RWBY is a series that I’ve watched. In a
society where television seems to be dying
and the internet is the next best thing for
networks to take advantage of and wring until
it’s dry, a lot of companies and people
decided to take to YouTube and other forms
of social media in order to push a new project
that they’re working on that they could
make into a full-blown series. It’s just
a shame that endless procrastination and the
fact that making an animated series tends
to be just a tiny bit difficult tends to have
a negative effect on the amount of animations
being put out especially nowadays. Now as
I’ve stated in countless videos before I
am an avid consumer of media entertainment
which is school examination language for I
watch shit. I’ve had many people tell me
that the level of which I consume entertainment
is very concerning but it’s not my fault
I can tell you that if you enable the Telnet
client in Windows Features on Windows 10 then
type in 'telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl' and
press Enter you can watch the entirety of
Star Wars Episode 4 in ASCII. (oh my god it’s
true) Anyways, as I watch a lot of content
I’m always very interested in looking at
new stuff, especially if it’s an animated
series that I’ve only just discovered: bingeing
something you’ve just discovered is always
a very very good feeling until your bingeing
is interrupted by the fact that there aren’t
many uploads and the episodes are months apart.
Kinda sounds like something familiar actually,
just can’t put my finger on it. Where was
I… ah yes RWBY is an American 3D-pseudo-anime-comedy-drama
created by Monty Oum and is quite popular
in and around the internet. Starting out as
a passion project, RWBY had been a concept
that Oum wanted to work on for years before
it began development. Coming from the back
end of Rooster Teeth’s series Red vs Blue,
Oum started to work on the concept and asked
Burnie Burns, the big boss if they could start
on RWBY at the end of the 10th season of Red
vs Blue. After the 10th season concluded,
RWBY was born from the first trailer, the
Red trailer, which garnered a lot of attention
within Rooster Teeth’s circle and in other
places around the internet with people going
mental over twirly whirly machines being used
to hack and slash living organisms with the
intention to make them into non-living organisms…
after 3 more trailers were released with all
of them getting a LOT of public attention
now, RWBY was officially born and the first
episode premiered in July 2013. From that
moment on, the rest was history, RWBY started
gaining in popularity in more areas of the
internet due to its highly recognisable main
characters and storylines that put Fullmetal
Alchemist to SHAME. I’m not going to go
into detail about the inner machinations of
RWBY and each of the storylines because I’m
sure the people who know about the show would
want me to get to why I titled this video
the way I did so they can arm their scytheguns
and pop a cap in me the first chance they
get. In order for you guys to get a little
more context into RWBY itself Aidan has also
made a video about RWBY and detailed pretty
much what the show is about and what happened
between Volumes 1 and 3, so if you want even
MORE context into what I’m saying, I strongly
suggest you go and watch that video on the
top right corner of the screen. It's okay,
I’ll wait. And moving swiftly on, RWBY enjoyed
success after the first 2 seasons, with the
budget increasing ever so slightly each season
allowing them to use more of their resources
to their potential. They were restricted to
using Poser as their main animation software
for the first 3 volumes but now they had [MONEY]
they were able to start getting more ambitious
with their set-pieces and their characters,
and it clearly shows. Unfortunately for Monty,
he wasn’t going to be able to see the culmination
of what he was working towards as he unfortunately
died on the first of February 2015 due to
an allergic reaction. On October 24th of that
year, Volume 3 aired and it’s argued by
many to be the peak of the series: it was
a drastic shift from this...
to this.
For better or for worse? Well that’s what
I’m gonna dedicate the rest of this video
to deciphering this enigma
Volume 4 spelt a lot of change for the Rooster
Teeth Animation team, as the story drastically
shifted from a monster of the week type beat
where the problem is solved within the space
of 15 minutes to a full blown story arc that
was to take up the majority of the season.
This was Rooster Teeth’s attempt to venture
into new territory, what with people starting
to get tired of the whole tried and tested
2008 Doctor Who-lite mindset that was objectively
crippling the show. You have the 4 main characters
splitting off from each other after the events
of Volume 3, which was the first massive collective
L that they took, with main and supporting
characters dying left right and centre, twas
a fucking bloodbath and the show accurately
reflected it by making the characters gloomier
and more 3D...which I don’t know about you,
but I think that was a big downgrade from
the look they had for Volume 3 REGARDLESS
OF THE ANIMATION SOFTWARE WHICH I WILL GET
INTO LATER BE PATIENT. So now we have all
of the stakes established and the objectives
of the new protagonist group of the show are
set out, let’s now introduce more characters
into the fray that we will have to spend a
few minutes of the next few episodes developing
around a creepy round table with a Voldemort
looking tentacle rapist Grimm leader, there’s
so much SHIT. See, one of the main problems
that the show seems to have is the pacing
is completely and utterly shot in the bollocks.
With the first 3 seasons being typical weekly
ordeals for the gang, it is not surprising
that Rooster Teeth thought to themselves:
‘fuck. Where’s the plot?’ And decided
to throw in so many different elements in
an attempt to give RWBY more overarching arcs.
And in the process the show’s become bloated
with information that’s been fed to the
viewer through a gatling gun. It’s like
being introduced to a new show and being so
excited for it until they tell you that it
only gets good 12 out of 13 episodes in. WHAT’S
THE POINT? This is a pacing issue that’s
made pretty bloody obvious in Volumes 4 and
5 because things seem to be going at a snail’s
pace. It’s not exciting to tune in anymore
and this is accentuated (oooh big words, I
sound smart for once) by the writing.
The writing in the show is NOT GOOD. I’m
not saying I can write a masterpiece or anything
but this show is doing a very good job in
making even the most exciting of things mundane.
Between volumes 4 and 5, all of the characters
in RWBY have had shockingly weak arcs. The
way in which these arcs turned out is like
the showrunners watched one shonen anime and
scribbled down everything that happened to
its protagonist then went in Word and switched
all the names of the protagonists so that
they reflect RWBY. Volume 4’s character
arc between Ren and Nora could not have been
more shoehorned in the way that they did.
No subtlety whatsoever. It’s like ‘OH
NOOOOOO! THIS CITY IS GONE!!! HOW COULD THIS
HAVE HAPPENED??” It was as if the writers
realised that Ren and Nora had fuckall character
other than the chill versus chaotic binary
opposites and needed to make the audience
suddenly give a massive shit about those 2
and what better way to do that than with a
F L A S H B A C K episode! The get out of
jail free card for showrunners. Writing all
of this into the season makes it a clusterfuck
and a half because it kills the momentum.
You’ve just had a fight with one of the
tertiary antagonists of the show and your
adult figure is dying, whatever shall we do-
hey remember that time in the city whe- oh
no that thing that killed the whole town and
all the warriors that we hid from when we
were younger is here, it all comes full circle!
Ren’s character arc was literally introduced
and solved in the space of 3 or 4 episodes
and at the end of it there’s no change for
him he’s back to his peaceful self until
it’s time for the writers to give him another
conflict with the main character again! It’s
things like that that seriously cripple the
show and make people harken back to the days
when it was actually just monster-of-the-week
which was at least more eventful than the
things the show is doing now. Exposition is
also a weak point that the show seems to have
as well. One of the main separation points
for a show is whether it can tell the story
of the entire world that the main characters
live in in such a way that the audience can
learn and enjoy and not be bored to tears.
And I’m not gonna be one of those critics
that preach “show don’t tell” because
there are some points where you can demonstrate
the way a world works in just the dialogue.
When you have to have a completely separate
episode of the show dedicated to just exposition
of the world, there is clearly a problem.
It’s like if Breaking Bad took a quick break
for a week or 2 to dedicate 4 episodes a season
to the inner workings of a meth factory and
how drugs work on the human bod- no one gives
a bollock. If you need to have mid season
episodes just detailing the world that the
main characters live in, that’s a clear
symptom of bad storytelling. In Volume 5 they
seemingly rectified this problem by not having
a single episode of off-handed exposition…
because they dedicated the entire season to
doing that. (snoring) Nothing is going on.
I’d enjoy this significantly more if at
least something’s happening but the entirety
of the episodes in Volume 5 were just standing
and talking and standing and talking and standing
and standing and fighting and talking and
more talking. The entire volume is an absolute
mess: you’ve got some sort of setup for
a journey throughout the volume but there’s
no payoff, the climactic fight scene at the
end of the volume should have been a showcase
of the team and how unified they are after
spending a season and a half apart: nah let’s
just have 1 on 1 fights between each of the
characters in a faux battle royale scenario,
that’s gonna get pants flying off. As well
as this, they didn’t even animate half the
fucking fight. Like look at this (cuts to
underground scene) HUH? WHAT? I wanna see
BLOOD not more STANDING AND TALKING, FUCK.
Oh yeah this is going to be insanely nitpicky,
but I want to talk about the fights in Volume
5 for a second. The fights in the Volume all
seem really static and full of nothingness.
Granted there were 1 or 2 good fights but
that’s the thing. THERE WERE 1 OR 2 GOOD
FIGHTS. The rest were just- K. In the final
boss fight between Shirou and Archer I mean
Raven and Cinder, who have only shared one
scene together before this final showdown,
this is the fight where all of their budget
has been thrown into. You’re expecting something
spectacular but nope. he all out brawl between
these 2 super powerful beings is nothing short
of mediocre. Remember in the earlier seasons
of the show where people’s fighting styles
were clearly established and the fights, while
they looked nice, were unique choreographed
dance sequences? Hahaaaa me neither. At least
with the fight sequences in Volume 3 there
was some sort of unique nature to them, take
the fight between Ozpin and Cinder. This only
lasted for 20 or so seconds and you could
clearly see the fighting styles that were
established, Ozpin is fast and agile and can
reflect Cinders moves, playing a more defensive
style of battle, and Cinder only set out to
body Ozpin and went with all out force, like
look at the shit they were pulling off in
twenty seconds of screentime. Now you have
a full 10 MINUTE SHOWDOWN and the FIGHTING
ONLY LASTS FOR 3 OF THAT. Not to mention that
the only way they seem to gauge excitement
from the audience is through going the cheap
way out which is to just rip off Unlimited
Blade Works (DUDE SWORDS LMAO!). The best
fight scenes in anime tend to be the ones
where they are able to showcase the fighting
skills and the abilities each of the characters
possess, take One Punch Man and Fate/stay
night for example. Each hero has a specific
ability or power-set and preferred weapon
and this is showcased clearly in the fights,
and each servant has a specific class that
they are amazing at, and the show makes sure
you can clearly see how good they are at the
fight (except for Gilgamesh who’s good at
everything and we all know how well that turned
out). The payoff for ALL OF THIS is just to
go for a “DUDE SHE’S TOTALLY DEAD” ending
and have her fall down into the abyss. Damn
dude she’s absolutely and most sincerely
dead right guys? And after all of that, oh
no! Yang has jumped down to confront Raven!
Is it gonna be some epic fight scene where
she finally starts to question her ideals
and be her own perso- no she’s going to
tell her off about being a bad mother alright
that’s very hard hitting and what the FUCK
IS THIS WHEN WAS THIS INTRODUCED
Maybe I’m being overly bitter. It’s just
wasted potential you feel? Don’t really
have much else to say that’s already been
said, but if you’re seriously here after
hearing my incoherent rant and you haven’t
yet watched Aidan’s video on the whole matter
I strongly urge you to do so, it’s much
better than mine because I spent time helping
him write it so you better show him some appreciation
DAMMIT Let’s go to the updates.
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