Anime & Manga RWBY General discussion thread.

[Circle of Willis]

Honestly, this season feels not only like filler but also like so much pandering. It's also the season that has convinced me, more than anything, that CRWBY are absolutely lying when they insist that they're still following Monty's vision. Bumblebee - this particular ship being canonized doesn't come as a surprise to me (I still hate it not only because it's been forced as all hell but also b/c it's a black hole that has aggressively sucked away the personalities of all characters impacted by it & panders to the most vitriolic, deranged elements of RT's shrinking fanbase, but that probably deserves its own post) but what does is this bizarre insistence that it's been planned from the beginning.

The man was a mad genius when it came to animating, but as has been discussed to death before, when it came to storytelling he changed plans as often as we change underwear & had a habit of cramming stuff in at the last minute b/c he thought it was cool, even if the rest of CRWBY protested. But even setting that aside, are they really trying to convince people that such a creator had meticulously planned for Blake to practically get together with Sun in all but name for volumes on end, including literally having him meet her parents, only to then have Sun vanish from the story six volumes in so she and Yang (who openly expressed interest in boys in the volumes produced while he was still alive) can engage in awkward and obvious will-they-or-won't-they drama for three more volumes before finally being magically compelled into confessing & kissing in an alternate dimension, and in an incredibly contrived scenario where they had to be isolated from everyone and railroaded into doing so no less? Who the fuck do they think they're kidding???

Also, I didn't like the increasingly dark turn this series took since V3, but last Saturday's episode felt incredibly jarring even by the standards of post-Fall RWBY.

Spoiler

Ruby herself, the ever-chipper and optimistic titular heroine of the story, gets broken down and driven to unambiguously commit suicide? This firstly comes across like pandering to the more critical fans who wanted her to face some comeuppance for her role in driving Ironwood insane and the fall of Atlas, although I really really doubt most if any of them wanted it to go this far. But secondly it doesn't feel like the kind of story Monty would have thought of in a million years, at all. I haven't seen or heard anything by the man, either in interviews or in his early work, that suggested he had enough of a dark side to ever conceive of beating his peppy, upbeat, Pollyanna-esque teenage girl protagonist down to the point where she kills herself.

But you know what this does feel like? Gen;Lock season 2, where infamously a fan-favorite character kills herself via nanobot disintegration and gets a powerup from doing so. Wasn't it just two episodes ago that WBY were chiding Jaune for keeping the Paper Pleasers from dying and being reincarnated per Ever After's rules? I mean I guess RT could still subvert our expectations in the two remaining episodes (at this point I'd only be truly surprised if they left Ruby dead for good), but it really feels like they're about to go the Gen;Lock route instead. And between this, Gen;Lock and Penny's assisted suicide in V8 I really don't think CRWBY/RT are able to handle themes of suicide with any more grace & competence than 13 Reasons Why, in fact given how much they've basically glorified it I'm starting to think maybe some of the writers need to book a therapist.

I really don't like the 'Monty would've wanted to do X!' line because it isn't a pleasant thing to do, using a dead man's name to try to win an Internet argument. But between the FNDM's outrageous eagerness to stoop to this tactic to shit on MoistCr1tikal for daring to mildly criticize the current state of the show, while hypocritically bashing any critic they perceive to have even approached that position in their criticisms, and the above creative choices - well. At this point I still can't and won't claim I know what Monty Oum wanted for RWBY, but I have gained a certain confidence in the notion that this was not it.

All that said, at least the memes have been good. Best part of the volume, IMO.

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.

Just give it a little time, Zaslav/Warner Bros-Discovery haven't greenlit Volume 10 yet. Considering that every past volume was consistently greenlit pretty much as soon as or even before its immediate predecessor dropped, and how WBD is becoming quite infamous for axing more popular animated shows and even finished expensive films like Batwoman left & right, that's a really bad sign. I think RWBY has until the Justice League crossover (yeah that's a thing) drops before the bottom finally falls out of not just the show but Rooster Teeth as a whole, because frankly they aren't worth squat outside of RWBY these days.

 

[Zachowon]

Honestly, this season feels not only like filler but also like so much pandering. It's also the season that has convinced me, more than anything, that CRWBY are absolutely lying when they insist that they're still following Monty's vision. Bumblebee - this particular ship being canonized doesn't come as a surprise to me (I still hate it not only because it's been forced as all hell but also b/c it's a black hole that has aggressively sucked away the personalities of all characters impacted by it & panders to the most vitriolic, deranged elements of RT's shrinking fanbase, but that probably deserves its own post) but what does is this bizarre insistence that it's been planned from the beginning.

The man was a mad genius when it came to animating, but as has been discussed to death before, when it came to storytelling he changed plans as often as we change underwear & had a habit of cramming stuff in at the last minute b/c he thought it was cool, even if the rest of CRWBY protested. But even setting that aside, are they really trying to convince people that such a creator had meticulously planned for Blake to practically get together with Sun in all but name for volumes on end, including literally having him meet her parents, only to then have Sun vanish from the story six volumes in so she and Yang (who openly expressed interest in boys in the volumes produced while he was still alive) can engage in awkward and obvious will-they-or-won't-they drama for three more volumes before finally being magically compelled into confessing & kissing in an alternate dimension, and in an incredibly contrived scenario where they had to be isolated from everyone and railroaded into doing so no less? Who the fuck do they think they're kidding???

Also, I didn't like the increasingly dark turn this series took since V3, but last Saturday's episode felt incredibly jarring even by the standards of post-Fall RWBY.

Spoiler

Ruby herself, the ever-chipper and optimistic titular heroine of the story, gets broken down and driven to unambiguously commit suicide? This firstly comes across like pandering to the more critical fans who wanted her to face some comeuppance for her role in driving Ironwood insane and the fall of Atlas, although I really really doubt most if any of them wanted it to go this far. But secondly it doesn't feel like the kind of story Monty would have thought of in a million years, at all. I haven't seen or heard anything by the man, either in interviews or in his early work, that suggested he had enough of a dark side to ever conceive of beating his peppy, upbeat, Pollyanna-esque teenage girl protagonist down to the point where she kills herself.

But you know what this does feel like? Gen;Lock season 2, where infamously a fan-favorite character kills herself via nanobot disintegration and gets a powerup from doing so. Wasn't it just two episodes ago that WBY were chiding Jaune for keeping the Paper Pleasers from dying and being reincarnated per Ever After's rules? I mean I guess RT could still subvert our expectations in the two remaining episodes (at this point I'd only be truly surprised if they left Ruby dead for good), but it really feels like they're about to go the Gen;Lock route instead. And between this, Gen;Lock and Penny's assisted suicide in V8 I really don't think CRWBY/RT are able to handle themes of suicide with any more grace & competence than 13 Reasons Why, in fact given how much they've basically glorified it I'm starting to think maybe some of the writers need to book a therapist.

I really don't like the 'Monty would've wanted to do X!' line because it isn't a pleasant thing to do, using a dead man's name to try to win an Internet argument. But between the FNDM's outrageous eagerness to stoop to this tactic to shit on MoistCr1tikal for daring to mildly criticize the current state of the show, while hypocritically bashing any critic they perceive to have even approached that position in their criticisms, and the above creative choices - well. At this point I still can't and won't claim I know what Monty Oum wanted for RWBY, but I have gained a certain confidence in the notion that this was not it.

All that said, at least the memes have been good. Best part of the volume, IMO.

Just give it a little time, Zaslav/Warner Bros-Discovery haven't greenlit Volume 10 yet. Considering that every past volume was consistently greenlit pretty much as soon as or even before its immediate predecessor dropped, and how WBD is becoming quite infamous for axing more popular animated shows and even finished expensive films like Batwoman left & right, that's a really bad sign. I think RWBY has until the Justice League crossover (yeah that's a thing) drops before the bottom finally falls out of not just the show but Rooster Teeth as a whole, because frankly they aren't worth squat outside of RWBY these days.

WB let Velma go for a second season.

 

[Circle of Willis]

WB let Velma go for a second season.

That wasn't a renewal though, Season 2 of Velma had already been ordered by the time Season 1 was announced and consequently the cast were already contracted for S2. Meanwhile as has been said (and as admitted by RT themselves) RWBY's next season hasn't been greenlit. Velma was also announced (and these deals & contracts were made) before Zaslav took over WB, IIRC.

 

[Free-Stater 101]

I think personally the Volume has been good outside of the forced Bumblebee nonsense, it's taking more risk and being creative for a change and without the plotline on Remnant dragging them down the pacing feels more natural and less rushed while not being predictable.

The Curious Cat is a good villain if only because we don't know from the offset, he is a villain and don't need to be explicitly told he is.

I like the route the characters have gone this Volume my only wish is that we had more buildup or internal context of their issues. I think, the series suffers from not exploring the context of itself too seriously and self-reflection and awareness of a setting is needed for a series to be great.

I would literally like for them to get out of the Ever After next volume and have there be actually ramifications for all their actions. I want Jaune to remain older and not to magically become young again. I want the Atlas Refugee crisis to literally have no great or meaningful resolution because dumping an entire kingdom worth of refugees from Atlas onto Vacuo when said kingdom is a desert whose wealth has been either destroyed or extracted by the former isn't a recipe for success.

 

[Circle of Willis]

Well, Volume 9 is now over.

Spoiler

Ruby's ultimate lesson (handed to her not by her friends, but by the magic tree) was 'it's OK to make mistakes, you're only human' which might be fine if she had just screwed up a school project back at Beacon, but not in the context of the destruction of an entire kingdom. She's functionally committed suicide and it basically had no impact as she gets better & hits the reset button on her characterization two episodes later so yeah, I think the Gen;Lock S2 criticism 110% applies. Besides, 'we're all flawed people who make mistakes and sometimes shit happens that's out of our control, but that's OK' isn't even the right lesson to take home after the fall of Atlas - it's not like Team RWBY tried their best and their best proved insufficient in the dire circumstances, they directly and purposely fucked things up by withholding information from Ironwood and ratting to Robyn behind his back for no good reason, and also spent an inordinate amount of screentime sipping tea rather than doing anything meaningful.

Or in short, Ruby & friends didn't fail in Atlas because they weren't good enough; they failed because they were wrong, and they can't grow from/past that because the writers refuse to let them anywhere near realizing (much less accepting) that they were wrong.

Jaune got a group hug, gets de-aged, and seems none the worse for wear. He doesn't even remotely broach the subject of him being the one to kill Penny with Ruby despite that theoretically being a massive bone of contention between them; frankly, at this point I suspect the show will never touch it. Honestly, it feels like he really could've been left out of this volume and it wouldn't have actually changed anything, and I say that as someone who doesn't hate Jaune.

Weiss...oh, dear God, what did they do to you this season. Girl's just lost her kingdom, had no idea whether her family's alive or not, and any aspirations she might've had of leading & reforming the SDC must've been dashed with the destruction of Atlas. And for all that, this volume doesn't really bring any of that up in favor of treating her as the comic relief character, when her baggage should frankly have shared the limelight with Ruby's angst rather than Jaune's Rusted Knight arc.

Blake & Yang got the only significant character development to stick and of course it's centered around Bumblebee, a ship so forced that Ever After had to magically bind them together and force them to confess to get it going. At this point they aren't even their own characters really, just two halves of the same pile of trash with no reason to exist save Bumblebee - 'Blang', if you will, or 'Yake'. I must say it's extremely ironic that Blake helped put a dent in Renora by giving Nora relationship advice which amounts to 'you need to be your own person' when she herself doesn't exist outside of Bumblebee.

I will also add that it's hilarious that Arryn and Barbara are using Bumblebee's canonization to promote their OnlyFans. Yang and Blake's personalities & actually organic relationships were murdered for the sake of not only pandering to one of the craziest fanbase segments this side of Steven Universe, but also to pad their voice actresses' wallets via OF. This is a new low - those two must know RT isn't long for this world and that they desperately need to squeeze every penny from its leading property while it still lasts if this is any indicator.

Neo, like Jaune, felt really superfluous this volume. It does feel that the Ever After could've magically subjected Ruby to her personal trials without her, all she did was add some personal animus into the mix. But then she was brought back for no reason other than to pander to her fans as far as I can tell, so maybe that's quite fitting after all.

Teasing Raven & Summer. OK, well, I guess with Bumblebee finally being A Thing™ RT needs some other hook to get people interested in V10+.

And Remnant apparently got its shit together, enough to once again field Atlas airships and such, when Team RWBY & Jaune comes home? Looks like things do improve when they're kept out of the picture lol. Speaking of which, we're now 9 volumes into the story and I still have not heard any compelling reason as to why RWBY must be the protagonists - there's still nothing that they, a gang of young'uns who didn't even complete their studies at Beacon and backstabbed the man who gave them their Huntress licenses, bring to the table which vastly more experienced people and whatever's left of the Atlas military doesn't already have in spades. Their importance remains as though it's due only to everyone in-universe being aware on some level that their show is named RWBY, this volume doesn't add anything to change that.

Overall, that last episode leaves this season feeling like a gigantic waste of time, as none of the already rather scarce development from this season got to stick other than Bumblebee (vomits). Anyone who thought V9 would be an ultimately irrelevant filler arc is right, and it was situated at a really bad time for such a thing too.

Also the RWBY x JL crossover, which already had a rough start between the state of both RWBY & DC (or western comics in general) writing and the fact that it's being written by Meghan Fitzmartin (known mainly for breaking up Tim Drake & Stephanie Brown so as to turn the former gay), dropped yesterday. From reading reviews & the plot summary on the RWBY Critics subreddit, it's not looking great either.

At this point it feels like David Zaslav's considering integrating Team RWBY into the DC universe if/when he axes Rooster Teeth (notably the above is only part 1, there's supposed to be a second part to RWBY x JL), which would be...weird. And an unfortunate ending to what started as a fun passion project on the part of Monty and Shane, almost as unfortunate as the CRWBY continuing to butcher it beyond recognition. I for one would still rather hope for Crunchyroll to buy the IP and have it rebooted either through a proper anime studio in the vein of IQ, or through hiring Shane and Dillon Gu (also a former RWBY animator, and still doing good animation work today).

 

[Zachowon]

So basically, a ending I am somewhat happy for but also irritated they can't have tje characters grow much.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

we're now 9 volumes into the story and I still have not heard any compelling reason as to why RWBY must be the protagonists - there's still nothing that they, a gang of young'uns who didn't even complete their studies at Beacon and backstabbed the man who gave them their Huntress licenses, bring to the table which vastly more experienced people and whatever's left of the Atlas military doesn't already have in spades. Their importance remains as though it's due only to everyone in-universe being aware on some level that their show is named RWBY, this volume doesn't add anything to change that.

In season 4 it seemed like their relevance was knew about secret lore and were thus one of the only people left to perhaps try to carry out the Ozpin's mission. That worked in the scope of season 4 when Beacon had fallen and it seemed like the world was disarray, but then you realize that the leaders of the other countries were already in on Ozpin's group too and they had many warriors and fleets at their disposal. I guess team RWBY's story relevance is that the millennia old wizard has chosen to travel with team RWBY for and use him as his chosen instruments for... reasons, rather than working with the much more powerful nation leaders and their resources? Team RWBY could still perform missions for Ozpin, but it would take years and a lot of the higher level warriors being taken out before they would start being entrusted with artifact retrieval and maiden bodyguarding and so on.

 

[Blasterbot]

God damn why did they give Jaune back the shitty hairstyle. this whole freaking volume could have not happened and nothing would change other than a single streak of white in Jaune's hair and now bumble bee is totally official. wait no we now know that for some reason Tai Yang whenever he gets with a girl drives them away.

 

[Terthna]

In season 4 it seemed like their relevance was knew about secret lore and were thus one of the only people left to perhaps try to carry out the Ozpin's mission. That worked in the scope of season 4 when Beacon had fallen and it seemed like the world was disarray, but then you realize that the leaders of the other countries were already in on Ozpin's group too and they had many warriors and fleets at their disposal. I guess team RWBY's story relevance is that the millennia old wizard has chosen to travel with team RWBY for and use him as his chosen instruments for... reasons, rather than working with the much more powerful nation leaders and their resources? Team RWBY could still perform missions for Ozpin, but it would take years and a lot of the higher level warriors being taken out before they would start being entrusted with artifact retrieval and maiden bodyguarding and so on.

I still think that Ozpin was originally intended to stay dead after season 3, but then they suddenly realized that they still needed him to spout exposition, and justify the protagonists' presence in their own story through his own presence; so the whole possession of Oscar thing was a haphazard, last-minute attempt to right the ship.

 

[f1onagher]

So this entire season was completely pointless. It was the content of four filler episodes stretched out to a season and decorated with Tumbr's first Alice in Wonderland fanfic art. Ruby's core conflict of the season was not something that could be addressed in one conversation with a tree, but we'll do it that way. And oh boy, between this and Gen:Lock I think someone over in RT needs to hurry the fuck up and move to Canada so they can MAID themselves and stop tormenting the rest of humanity with their issues. The worst part is that nothing interesting happens from Ruby's little trip. There's not even a change to her character design or anything.

Jaune as usual is crammed into the season and then not developed or used in any functional way. Poor Weiss, the only RWBY character to have a complete character arc, is stuck being comedic relief since the RT writers clearly have no fucking clue what to do with her now. Neo is wasted as a villain which is irritating as she was the only interesting one left. Wonderland serves functionally no purpose beyond padding RWBY's already bloated cosmic backstory. I actually liked Little, but as usual, the writers didn't know how to materially use her.

And of course Bumblebee. No, I won't call them Blake and Yang anymore. Blake and Yang no longer exist. Willis is correct in his assessment that their previous personalities have been subsumed into the shallowest bit of queerbaiting, narcissistic bullshit ever vomited out by desperate creators. I wouldn't mind nearly as much if it wasn't evident that it worked. The drooling mental inbreds in the RWBY fan sites are treating that hamhanded asspull as the greatest thing to ever happen to the show or LGBT movement. I just have to go back to season four and remember how Sun and Blake had such easy natural chemistry that RT had to quickly shove him to the side and replace him with a lesbian lizard lest the non-batshit fanbase start to favor them as a romantic pairing and vapid Tumblr crowd start complaining and not buying merch. It's just fascinating what letting natural character and story building can do.

The only good part of the season was the chess fight since for a brief moment RWBY was back to being an elemental thing of music and action. The final fight pales in comparison to that little sideshow and all they had to do to make it work was keep Ruby's theme going while she wailed on the Cat. So I must complement CRWBY on their magical ability to dodge any and all actually interesting elements that their story naturally generates, lest they be predicted by the internet.

I have never seen this much effort put into intentionally making a series bad as I have in RWBY. And unfortunately, the effort does shine through since I can't look away. I've loved the concept since the first Red trailer made me think Ruby would be a mute and I must see how the travesty ends. But it hurts, so bad. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, just let someone not from Austin write the next season, please!

 

[StormEagle]

You know, it really sucks that Weiss was sidelined as much as she was this season.

There was so much room and impetus for character development there that it actually hurts me on the inside.

At the start of the season, her kingdom is destroyed, the company she wanted to inherit and change gone with it, her siblings and mother might be dead for all she knows, she and her team outright sabotaged Ironwood throughout that season and are partly responsible for the cluster fuck that followed.

There is every reason for season nine to be primarily a Weiss season. Or at least secondarily. If anything, she should be the outright suicidal one out of the bunch.

But no instead we got…Bumblebee confirmation and more focus on Jaune.

Yay?

 

[Blasterbot]

The offscreen stuff with jaune was just about the only good thing here. and that was mostly because people could speculate and make stuff up between episodes. in a binge? that is not gonna be firing the imagination nearly as much.

 

[Free-Stater 101]

To slow the usual dunking on the show and offer a more constructive critique of the Volume. To start with I want to say I like this Volume in some ways even if I felt it failed to achieve its ultimate purpose, it was an interesting season which felt fresh and was fun because it went into an unknown territory in which anything was possible, and it kept us on our toes. The Curious Cat turned out to be one of RWBY's more memorable villains of the show and I am glad we got to experience him.

That being said the Volume has its problems, although not all of them are faults of the Volume itself. A key example of this is this Volume was a ripe opportunity of character development and either through ignoring characters potential or not giving any previous buildup a lot of it fell flat, to showcase this I will point out the three aspects of this spectrum Ruby, Ruby and Weiss.

Ruby had the worst character arc of this Volume, but it wasn't anything to do with how she acted or her conclusions so much in that there was never any real buildup to it in any previous Volume so if felt contrived due to coming out of nowhere for most.

The polar opposite takes place with Jaune and as a result he probably has the best character Arc this Volume, he has had an inferiority complex since long before Beacon fell, had to see his friends die again and again on numerous occasions and been powerless against any of it the whole time.

Weiss meanwhile has been squandered she lost her home last volume and although at present she most likely thinks everyone in her family including her dad is alive in Vacuo that doesn't mean it should have been glossed over entirely

(People have been overblowing Weiss's loss of character development as based off what she knows her entire family is still alive so personally she wouldn't be feeling loss at this time although she could have at least had an outburst this Volume about her father's roll in the whole ordeal).

The above shows what I believe to be the biggest problem's RT has with their writing a lack of overarching plot for most characters and even those in which they do have one planned they fail to cap it off correctly.

Another problem is that this Volume lacks long term ramifications of any sort physically Jaune just gets literally deus ex machina'ed back young again to resolve what could have been a good plotline so why make him old at all?

Literally the whole Volume was basically a lesson about facing death and accepting its inevibility and yet they then de-age Jaune so he avoids it longer which sort of subverts that lesson.

To say nothing of the fact that It also doesn't make sense that the tree would de-age Jaune for Alyx because she wanted to help repair the damage she cause because Alyx wasn't responsible for Jaune's time travel stint that was all on him.

More later I am tired now.

 

[Terthna]

It would be kinda funny if this season, essentially a filler arc, ends up being RWBY's last; which I'd argue is a very real possibility.

 

[Zachowon]

I am glad Jaune survived and De aged personally.

 

[Free-Stater 101]

I am glad Jaune survived and De aged personally.

Even though I somewhat agree for the sake of the character storytelling wise it wasn't a good decision. Stories need steaks and ramifications for plot otherwise what's the point? I like Jaune but making him older only to backtrack lazily isn't helping the character.

 

[desmondsimonkenny]

Stories need steaks

I'm more of a mutton guy myself /s

In all seriousness has anybody seen the Justice League crossover movie? I'm still baffled that it got made at all. And they had the gall to make it Part 1 lol

 

[Circle of Willis]

I'm more of a mutton guy myself /s

In all seriousness has anybody seen the Justice League crossover movie? I'm still baffled that it got made at all. And they had the gall to make it Part 1 lol

I watched the trailer and that's about it, got no interest in that sort of thing myself and the JL cast aren't looking too good. That RWBY have their old looks back just reminded me that RWBY's character designs have nosedived in quality since V3 and Monty's death - the 'easy to cosplay' design philosophy seems to have been thrown out in favor of aping Tetsuya Nomura with belts & zippers out the ass regardless of practicality. But I digress, that's a topic that could use its own post.

From the RWBY Critics subreddit I've heard it was at best mediocre and basically felt like fanfiction with a budget, saw a clip of a Batman vs. Weiss fight which looked pretty bad IMO and further read that apparently it handles the JL characters with disrespect. Which is only to be expected since Meghan Fitzmartin is the writer from the DC side and she's as awful at her job & hates the characters she's been handed as much as all the other woke hack nepo-babies writing for Western comics nowadays.

The only semi-interesting thing I've heard about the movie is that the FNDM is simultaneously dropping positive review-bombs on it to try to save the show/RT while accusing critics of giving it negative review-bombs instead. Pure projection which is easily exposed by a look at the actual ratings on IMDB.

Their strat isn't even working anyway, as you can see IMDB has got something working in the background to keep the weighted average at 5.5 (which would be in line with the 'at best mediocre' descriptor I've seen applied to it on the aforementioned subreddit) despite the FNDM having worked overtime to give it more 10/10 ratings than the rest of the reviews combined.

 

[Circle of Willis]

So RTX has happened and apparently RWBY V10 didn't get greenlit. RT did show off a deleted scene from the V9 epilogue, in which Winter vandalizes a grave/memorial to JRWBY telling them 'don't come back' because according to Arryn Troche & as totally proven by V7-8 they are too pure and wonderful for Remnant and everyone else doesn't deserve their glorious presence & aid (to which all I can say is - lmao). But that & the news that JL x RWBY Part 2 is still happening (like Velma, regardless of how well the first installment did or didn't do, presumably it was already contracted beforehand since said first part was...well, just Part 1 out of 2) is pretty much all the RWBY news there was. Interestingly, I've heard that Camp Camp got renewed & RvB is getting a final season instead.

Still too early to declare the show has died IMO, we should wait until next year or for news of RT being shut down before that. But it's not looking good and I'm not surprised. Arguments about the show's quality or lack thereof aside, Zaslav & the Warner Bros-Discovery board are probably running around like chickens who've been set on fire after Ezra Miller's The Flash bombed harder than even the most pessimistic Youtube commentators thought (biggest superhero movie to ever bomb, even!) and another season of RWBY must be the furthest thing from their minds right now.

In light of that disaster, another round of layoffs & shutdowns to cut costs further still is likely, maybe even imminent, and I can't imagine Rooster Teeth isn't one of the most likely names to get the ax. All of their IPs have diminished massively in popularity or outright died, RT First is so poorly performing/underused that they've made that Crunchyroll deal for V9, and of course their own reputation is highly toxic due to KickVic & all the scandals about their atrocious working conditions. Unless WBD plans to incorporate the RWBY cast into the DC universe altogether (though that'd be a considerable risk with a lot of baggage and after all the epic bombs in recent years they are absolutely not in a position to take risks of any kind right now, so maybe not), perhaps Crunchyroll's just waiting for RT to finish circling the drain before snapping the RWBY IP up at low cost to themselves.

 

[Blasterbot]

The best thing that could happen to this show is for it to die and for people to be left nostalgic for the early seasons and the porn of it.