"RWBY: Volume 1" - A Retrospective

"Well, that was a thing."
It's been over a year since Rooster Teeth first unveiled Monty Oum's pet project RWBY to the world. Since I've recently rewatched the entirety of Volume One, I thought it would be nice to get my thoughts down on paper on what I thought of this little anime-that-could.

(Disclaimer: Yes, I know it's not actually an anime.)

Retrospective after the break!

RWBY starts off by giving us a narration by Jen Taylor, voice of Cortana from Halo, that nicely manages to not drag on for too long. The narration's kind of important and I really like the worldbuilding that Monty's going for here. It's obvious that he's had this place in his mind for a long time and he's been waiting for the right time to definitively realize it. Unlike a lot of fantasy worlds, I don't believe (and I don't think Monty believes) that the world of RWBY could be realized in anything other than a visual medium. Animation, especially 3D animation, would suit it best. Comic books would do a "so-so" job of expressing things, but animation would be the way to go.

Which is fortunate! Because Monty happens to be one of the best indie 3D animators in the business. See: any of the fight scenes he's ever animated. Unfortunately, he is also somewhat lacking in animating anything that isn't a fight scene. The animation in RWBY can quickly go from amazingly fluid to incredibly stilted depending on the type of scene that it is.

Over the course of the next couple of episodes, we're introduced to our main characters, who form the eponymous Team RWBY. Ruby Rose, an energetic youth who's accepted to what's basically the Hogwarts of monster-hunting (called Beacon Academy) two years early. Weiss Schnee, a perfectionist pessimist who sees herself above everyone else. Blake Belladona, a mysteriously quiet waif who seems to know a lot more than she lets on. Finally, there's Yang Xiao Long, Ruby's older sister and resident party-girl. We're also introduced to Jaune Arc, Pyrrha Nikos, Lie Ren, and Nora Valkyrie, who form a fellow team, JNPR. Alongside them is a rival team in Team CRDL, led by one Cardin Winchester. There's also the faculty, the headmaster Professor Ozpin, Glynda Goodwitch, Peter Port, and Bartholomew Oobleck. There's also the villains, Roman Torchwick and Cinder Fall, as well as some members of the terrorist organization, the White Fang. Oh, and don't forget some new characters introduced within the last two episodes...

Yeah, I think you can understand where some of the problems with the series start. There are way, WAY too many characters to be manageable. It gets better as time goes on, but the ridiculously high number of characters invites a host of problems. First of all, it's hard to get a sense of just who the main characters are. You'd assume that it'd be the members of Team RWBY, specifically Ruby Rose. That's true to an extent, but the only members to actually get any character development in the first half of Volume One are Ruby, Weiss, and Jaune. Jaune and Weiss get even more character development in the second half, with Blake receiving some by the tail end. Ruby seems to lose focus as the main character in the second half and Yang hardly gets any characterization beyond berserker party-girl.

This is frustrating for a number of reasons, but the biggest one is that these characters are actually legitimately interesting! The world that they created, filled with Huntsmen and Huntresses who protect the world from the monsters of Grimm, is really cool! And the characters - despite being cliche at times - have cool weapons, concepts, and can be really funny. Problem is, we hardly know anything about them. I'm going a little negative on this, but it really just is frustrating because I really like these characters and I wish they'd just do more with them without sacrificing the other characters in the process (or putting in even more and more characters!).

This also leads to some plot problems, especially in the sense that not much happens in the first volume. Ruby goes to Beacon, meets new people, goes to initiation, then some more stuff happens, some revelations, and the volume's over. To be fair, there's a lot of character development that happens in this time, but, well... see what I said earlier about the characters. Honestly, I don't have as much of a problem with the plot as some people, but the bully arc involving Cardin Winchester and Jaune just doesn't work very well, mostly due to not being very well written.

Also, in terms of production values, there are a number of places where RWBY tends to show the fact that it's an amateur work. The voice acting is really good at times, bordering on English Dub quality on anime, but there are times when it just doesn't work. Stilted delivery combined with overly-cheesy or overdosed lines do not help RWBY's case, and it doesn't get better as the volume goes on. Also, once again mentioning that the non-fight animation leans towards "just not very good." I hate to rag on RWBY's case so much, but getting the negative out of the way quickly can make the transition to what is good about RWBY that much easier.

Specifically, the fight scenes. Just look at them:

I'll let Monty's work speak for itself.

I do, of course, have to mention that the weapons in this series are impossibly impractical, but impractically cool. Scythe-sniper rifles, shotgun-gauntlets, and grenade launcher-warhammers are just some of the insane weapon combos that Monty threw in there. The fight sequences practically run on Rule of Cool and Monty makes sure to make them as over-the-top awesome as possible.

But easily tied for most impressive thing about RWBY is the soundtrack. Jeff Williams did really great work with the soundtrack for Rooster Teeth's cash cow and flagship franchise, Red vs. Blue, but it really shines here, in no small part due to the amazing singing voice of Casey Lee Williams. At the age of 15, Casey Williams manages to have the perfect voice for singing intense, rhythmic action sequences and poignant, dramatic songs. This adds a huge amount of atmosphere to RWBY and I sincerely believe that the series would be significantly less in my eyes if the music wasn't as good. Of particular praise includes the main theme, "This Will Be The Day," and "Red Like Roses Part II."

In the end, what is RWBY? An impressive work by a small, amateur company that has amazing fight choreography, a kickass soundtrack, and an inventive world slightly bogged down by sometimes-awkward writing, occasionally stiff animation, and some off voice acting.

I give RWBY: Volume 1 seven-and-a-half impossibly-cool-weapons out of ten.

7.5/10