Note
If you haven't read my first review of this series, click here
WARNING possible spoilers WARNING
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This is best viewed after Volume 1. While Volume 1 was slightly slower on plot, mostly picking up on character development, this Volume kind of throws you right in. It is very clear people are worried about an impending war with the terrorist group the White Fang, and our four main girls are now in the middle of everything due to Blake finding things out back in Volume 1. The entire point of this volume is for the girls to find out where the terrorist group is hiding and cut their ties with a certain criminal.
While the plot is simple, there is a lot going on,as the group tries to stop Roman, the criminal stealing dust and leading the White Fang by giving them military technology. With Blake's inside knowledge of the White Fang the group begin figuring things out one by one, and the plot doesn't slow down but continues at a decent enough pace to not get lost. There is also side things, like why is Ember in school now, Penny being a robot, the mysterious woman saying Yang, and the arguments over who should lead the security for the upcoming tournament. Really good stuff here.
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The only character I felt hadn't grown in Volume 1 was Yang. Well thankfully all the characters continue to develop, with Yang taking center state a lot. Actually out of the four main girls, Weiss probably has the least amount of characterization, but her not wanting to talk to her father and sister brings up interesting parts for her development in the future. All the girls are better at being team players at this point, and while it also dealt with Yang's character, Blake not being able to sleep due to the fears of her former teammates is interesting to say the least. Also some budding romance between Sun and Blake, as well as Neptune and Weiss is interesting to see. Team JNPR are not seen as heavily, but the drama between Jaune liking Weiss, and Pyrrha liking Jaune continues to heat up with a line of advice being given to everyone, but only Neptune actually taking it. Sun and Neptune are shown a few times as well, with Sun introducing Neptune and the two do go through some development.
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The action is AWESOME! The first episode (or chapter if you are on youtube or in movie mode) has the best animated food fight of all time, and the fight with the giant robot and Yang showing off her powers (see? A lot of focus on Yang this volume) as well as Blake using elemental shadows, seeing Sun's powers, a huge train fight, and a professor hitting a small cute dog with a club like weapon, this volume has far more action scenes in it, and all of them are just wonderfully animated. The issue comes with the other emotions. I feel for Yang, nearly getting herself and her sister killed, but Blake's exhaustion didn't feel as real, nor did Ruby figuring out about Penny's secret, as Penny stated "you are taking this rather well" which Ruby did, but some excitement could have been shown after the confusion that Ruby had seconds earlier. The humor is pretty spot on though, with less slapstick and more creative humor like Yang and Weiss having horrid puns, as well as a dog showing up in the mail. There were a few issues here and there, but they are few and far enough apart to not hurt the good in this section too badly, but it is still an issue that can't be overlooked either, though easily more good then bad here.
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I had a few problems with animation in the first volume. That isn't the case here. The fights are wonderfully animated, the animation is great in every scene with few bothersome points, heck all the unimportant background characters are actual people instead of shadows. It is nice to see the animation quality rise this much, even without watching the first volume, this is great animation. Every chapter or episode works with the plot in some way, even an episode that has Jaune dancing in a dress is important as not only does it build the relationships between the main characters, but it lead into a way for Ruby to tell the higher ups about the possible White Fang base location. Nothing strays far from the plot at hand, and every episode is important to both the plot and characterization.
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Let me bring up the food fight once more. All the weapons of Team RWBY and Team JNPR are replaced with food items, leading to one of the best fights in animation, as well as a standoff between Pyrrha's magnetic abilities and Ruby's extreme speed. This scene alone is creative as anything I've been able to experience or create myself. Sun's powers, Mercury's fighting style (he is a bad guy), new character designs, and best of all Blake's use of dust to use element shadows. Really great material for creativity.
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Not perfect, but hard not to love. The fighting scenes are just amazing, creative elements are spread around the volume, the plot gets far thicker, the characters continue to build, especially Yang and to some extent Blake, not that the others don't grow either. the animation is awesome, each episode is worth seeing if you are a fan, and the humor is actually less shtick and more creative. The only issue is a few scenes that are suppose to be somewhat more emotional that weren't, like Blake's drama with not sleeping among a few other examples, that keep this volume from being a near perfect ten.
I highly recommend watching RWBY for this volume. While this volume is probably better then the previous one, I don't recommend watching this volume without seeing the first volume or you won't understand who Penny and Torchwick are, or why it is important that Jaune killed a bear by himself. Still, this volume is pretty awesome, and if you want to see an episode from this volume to see if RWBY will interest you in the long run, just watch episode 1 from this volume. That food fight is just too epic for words.