Bear Ribs
Well-known member
I think this is the first time I've seen somebody say something positive about Dragonball Z's pacing.
Anime & Manga RWBY General discussion thread.
- Thread starter Zachowon
- Start date
DarthOne
☦️
He’s not wrong about RWBY though.
Circle of Willis
Well-known member
What can I say, you know RWBY's in dire straits when even DBZ's pacing can be said to have been better, lmao. To paraphrase Shigeru Miyamoto, 'a
DarthOne
☦️
The fact that this is so funny has to derive from the absurdity of the idea of woke, politically correct Rooserteeth ever daring to do anything so risky and controversial with a main character and not have it be either some sort of contrived mind control type situation or as a way the hammer home some sort of ‘lesson’ into the viewer’s heads.
Man the new season has been great!
…how the mighty have fallen low.
f1onagher
Well-known member
There are several layers to it. Part of it is a much older meme of chirpy, ever-happy Ruby becoming cynical, bitter, and jaded. Evolve that into making her an actual bigot, a character trait so rare these days it's actually at risk of being interesting. The schadenfreude of inflicting it upon the pathetically woke Rooster Teeth and their Tumblrina fanbase. And finally, the in-universe catharsis of pointing out that Yang and Blake have to be really narcissistic to have their romantic magic journey while everyone else is wrestling with the loss of their homes, decades of isolation, and the ever-looming doom of Salem.
Like all the best memes it's multi-layered with something for even non-homophobes to enjoy.
Beyond the forced Bumblebee ship I have enjoyed it, although the fact that they did finally do it is a plus if only because it means they will stop with the ship tease and get back to the damn story.
In any case Volume 9 outside the above has been a good season if only because it's taking risk and has steadily been able to keep my interest as far as in what's going to happen next.
Doomsought
Well-known member
Remember how they did General Ironwood dirty?
Yeah I know.
DarthOne
☦️
Terthna
Professional Lurker
I'll never forgive them for bringing back Penny (and giving her the only good-looking redesign) just so that they could kill her off again, but made her human first so that the audience will think it'll stick this time. If I had my way nobody involved with this, from the decision makers up top, to those responsible for the execution, would ever be able to find work in the entertainment industry again after this show finally dies.
StormEagle
Well-known member
I’m consistently and honestly baffled that this dumpster fire has drunkenly stumbled its way through nine seasons.
Actually decent anime have problems getting two seasons, while this thing has managed to somehow keep itself above water for nine. That’s not even getting into the fact that some actually good shows manage to tell their stories within two or three seasons.
Methinks Rooster Teeth has never heard the saying “brevity is the soul of wit”.
I’m actually super salty about this as well. I liked rwby for the first four seasons. I’d even go as far as saying the Fall of Beacon is one of my favorite finales to a season in western animation.
The story and world had so much potential, but it’s like the script writers didn’t know what they wanted to do with them. So they just decided fuck, throw everything that we can think of in to it.
Which is how a show originally about a team of badass girls fighting monsters and terrorists, turned into a story about fighting an immortal, reincarnating wizard’s immortal, corrupted ex-wife to prevent her summoning a couple of dead beat gods/destroying the world.
…And then an Alice in Wonderland based season for some reason. Characters that could have been interesting got turned into strawmen parodies of themselves. Looking at you Adam.
Characters that were interesting, Ironwood, got the same treatment. A character whose death was actually super shocking and sad got revived only to get killed off again for no real discernible reason.
I repeat, I used to like this show. But it is in severe need of an editor to trim it down.
Actually decent anime have problems getting two seasons, while this thing has managed to somehow keep itself above water for nine. That’s not even getting into the fact that some actually good shows manage to tell their stories within two or three seasons.
Methinks Rooster Teeth has never heard the saying “brevity is the soul of wit”.
I’m actually super salty about this as well. I liked rwby for the first four seasons. I’d even go as far as saying the Fall of Beacon is one of my favorite finales to a season in western animation.
The story and world had so much potential, but it’s like the script writers didn’t know what they wanted to do with them. So they just decided fuck, throw everything that we can think of in to it.
Which is how a show originally about a team of badass girls fighting monsters and terrorists, turned into a story about fighting an immortal, reincarnating wizard’s immortal, corrupted ex-wife to prevent her summoning a couple of dead beat gods/destroying the world.
…And then an Alice in Wonderland based season for some reason. Characters that could have been interesting got turned into strawmen parodies of themselves. Looking at you Adam.
Characters that were interesting, Ironwood, got the same treatment. A character whose death was actually super shocking and sad got revived only to get killed off again for no real discernible reason.
I repeat, I used to like this show. But it is in severe need of an editor to trim it down.
Doomsought
Well-known member
Whatever happened to episodic, villain of the week, plots? They worked perfectly well for decades. Mix them with a single over arching plot per season that connects several episodes together and you get the best of both worlds.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
Almost all anime are made by committee, involving large corporations, while Rooster Teeth is effectively answerable to no one but themselves. Thus, while an anime has to turn a significant profit to justify making more seasons, RWBY (being a vanity project) only has to break even.
StormEagle
Well-known member
…Aren’t they owned by Warner Bros?
I thought Zaslav the Destroyer was taking the axe to anything unprofitable?
Terthna
Professional Lurker
For some reason, he hasn't gotten to Rooster Teeth yet. I'm not sure he's even aware of their existence, let alone that his company owns them.
DarthOne
☦️
Would not surprise me if that was the case. Would be darkly funny if true.
Val the Moofia Boss
Well-known member
I think RWBY making this far is indicative of 1. just how popular RWBY was, and 2. RoosterTeeth's lack of options.
RWBY became popular in the first place because it existed in a near vacuum. It was the only cool Western animation at the time that had appeal to teenagers and up. Everything else was crude humor sitcoms or boring Saturday morning cartoons. There was ATLA but that had ended years before and the sequel was unpopular. Anime was just starting to become mainstream because of streaming but it hadn't solidified yet. So RWBY won by default. For a lot of people, it was the only option they were aware of. RoosterTeeth also had a cult following because of Red vs Blue which helped spread word of mouth. So RWBY built up a big fanbase, big enough that a decade later even a fraction of the remaining fans still interested in RWBY is still a sizeable number.
As for RoosterTeeth, RT doesn't exist in a thriving animation industry like anime production companies do. In Japan, anime companies can pick and choose what projects they want to work on. There are so many shows in production that companies can be booked years in advance. RoosterTeeth has no luxury. Working on RWBY and their other in house projects are the only real options they have, unless they want to start doing 3D CGI for television commercials. RoosterTeeth's other new show, GenLock, didn't take off like RWBY did. It didn't have the charm, and came later than RWBY, after anime had become entrenched in the zeitgeist and people are aware that they if they want to watch cool animated shows, they aren't forced to settle for GenLock. There are thousands of anime out there at their fingertips that they might derive more enjoyment from. So RT continues to focus on RWBY. It's what they've got.
StormEagle
Well-known member
Honestly, RWBY would be pretty… not simple, but not exactly hard to fix. If Rooster Teeth was willing to suffer through the pain of what it would take to do so.
1. It desperately needs a reboot. The show feels almost aimless at times, and there is just to damned much going on that I think they’re having issues focusing on the overall plot.
Jettison the gods plot point for one. Jettison Oz’s immortality while we’re at it. Salem can stick around, though I think she’d work better without the immortality.
Have her be a last remnant, hehehe, of Mantle or Mistral’s old aristocratic class before the Great War. Make it a shadow war between her and Oz, who you could give a connection to the last king of Vale (descendant or distant relation), with the Grimm as a threat ever looming in the background.
Or I don’t know, have her be a Faunus and slot her in to Sienna Khan’s place. I’m just spitballing here.
2. Despite what I say above RWBY also has the problem of feeling very rushed at times. It goes from dead air to sudden breakneck runaway train with very little in between. The pacing is absolutely fucked at this stage.
I feel like this could be fixed with either longer episodes or longer seasons. Preferably both. This gives time for the characters to breathe and be better established by expanding on backstory or giving them some actual screen time.
3. Cut the cast down. There are so many characters in rwby that it can actually get rather confusing at times. Rooster Teeth need to sit their asses down with a competent editor and writing staff and start asking themselves if certain characters are at all necessary.
Sienna Khan, Hazel, Whitely and Willow, Robin and her merry band, the Ace corps. Hell, Ren and Nora barely did anything in the last couple of seasons, and Oscar could be put on the chopping block by getting rid of the Oz immortality angle.
4. Make at least some of your villains actually compelling in some way. None of the villains are at all interesting.
Tyrian is a psychopath, Cinder is a power hungry lunatic, no one has any idea what Salem actually wants, Watts has more going on than all of the above but his jealousy is ultimately uninteresting, Hazel is an actual idiot, Adam went from semi interesting leader of a racial revolution group to an abusive boyfriend and genocide advocate, and Mercury and Emerald haven’t really mattered since season three.
Most importantly, we don’t see the backstory of most of these characters. We get told a lot, but we don’t see a lot.
I’m sure there’s more, but I’m working on my phone here and these are my four main complaints. Most of the rest of it is honestly nitpicking.