Notes
This review will be based on plot and how well it functions, character personas and how well they develop, if the emotional or action packed moments work well, how good the individual episodes help the overall media, and creative elements and designs of characters, items, and settings. This will be followed by an overall summary of the media in question as well as a score based on the categories mentioned before. I will also recommend the media to people in a way that best suits the score. Review may include attempts at humor. Thank you for reading.
WARNING possible spoilers WARNING
RWBY starts out with a girl in a store listening to music as the store gets robbed. Turns out, the girl has been trained in the art of hunting monsters in this world, so taking out her huge gun scythe, she easily dispatches the goons in the store. Catching the attention of an actual huntress, she ends up getting bumped up a couple grades and goes to a school for hunting with her older sister. Meeting new people, the girl becomes the leader of a team of students and is friendly with the team next door as well. She ends up dealing with drama and learning what it is to be a leader. There is also a fighting tournament to be held for rival schools, however that plot just starts up and the volume ends. Most of this volume is spent with Ruby learning how to be a leader, a responsibility thrust upon her rather quickly, and learning to meet new people.
The plot here is fairly relatable, entering a new school only knowing your sister, and unfortunately allies are sometimes the unlikely bunch. It is also a great plot designed to showcase characterization while still not lacking on the actual story elements itself, which there are plenty, an animal human hybrid terrorist group, a large amount of thieves and robbers, as well as the monsters these students are learning to kill. You get just enough of the side plots to get you curious, but not so much it overshadows the main point, which is the character Ruby becoming a leader in a rather new environment.
There are a bunch of characters in this series. Team RWBY (roll credits) has four members, and the team next door,Team JNPR also have four members, and all eight of them are main characters. On Team RWBY, Ruby is the main character and trying to learn what it takes to be a leader, so obviously she has good characterization, heck when she starts out she is more like an annoying fan girl, but she does become more relaxed later on in the Volume, while Weiss the girl with white hair thinks Ruby is undeserving of the title of team leader at first (and generally doesn't like Ruby at all due to Ruby trying to hard at first to make friends), however Weiss eventually learns more and more on how to become a team player and even makes some friends. Blake is the quiet reading type, but she can be a team player, but her characterization comes out when it is revealed that not only is she part animal, but she has ties to the terrorist organization of them (not spoilers because this is revealed in the trailer for her character before the show came out). The only one of the main team that doesn't have great characterization is Yang, the blonde, but most of that is probably because she doesn't get as much screen time in the volume as the other three. Out of Team JNPR, their leader Jaune and Pyrrha, as Jaune faked his way into the school to live up to his family legacy, and Pyrrha seems to notice right away and has been trying to help him out of difficult situations as well as train him to actually fight.
As you can see, there are some great characters in this series, but those are the main growths of characters so far, not to say the other characters are bad, but they don't get much screen time compared to the ones mentioned above. The series also introduces some new characters right before the volume ends, one of which seems rather interesting indeed. The fact is, this volume is actually rather short, but the characterization we did see, and seeing five characters really starting to grow is actually rather impressive. If you are a fan of the characters over anything else, you have to see this volume of this series just because the amount of characterization is really good.
There is a lot of humor in the series, and the humor is off the wall to say the least. It is oddball and uses randomness to try and gain laughs (basically the humor version of jump scares, think Five Nights at Freddy's but silly rather then scary). The humor, heavily influenced by the oddball off the wall humor present in some anime, will be funny for some and fall flat for others. The tension in some of the team conflicts is nicely done however forcing the viewer to care about certain conflicts, and while it is mostly resolved at the end of the episode, it still works into the characterization seamlessly and never forces the plot to loose focus. As for action, besides the trailers online and on the dvd, there is the large amount of two real fights in this volume. Both fights are animated incredibly well, and they are well done in general, but the fights, even the minor fights, are slightly few and far between and the minor fights only last a short time. Still, this section is handled really well, but the humor can be a little off putting to a large group, and while tension is nice, it doesn't last.
There are a few issues with the animation of the series. The picture about demonstrates this, as the bully is pulling this girl's ear, and the animation of said action isn't the best. There are also a few times the characters will look stiff when not in a fighting scene. There are some clever work arounds that the animators put in the media, and for the most part they work, but that doesn't keep the flaw from being noticeable. Yes I'm well aware the animation budget was rather smaller here then in other productions, as this did start on youtube, but as a reviewer I can't ignore it either way. This comes up often enough, but is lacking presence in the fight scenes, as those are wonderfully animated. Also, there is an episode that focuses on Team JNPR rather then Team RWBY, which isn't bad, and does further Ruby as a character which is the point of the plot to this point, but it is still something to note as Ruby is not the main character in that episode, which happens every other episode. No episode is particularly bad, they just have a large amount of minor issues.
The overall designs and creations of the characters is amazing. Ruby is based off of Red Riding Hood, Yang is based on Goldilocks, and the entire team of JNPR is based off of the cross dressed versions of characters like Joan of Arc, Thor and Mulan. Their overall appearances are pretty great, and the weapons we see based of close and long range combat, are well designed as well. The monsters look imposing, and the magic the characters can do looks impressive. Just great creative design all around really.
If you are looking for great quality animation, this anime can miss that mark a lot. It is a lower budget anime, but the reason it is popular is a rich lore, plot, and great characters. There are a number of character designs in play that are amazing, and for the bigger fight scenes the animation and action are great. There are a few hiccups with emotional pull, as tension is just as quickly resolved as it is brought up, and while there is a larger issue happening in the background, the main plot is character focused for this volume, though later volumes are obviously planned out. I do recommend you watch the trailers of the four main girls first to grasp an understanding of how fighting works and their powers like Ruby's speed or Weiss' magic, but other then that I do recommend checking it out, though it has been updating slowly (the main creator passed away).