RWBY: a wacky show that I love more than anything else

  Like many people, I was absolutely captivated by the red trailer that was released almost 10 years ago at this point. I can still remember the exact set of emotions that I went through as I saw Ruby Rose tear through the grimm with Crescent Rose for the first time. I knew nothing about the show and I was immediately hooked. Hooked enough to the point where the show has kept a special place in my heart to this day. 

There’s a lot I can say about my feelings towards the show after all of these years watching it, but actually sitting down and putting it all into words like this has been challenging. Surprisingly so. The gist of it remains the same through all of it: I like the show and I feel that it’s so much more than valid criticisms it deserves. That may seem a little weird. Why am I giving praise to a show whose plot falls apart to even some of the slightest criticisms? The answer is simple: because so much of the show is awesome. When you watch the show you can just feel all of the passion and love that went into every part of it. From the animation, to the character designs, the soundtracks, and even the story. It all felt so cool and exciting that we were never blaming the show for any of its mistakes back then. We just wanted to watch Monty Oum and the rest of CRWBY show us what they were capable of. And they were most certainly capable of a lot of things. The sheer quality of the fight scene animation stands amongst some of the best in the industry, transcending what would be considered good for low budget web animations. In fact, the very very low number of animated fights that I even consider putting up there with his work is baffling. It only shows just how far ahead he was and I think that was what made those early seasons shine so bright. 

So what changed after the early seasons? Well, I will leave the elephant in the room over there and say that a lot changed for the show following Volume 3. The main team was split up and they had to work out their own personal issues before they could come together again. It represented a much more ambitious story where the focus was the characters and not the fights. In a way it was a nice parallel to how the show’s community was. We needed time to recover and heal from recent events just as much as the characters did. While this arc had no shortage of production issues, rushed animation, and gen:lock, I still feel it hit some of the best and most important story beats of the show. Weiss, Blake, and Yang all grew from their pasts. Weiss could finally be someone who didn’t define herself by her family name and became someone who felt like she would actually support her friends. Yang overcame her disability and found the strength to be a better person than her mom. Lastly, Blake, with the help of Yang, realized that she could find strength in her friends and used that strength to defeat the person who kept her afraid. Throughout all of this we got to see Ruby show us why her friends worked hard to come back to her. There is a big scene in volume 4 where Jaune explains that the reason they’re choosing to follow Ruby on her journey is because she is continuing to try despite the losses she’s been forced to endure. It’s something truly inspiring and brought a tear to my eye when I rewatched the scene while writing this. When I rewatched these seasons earlier this year I was honestly shocked at just how good they aged considering the general opinion of the show during that time. I used to think they were very skippable and pretty mid, but now it’s pretty clear to me that perhaps I was too hard on the Haven arc.

For a period of time after Volume 8 I felt a little disillusioned with the show. Some of the story choices were ones that I heavily disagreed with and a lot of moments left me a bit dissatisfied. I never got to the point of hating the show during this time, I was just a little annoyed with what happened. I felt that Ironwood got really shafted by the writing team, in that they really committed to making him the worst possible person so that it felt like there was almost no choice but to kill him off. I have nothing really more to say on that, except that it leaves a really weird aftertaste for me regarding the Atlas arc. It only got worse the year after when all of the controversies surrounding rooster teeth came out which only made the future of the show look more bleak. I was more relieved than excited that we even got the next volume. Though whether it be those events lowering my expectations or a renewed energy in creating the show, I was absolutely floored by how good Volume 9 was. After Volume 9’s finale I had a lot of thoughts in my mind, not just about the show, but about the various other things that were going on in my life then. I was finishing up my last semester of college, going into the world not really sure where I was going to end up. Like Ruby throughout her arc that season, I felt a little lost. Even though I had some sense of where I was going I couldn’t help but feel dissatisfied with how it had all went down. I was at a weirdly low point in my life and not sure how much further I would’ve been able to make it had I not been there to hear the message of accepting yourself that came out of the volume. 

The final special thing about watching the show for me was that I grew up with the show. I was 13 when I watched the red trailer, barely older than the average age of kids playing call of duty back then. The show has been a constant in my life through my middle school, high school, and college lives which are the years where we get to grow up and find who we are. I had the pleasure of watching the show mature and grow just as I did and I still get to do it today. In a way that’s a big part of what I feel so attached to this show. It’s like a distant family that I got to spend time with in moments where I felt alone, sad, and especially happy. Seeing Ruby and her friends do their best to make Remnant a better place inspired me to at least do the same for myself. Because if I didn’t, then I wouldn’t get to see how their journey ended.

So what does this mean for my future with the show? Well I think one part is obvious for sure: I will still be watching RWBY, no matter what they give us. I intend to go to RTX Austin this year to finally spend some time with other people in the fandom perhaps a few too many years after the show’s prime, but that only means we’re just going to be stronger because of that. So if you’ve never watched the show before I hope I didn’t spoil much, but you should really go out and watch the show for yourself. Who knows, you might find yourself enjoying the show despite what the internet will tell you!