RWBY Review: V4E2-Rememberance

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

Hello and Welcome to another RWBY review. Today, we will be looking at the second episode of season 4, "Remembrance".

Not much to talk about on an animation perspective (though I think animators can say otherwise). I found that the facial expressions to be a major improvement with their correspondence to emotion to be strong. Another point of note was the animation for the butler, Klain; he has some sort of multiple personality disorder and they did go through the effort of adding affectations to his movements for each one which is a nice touch.

In terms of story, they seem to be doing twofold this episode. The first is scenes with Weiss to establish her home life. It's generic with a younger brother that seems to have some deeper resentment for Weiss and Winter and an demanding father that controls Weiss but it seems done well enough. Special mention goes to the father, Jacques, who conveys his personality through talks with Ironwood and Weiss: he's a business man first and foremost who seems to be willing to control his daughter for the sake of his reputation and company as well as quick to anger given his talk to Ironwood and implied past talks with the wife.

We also have scenes with RNJR particularly around Jaune and Ruby. One thing I didn't comment on during the first episode was the lack of real impact of Pyrrha's death on the team. Ruby, despite seeing Pyrrha die, only laughed at Jaune's bunny hoodie despite it being linked to the cereal that Pyrrha promoted. Ruby's laughter made the scene awkward. Here, they seem to be trying to rectify the problem by making it clear how it impacted them. Jaune is seen practicing to an old video that Pyrrha made in the dead of night while Ruby had nightmares of Pyrrha's death. It works to establish the impact of Pyrrha's death but seems like a whiplash compared to the first episode.

The show also seems to be trying to establish the impact of the Grimm as we get a scene where RNJR goes to a town that Jaune once went to with his family to find it decimated. There is a portion with a guard and the team trying to get help for him only for him to pass away. In addition, the village is burned and in ruin with bodies everywhere. The sense of death and dread associated with the Grimm is more powerful here than in any of the past volumes.
The tone isn't completely dark though, there are some small elements of comedy in this show but, unlike the first three volumes, the comedy is less abundant and serves to be a prelude to tragedy in RNJR's case or to show how Weiss's life is like in the case of Klein's personality shift.

All and all, the show is trying to establish a darker tone but still maintain a stronger character focus with some levity. The tone is much better executed and the events of the last volume have clear impact on the cast.

If you want to see the rest of the RWBY reviews or my old stuff, head to the Anime Chop Block site [https://animechopblock.wordpress.com/]

 

[andrewHayes]

Not much to talk about on an animation perspective (though I think animators can say otherwise).

Did like the use of matte paintings at least. Better than the 3D backgrounds. Could have had better compositing though.

Here, they seem to be trying to rectify the problem by making it clear how it impacted them. Jaune is seen practicing to an old video that Pyrrha made in the dead of night while Ruby had nightmares of Pyrrha's death. It works to establish the impact of Pyrrha's death but seems like a whiplash compared to the first episode.

More logical inconsistencies. I struggle to conceive of a Watsonian reason for the video to exist as it does on Jaune's Scroll. It's implied that she's aware of Jaune's movements at the time of recording, but she just stands there the whole time instead of modeling out motions for him to follow, with no evidence of Jaune being there with her, and she later makes comments that suggests distance between them. Never mind the implication of her recording with Jaune's device, unless she sent it to him.

The show also seems to be trying to establish the impact of the Grimm as we get a scene where RNJR goes to a town that Jaune once went to with his family to find it decimated. There is a portion with a guard and the team trying to get help for him only for him to pass away. In addition, the village is burned and in ruin with bodies everywhere. The sense of death and dread associated with the Grimm is more powerful here than in any of the past volumes.
The tone isn't completely dark though, there are some small elements of comedy in this show but, unlike the first three volumes, the comedy is less abundant and serves to be a prelude to tragedy in RNJR's case or to show how Weiss's life is like in the case of Klein's personality shift.

The scene actually made me call the premise more into question.

First off, *no rudimentary defenses for the village?* Do they expect the Huntsmen to handle everything for them?

Second off, the show has a problem with depicting the heroes as proactive, even though that's what Huntsmen are supposed to be. The scene really mirrors the Volume 1 Velvet scene in that the heroes don't really do anything to intervene in a bad situation and as a result become more unsympathetic. They talk about "curing" the dying Huntsman and proceed to squabble about doing so or not instead of acting immediately. Heck, Ren is the *only* character to approach the poor soul, everyone else just stands 3 meters off awkwardly.

RT could have justified their inaction, of course. Perhaps the three wanted to ensure threats weren't remaining in the village, or they might have not had experience with such horrors and thus are frozen by fear and shock. But their behavior disproves the possibilities of both and makes them out to be incompetent.

Miles and Kerry really seem to be pulling for emotional reactions instead of writing a consistent story.

 

[Gizen]

The show also seems to be trying to establish the impact of the Grimm as we get a scene where RNJR goes to a town that Jaune once went to with his family to find it decimated. There is a portion with a guard and the team trying to get help for him only for him to pass away. In addition, the village is burned and in ruin with bodies everywhere. The sense of death and dread associated with the Grimm is more powerful here than in any of the past volumes.
The tone isn't completely dark though, there are some small elements of comedy in this show but, unlike the first three volumes, the comedy is less abundant and serves to be a prelude to tragedy in RNJR's case or to show how Weiss's life is like in the case of Klein's personality shift.

The scene actually made me call the premise more into question.

First off, *no rudimentary defenses for the village?* Do they expect the Huntsmen to handle everything for them?

Yes? I mean, it's pretty firmly established that there anyone who can fight typically becomes either military, or a huntsman, and military usually stays inside the capitals. So that's going up to a small town and questioning whether they expect the police to handle everything for them. The answer would be yes.

Also, something else worth noting is that it wasn't JUST Grimm that wrecked the village. The dying huntsman says that a tribe of bandits attacked first, and then Grimm were lured in by the panic, meaning the village took either 2 attacks back to back, or simultaneously, which would seem like a pretty hard thing to defend against.

Second off, the show has a problem with depicting the heroes as proactive, even though that's what Huntsmen are supposed to be. The scene really mirrors the Volume 1 Velvet scene in that the heroes don't really do anything to intervene in a bad situation and as a result become more unsympathetic. They talk about "curing" the dying Huntsman and proceed to squabble about doing so or not instead of acting immediately. Heck, Ren is the *only* character to approach the poor soul, everyone else just stands 3 meters off awkwardly.

RT could have justified their inaction, of course. Perhaps the three wanted to ensure threats weren't remaining in the village, or they might have not had experience with such horrors and thus are frozen by fear and shock. But their behavior disproves the possibilities of both and makes them out to be incompetent.

Miles and Kerry really seem to be pulling for emotional reactions instead of writing a consistent story.

I honestly haven't a clue what you think they should be doing here. What squabbling are you even talking about? They were in full agreement other than one line by Nora questioning whether he would even survive long enough for them to carry him all the way to the next village (a reasonable question considering the likely distance and the fact that they lack any way to even properly transport him). It's not even inaction, it is quite literally a mere 15 second conversation in which they quickly concoct a plan. Considering that none of them are trained medical professionals (hell, none of them are trained ANYTHINGS seeing how their school got blown up before they even finished a single full year in it) and that they are inexperienced teenagers, I would argue that was actually pretty damned fast to come up with a pretty reasonable course of action. What, are you expecting Ruby to grab the guy and run off abandoning the rest of her team without saying a word because she somehow knows exactly what to do? They don't even look like they're carrying any medical supplies. There certainly wasn't any on their checklist at the end of the previous episode.

Sure, you can argue they're incompetent, but then I would have to question why you would expect otherwise? They're a group of young people with some modicum of unrefined monster killing talent and not much else who ran away from home on an insane and half-assed quest to avenge their dead friend. That's not really a recipe for success, and all of them actually have a pretty impressive track record of failure and not-so-great ideas born from inexperience stretching all the way back to the first season. Frankly, in that regard the story is EXTREMELY consistent.

 

[andrewHayes]

I honestly haven't a clue what you think they should be doing here. What squabbling are you even talking about? They were in full agreement other than one line by Nora questioning whether he would even survive long enough for them to carry him all the way to the next village (a reasonable question considering the likely distance and the fact that they lack any way to even properly transport him). It's not even inaction, it is quite literally a mere 15 second conversation in which they quickly concoct a plan. Considering that none of them are trained medical professionals (hell, none of them are trained ANYTHINGS seeing how their school got blown up before they even finished a single full year in it) and that they are inexperienced teenagers, I would argue that was actually pretty damned fast to come up with a pretty reasonable course of action. What, are you expecting Ruby to grab the guy and run off abandoning the rest of her team without saying a word because she somehow knows exactly what to do? They don't even look like they're carrying any medical supplies. There certainly wasn't any on their checklist at the end of the previous episode.

Um, "cure" him first instead of taking 15 seconds talking about whether or not it's worth it to do so? It's not like again, they were aware of any external threats at the time that would have made transporting him difficult, and it is better to try and save/preserve one's life rather than, again, trying to determine whether the expenditure is worth it. I would have preferred them to "cure" the guy and *then* ponder what to do next, because at least they would have made a decent effort to help him. The conversation itself shows that *they* know that they can "cure" him as a preserving measure, so it's slightly illogical for them to argue about it unless the "cure" has a gigantic con in store for them, like draining their Aura heavily.

Plus, you know, they took enough school to know this. We're supposed to expect these students to be able to take on a criminal cartel and come out with only a few scratches in previous seasons (RWBY didn't do a good job of convincing me that was plausible).

Then again, plenty of Doylist reasons behind the scene. Maybe they didn't want to animate the "cure," and since the Huntsman is basically there to showcase how bad the situation is, they didn't really need to keep him around.

It's not like the criticism of them not being proactive heroes is damning. I love DC Comics, but the heroes also share that same storytelling caveat.

 

[Gizen]

I honestly haven't a clue what you think they should be doing here. What squabbling are you even talking about? They were in full agreement other than one line by Nora questioning whether he would even survive long enough for them to carry him all the way to the next village (a reasonable question considering the likely distance and the fact that they lack any way to even properly transport him). It's not even inaction, it is quite literally a mere 15 second conversation in which they quickly concoct a plan. Considering that none of them are trained medical professionals (hell, none of them are trained ANYTHINGS seeing how their school got blown up before they even finished a single full year in it) and that they are inexperienced teenagers, I would argue that was actually pretty damned fast to come up with a pretty reasonable course of action. What, are you expecting Ruby to grab the guy and run off abandoning the rest of her team without saying a word because she somehow knows exactly what to do? They don't even look like they're carrying any medical supplies. There certainly wasn't any on their checklist at the end of the previous episode.

Um, "cure" him first instead of taking 15 seconds talking about whether or not it's worth it to do so? It's not like again, they were aware of any external threats at the time that would have made transporting him difficult, and it is better to try and save/preserve one's life rather than, again, trying to determine whether the expenditure is worth it. I would have preferred them to "cure" the guy and *then* ponder what to do next, because at least they would have made a decent effort to help him. The conversation itself shows that *they* know that they can "cure" him as a preserving measure, so it's slightly illogical for them to argue about it unless the "cure" has a gigantic con in store for them, like draining their Aura heavily.

I don't know where you're getting the idea that they can cure him, nor do I know why you keep putting the word cure in quotation marks, so now I'm going to assume that this confusion has been perhaps caused by you mishearing the line where Jaune said he and Ren can take turns carrying him.

 

[Scarim Coral]

First thing, I am laughing toward a user on here who kept insisting ona Jaune/ Weiss shipping in the previous season. Despite Prryha passing, it look like it's possibly Ruby/ Jaune shipping now! Why else would she be sad for? The video remind her of Prryha or for him not getting over it??

Also I find it interesting to note that when the butler changed personality (don't think it's a personality disorder, just a getup to cheer Weiss up), one of his persona his eye change to red like Yang rage mode and it went back to his normal looking eyes. Also I liked the bulter which I hope he doesn't get killed off soon for Weiss sake.

I kinda find it strange with Ren cold attitude but in saying so it may had been a waste or time since wouldn't they have to buried the villagers awell? It does make me think if that incident is related to Ren in one way or another.

Lastly I liked the dark atomsphere did they in the last scene.

 

[Gizen]

Also I find it interesting to note that when the butler changed personality (don't think it's a personality disorder, just a hetup to cheer Weiss up), one of his persona his eye change to red like Yang rage mode and it went back to his normal looking eyes.

He actually went through three different eye colours. Supposedly he's supposed to be the Seven Dwarves to Weiss's Snow White, so presumably he has seven different personalities and we just saw three (possibly four?) of them.