You wanna know what my problem with Roman's character in the Viz Manga is? It's not that he's "too serious" now or "he's actually being a threatening villain", it's that the person who's writing the manga is trying too hard to make Roman more "scarier" and "edgier" to the point that he's not this chaotic but charismatic bastard who's trying to survive anymore, he's a hatesink (a hatesink is a type of character that's meant to be hated by the audience on purpose by giving them ZERO sympathetic/relatable/redeeming qualities).
You may think "oh but Roman's a villain, you're not supposed to like him." Which you're right, but at the same time, the manga is going against his character. For example, in the show, while he's laughed while causing chaos, his overall attitude for the most part is just trying to get his job done and move on to the next crime job (which we can see in his fights with the heroes many times) In the manga, he pretty much goes on and on about how he loves causing misery and chaos and seeing everyone bleeding, suffering and/or dead on the ground which... Jesus I know he's a violent person but he's not morbid... Christ.... And when he went close to that territory, it was cuz he was angry at Ruby for throwing Neo off the airship, sending her into a sky full of Grimm where for all he knew, Neo was already Grimm food.
Speaking of Neo, let's not forget that in the latest chapter, she saved his life and you know what he says?:
He threatens to kill her for "interfering." And notice how she's in focus the whole time Roman's talking. So it wasn't just the WF Lt., he was also threatening her too. Which is COMPLETELY out of character for him! Like, Roman in the show wouldn't threaten to kill her! He'd be grateful!!! Like in the show when she hopped in to save her from Yang's dust blast, he smiled and cheerfully says, "LADIES! Ice Queen! Always a pleasure! Neo, if you would?"
And don't forget that Amity Arena pic of their Legendary card cuz he looks so proud of her there:
Like... A lot of people who watch RWBY, even the people who work on the show know how much those two mean to each other, and to see this shitty manga bastardize Roman into a total hatesink to the point that he's so cold towards Neo??? His partner in crime??? Someone he's implied to have saved???? He literally died b/c he was so worried about her flying in the sky surrounded by Grimm who might eat her???
And this "official" manga decides to spit all of that in the face by having Roman straight up threaten to kill Neo just because she "interfered" to save his life because if she left his ungrateful ass alone, he would have been bisected by Ruby's scythe, dead.
And he's not the only one that this manga's bastardized. Blake's arc in V2 has been cut altogether. Yang's talk with Blake that explains her backstory about how her search for Raven when Yang and Ruby were kids almost got them killed in order to snap Blake out of her obsession towards the WF that's costing her wellbeing. Oobleck is more rude and condescending than he was in the show instead of caring of the girls. Even the scene where WBY discusses their motivations of being huntresses, gone (and a lot of fans love that scene so much. One of the best scenes in the show)
Bunta Kinami has the audacity to call it the "official" RWBY manga when in reality, this "official RWBY manga" has bastardized the characters into lifeless soulless caricatures. I remembered that this manga promised to adapt the story like never before where we get more interactions. This made me hopeful that we might see more of the girls talking, more JNPR interactions, more Roman and Neo interactions, more Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury, more SSSN, CFVY! More world building!! The manga added additional scenes like Sun and Neptune being included in the paladin fight so why couldn't it add more interactions???
Mr. Bunta Kinami, you apparently had all of the time in the world to add more content in the manga and also change the characters and motives of Yang, Blake, Sun, Oobleck, and Roman. You could have done so much more and you ended up making it worse.
Literally the only "good" thing about this manga is that Ruby has more initiative than she did in the show, but RWBY is a show starting FOUR MAIN CHARACTERS. It's not just about Ruby. It's about Weiss, Blake, and Yang. And it cut out all of their development altogether! Ruby may have been a "better protagonist" but at what cost? When the rest of the characters are bastardized into shitty caricatures??