just didn’t make sense if we accepted her as Pyrrha’s mother or some kind of relative, unless she didn’t have a reason to introduce herself to Jaune: unless, and this seems almost unbelievable, she was Pyrrha herself, paying Jaune a visit from beyond the grave (or, well, dust).

Of course, you could also argue the opposite: if she’s Pyrrha’s mother then she absolutely already knows who Jaune is from watching the tournaments and presumably from Pyrrha’s communications, and she figures Jaune could probably put two-and-two together to figure out who she is. Additionally, we do hear her walking up to the statue, implying she didn’t necessarily just appear from thin air. Then you have the fact that she left the flowers on the statue, which is physical evidence that she had been there. But honestly it really could go either way. There’s nothing definitive going on here where you could say “She was Pyrrha’s mother” or “She was something supernatural.”

The thing is, it looks like some viewers are having trouble accepting this ambiguity. When I explained to one of the commenters that it was framed mysteriously to imply the Red-Haired Woman may have been Pyrrha’s spirit, the person flipped out. They claimed that having a ghost appear on a show where paranormal occurrences aren’t part of the established mythology opens a whole can of worms that would just complicate everything. In their view, the way the scene was framed implied Miles and Kerry couldn’t decide on who the woman was, so they decided to be lazy and not make a firm decision either way. That the ambiguity was an unintentional result of the writers’ indecision.

Although I understand why this commenter thinks this, they’re wrong. According to Jen Brown (the voice of Pyrrha and this mysterious woman) on her Twitch stream there is, in fact, a definitive answer as to who the woman is but she cannot give the answer and doesn’t know when or even if the writers plan to reveal it. Hero Hei speculates based on Brown’s phrasing that at least in the script, the woman is not intended to be Pyrrha’s spirit and is probably a separate character, and I would concur it does appear that Jen Brown does not agree with the “She was a ghost” camp. In their minds as the series’ writers, Miles and Kerry made a specific choice as to who the woman is.

But the thing is, on some level you do have to divorce the thoughts of the writer from the work, especially in something like visual media where changes may come in the actual scripting and direction of a scene. This sort of follows the “Death of the Author” concept of separating the writer and their thoughts from what they put down in the actual text: think JK Rowling stating all these “canon” facts about the Potter series despite not following through in the actual text she published (more info on this and the term “Death of the Author” in general in this excellent Lindsay Ellis video). Miles and Kerry know exactly who this woman is, yet they chose to write this scene in a way where her identity is not clear as written. Likewise, in film and television directors will make specific choices in how a scene is framed: Kerry and Connor chose to frame this scene in a way where the viewer cannot tell just from watching who the woman is. The woman having an answerable identity is a specific choice, but so is choosing not to give the viewer that answer.

So, you may ask, why did they do this? Well, to put it simply...it’s complicated.

It’s worth explaining that toying with the supernatural is actually quite common on television shows that don’t actively depict paranormal occurrences. It’s a trope called “Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane,” where an event is framed in a way that could lead the viewer to believe it is out of the ordinary or that it is a coincidence, and things are left just as that.

There was an episode of Bones called “The Hero in the Hold” where Booth escapes from a booby-trapped ship with the help of what he believes to be the ghost of an old army buddy who died on a mission years before: later in the season the incident is referenced when it turns out Booth has a brain tumor that is causing vivid hallucinations, and Booth’s belief that it was a ghost appears to become moot. Except in the case of this episode, this hallucination actually helps him out with escape methods that Booth could not have achieved by himself, like diffusing a bomb or retrieving a weapon that Booth cannot get to. Even Bones sees the deceased army buddy at the end of the episode without realizing who he is.

Bones has a couple of episodes where some happenings are implied to be paranormal, but the series remained to the end a procedural drama about forensic investigators––they didn’t become ghost hunters, they didn’t consult psychics on cases, absolutely none of that. And that’s the thing: writers don’t do this trope because they want to add a paranormal element. There are two things going on here:

1. It’s a narrative device designed to service the character more than it is a contribution to the series mythology

Basically, “It doesn’t matter whether or not it was magic or mundane.” With the Bones episode “The Hero in the Hold,” the fact that a ghost is haunting Booth is a framing device more than it is a plot device. Booth is kidnapped by a serial killer the team has been chasing for some time, and is left without their help. The episode is mostly about the team trying to outsmart the killer and Booth relying on his wits and resourcefulness to escape, while also dealing with the survivor’s guilt from watching his friend die years before. The ghost is there to give Booth the courage to continue, and to help him confront his past. Booth’s character development from this episode would have happened regardless of whether it was a ghost or a hallucination that spoke to him, because what happened felt real enough to him.

2. It gives the viewer something fun to think about

Think theory fodder. The writers are specifically leaving the decision in your hands––you have been granted power over a question they’ve left unanswered. How much fanfiction have you read or written about an unanswered question a show or movie or book or webcomic didn’t specifically tell you, like what happens after the story ends or where this character was when they weren’t the focus of the story? The ambiguity is trusting you to come up with your own answer. Your opinion is now an integral part of the story. Even The Twilight Zone, a show where paranormal occurrences were basically a regular thing, had one episode called “The Grave” with an ambiguously framed death which Rod Serling flat out asks the viewer to decide for themselves whether it was a normal death or caused by a vengeful ghost.

Let’s take a look at the scene of Jaune and the Red-Haired Woman again. What exactly did Jaune need in this moment?

Jaune never got any closure from Pyrrha’s death. She prevented him from helping her by forcing him to leave, and he ultimately did not witness it. He was told during Volume 4 that a choice was made for her that ultimately led her to confront Cinder. He was so torn about how she went down that he personally attempted to avenge her murder at Haven in Volume 5. Literally last episode he was told to his face that her death and everything that had led her to make the decision to fight Cinder had completely been for nothing. Seeing her statue in the park at a low moment, he is only reminded that she is not standing with the rest of her team, that she was killed in the line of battle for a hopeless cause. It’s an idea that viewers themselves have realized all volume, having learned Salem can’t be killed months ago from our perspective.

Yet the Red-Haired Woman suggests, without even needing to know everything about Jinn and Ozma, that this wasn’t really the case. “She understood that she had a responsibility to try. I don’t think she would regret her choice, because a huntress would understand that there really wasn’t a choice to make. And a huntress is what she always wanted to be.” Hearing this, Jaune adds to it: “Pyrrha never got the chance to graduate...but she was a huntress.” The woman, having needed to hear that, tearfully thanks Jaune for the words.

Now consider it: heedless of any debate of who the Red-Haired Woman is, through their conversation Jaune comes to accept that Pyrrha’s death doesn’t have to be thought of as in vain: she died as someone she had always wanted to be, a huntress who without question would fight to protect everyone, no matter the costs. When Ren and Nora arrive he shares with them this realization, and they all accept that Pyrrha’s choices were her sticking to her true self, and that they should continue their journey as she would by sticking to their devotion to be hunters and huntresses.

But now we’re back to square one. Was this woman really Pyrrha’s mother or Pyrrha’s spirit? Well, I’ll answer that question with a question: What interpretation makes this scene more powerful to you? That Pyrrha’s mother helped give Jaune closure and Jaune reassured her that her daughter was a hero? Or that Pyrrha’s spirit helped give Jaune closure and Jaune told her she died a hero? Which interpretation is the more interesting one to you?

Which brings us to a third variation of “Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane”

3. It’s both a narrative device and something fun to think about

Not only are you being provided a framework for a character’s development, you are also being given a choice to decide how you think the scene works. Whatever decision you make as to whether something is paranormal or not, it is your interpretation that maximizes the scene’s impact on you. The writer’s aren’t the ones who decide the answer, you are. And somehow, that kind of makes you part of the story.

This is why I consider this the best scene in all of Volume 6. Its main power is giving Jaune and the viewer some definitive closure over Pyrrha’s death, answers questions and conflicts over something that people have pondered about since the finale of Volume 3. And yet there’s an even bigger question posed over who the woman is. A question that the show has not answered and will not answer for sure. A question the writers have made the conscious decision to leave out of their hands.

The only person who can answer the question is you. Whatever answer satisfies you the most, that is your truth. And whatever your truth is, well, then let it be canon.

[i-am-the-entertainer]

RevieWBY: Volume 6

This has been stated so many times, but Volume 5 was bad. Okay, it wasn’t terrible, like I don’t feel offended by it being bad (unlike certain folks), but looking back on it I don’t have anything to say to really defend it as something Rooster Teeth should have talked up as much as they did at the time. It had some good things going for it, but the amount of problems it had in terms of animation and writing really put a sour taste in everyone’s mouth. So for Volume 6 to deal with all that fallout, it was going to have to do a lot. And to their credit, CRWBY accepted the criticism in stride, and actively worked to make Volume 6 something that people who despised Volume 5 might enjoy.

Still, one had to go into this season with the understanding that some people were never going to be completely satisfied with whatever CRWBY did. Because at the end of the day, the RWBY that Rooster Teeth currently makes is not Monty Oum’s show anymore. No, this isn’t saying CRWBY is in any way disrespecting his legacy, it’s just Monty Oum had a certain method to running the show that only he could really get away with: epic fight scenes, suddenly throwing giant curveballs into the series’ mythology, taking vital time away from storytelling so the fights looked cool. I mean, there are people who criticize the show for doing that now when they didn’t give two shits when Monty did it, because Monty did it in a manner that somehow worked. I don’t know how he did it, but he did, and, well, he’s not here to do it, and there’s no way even a huge animation team can collectively do things like him. And they shouldn’t: if they can use a better industry standard animation engine than Poser, than the fact that Monty Oum didn’t like animating with Maya shouldn’t stop them.

Blah blah blah...this is all about FNDM reception. What did I think of Volume 6?

Well...

Focus

In my mid-volume review I cited this as Volume 6′s strongest aspect, and as far as I can tell this remains the case. By focusing our hero storyline on one group and for the most part the villain storylines on only a few characters who were paired off, Volume 6 effectively told a story that didn’t force the viewers to juggle multiple things and find some semblance of a continuing story. Everything happened linearly and the whole thing made for a more enjoyable watch overall.

Tone

Building off of that renewed focus, this volume felt like it had more of a consistent tone that lasted from beginning to end. RWBY markets itself as an anime show and uses a lot of that anime-style of humor (slapstick and comedically exaggerated emotions), but honestly it’s always played fast and loose with using that humor in a way that doesn’t feel out of place. In this volume it was more consistently used, and that’s largely thanks to the nailed down focus that allowed character interactions to utilize the humor in a natural way. Ruby and Maria Calavera were especially good sources for humor.

Now, things did get a little more screwball when Cordovin came into the mix, but it was interesting seeing CRWBY take that humor to a logical extreme for the first time in a while (not since the Beacon years). It interrupted the tone for a bit, but not in a manner that overall changed the genre this show is going for.

Animation

Beautiful. The improved production pipeline that we’ve heard about really came through. These episodes were the best they’ve ever looked, minus a few errors here and there, showing just how amazing RWBY can look when you give the animators time to add their own touches. There was some really great fight animation to boot: none of the fights this volume felt awkward, and you could tell the animators had a lot of fun.

Worldbuilding/Storytelling

It feels weird saying that Volume 6 did a better job with worldbuilding than Volume 4, which took place on four different continents and traveled across one, and Volume 5, which took place on two different continents and featured the second major skirmish between the villains and the heroes. I think this has to do with just how well it was integrated into the story: insight into the world came at points where the story needed it and when the viewers wanted it. Nothing ever felt like a massive info dump better suited World of Remnant; where there was just too much information delivered that wasn’t relevant to what was happening in the show. Volumes 4 and 5 had this same problem with establishing the world, often telling us too much in a way that just didn’t feel natural to the story. With Volume 6, almost every chapter up until the final Argus arc included some form of that insight:

Chapter 1 showed us how ordinary civilians deal with traveling through Grimm territory––the steps they take to protect themselves

Chapter 2 showed us some aspects of the Mistral criminal underground, not telling us too much about it but suggesting it was much larger than what Cinder encountered.

Chapter 3 showed us...so many things.

Chapter 4 offered a sense of the stakes RWBY faced in relation to all of Remnant.

Chapter 5 and 6 gave us a glimpse at another form of non-city life in Remnant.

Chapter 7 introduced us to Argus, my favorite of all the Remnant cities we’ve seen; plus a glimpse into the life of the silver-eyed warriors; and a more representative depiction of what domestic life is like in Remnant

Chapter 8 told us what Atlas personnel who aren’t Ironwood or Winter are like, plus the long-awaited insight into how the silver eyes work.

Chapter 9 shows something of the effect the Battle of Beacon, and by extension Pyrrha’s death, had outside of our core group.

Things kind of teeter off with the finale arc, but that’s because worldbuilding became a little less important to what was going on. This is kind of a stretch, but the mech fight and the arrival of the Grimm in Argus give us an idea of how large non-capital cities defend themselves without just spelling everything out.

All in all, this volume delivered on some impressive worldbuilding, probably the best the series has had in a while. It wasn’t massive info dumps unless it needed to be (e.g. Chapter 3), and it offered just enough for other important things like the storytelling and the action to still be in the forefront.

Characters

Volume 5, despite the fact it involved the major reunion of Team RWBY after two volumes, felt like it was simply putting the main characters through situations without those situations really doing anything to develop them or define them as anything beyond what we already knew. Some characters fared better on the development front, namely Yang, but others, especially Ruby, just seemed to be along for the ride without us getting any insight into them. This is where the writing issue that came from separating everyone starting with Volume 4 really came to a head: too many different characters with their own story to cover, and sometimes those stories just didn’t do much for the character beyond existing as a situation they were in.

Volume 6 feels like the refutal of that, and that mostly has to do with the fact that we’re not juggling so many storylines anymore. When a major event happens to the heroes, everyone gets affected at the same time. The train crashes? DEVELOPMENT! Jinn’s story? DEVELOPMENT AND INSIGHT! Snowstorm? INSIGHT! The Apathy? DEVELOPMENT! Telling team JNR about Jinn’s story? DEVELOPMENT! Adam ambushes Blake and Yang for the first time since Volume 3? DEVELOPMENT! WITH A HEALTHY DOSAGE OF ANGST!

Surprisingly, the same thing is happening to two of our favorite villains, Mercury and Emerald: even though they only really appeared in three chapters this Volume, we actually got a surprising chance to see how their defeat at the Battle of Haven affected them, and their increasingly strong misgivings about working for Salem. We get more of an idea of them as people rather than Cinder’s blind followers, understanding why they stuck with such an evil person for so long. It’s the most we’ve learned about them since Volume 3, and we didn’t even need lengthy flashbacks.

Even Adam got some more insight. RWBY has been following the path that Adam was an abusive ex-boyfriend for quite a while now, but there was always this underlying thought that he got into the White Fang business for a seemingly noble cause. The problem was the show hadn’t depicted how he got from Point A to Point B. The Adam Character Short offered us some of that much needed insight, putting some of his actions up to this point in a new context, even if it was set-up for clearing up some things so they could get rid of him.

Of course, there are still exceptions to characters getting character development, and honestly they’re kind of glaring ones. Oscar’s development arc, where he came to accept he was his own person, completely happened offscreen (for reasons that I’ve brought up before and will reiterate in the final section), robbing us of really witnessing his growth as a person. I enjoyed some of the stuff Cinder did this volume, especially her escape from the vault and her fight with Neo. But honestly she continues to be a pretty bland villain with little hints at her motivations for being such a terrible person: the Battle of Haven was such an utter defeat for her there needed to be some form of consequence that would’ve affected her character while also telling us more about her. Maybe it would’ve been her strategizing her revenge, which would’ve gotten more insight into how she thinks as a master planner. Instead, we get her leaving the vault, more or less going back to what she used to do but in a more low-key setting, fighting with Neo, plotting with Neo, and leaving with Neo. It felt more like “Hey, she’s alive, and here’s what she’s doing,” which while I appreciate it feels kind of a waste of time if you’re not doing anything with her beyond that. Honestly, a post-credits reveal that she was alive and then a pre-Volume 7 character short detailing how she made it to Atlas that covered her and Neo’s entire storyline this volume would’ve been more helpful.

Before I go on to my most major critique of this volume, I need to address the two Goliaths in the room.

Adam

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: they needed to get rid of Adam. The way things have been going, there was only so much more you could do with his character before he became a nuisance that was overstaying his welcome. I understand people wanted some deeper insight into him, but the fact was he was never introduced to be a major villain to anyone beyond Blake and later Yang. They could’ve had him have a thing against Weiss, but they didn’t, they focused the time that would’ve made him a major villain for everyone else on making people like Roman and Cinder and Salem the big villains. They decided on the path of abusive ex-boyfriend a very long time ago, and if you hadn’t figured that out after the Adam Character Short I honestly think you were being willfully ignorant to what’s been building up.

The best I can say is that Adam and his history is a missed opportunity for some pretty interesting storytelling and worldbuilding, but the fact remains: it is not his story that they want to tell, it is not his show. It may make something interesting to think about, but Adam’s story is supplementary, and works better in supplementary material, a la character shorts and maybe mangas.

Jaune

Y’all need to quit it with the “Hrrr drr Jaune took up time again moan moan Miles Luna is self indulgent” talk, he barely did anything this volume beyond Chapter 9 and having a sister that the whole fandom loved.

Pacing

This...this is where Volume 6 ran into trouble.

Overall, from the season premiere to the finale arc, this was probably the best-paced season of RWBY we’ve ever had. Major story events happened right when we needed them, and for the most part they didn’t drag out story arcs for any longer than they needed to be.

Well...until they reached Argus, that is.

At face value, a lot happened in the final couple of chapters. Chapter 8 gave us Maria explaining the silver eyes, Chapter 9 had the scene with Pyrrha’s statue and the mysterious Red-Haired Woman (I’ll headcanon whatever I want about who she is, Jen Brown) Chapter 10 started the Cordovin fight, Chapter 11 reinforced Blake and Yang’s partnership, Chapter 12 killed Adam, and Chapter 13 had Ruby finally use her silver eye powers to defeat a Grimm and they made it to Atlas. Yeah, it was a pretty eventful set of episodes.

So then why did it feel like it dragged? Here are a couple reasons that I’ve identified.

1. The Cordovin Battle sidelined story arcs for too long

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: the finale arc should not have been split up like that over so many episodes. It afforded us some pretty well-animated fights, some of the best the series has ever had, but the volume hadn’t been relying on that action to keep up the forward momentum, but on actually telling the stories of these characters. I get the need for CRWBY to prove that they can do well-animated fights, but as I’ve come to accept action should never take precedence over storytelling (I know, that’s hard to swallow when parts of the fndm spends hours complaining about how Monty’s not animating the fights anymore). And it’s clear to me in this final arc put emphasis on the action over the momentum of the story, bringing the actually pretty good storytelling the volume had had up to that point to a grinding halt.

Now, historically RWBY fights have delayed telling stories, but it’s never been for too long, at most maybe two chapters? But if you spend three chapters on a single fight, thereby devoting three weeks of your viewers’ time to high-octane action, people are gonna notice that the story is basically going nowhere.

What could’ve made this less of a problem? Well, perhaps establishing Cordovin earlier and making her less of a buffoon would’ve eased my hatred of this arc. Volume 6 lacks a clear antagonist for the story, but the way Cordovin was treated as a big deal in this final battle made it seem like she was taking up that role, except we didn’t even see her until the final half of the volume, and in her debut we couldn’t take her seriously as a villain, much less an antagonist, because of the pure comedy they used in her intro. There needed to be something about her at least a few episodes early––take this with a grain of salt because I think following JNR in Argus would’ve killed the balanced pacing of the first half of the volume (and just made the Jaune haters apoplectic), but maybe a few quick scenes of JNR arriving in Argus and getting rejected by her would’ve been helpful. Or honestly easing off on the comedy of her intro. Such a one-note character who we are primed to not take seriously isn’t interesting as a major force, so identifying her as a more threatening roadblock for the heroes would’ve made the stakes of the final fight a little more...present.

2. Important storylines got trimmed for time’s sake and weren’t addressed properly.

@hypeathon (whose excellent production analyses for this Volume are well worth a read) identified a tweet Miles made back in October, prior to the premiere and most likely when they were finishing storyboards, about “killing your darlings.” For those unaware and who may have severely misinterpreted that comment, “killing your darlings” is when writers have to sacrifice something they love or want to do so that the story works better. The timeliness of this tweet (after they would’ve finished the script but before they’d wrapped on storyboards and voice acting for the final episodes) suggests the writers’ room had to cut a lot of material from Volume 6 (what Miles called a massacre of darlings), most likely due to production limits or not having enough time to cover them.

Think about it: the story from Chapters 1-7 was really good: everything was properly spaced out, the scripts felt polished, there was a balance of action and comedy and legit storytelling, the good pacing lasted longer than it ever has within a single volume.

Then we hit Chapter 8 and suddenly it all changes: storylines don’t get the proper time devoted to them, arcs come to a screeching halt due to the big fight. Unlike previous volumes, where the imbalance was pretty much the entire volume, there’s actually a clear point right in the middle of this volume where things suddenly took a turn for the worse. And the fact is, some of the problems with the story in the final arc suddenly make more sense if you accept that time that would’ve been devoted to it got sidelined in this “purge”: Qrow’s alcoholism suddenly getting brushed aside after Chapter 9 hopefully to be addressed next volume, Oscar disappearing and all his development happening offscreen, Adam’s completely unsubtle return after only a vague hint in Chapter 1 that would’ve been stronger if he’d kept popping up in Argus. I’d even go so far to say the odd pacing of the final few chapters could easily have been the result of the writing team not being able to devote a single chapter to such a grand fight, so they needed to stretch it out so CRWBY could actually animate it within reasonable deadlines, which meant sacrificing time for those arcs that so desperately needed development.

So what overall is gonna fix RWBY’s pacing in the future? Well, I think at the moment the show is too ambitious. If it wants to keep to a reasonable production schedule, they need to control the scale of their finales so that it can be completed without needing to sacrifice other storylines. If it wants to hold onto that ambition and make the finales as grand as they want it to be to do their boy Monty proud, then they absolutely need to delay the actual release of the volume so they can put in the proper amount of time to both the story and animation. And I don’t think anyone would mind waiting a little longer for Volume 7 if it meant this show got the care and attention it needs to tell the story it clearly wants to tell.

Conclusions

Evaluating Volume 6 is impossible without evaluating what came before it. RWBY was never a perfect show, but when you lose someone who was responsible for the show’s popularity in the first place and have to change how it’s made to make up for his absence, there’s going to be backlash. Backlash from the fans, and, uh, backlash from inside the company. The fact is, people are never going to be satisfied with the RWBY that Rooster Teeth makes today, and Rooster Teeth is never going to push out a RWBY that will make everyone happy. All they can really do is keep moving forward.

And move forward they did. Despite my problems with the finale, Volume 6 was good. I’ve always been sort of ambivalent about the show (I was drawn to it by my brother shortly before Monty’s death and have been watching it out of respect for him and the company as creative artists), and even if I thought some of RWBY’s critics were being too harsh (or seriously needed to find something better to do), I didn’t find Volumes 4 and 5 enjoyable enough that I felt like defending them. But guys, Volume 6 did something amazing: it made RWBY fun to watch again. Focused, consistent, and compelling storytelling plus gradually eased-in worldbuilding made for a story that I could follow along without having to juggle so many different plots. Improvements in the overall animation made things nice to look at and when fights happened they were always entertaining, never making me cringe or grimace, always making me think “Hell yeah, beat the shit out of them!” Just like I felt back in the old days of the show.

I feel as though what’s holding RWBY back at this point, however, is adhering to the production schedule that its old vision called for in making its current vision. And it honestly cannot keep doing that. RWBY is a show trying to reach grand heights, and its rushed production timelines and lost story arcs are keeping it tethered to the ground. Yet I can’t help but say: Volume 6 is RWBY at its finest so far. It can’t fix the problems that previous volumes have had, but it builds on the void those problems left to build a story that makes this show feel like something worth following once more.

So, I can safely say I’ll be following along when RWBY returns for Volume 7...hopefully later rather than sooner (again, it needs a better production schedule).

[i-am-the-entertainer]

RevieWBY Volume 6, Chapter 13, “Our Way”

Before we begin: NO, GEN:LOCK DID NOT TAKE RESOURCES AWAY FROM VOLUME 6. gen:LOCK is co-produced by an outside company, by nature of how it’s been developed it gets a bigger budget than RWBY, and also production started on it before Volume 5 even ended. RWBY’s problems this volume mainly come from a writing standpoint, from a technical standpoint this is the best volume RWBY’s ever had, and though I still have issues with the writing, especially when it comes to the final couple of episodes, to somehow blame that on gen:LOCK is delusional.

We come to the final episode of a volume that has had a lot on its back. After the disappointing ventures of Volumes 4 and 5, we went into this season expecting the worst, and...honestly having those expectations subverted. It wasn’t perfect, but it was actually some of the best material RWBY’s had in a while. But what makes or breaks a RWBY volume as it’s coming out is if the finale packs a punch.

So, was this a worthy conclusion to what has otherwise been RWBY’s best volume?

Well, despite the dramatic “I’m dropping RWBY” announcements people are making, I actually enjoyed it.

Cinder and the Brain

On some level I was hoping for another team RWBY-Cinder confrontation by the end of this volume, but considering what happened with Adam the previous chapter, it’s probably for the best they didn’t meet again.

There’s not much to say about this scene: it’s establishing Cinder and Neo are about to return to the fray, and we can only look forward to their arrival at Atlas.  Really, Cinder and Neo’s whole arc this volume is one I’m not sure how to feel about. I feel like they didn’t give the two enough to do to justify their story being stretched across the whole volume, we could’ve had a few scenes of them around Mistral scheming. But at the same time, unlike Oscar’s storyline back in Volume 4 it didn’t take vital time away from the important stuff, and we got some pretty amazing sequences out of it, especially their initial fight. So yeah, I honestly would’ve hated it not having their storyline this volume if I’d known this was what they were up to.

Let’s Kill Godzilla

Where I felt the Cordovin fight was stretched out too long, I absolutely loved this section of the story. It’s almost like the entire volume has been building up to this moment: Ruby’s really becoming the leader they’ve sort of undeservedly been treating her as for a while, confirming her strong desire to protect, using the unintentional side-effect of Jinn being summoned to her advantage, finally summoning the silver eyes of her own accord. This was the perfect payoff to all that buildup, and I can gladly say, in conjunction with the Jeff Williams music that this was probably one of Volume 6′s strongest moments...if only it weren’t undercut by the Leviathan coming back to life.

Now, it could have honestly been done a little better. Like maybe if we had more of the dramatic close-ups of the silver eyes affecting the Grimm like in the Volume 3 finale, and instead of having it suddenly come back to life have one of the other big Grimms showing up and about to ambush Ruby before Cordovin came in and saved her. Likewise, we could’ve used a longer shot of Cordovin hearing Ruby taking charge: it felt like it was just a rousing speech that convinced her helping Ruby was a good cause, which didn’t exactly convince her for the last couple of episodes. As a result, Cordovin’s about-face feels a little undeserved. But as far as payoff goes, from a writing standpoint this was actually really good as it was. Maybe some better directing decisions would have made it reach the epic heights it needed to reach.

I’m not inclined to do RWBY rewrites, but I think what would have made this work better is if the last two episodes’ section of Cordovin fight happened in one episode, and the first two-thirds of the Adam fight happened in that same episode, and the final episode would have started with the conclusion of the Adam fight and Team RWBY attacks the Leviathan, and maybe midway through this seeing Blake and Yang returning from the Adam fight gives Ruby the strength to unleash the silver eyes: all in all, Volume 6 would’ve just had 12 episodes. But then again, I really loved the cleverness of Ruby using Jinn to help focus her mind. So eh.

HUT HUT HUT HUT AtLAS AtLAS

OOOOHHH. They’re saving the complete resolution of Qrow’s problems for next Volume! Oh, okay, that’s why it felt a little too neat, it’s because they’re not done with him yet.

Can I just say how relieved I am that they kept the heroes’ storyline relegated to a single group? This feels like a return to form for RWBY as a show: school friends reflecting on the insanity they went through, but together. Volume 4 had absolutely no reunions so everything felt disjointed, Volume 5′s finale reunion came after some really stressful stuff that wasn’t delivered as well as it coudl’ve been. But having them on the Manta just joking around and reflecting on what they’d been up to was almost nostalgic, something we would’ve had back in the old days of RWBY. The whole thing leaves the episode on a much higher note than I would’ve initially expected.

Ah, the reveal of the Atlas fleet. Not surprised at all, but a good reminder that Team QROWBYMJNR isn’t gonna have as smooth a time in Atlas as we would’ve thought.

Conclusions

You know what? I really liked this finale. There were some questionable directing choices by Kerry and Connor, but overall it really does end the series on a high point. There’s payoff to themes that have been building up all volume, and I can believe it’s in the same volume as the opening episode. I think the only reason its reception is a little divisive is because it’s a really awesome finale coming after a series of overall not-so-awesome episodes that had some controversially divisive things happen.

I’m gonna go more in-depth about this in my full review, but I think it’s safe to say where Volume 5 was a universal clusterfuck, this volume was about as divisive as Volumes 1-2 were when they came out, and that’s a welcome return-to-form for this show.

Oh Yeah, After The Credits

There’s a really nice parallel going on here that really suggests this is the end or the real beginning of the end of Emerald and Mercury collaborating with Salem. They’re literally in the same positions as they were back at the start of Volume 4, witnessing the true horror of Salem’s domain. This volume has really played their conflict of working for Salem well, and the animation plus Hazel’s bemused remark really sell the realization that Salem is a truly horrifying individual to work for. I suspect their arc next volume will focus on them returning to Cinder.

[i-am-the-entertainer]

This is why I don’t respect a good number of RWBY “reviewers/critics.” Claiming to do this out of a love for the show, while basing their entire content around hating the show and having to nitpick in order to do so, as well as certain folks (not naming names here, there’s one guy in particular I can think of) prioritizing entertainment over actual reviews.

[i-am-the-entertainer]

A Mid-Volume RevieWBY

Let’s be honest. Most of us were holding our breath for the entire hiatus: we’ve been burned before by this show.

RWBY has always been a show with potential, but has been unable to get as big as it wants to be just due to the nature of how it’s made. Rooster Teeth is still an independent production studio, they can only put out so many episodes a year, and for the past two volumes it was just two guys writing basically everything.

It’s also worth pointing out that RWBY wasn’t originally a masterpiece on its own. What made it stand out was a) the fact that the mostly comedy-driven Rooster Teeth was making an original IP and b) the fights. People jumped onto this show because even if the animation quality was subpar, the vocal performances were all over the place, and the writing was slow as hell, there was charm to it, and part of that charm was watching the show gradually improve.

Which is why everything started to feel stagnant when the show stopped improving. Sure, they upgraded to a more professional-looking animation engine, they started hiring more professional voice actors and the original cast’s performances improved with experience, but with the loss of the series’ creator, visionary, and key animator, the ability to have epic fights was lost, as was a major guiding force for where the show could go. Couple that with key missteps in major storytelling in Volume 4 and 5 (including storylines that were just completely dropped or failed to receive any focus) and wildly inconsistent fight quality from chapter to chapter, the show was getting so many things wrong. Yeah, some of the criticism was just unnecessarily toxic, and I recognize the CRWBY’s discomfort at the level of hate they were getting (no one’s forcing you to watch the show, people), but seriously, it got to the point that even some of the show’s more positive fans were calling RWBY out for its problems. These issues were finally acknowledged by the team in a Reddit AMA following the Volume 5 finale, and they promised they would try to fix them. Miles himself posted this:

A couple of us went into this Volume with cautious optimism. While Volume 5 had been a disappointment, some of the new guiding philosophies they were claiming to use to fix RWBY for the next Volume had been used surprisingly successfully for Nomad of Nowhere. Everyone thought that show was going to be another cancelled-after-one-season failure for RT Animations, but surprisingly it turned out to be one of their best shows. If they could create another entirely new world and actually do some really good storytelling, maybe there was hope for RWBY.

If you saw the Volume 6 premiere in theaters like me, you may have watched with baited breath. They felt the need to screen the last hour of Volume 5 first, which just served as a reminder of how disappointing the overall product had been. Then they showed a behind the scenes video where the CRWBY discussed changes to the pipeline: a new co-director for the series, an actual writing team to assist Miles and Kerry, the animators being given more control on certain scenes, etc. etc. Overall, suggesting “We heard you and we’re going to try to improve.”

And then the first episode was shown. And honestly? It was pretty good. Good balance of humor and action while starting up some of the major storylines of the season. The fight scenes were well-choreographed, they’d clearly spent a lot of time working on the episode, they even had time to add little details and quirks to the character. It’s probably one of the best premieres of the entire show: it felt like it was doing a better job of marking a new era for the show than the Volume 4 premiere had been trying to do.

So, let’s assess how things have gone, at least so far.

Focus

This has been the biggest improvement for the show. The big problem in Volume 4 and 5 was having the team split up and attempting to give each their individual focus, while also giving secondary characters basically the same amount of focus, which was waaaay beyond what this kind of show could do. There were simply too many story threads and events going on that made following the show fun to watch––whole storylines would be dropped for several episodes at a time. I mean, the whole reason the Apathy didn’t appear in Volume 4 despite what they’d planned was because there just wasn’t any time to include them. As of now, there are only two major story threads we’ve been concerned with: Team QRWBYOM and Team Melted Ice Cream. A third could be Salem’s faction, but they’ve only had one scene so far: I suspect they’re going to play a more major role in the second half of this volume, though, considering they were waiting for the heroes to reach Argus. A fourth is Adam, but he also has only had one actual scene so far, I wouldn’t be surprised if they pushed him aside for the first half so they could focus on the main characters and he’ll have a bigger role later on.

This renewed focus has allowed us to finally get some proper interaction within the main team, plus actual character development. So, good on that.

Pacing

So much better. Volumes 4 and 5 relied way too much on cliffhangers to get people to come back each episode, instead of relying on a story playing out in single chapters. When I say cliffhangers, I mean cutting off a key story moment in the name of shock or not allowing the episodes to stand on their own. We’ve gotten a lot of episodes with an individual focus where they could potentially stand as an independent episode of the show, even the more arc-like episodes like what happened with Brunswick Farms: "The Coming Storm,” the second episode of that arc, had the Cinder vs. Neo fight that everyone adored and some amazing interactions with Blake and Yang and Weiss and Ruby.

I had a concern that having major revelations/moments in only the first few chapters was going to kill the pacing for the entire volume, and I still kind of have that concern. That said, I am surprised that they’ve kept up the momentum this far into the volume, so I’m cautiously optimistic. With maybe the exception of Chapter 4, each episode had a major story beat that packed a punch the volume needed to keep going.

Tone

This has been another problem for the past two volumes: the show kind of established itself with the anime vibe of visual comedy mixed with legitimate drama, but hasn’t really kept up that momentum volume-to-volume. In the cases of Volumes 4 and 5, they both began with some anime-like humor but failed to use it consistently. These seven chapters, meanwhile, have been pretty consistent in delivering those humorous moments: even Brunswick Farms, the most horror-based arc in the series thus far, has some laugh out loud scenes.

And on that note: the horror elements of the Brunswick Farm arc were really well done. Sure, there was no way anyone was going to die, but that doesn’t really matter (repeat: THAT DOES NOT MATTER, CERTAIN PEOPLE) because a combination of writing, animation, and even sound design made for a couple of episodes that were legitimately terrifying.

Animation

I don’t want to make too many calls on this because I’m not that great at assessing this kind of thing (writing’s more my forte), and @hypeathon writes some really great analyses on the topic, much better than I ever could. But overall I think it’s safe to say the animation quality has really improved. You can really tell with certain episodes that more time was spent to make them look their best, especially Chapter 1, which had these little touches that I wouldn’t have expected at all from the show five years ago. Minus a couple of animation errors here and there, things are looking good. No random teleportation, all the fight scenes we’ve gotten have been sufficiently epic, they’ve been placed at points in the show that satisfy our epic fight cravings, overall, good work. Kind of the payoff to the mention from the premiere documentary that they’re leaving a lot of creative decisions in the hands of the animators, which has overall made a much prettier-looking show.

Character Development

One of the problems of juggling multiple storylines in Volumes 4 and 5 was that we weren’t given a whole lot to work with in terms of character development: a lot of it seemed to just happen offscreen, we weren’t really shown what changed a character from the start of a volume to the end of one. The biggest victims of this problem were the core four, who were often pushed aside in favor of development for side characters. Ruby has been the biggest victim of this problem, with a planned arc about her survivor’s guilt in Volume 4 getting pushed aside to focus on Ren’s story, and only really getting one legit moment of development in Volume 5 in her brief talk with Oscar. Yang’s arc about recovering from the Battle of Beacon was almost non-existent in Volume 4, with only a few drops of it popping up at moments in Volume 5 that didn’t form a cohesive development arc. Blake and Weiss actually had a decent arc, but Weiss wasn’t given a whole lot to do in Volume 5 and then kinda sorta got fridged for an episode or two.

With the characters reunited and a renewed focus on the core team, we’re finally seeing some actual on-screen development. Chapter 5 “The Coming Storm” is the clearest example of that, with the team dealing with the fallout from Jinn’s story in (what appeared to be) a lower-stakes setting. Key moments included Blake and Yang’s interaction, which brought the much-desired angst everyone was waiting for, knowing how betrayed Yang felt when Blake abandoned her at the end of Volume 3. Ruby and Weiss, who were set up from the beginning of the whole show as partners, weren’t really interacting a lot, even when they reunited midway through Volume 5. We get a nice moment of their dynamic while they’re looking for food.

Jaune

Well. That might explain why he’s gone for most of the first half.

(listen rwde, they’re never gonna get rid of him completely. He’s an established character, they can only push him aside for most of the volume, stop chasing your tail and get over it already. If they abruptly killed him I’m sure you’d be celebrating but all of us would be thinking “What...what purpose does that serve to the overall plot?”)

Storytelling

This is probably the best Volume in terms of storytelling. After years of World of Remnants and exposition dumps delivered by characters standing around talking, the philosophy of “Show, don’t tell” finally actually happened on this show. Flashbacks, which didn’t happen much (if at all) before, were finally used, and we ended up with some great material: again, the Grimm Reaper flashback in Chapter 7 continues the volume riding high on good quality fight animation, but also gives us a sense of the world the characters inhabit. More than before, a lot of minor things in this world are implied rather than fed to us, like the danger Silver-Eyed Warriors have to live with, the efforts people will go to to live out normal lives in Grimm-infested territory, etc.

I brought this up earlier, but Chapter 3 “The Lost Fable” was basically to RWBY what “El Rey” was to Nomad of Nowhere: a massive lore-dump that provided some much-needed context to what the heroes were doing, completely changing the stakes of the show up to that point and potentially changing the course of everything for the rest of the season. And we desperately needed that kind of episode, where we were shown instead of told the background of Ozpin and Salem, instead of just blindly thinking “Here’s the good guy and here’s the bad guy.”

And yet if I’m being honest, I can’t say I really liked it. I’m not sure why, maybe I’ve gotten cynical like the rest of the angry commenters on YouTube, it feels a bit like this is happening way too late, like it should not have taken this many years for something like this to be revealed, or there should have been a much better buildup to that reveal. At the same time, I understand that some major events in RWBY’s production (the least of which was the way too large scope of Volume 4 and the biggest of which was the shocking loss of its creator right when the show was about to enter a shift in tone) meant any proper buildup had to be killed in favor of telling cohesive stories volume-to-volume. So yeah, I can’t say I liked that episode individually, but I know the greater purpose it serves to the show so it doesn’t really bother me that much.

Conclusions

I try to be positive with my reviews of RWBY, especially considering how vitriolic reviews of this show can get. That said, this volume’s not perfect. The big criticism I have right now is that this is a show that wants to tell an epic story on a grand scale but can only tell it in fourteen 10-20 minute episodes per season. It doesn’t help that the last two volumes were the attempted execution of that plan, while this one seems to be scaling that back so the show doesn’t lose focus. But that’s just my issue with how the show has tried to established itself in the post-V3 era and how we’re no longer getting that. I think the biggest improvement this show could have would be longer episodes, and I could sacrifice having a volume per year if it meant they could spend more time on the episodes and tell the big story they want to tell. But I know Rooster Teeth can’t function as a production studio while only putting out one volume of RWBY, its flagship show (sorry RvB), every few years. Actually, I suspect that might be the model gen:LOCK is gonna follow, considering the first season alone has taken a year and a half to produce.

At the conclusion of Volume 5 I remarked that even though it was a disappointment, it was an obvious step in the creative direction the show needed to go in. Even if the fight animation was very often subpar and it felt like they were trying to clean things up after Volume 4 got too big to handle, there was a better blend of storytelling and action.

This volume so far has been the payoff. I haven’t felt the urge to seethe through my teeth with disappointment after a single episode this volume: each one was satisfying in its own way, I no longer feel like I have to keep track of 200 different characters and what they’re up to, and I walk away from the fight scenes feeling like something epic actually occurred rather than “Okay, so they punched things defied gravity and that somehow defeated their enemies.”

Yes, there are problems, but the show is showing clear signs of improvement. I think it’s safe to say after seven fairly good episodes that Volume 6 could very well become the best volume of RWBY. Any clear issues with the story and scope for this volume should’ve come up by now, and nothing really comes to mind. As far as I’m concerned, as a serialized TV show RWBY is succeeding. Whether that will all payoff for the final overall volume? Well, we’ll have to wait til the finale airs in February.