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Web video powerhouse Rooster Teeth grabbed the attention of American anime fans with the release of their original web series, RWBY. The freshman show from Monty Oum came on strong with some impressive action, strong visuals, and well-developed character designs balanced by sketchy plotting and a lack of polish in the background. As the second volume (which finishes off the first season) comes to Blu-ray and DVD, RWBY shows enough growth to keep that audience around for a while.
The first volume introduced viewers to Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang, a quartet of teenage girls attending the Beacon School, where they’re taught to become Hunters and fight the monstrous Grimm plaguing their world. Events pick up with a new semester at Beacon, introducing the girls to new classmates and rivals and a series of new threats from both the Grimm and a criminal organization known as White Fang.
The main draw of the series, evident from the original release of four extended character-specific trailers, remains the hyperkinetic action sequences. Drawn in equal measure from video games, kung fu movies, and anime, the show becomes even more vibrant when the action kicks in. Many of the secondary characters are defined by their unique weapons or fighting styles, and it’s clear that this is where Oum’s heart lies. The design work and animation show clear improvement over the first installment.
There’s also a stronger emphasis on technology in this installment, including a paramilitary organization and a fairly impressive mecha (a giant robot that a person can drive) that reinforces the Japanese influence on the series. This new focus also allows the animators to focus on some of the smaller details that don’t work quite so well in the organic Grimm designs.
Even the backgrounds have received a well-deserved touch-up. While they can still be distractingly flat, the textures are improved, and the overall sense of a cohesive world benefits as a result. Beacon feels more like a lived-in space, and various other locations provide some needed variety. It’s not quite to the level of feature CGI or even the hand-painted backgrounds of traditional animation, but there’s improvement here as well.
The one area that still needs the most work concerns the series’s plot. With character introductions out of the way, there’s a chance to streamline the storytelling and get into the heart of the narrative. Unfortunately, RWBY misses the mark here, jamming in a ton of new and unfamiliar characters, along with hints of an overarching plot, without much pay-off. At the same time, there’s still plenty of high school soap opera-style shenanigans that will either delight or infuriate viewers, depending on their enjoyment of the genre.
For an American studio—especially one the size of Rooster Teeth—RWBY still represents an impressive achievement that’s worth checking out. Action fans and those who get more mileage out of teenage soaps will definitely find something to like, while the rest of us can marvel at the visual eye candy and hope that, like its protagonists, the series can grow up just a little quicker.
Blu-ray Review:
RWBY: Volume 2 arrives with all 12 chapters viewable as a single movie or as individual chapters with optional commentary from the voice cast and creators. Overall, the set looks and sounds great in high definition, and the commentary tracks provide some nice background on the series. Notable extras include a short (and necessary) introduction to some of the series concepts and video diaries that give an informative look into the production process. I’d definitely recommend watching the concepts section before checking out the feature for a better grasp of ideas that aren’t clearly articulated in the show itself.
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