RWBY Volume 2 Premiering at RTX 2014, First Promo Art Available

[mitchell271]

I want to be excited for this, I really do, but I just can't. The writing was painful, especially to someone familiar with anime tropes. I mean, there's the retarded main character, brooding & quite girl, super energetic smart girl and tsundere. And as much as I love her (for more than the obvious ones guys), Jessica Nigri should not be voice acting a pivotal character. She said it herself, she has no experience doing it, so I feel like it'll be even worse than the voice acting in the teaser trailers leading up to the initial release.

I'm probably still going to end up watching at least 4 episodes though, see how it goes.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

And the single 13 min episode (ep8) they did was widely seen as the best episode of the volume.

One word; Nora.

I loved Volume One, but I won't deny it had pacing problems, when viewed as a movie (as per the DVD). So if V.2 makes a more "standard" approach, it will make it all the better.

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

Looks like I'm not alone in my sentiment of RWBY's first season being a mixed bag that ended up unspectacular overall, and I'm saying this as someone that literally just finished it. The action scenes are surprisingly nice and can even give the likes of Gurren Lagaan a run for it's money, and the few jokes that worked really had me cracking up.

However, most of the jokes fall flat, the terrible writing and dialogue is on par with the likes of those cheap CGI Cartoon Network shows or those Disney / Nickelodeon high-school live-action crap, the models and animations often look incredibly stiff outside of action scenes - especially the faces, the voice acting is all over the place quality-wise, the story and characters were overly cliche, the slow pacing really clashed with the short episode lengths, and overall most of the episodes were simply not fun to watch.

Here's to hoping that this show improves on it's numerous weaknesses and plays to it's strengths better in Season 2. Less high-school drama shenanigans and more decapitating creatures from Shadow of the Colossus while running up the side of a cliff would really not go amiss, imho.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

You know.. I really want to be excited for Season 2. I do.

However- the entire first season blew. Nothing was interesting, very short videos (one was like, three minutes long?) and the progression/story telling went pretty much nowhere. I loved the action no doubt, but if it continues to go the route that made me become more distant... then it'll lose more and more fans.

Hopefully things go well.

That's agreeable. I have made rants and posts about why RWBY sucks but I will relist them.

One, the action feels like it's a bit off. The weapons don't seem to have as much impact as I want. To use your avatar's show for an example, we get a show that creates craters, blasts of wind, and shockwaves to illustrate the power of the attacks and the extent of the damage. RWBY doesn't have anything like that: no charring, no major damage, no environmental damage that lasts.

Two, the entire show was nothing but trope after trope and trope and the characters feel like copies of other characters. Ruby feels like a typical bubbly fighter with social issues and I am just like "anything else besides genki characteristics to her, any conflict?" Weiss feels like every stubborn, obnoxious Ojou character ever and any character development from episode 8 got undone over and over. Blake is the stoic loner and while the twist about her is interesting (though the type that should have been seen a hundred miles away) everything else seems like the lone wanderer type. And Yang is just useless at this point with no characteristics or conflict. As for the story, it seems like a meandering mess with the action being sidelined for slice of life sequences that don't even focus on the RWBY team but JUPR team. It is completely stupid

The whole issue is that the show is trying so hard to emulate anime like Soul Eater and they decide to just use every trope possible without any real precedent for this type of thing. They tried to be an anime and ended up being a collection of the worst parts of anime

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

I'll be the first to admit that Monty Oum isn't great at writing a story, but we all pretty much knew that. The clever takes on everyone in the series is great once you figure out who everyone is, and no one this side of Gurren Lagann has more over the top fights. I mean c'mon, Son Goku is in an episode with a bo staff that turns into SHOTGUN NUNCHUKS.

SHOTGUN.

NUNCHUKS.

While this isn't something I'd actually buy, I'll watch it just because Monty Oum = Crazy Awesome Silly Action, and I kinda dig that.

yes, there is pretty good action but the problem is that anime people like us already have Kill La Kill to watch and that has good writing and characters. RWBY doesn't have good writing or character; it's story is a combination of slice of life antics that don't even focus on team RWBY interspersed by action that doesn't have a lot of narrative tension. The characters are so base that I can literally make a new team name: GOLN. Genki, Ojou, Loner, and Nothing. Ruby is nothing but a prodigy of battle with a lack of social skills and hyperactivity; bland, boring and anything in connection to the tombstone is not even alluded to in the show. Weiss is basically the bratty Ojou sama right down to the dress and battle style of elegant and refined. Blake is nothing but a standard loner learning to be with people. Yang has had no development, no conflict, and is only fanservice at this point.

It wouldn't be so bad if i didn't get a feeling of "seen it". Penny looks like a copy of Blazblue's Nu-13, Weiss seems like Persona 4 Arena's Kirijo Mitsuru and Jin Kisaragi. Ruby is unique but the personality is just generic. Atom from the Black Trailer seems like Jetstream Sam and Hakumen in one. I could go on over and over but the show is just incompetent in its writing and characterization.

Edit: I forgot to mention in my two posts but the animation is actually horrible. The body and mouth movements are stilted and wonky, the facial expressions are just off, and there are a lot of clunky flaws. They either need to stick to 2D, or really pick up their animation to put on par to RvB

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

I'm still bitter over Monty half turning Red Vs Blue into an anime with the horrendous Freelancer animated seasons. Not gonna give this one a watch.

I for one didn't mindthe animated Freelancer scenes but I do think this show is just horrible

 

[Retsam19]

I'm... cautiously optimistic. Volume One was okay, and definitely got better as it went on, but it's still nowhere near living up to its own music/trailers.

 

[AliasBot]

Also this means we get more killer music from Jeff Williams

This is my main takeaway here: Jeff Williams's work so far on RWBY has largely surpassed what he's done for RvB. I have an insatiable love of music, and I'm willing to put up with just about anything so long as the soundtrack is good, so RWBY is still a good watch for me.

That said, would love to see some actual character development for Yang, Nora, Ren, maybe Pyrrha and Ruby...probably some more for Weiss. The main problem was really just that they tried to introduce too many main characters at once, without having the time to develop them all. Un/fortunately (fortunately if you just want a bunch of action scenes), it looks like the second season is going to have a big focus on the "tournament" being held in Vale, so character development may end up being eschewed in favor of fight scenes. (At the very least, that might be worth some character development for Yang, who supposedly has never lost a fight. Wonder how she'd react if that undefeated streak came to an end?)

But yeah, I have high hopes for the second half of Season 1. At the very least, we'll get a couple of solid jokes, some crazy fight scenes, and more additions to a killer soundtrack. I can live with that as a worst-case scenario.

 

[duchaked]

I managed to enjoy the show despite finding its lack of focus (or focus on anyone but Ruby) rather odd. I guess people who watch anime regularly might find it 'cringe worthy' or whatever loll

that being said...the actual lead writer is Miles (tho Monty is involved). Miles also wrote the latest RvB season, and that season had the same issue here. basically both the show seasons he wrote in 2013 were basically just huge build ups (setting up) for the next seasons.

I don't think it's terrible, but I can understand detractors. they have a lot of room for improvement so hopefully they'll address the issues from volume 1 haha

 

[ThunderCavalier]

RWBY.

WITH PACING.

Oh god... I loved the first volume to death even though there was SO MANY GODDAMN ISSUES with it. It's nice to see them spreading it out a little more so the episodes have more substance.

Now, if you need me, I'm going to squee in multiple directions.

 

[Alhazred]

I'm disappointed that the creators of this show seem to doggedly adhere to the conventions of anime, rather than making something original.

Having not seen any anime since Pokemon and Digimon, I must ask the question... is all anime this excruciatingly, teeth-clenchingly dull and irritating?

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

I'm disappointed that the creators of this show seem to doggedly adhere to the conventions of anime, rather than making something original.

Having not seen any anime since Pokemon and Digimon, I must ask the question... is all anime this excruciatingly, teeth-clenchingly dull and irritating?

No, there is Gundam, Kill la Kill, Evangelion, Gurren Lagoon, Kill la Kill, Ghost in the Shell, Madoka and various other shows for each and every demographic and type. The issue comes down to Sturgeon's law: 90% of everything is crap and that includes anime which are made often by multiple houses.

I can try to give a few suggestions if you tell me what type of genre or character you like but RWBY is a case of adhering to the most boring of the conventions instead of the more fun ones

 

[soren7550]

Surprised that the Escapist made an article about this.

Anyway, RWBY Volume 1 was flawed, but I still liked it. Can't wait for the second volume.

Oh, and if you're wondering, the reflections on Crescent Rose are the three people you see at the end of Vol. 1, and the White Fang emblem.

 

[IshimaruHayato]

You know.. I really want to be excited for Season 2. I do.

However- the entire first season blew. Nothing was interesting, very short videos (one was like, three minutes long?) and the progression/story telling went pretty much nowhere. I loved the action no doubt, but if it continues to go the route that made me become more distant... then it'll lose more and more fans.

Hopefully things go well.

I agree, also it didn't help that while I was watching episodes of RWBY, I was also watching Kill la Kill.

 

[TheRookie8]

That is wonderful news.

While the general feelings towards the series have been choppy, and I myself admit that the show has its flaws, I thoroughly enjoy what the series gets right in terms of style, action and humor.

 

[Spartan448]

I must admit that I didn't exactly enjoy the first volume as much as I could. But I can put that aside because it was literally the very first time anyone had done something like this. I hate how people are taking a look at volume 1 and saying that it put them off because of this flaw or that flaw. Guess what? Rooster Teeth has a much more famous web series. It has over 100 episodes and more seasons than most TV series even dream of seeing. Everyone on the internet thinks it's hilarious as shit, and it is, because watching 7 or 10 assholes dicking around in a box canyon and occasionally getting shot at by tanks/crazy ass special ops dudes/each other is hilarious. And guess what? The first season was not the best, and things got progressively better.

It should be noted that very few of the people who were RvB vets are working on the main parts of RWBY. Monty and Kerry and most of the other team members are having their very first experience heading up their own project. It's like having a job for the first time. And no one, NO ONE, can ever say that they first time they got a job, they were immediately perfect at it. Web series are like a good steak. Yeah, initial quality is a good thing, but dry store it, give it some time to age a bit, maybe cure it somewhat, and you come out with a hunk of meat that is absolutely delicious which you can sell to people for 100 dollars an ounce.

Basically what I'm saying is this: Yes, we know the first volume wasn't as good as we expected. The first attempt at many things don't go as well as we expect. Give it some damn time, people - if a show's initial performance marks how it will always be, than there are a LOT of television shows that we should be viewing as absolute shit.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

You know.. I really want to be excited for Season 2. I do.

However- the entire first season blew. Nothing was interesting, very short videos (one was like, three minutes long?) and the progression/story telling went pretty much nowhere. I loved the action no doubt, but if it continues to go the route that made me become more distant... then it'll lose more and more fans.

Hopefully things go well.

I agree, also it didn't help that while I was watching episodes of RWBY, I was also watching Kill la Kill.

Yep, comparing this to any other competent anime will just lead to the show being worse and worse in your eyes and in this case, Kill la Kill does the action much better with much more impact and variety. You think that a gun scythe is original, try a sentient uniform made of power enhancing fibers in a world of crazy

 

[JoshuaMadoc]

Well, the fact this exists at all leaves people open to expand the universe for their own ends, among other things.

I just want this story to continue, because I'm sick of incomplete stories. Don't even ask why.