RWBY review: Lessons Learned

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

Hello and welcome to another RWBY review where we get some disappointing fights and wonky world building.

First the fight between Mercury and Emerald against Coco and Yatsuhashi. The fights invovling Coco are extremely disappointing due to one particular fact. Coco's weapon. Coco's minigun means that Coco is restricted to stand and fire tactics which clashes with the show's kinetic fighting style. I question why the production team decided to put Coco in RWBY. Yatsuhashi fare little better; while he does demonstrate precise blocking and nimble reserve grip attacks for such a heavy weapon, he is ultimately reduced to a joke when he is defeated in part due to a steam vent on the stage. Emerald doesn't really impress either but fares better than Coco and Yatsuhashi on part due to a more mobile style of run and gun combined with stealth and what I think is a disguise semblance. Mercury is the most competent fighter shown utilizing capoeira and his shotgun ankle bracers to generate magic missiles, arm lock people and deliver quick strikes. Sadly, that's not enough to make the fight interesting and it's made worse by slight animation issues like characters moving too slow in a frame or the terrain not deforming properly.

We then see Weiss and Winter talking. They seem to be on good terms with both of them laughing at how their father reacted to Weiss going to Beacon. Sadly, the conversation's good air is broken by a piece of unwieldy world building; the reveal that the Schnees have a hereditary semblance that allows for both glyphs and summoning, Weiss being weak in the latter. This explanation seems overly complicated for the world mechanics and seems to stem from the statement that Semblances are unique. Why go out of their way to make an exception when they could simply have a semblance not be unique and influenced by different facets.

Regardless, we shift to Ruby, Yang and Qrow. Qrow tells a story about a mission but end talking about how he was taken aback by an innkeeper's skirt length. This short story makes me question my remark about Qrow last episode. On the one hand, he seems to be competent in fighting and his cocky approach works for me in serious dialouge. On the other hand, if his comedy is going to revolve mainly on lechery and alcoholism, I may be faceplaming more than once. On a more serious note, he points out that team RWBY may have come close to stoping the grimm attacks and the train but that they aren't thinking of the full implications. It turns out that White Fang activity has halted completely despite Torchwick's arrest and Qrow argues that someone else (Cinder and Adam most likely) are controlling things behind the scene. he ends the conversation stating that Yang and Ruby have to keep learning to make it far as hunters.

We then see Weiss trying to summon and some tough teaching from Winter. It seems from the conversation that follows that Weiss's father is trying to get Weiss to talk to him about why she went to Beacon. Winter argues that Weiss has a choice to explore the world and learn about it and herself. Winter then leaves as Weiss's father calls and Weiss hangs up, confident of her choice.

This episode in the end did nothing to impress me or anger me. It's fight was too short lived for me to be invested enough to talk about the animation. There was no impressive choreography to attract my attention. The story details were serviceable but underwhelming. The best way to describe this episode is serviceable; nothing to make me hate it but the show hasn't done anything for me to like it. I suppose that serviceable is better than distasteful but I wish for something more engaging.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I thought the fight was pretty good and yeah Coco weapons was more of an hidence to her and turning it back to a handbag is a joke. Mercury fight was quite impressive. I don't get how the two quickly vanish in the next scene since the two didn't take their eyes off them? Also I take it Emerald ability is illusion cos of Yatsuhashi suddently appearing behind Coco only for her to heard of his death. It was quite pointless to show it off.

The interaction with the families was good too. Still I find it strange how nice Winter is acting toward her sister now given to her strict introduction before. As for Qrow, it was a nice revelation about Team Stark(?). I guessing the blond guy is Yang and Ruby father while the white hooded is Ruby mother? Man that is weird.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

Just one comment I want to make at this point after the fights is the issue of competency.

I find that the majority of the cast seem incompetent. Even the seniors Coco and Yatsuhashi get handed their asses in a pvp fight but I bet that Cinder and her crew can be wreaked by Taokaka, a freaking joke character. This is evident by how easily Torchwick is beaten by Ruby and gang and how the Grimm, the supposed big threat of the series, are taken out by robots with guns. This is made worse by the appearance of Qrow and Winter who seem to actually handle themselves in a fight.

And before anyone says my standards are too high, the idiot Emiya Shirou is able to put up a better fight than team RWBY

 

[MiskWisk]

And before anyone says my standards are too high, the idiot Emiya Shirou is able to put up a better fight than team RWBY

I was going to leave without saying anything but I have to say this:

You do realise Shirou is called a Faker for a reason right?

 

[andrewHayes]

In regards to incompetency, I largely agree the show has major problems depicting the power levels of everything in its universe.

The show *is* focused on Huntsman in training, but you have the first years we see demolishing Grimm like nothing with virtually no detail and you have nobody else to compare save for maybe Jaune. You have classes but they're setup for incredibly dumb jokes rather than exposition. You know you have a major problem when you have to clarify lore not by showing it within the show itself, but by releasing lectures separately from the series.

What frustrates is that much of the first and second season is weighed down by bad writing and awkwardly applied conventions, not to mention terrible comedy. The very first fight of the series shows an issue when you have Dust being sold in a shop like it's jelly beans, with minimal security, yet have it established that it's also a volatile substance that can be weaponized. Not to mention what crime boss would walk into a store and expose himself publicly? Oh right, the same guy that decided not to send mooks after two teenagers and instead thought causing chaos with a mech would be more efficient.

And the setup of the show is vastly flawed. If you have androids, mechs, and ships from Atlas (the first two which apparently can be shredded by teenagers and dogs), why would you even need Huntsmen in the first place? Why are Huntsmen free enough to pick and choose their missions, and generally roam the earth if the Grimm are so bad? Seeing as the common answer to that is, "The Grimm are *that* that bad," (which, again, loops back to how the show had trouble depicting them as a credible threat in the first two seasons) the next questions to ask are, "Would dressing up like special snowflakes really help you in combat then? What does practice fights with each other have to do with learning how to slaughter Grimm? Is it even efficient to teach people to train with such a variety of flashy weapons?" (At this point, some shonen fans must be furious.)

Don't get me started on the characterization.

I know the show is dedicated to "good" fight animation (of which the only one that's met my standards would be Yang vs. Neo, nothing else can match RvB), but at least build the world that justifies it properly.

That said, the past one and a half episodes (though if you're going to do yutapon cubes, do it properly) have been eerily good for the entire series, putting in a lot of meaningful development in a short amount of time. Improvement *is* evident in some areas (the Qrow bit was cliche but well-delivered, thanks to Vic), and we finally have a dynamic camera that looks good in the fight scenes. Is the fight animation more "cartoony" now? Yes, but honestly I find it a good thing. We even have a nice shot framing Weiss in one of the talky scenes. If things continue, the fans may be right in telling others to give the production a chance. Heck, we might have all that bad writing retroactively explained.

 

[Gizen]

And the setup of the show is vastly flawed. If you have androids, mechs, and ships from Atlas (the first two which apparently can be shredded by teenagers and dogs), why would you even need Huntsmen in the first place? Why are Huntsmen free enough to pick and choose their missions, and generally roam the earth if the Grimm are so bad? Seeing as the common answer to that is, "The Grimm are *that* that bad," (which, again, loops back to how the show had trouble depicting them as a credible threat in the first two seasons) the next questions to ask are, "Would dressing up like special snowflakes really help you in combat then?

This actually was kind of explained in the previous episode. The androids and mechs are military, and people typically aren't actually comfortable living surrounded by the military at all times. It makes them nervous and fearful, and then the Grimm are actually drawn to sources of fear, which means larger and more frequent Grimm attacks. Military responses also take time, so if you don't keep them near the people they're supposed to protect to try and avoid making them scared, they may not get there in time to defend them in case of an attack. In contrast, Hunters and Huntresses are less noticeable, and likely instill more positive feelings when they do show up. It's similar to how seeing a huge crowd of police is typically portrayed as a more unnerving thing, while seeing a superhero tends to alleviate people's fears and inspire them. And the Grimm actually have, for the most part, been shown as credible threats when the big ones show up. The small wolf/bear/boar like ones haven't been a big issue, but the big ass bird and the giant scorpion were difficult fights the first time. They were less threatening the second time around, but there were also teachers and more senior students showing up during the fight that time too. And the biggest and most powerful Grimm, like the mammoths, still haven't actually been shown in combat yet.

Also, as an aside, I got the impression that the mechs are pretty new technology, seeing as the one Torchwick stole was labelled as a proto-type. So the advanced military hardware Atlas has been using is likely A) not yet in widespread use, and B) limited to just Atlas. Atlas is likely the big dog, technology/military wise, I'd wager, and not willing to share with the other 3 since it's been stated that, in the past, the 4 major nations have been in conflict with one another.

 

[andrewHayes]

You are correct in that the military is making people nervous, but who said the military had to be around civilization? From my understanding the Grimm are either isolated to small patches like the abandoned city in Vol 2 or occupy the majority of uncivilized land outside of borders. Again, it sounds unreasonable to send in Huntsmen rather than automated defenses and armored forces which can do their job in its place. I'm going to have to be shown an example otherwise to shake this notion.

Furthermore, Huntsmen have been shown to take up other roles besides slaying Grimm (to the point where Huntsmen can hire themselves off as mercenaries for unrulier purposes), which implies there's more than enough Huntsmen at the present to handle the Grimm. No stories about how bad it *really* was for the older generations, and the Death Stalker and Nevermore don't really inspire much terror when they're taken out in the context of an entrance exam for Huntsmen training. Kind of the same thing with Atlas' older mechanical models: the spider droid looks very impressive in the Black Trailer and would certainly be overkill for security in real life, but it looks wimpy because it's taken out by teenage Huntsmen. *Exceptional* Huntsmen, but the show doesn't do a good job of conveying the difference between an expert Huntsman and a normal Huntsman, especially when we're following a cast full of the former with the expectation that we learn of their character from their trailers. No checks on powers, no real challenges to Huntsmen except for other Huntsmen.

So far we've only been *told* how bad the Grimm are and nothing has backed up those words yet, except fan imagination.

Atlesian technology staying within Atlas' control does make sense, even with the CCT,