But man... Look, Yang's cool, but killing her off would have been a hell of a shot in the arm, something the series desperately needs. Hell, even if she wasn't actually dead, they could have at least maintained the illusion for a bit, gotten some mileage out of it. At the very fucking least, saved it for a post-credits stinger. But as soon as Ruby and Blake both fell together, I just sighed, because it was obvious then that they weren't dead, Weiss at the least would be following them shortly, and now we're gonna have to deal with some side-quest bullshit that we just... really don't need right now. I guess the upshot is, Neo is stuck there with them, which promises to at least offer a little bit of conflict and more likely than not, finally some real insight into her past and what her whole deal is (which is almost certain to include flashbacks with Torchwick, can't complain about that).
So yeah. There were positives, but the negatives just really took the wind out of my sails... When it comes down to it, I think Miles and Kerry just don't have the narrative chops for a story this big and ambitious. There's too much reliance on cliffhangers and fake-out, too much main character armor, and not enough solid pacing or attention to the ebb and flow of tension.
I felt it was pretty obvious Yang was going to live even before they went into that weird doorway dimension place. The scene where Oscar and Ozpin were talking about the fairy tale of "the girl who fell through the world" or something along those lines along with the warning from from Spear Guy to not fall clued me in that "there's probably gonna be some falling and another world involved". I get what you're saying about the show needing a shot in the arm and we're probably always going to look at this differently, but to me the idea of this other world was that shot in the arm in my case. With that said I'm already somewhat prepared for the possibility that things might not play out the way I hope they will. I don't think Miles and Kerry are terrible by any means but the show does stumble at times (specifically volume 5 and that one episode of volume 7 that I absolutely despised) and like I said in my previous post volume 9 does have the potential to stumble.
Sucks that you didn't enjoy it as much as I did but I get where you're coming from. In hindsight Volume 7 did kill a good chunk of my hype after the next to last episode of that season and it took me quite a while to get that hype back (and I was actually nervous that I was going to hate the finale since even my friend had mixed feelings at first).
Oh man xD
I did say earlier in that post before the spoiler section that I watched the rest of volume 8 so.... :-P (with that said I apologize for not making that spoiler tag more specific)
You probably won't like it as much as I did but I hope you find some things to like about it at least!
Basically everything our Mist-erious comrade said counts for me, as well, so I won't retread anything (or I'll try not to).
Generally, I liked this season better than last season, though I think we're beyond the saturation point for every aspect of it. It's too unwieldy, it's too slow, it's too afraid to really step up its game. I'm still enjoying it, but it needs fresh and--most importantly--unfeeling eyes in the writers room, in my opinion.
I love Winter. Her becoming the Winter Maiden is nonsense. "I thought of you, so...you're the Maiden now!" is nonsense. (More on this later on.)
Ironwood is still alive, which is great, because I love Ironwood. I call shenanigans on him somehow being left alive after that laser blast. But I guess him and Watts inevitably teaming up could be fun, since I like them both.
Also, very generally: f*** our protagonists. It's ridiculous that the story is taking this long, so it's getting kind of silly how many times they lose--and lose badly--but f*** me if they don't deserve it. I don't think I've rooted this hard for the bad guys to win since...I dunno, Game of Thrones? We're just at the point where I can't believe how stupid and naive and ineffective they can be for so long.
In the same vein, this is probably where things should have been at the end of last season, which (again) is part of my issue with them. Because, while I fully support the Civil War-style divide between the goodie-goodies and the far-too-cynicals, no one learned anything and no one tried to bridge the gap. And I don't mean tried to get them to be friends, I mean took notice that the solution was clearly somewhere in the middle, between RWBY's righteous moralism and Ironwood's callous paranoia. And NO ONE figured that out. In what felt like forever. Which means they deserve to lose.
On the positive side--and there were definitely positives--Cinder is a really good villain, and I'm glad she just gets more villainous. And...and...no, I know I have a lot of complaints, but I swear there was more that I liked about the episode. Um...the pacing was good. I don't think they wasted any time. Jaune killing Penny was pretty okay, since he's a healer and had to take a life. (They didn't do much with it, but...it was there, which means they knew it was a good idea to do. Which is encouraging.)
One more complaint, though, before I go into some responses (and probably complain some more (I swear I didn't hate this episode!)): Jaune should have been made the Winter Maiden. I don't care if there's some frikkin' "rule" that it has to be a girl. "What a twist! The stories were wrong!" I mean, just imagine, the most pure-hearted member of the team inadvertently fulfilling (essentially) the role Pyrrha was supposed to. There's poetry to that. AND THEN HE'D BE ABLE TO GET REVENGE ON CINDER.
Y'know, I half-expected Jaune's armor to magically have some kind of effect on Cinder, in that fight, the power of Pyrrha's love having imbued it with bull**** hand-wave powers or some such nonsense. Which would have been totally cool, regardless of how little it made sense.
PYRRHA WAS A CHARACTER, SHOW. WE STILL REMEMBER.
Also...I thought they were gonna let Jaune and Weiss escape together, and they were finally gonna spend time with each other and he was finally gonna get his girl. And they took that away, too. The jerks.
A someone who never liked Penny AT ALL, this hadn't even occurred to me...but it is weird. I can come up with reasons why it was done this way (a real girl dying doesn't get to be rebuilt, for starters), but it's a valid criticism. Though I agree with your point about her character arc being pretty complete, this season, making her death narratively justified.
I see a lot of potential there but I can also see some issues happening if they decide to split things too much between the stuff bound to happen in Vacuo and the stuff happening with team RWBY
Yeah, as soon as I saw the rest of our main-main characters fall into the void, I rolled my eyes. Because we're undoubtedly headed towards split-squad hell, again.
Shhhh. The flames that were going to kill Watts needed to be put out so that he can team up with Ironwood and eventually sacrifice themselves for the greater good, because EVERYONE GETS TO BE A GOOD GUY.
I bet it lasts 15 seconds before she becomes just another new good guy. Because EVERYONE GETS TO BE A GOOD GUY.
I really have grown to like Neo, though, so...fine. I think she's a much more compelling character after suffering the loss of Torchwick. 'Cus I didn't care about her AT ALL, back when she was just his sidekick. But seeing her with his hat for the first time, I felt like she was more than just a drawing that, for some reason, the internet insisted was a super-cool character.
Of course...would making her a good guy then undo that compelling pathos? Is vengeance on Cinder and Salem as interesting as avenging her...was she in love with him? The RWBY Chibi series seemed to think so, but I didn't know if it was assumed or not. I like to think she's gutted for the man she loved more than for her friend.
But, yeah, I think she'd be less interesting when not operating from the very personal place of pain. But we'll see.
Oh oh oh--I almost forgot: how in the heck did Neo get booted through a portal and then come back out?!
You saw that, right? I didn't make this up, did I?
"Guy we mostly don't care about sacrificed himself to save the city from being destr--oh. Oh, wow. Um...at least the girls got away?"
I'm being snide, but I think that's probably the idea: he prevented the rest of the goodie-goodies from dying. So, I guess, them flying away was supposed to be the follow-up? Maybe?
I know! And that's the saddest part: I read that and said--literally, out loud to myself--"Odd, I thought he just posted about having watched the whole thing. I guess I misread his last post." I actually totally forgot that there was another episode, today, so I didn't put 2 and 2 together.
Total botch-job on my part. But I only read that first line of the spoiler, so...ultimately, it was more embarrassing than it was something that ruined my time with the episode.
Yeah, as soon as I saw the rest of our main-main characters fall into the void, I rolled my eyes. Because we're undoubtedly headed towards split-squad hell, again.
That possibility is there but I'm holding out some hope that it won't come to that. I remember a split-squad situation happening early in volume 6 but unlike volume 5 they didn't jump back and forth between the two. Even if they do jump back and forth in 9, at the very least I don't think they'll be stuck inside a house almost the entire time this time around!
I don't think Miles and Kerry are terrible by any means but the show does stumble at times (specifically volume 5 and that one episode of volume 7 that I absolutely despised) and like I said in my previous post volume 9 does have the potential to stumble.
Yeah, I wouldn't say they're terrible either... just not up to the level of this show's ambition. It's a very big show with a ton of moving parts and world-ending stakes; it takes a lot to handle all of that, and I just don't think they have the level of experience that demands to really live up to its full potential.
There have also been other characters going in and out of portals; the key is that those were all in Atlas. The genie catch is that they said "one way ticket to Vacuo," so once you go through the gate to Vacuo, then you're stuck.
There have also been other characters going in and out of portals; the key is that those were all in Atlas. The genie catch is that they said "one way ticket to Vacuo," so once you go through the gate to Vacuo, then you're stuck.
Yeah, I wouldn't say they're terrible either... just not up to the level of this show's ambition. It's a very big show with a ton of moving parts and world-ending stakes; it takes a lot to handle all of that, and I just don't think they have the level of experience that demands to really live up to its full potential.
That's understandable. The thing I notice the most is that there's so many characters to the point where I can tell that they're having trouble juggling it all at points. It's definitely not the most overloaded thing I've seen though, that "honor" goes to Kingdom Hearts 3D. That had to be one of the messiest plots I've ever witnessed.
I'm hoping that with volume 9 they'll focus more on team RWBY + Jaune and Neo but I'm keeping my expectations in check. As much as I'm pretty sure I'll like volume 9 I've noticed a bit of a pattern with this show where the odd-numbered volumes seem to stumble a bit more than even-numbered ones to varying degrees.
Time for me to once again bump this thread because there's finally some more RWBY news!
Volume 9 is now coming out in early 2023, and the teaser got shown at RTX:
I'm already in love with how this looks. Looks like we're in for an acid trip of a season, and I suspect that's part of the reason this got pushed back again.
If the whole theory of dead characters showing up in this place is accurate I have a feeling this is a Volume 6 Episode 3 situation where a bunch of new models and such had to be made for that episode alone except now that might apply to an entire volume. Also reasonable to guess that they might have perhaps gotten even more ambitious than they planned. My personal guess is that this is going to directly lead into the final volumes, or maybe Volume 10 will be the last depending on what exactly happens when getting out of this world. I have a little personal theory going on that there's going to be a time skip at the very end sorta like how at one point in Half Life 2 you go through a teleporter only to find out that it's been a whole week and shit's hitting the fan.
As far as the delay to early 2023 goes, I don't think this is that bad. When you think about it, it's likely that this was originally meant to come out in October 2022 so the difference is really 2-3 months minimum. There's of course been some people raging about the delay but IMO it's a bit over the top, especially considering that for other things like Metroid Prime 4 all we currently have is a logo and that was back in 2017...
There was also a RWBY Justice League crossover film announced for 2023 as well. Don't get me wrong I think RWBY getting a full length film is cool as hell but this is honestly not quite what I'd want personally. I'd rather see an adaptation of one of the RWBY books (Roman Holiday would be one I'd like to see in particular, that way we actually get to see Neo's backstory instead of just reading it). Also noticed that the tweet announcing the film says this is the *first* RWBY film, specifically. Maybe this is part of a means to attempt to expand the IP and make way for other types of RWBY content once the main show wraps up. Wouldn't be surprised since I can only see it going for a few more volumes story-wise unless complete and utter disaster strikes behind the scenes.
That and honestly this has me a little concerned for how RT's production schedule looks right now. Think about it, you have Volume 9 which can easily be a really hard thing to pull off from a production standpoint, cutscenes from the Arrowfell game being made in-house (though it's reasonable to suspect that these are either completed or just need some touch ups given how long the game has been in development for), AND a full length movie on top of that and all of these are scheduled to come out in 2022-2023. At least it's not like they're working on things that would have a radically different art style like when Volume 6 and Gen Lock were being made at the same time (which led to the infamous crunch issues), but I'm still worried since Volume 8 did have some severe production issues caused by the pandemic and that crazy winter storm in Texas.
Either way, I'm looking forward to it (and I might as well check out the movie too, I'm curious about it even if my initial reaction is a bit mixed) and on top of Ice Queendom being pretty solid I'm glad there's finally some new RWBY stuff.
Aw, thanks for this! I was wondering what was going on.
I...literally remember none of Volume 8, anymore, but at least I now know there's time to get a solid YouTube recap of...who am I kidding, of the entire series because I can't remember most of it. Like, even beyond the easiest parts of the lore, which I never knew in the first place. Because I never watched any of the non-story stuff they put out. Because I assumed it was just extraneous stuff. Because this was just a 5-minute combat high school comedy, when I got into it.
ANYWAY...as long as Weiss is around, I'll be around.
Aw, thanks for this! I was wondering what was going on.
I...literally remember none of Volume 8, anymore, but at least I now know there's time to get a solid YouTube recap of...who am I kidding, of the entire series because I can't remember most of it. Like, even beyond the easiest parts of the lore, which I never knew in the first place. Because I never watched any of the non-story stuff they put out. Because I assumed it was just extraneous stuff. Because this was just a 5-minute combat high school comedy, when I got into it.
ANYWAY...as long as Weiss is around, I'll be around.
Did you watch Ice Queendom? That one is most likely going to primarily focus on her going by how episode 3 ended (that and ice queen is part of the title)!
It came out recently! First three episodes are on Crunchyroll right now. It starts out as a bit of a messy retelling of Volume 1 but I had a lot of fun with it and I like where it could be going (I posted a bit more over in the anime's thread but this is the short version). Plus you get to see Weiss kicking ass so I think you might enjoy it for that alone!
(looks like it's time to resurrect this thread again...) Well after several years of waiting there's now a release date for Volume 9, it's coming out next month. The big part of the announcement though is that it's actually going to be on Crunchyroll. They didn't say specifically if it would come to RT's website too or not but I suspect it'll either go on their site after about a year or not at all. My guess is the latter considering this sounds like a means to pivot the show away from the RT branding eventually. They also point out in the announcement that this decision was made for the future of the show so I think this was probably done to try and ensure further continuation among other things if the tone of the message is anything to go by.
On one hand it means that the episodes are not likely going to be free anymore due to how CR handles their shows now but on the other there's way more subs on CR than there ever would be on RT. After the massive shitstorm last year I'm not surprised that they'd want to pivot RWBY off of the RT branding considering how that alienated a good chunk of RWBY fans (including myself). I do have to wonder how in the hell they plan on making future volumes considering a ton of the animation staff didn't have their contracts renewed, maybe CR is going to do something about that? I dunno, to be fair I don't know exactly what staff is left on the animation side of things but I just remember seeing a lot of people saying that finishing up their work on volume 9 was their last day at RT and it seemed to be more people than usual. Either way things still seem pretty dire with the number of animation staff laid off after their work on volume 9 was done and at least one of the higher-profile voice actors publicly stating they refuse to reprise their role in the show after the shitstorm (and I'm pretty sure there's probably even more VAs and others who don't want to associate with RT after that), but I'd say chances of the show getting further continuation/properly concluding are a bit higher with this move to CR rather than if it were to stay on RT First as before.
As to if I'll be watching it, I don't know. I'm going to talk about it with the friend I watch the show with but I'm still kinda iffy on watching Volume 9 and future seasons. After that whole mess last year I feel like 9 and future seasons of the show will just feel a bit tainted now for lack of a better word. For one thing I really don't want to watch Volume 9 if the show has a high risk of being cancelled (after today's announcement I think the chance has downgraded from high risk to moderate) so I've been leaning towards waiting until the show concludes before making a decision on it. If it gets a proper conclusion I'll finish the rest of the show but if it doesn't the chances of me watching the rest are highly unlikely. I don't want to get my hopes up too much considering the sheer number of animated series that keep getting cancelled as of late. With that said if I do watch it it's likely going to be via other means since both my friend and I were in agreement that we weren't really comfortable supporting RT anymore.
The trailer did look good, but my excitement definitely isn't there thanks to the combination of the extremely long wait and last year's shitshow. We'll see how my friend and I are feeling I guess. I'm more surprised that the release date for Volume 9 is so soon. For a while there I thought they were going to delay it again.
Since I mentioned in another thread that I watched Volume 9 I figured I'll post more of my thoughts on it in here too. It feels really weird posting about this again considering my old post that's right above this one. Long story short, I was more comfortable with watching it after talking it over with my friend around the time it premiered. It helped that both of us calmed down a bit.
Anyways, like I said I thought Volume 9 was pretty great. I don't think it's going to suddenly change the minds of people who don't care for the show, but my friend and I found a lot to like. The environments look incredible, there's a bit more of a focus on Team RWBY itself without juggling a billion different characters at once, and when it decides to hit you emotionally, it hits HARD. Seriously, this makes the bleaker parts of Volume 8 look like Candy Land, which is weirdly hilarious to say considering how parts of this season look.
The Blake/Yang confession scene was definitely one of my favorite scenes in the volume, if not my favorite in the whole series. Time for a bit of background as to why the scene is so special. The friend I watch the show with, we're pretty close and I was the one who got them into RWBY. Before I got them into the show I mostly watched RWBY as "that one fun show you watch to have something to do". When I got them into it they were almost immediately hyperfixated in the best way, pointing out a ton of details I never noticed before, getting to see their reaction to other highlights of the show like volume 3, and so on. You know how you find that one show that just makes you feel "seen" in a way? That's what RWBY is to my friend. In particular my friend is really attached to Blake and Yang (and of course all the shipping between them), my friend is a lesbian so I had a very very good feeling that they were going to love that aspect of the show (to be specific I got into the show just before Volume 5's release and I got my friend into it not long after Volume 5 ended or sometime around/after Volume 6). So when the confession episode and it's title was released we were going absolutely crazy over it. As for the episode itself, like I said in my post earlier getting to experience this blind with my friend was very special. We were waiting for this for so long and to see that all the little crumbs hinting that Blake/Yang was going to be a thing was all leading to this one incredible moment is the sort of feeling that I think is going to be a long time before either of us sees something that makes us feel a similar friend. My only regret is that I wish I could have been there with my friend in the room when it happened....
After that things took one hell of a dark turn with Ruby's worsening mental state. I have to say, Volume 9 got absolutely brutal to watch since it was so hard seeing Ruby go from her usual positive and cheery self to just straight up snapping at all of her friends after everything she's been through. Honestly, that scene really fucked me up because I actually saw a bit of myself in Ruby during all that. I've blown up at people before in similar ways when I'm not doing well, and you know that part where Jaune shouts "It's ALL about you!" in response? My dad yelled something similar to me when we got into a pretty bad verbal argument once. Also before I forget to mention it, I absolutely love what they did with Jaune in Volume 9. Having him aged up was quite the shock, not to mention the rather horrifying scenario of being stuck in this otherworldly place for so long, completely and utterly alone away from your friends not to mention winding up in one of Remnant's most famous fairy tales in a pretty dark way.
That's the tip of the iceberg though. The real horror came the week after with the next episode. Seeing Ruby get horribly beaten and worn down even further from the previous episode was even harder to watch and it culminates in Ruby straight up attempting to erase herself and become someone or something else because she doesn't want to be Ruby Rose anymore. Or to be more precise it's a suicide attempt, considering how it's framed and the fact that at the very end of the blu-ray there's a suicide hotline notice. Goes without saying, but that episode fucked both of us up for the entire week and I was also really horrified of this being potentially handled very badly. RWBY is a show that sometimes fumbles it's plotlines about serious subject matter (looking at you White Fang subplot), so I had every reason to be worried.
Thankfully I don't think it was handled in a horrifically bad way, though I feel the execution could have been done better. The plot practically zips from the scene I just described to the climax at the Tree and the result can feel like some serious whiplash. From what I understand it was at this point there were some severe cuts made due to time and budget constraints (apparently the last three episodes were meant to be FOUR episodes total) and you can really feel that. This season really needed an episode in between to let things breathe and show how the rest of the cast is processing this utterly traumatic event but we don't really get that since it zips forward too fast. The good news is these flaws are balanced out a bit by the scenes with Ruby and the Blacksmith which have what I felt was some really powerful messages about the importance of finding yourself and how you don't have to be perfect, that you as yourself are enough. It all culminates in Ruby deciding to continue to be herself and not become someone/something else and one of the best fight scenes in the series. Seriously, look at this:
The music, the animation, absolute peak stuff right there if you ask me. I also have to say that I understand if some don't feel the same way I do about all this. It's seriously heavy subject matter and what resonates strongly with one person may be the polar opposite for someone else. Personally, I felt that if they had Ruby become someone or something else and leave her old self as Ruby Rose behind, that would have been god awful messaging and I'm glad they didn't go that route.
I also really love the note the Volume ends on. Team RWBY and Jaune come back to Remnant and the first thing they see in Vacuo is a bunch of ships from all over the world. Her plan from Volume 8 actually worked! Think about it, Salem's goal was to turn humanity against each other so the Brother Gods would wipe them out, but that one scene shows us that her whole plan backfired in utterly spectacular fashion. We might not see a full blown final battle if Volume 10 never gets made (more on that later) but for now, Team RWBY won! Humanity fucking won! Seriously, I can't ask for a better ending than that if that's the last we see of RWBY. I'm sure not everyone will agree, but interpreting it like that helps me feel better about the possibility of a worst case scenario.
As for the future of the show, I think it's around 50/50. Volume 10 isn't greenlit yet, RTX 2023 turned out to be the final RTX convention and if RvB ending soon is anything to go by I think RT is both winding things down on top of maybe trying to squeak by just enough to hopefully get Volume 10 off the ground which will likely be the show's last (and I suspect it'll feel rushed to hell since I feel like we need at least two volumes to wrap everything up). Though they still need to get the staff to do it considering almost all the contracts for their animators expired and I'm convinced parts of it might end up outsourced out of necessity. I'm honestly not sad about RT going under, I already mentioned I hate their absolutely horrid conduct, but the idea of RWBY ending before it's conclusion is still bittersweet no matter how I look at it. As much as I dislike the company behind it, the show is still special to me and my friend. It's a big part of what made us so close and brought us so much joy during some pretty dark times in both our lives. I think what hurts the most is that I feel like I can't really share that with other people as much anymore. Not just because of how divisive opinions are over the show's quality, but because some people I know are probably not comfortable watching something by a controversial company like that. I don't blame anyone who wants to stay away from the show because of that to be honest.
Ultimately if Volume 9 is the last I can walk away mostly happy. When I think about it, for me personally I got a lot of payoff from not just this but some of the previous volumes as well. There really isn't much more in terms of payoff that I can think of that's left outside of the final battle stuff that'll likely happen in V10 if it's greenlit. And honestly, the best part is that I at least got to experience a new season of RWBY with my friend one last time if Volume 10 never happens. Who knows, maybe it'll be one of those things that comes back as a revival/finale in a few years. That does tend to happen with animated shows after all. Also holy crap this turned into a far longer post than I anticipated.
I think I've mentioned it before, but I often wonder what RWBY would be like today had Monty not passed away.
I'm not super familiar with RWBY. I've only seen a few episodes and some random scenes, but Monty was just so passionate and I admired him for it. People seem so divided over the series and I wonder how different things would be if he were still here.
I think I've mentioned it before, but I often wonder what RWBY would be like today had Monty not passed away.
I'm not super familiar with RWBY. I've only seen a few episodes and some random scenes, but Monty was just so passionate and I admired him for it. People seem so divided over the series and I wonder how different things would be if he were still here.
So do I. I don't mean to bash anybody's work on the show but you can tell they understandably struggled a bit with the fight animation (which if I remember right, the fights were Monty's area of expertise) especially in Volume 4 and 5. They seemed to get the hang of things again with Volume 6 and the last fight scene of Volume 9 was easily one of the best in the series.
As for the divided opinions, yeah, it's gotten really nasty over the years. I think it was always divisive from the start (I'm not super familiar with early reactions to RWBY tbh) but these days it feels like things are very firmly divided between people who think the show is a flawless masterpiece or people who think the show is utter trash with no redeeming value. And then there's all the shitflinging on both sides of these arguments, honestly it's gotten so bad that I still have a bunch of RWBY stuff muted on Twitter because I just can't stand seeing all the fighting anymore. As for me I'm kind of in the middle, I love the show and I'll always be happy about the positive impact it's had on my friend and I though there's parts of the show that both of us agree are pretty poorly done (the White Fang subplot being a great example of something we both strongly dislike) and I get it if someone tells me they don't really care for the show much.
Crazy knowing that the show's been ongoing for 10 years though.
To throw my two cents in for whatever they're worth, and having not seen Volume 9:
RWBY and Rooster Teeth in general is a really bittersweet topic for me. There were some really good memories, and the first three Volumes especially still hold a special place in my heart, along with some of their other content from back around that time. I still remember when the Red Trailer dropped, and that shit blew my damn mind. Sadly Volume 4 and on never captured that same magic for me, and it's a real shame what the company has done to itself... But maybe one day, probably after the likely collapse of the company has settled, maybe I'll get the itch to go back and relive a little of that nostalgia.
