RWBY: Review

There a gazillion reasons why I'm happy to present to you this review on "RWBY".  Let's get this out of the way quick so your brain can ready it the way its meant to be read. RWBY is said "ruby." Its a clever misspelling based around our main heroine and the names of her three team mates.  More on that later.

To start, RWBY presents us with a modern world full of magic and Dust, the physical embodiment of magic..  This world isn't our own, but rather of the name Remnant - an earth like setting with 4 main continents, 4 kingdoms split among 3 of them.  Attacking humanity are the Grimm, creatures of darkness only interested in eating humans.  Who stands against the Grimm?  The hunters - an organization that crosses borders to defend humanity.  Important to the plot are the  Faunus, a human species with animal like features.  These people share the world with the humans, but are persecuted out of fear and distrust for their differences. 

We open up our plot with Ruby.  She is a positive girl, naïve and socially awkward in the best ways, with but one goal - to become a world class hunter for the sake of saving humanity. She is shopping at a convenience/dust store, when robbers attack demanding all the dust in the store.  Ruby stops the criminals easily with her trusty scythe and magic.  Very quickly she finds herself outmatched as the boss character appears. Luckily a member of Beacon academy rescues her.  The headmaster of Beacon is impressed with her skills to the point he allows her to be accepted two years early, with Ruby's big sister Yang.  And that's where our story goes from - the adventures of a magical girl, at a magical school, fighting magical beasts, in a magical world. WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT!

Let's get to the reviewing!  First things first! RWBY feels like it was made on a budget.  The first season they didn't even bother to animate any background characters, preferring to leave them as walking black silhouettes.  This lack of funding could have resulted in something very bad, but instead it created something... well magical.  The creator, Mounty Oum, and his team chose to spend their limited resources on doing just a few things REALLY right.  The episodes are short, maybe 10-15 minutes each, so they kept the script writing tight and poignant.  The characters are artsy in their own way, obviously short on budget, but pretty and well crafted. The shortcut in different places to ensure that your focus is where it is meant to be - the characters and action.

 Characterization wise you even have short cuts.  Yu have no time for development in 10 minutes, and so the characters tend to be one dimensional archetypes. Not that its a bad thing; Notice I used the word archetype and not cliché?  Each character is well thought out and given several layers.  In fact its impressive how many layers they are able to present in as short as the episodes are.  AND THE NUMBER OF CHARACTERS for such a shot running episode is impressive.  Each and every character is well thought out and serves a purpose to the show.  There is no wasted dialogue or actions here.  No time for it. 

And there is no time for wasted dialogue why?  Because of the beautiful fight scenes of course!  Each character has a unique fighting style and weapon.  Each choreographed to sci-fi fantasy uber geek perfection.  And don't get me started on the music!  Again - there is something slightly lacking in the production.  Doesn't quite sound likes something produced by a pro.  But you just don't care.  It was the music that drew me in to the series to being with.  Pandora snuck one in to my playlist and I mentally filed in under "must look into".  And I was forever sold.  The themes, the music in the backgrounds during the fights, all interlaced with a good score, are the best flavored ice cream on a well crafted cup cake.

I guess that's the best analogy I can give you to sum it all up.  They didn't have the budget for a full cake.  So they've given us some cup cakes.  In the creation of the cupcakes, they lovingly put in all the best ingredients.  Its just a taste too - because we know there is more - more that they are just hinting at.  They have the characters to explore, they have a world full of intrigue and prejudice that they haven't fully presented and they have mystery in the main plot.  AND plenty of bad guys to keep throwing at our heroes.  In other words lots more cupcakes to come.

Lastly, before I go - I want to comment on an out of show reason to like this series.  The internet is an amazing place for sharing.  A show like this wouldn't not have been possible 20 years ago.  Nobody would have picked it up, or the artists would have had to sell their work to a big production company and barely see any of the proceeds.  This is another example of doing what you love, using the resources you have to leverage what you can.  So keep at it all those dreamers and create something great and share. 
 At this point they have their product. There won't be much to the way its presented that they will be able to change.  Even still, there are noticeable jumps to quality between season 1 and 2.  I'm for one looking forward to season 3.  I rate this one highly watchable.  But what do you think?  Think I missed the mark somewhere?  Want to share?  Well that's what the comments are for!  Also you can follow me and other anime fans on Facebook at Late Night Otaku.