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RWBY Thread III: Time To Say Goodbye

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Stop: So gotta few things that need to be said real quick.
  • Staff Post
    • so gotta few things that need to be said real quick.
    We get a lot of reports from this thread. A lot of it is just a series of people yelling at each other over arguments that have been rehashed hundreds of times since the end of the recent Volume. And I get that the last Volume - and RWBY in general, really - has some controversial moments that people will want to discuss, argue about, debate, etc.

    That's fine. We're not going to stop people from doing that, because that's literally what the point of the thread is. However, there's just a point where it gets to be a bit too much, and arguments about whether or not Ironwood was morally justified in his actions in the recent Volume, or if RWBY and her team were in the right for withholding information from Ironwood out of distrust, or whatever flavor of argument of the day descend into insulting other posters, expressing a demeaning attitude towards other's opinions, and just being overall unpleasant. That tends to happen a lot in this thread. We want it to stop happening in this thread.

    So! As of now the thread is in a higher state of moderation. What that means is that any future infractions will result in a weeklong boot from the thread, and repeated offenders will likely be permanently removed. So please, everyone endeavor to actually respect the other's arguments, and even if you strongly disagree with them please stay civil and mindful when it comes to responding to others.

    In addition, users should refrain from talking about off-site users in the thread. Bear in mind that this does not mean that you cannot continue to post tumblr posts, for example, that add onto the discussion in the thread, with the caveat that it's related to RWBY of course. But any objections to offsite users in the thread should be handled via PM, or they'll be treated as thread violations and infracted as such.
     
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  • Staff Post
    • Matrix Dragon said:
    That and they're very clearly the separate promotional shots of the girls stuck together.

    EDIT: Well then!

    Figma Ruby Rose and Pop Up Parade Penny Polendina.

    The continued use of Volume 1 RWBY designs continues to dissapoint me, given my wish for ANYTHING from the Mantle or Atlas era, but hey, it's still about time.
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    IIRC the Beacon Era is the most popular part of RWBY in Japan, that's why most of the merch coming from there has the Volume 1 design.
     
    ElMariachi said:
    IIRC the Beacon Era is the most popular part of RWBY in Japan, that's why most of the merch coming from there has the Volume 1 design.
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    Also we have to remember that after Beacon it was a rocky starts for fans myself included:

    volume 4 was alright nothing bad but nothing amazing (except the big grimm at the end), while volume 5 was kinda dogshit (The main 4 in different locations made the plot go all over the place)

    They were able to bring it back to good the next two volumes, but I think thats one of the reason of looking back at beacon.
     
    Matrix Dragon said:
    Besides my doubting that detail in many ways
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    From what I remember seeing on TV Tropes (which means this is very likely inaccurate, so please keep that in mind), the main reason behind the first three volumes are the most popular part of the show in Japan has something to do with Japanese audiences being skewed towards Academy of Adventure stories, which led to the rest of the volumes not having the same popularity since the show left the school and began travelling the world of Remnant to stop Salem.

    Now like I said, this is most likely inaccurate, but on the off-chance this is the case, I'd like to know why that is. As someone who enjoyed the shift to travelling Remnant and prefers the later volumes to the Beacon Era, I don't get what's so enjoyable about the "Academy of Adventure" story by comparison.
     
    MetropolisMCU said:
    Now like I said, this is most likely inaccurate, but on the off-chance this is the case, I'd like to know why that is. As someone who enjoyed the shift to travelling Remnant and prefers the later volumes to the Beacon Era, I don't get what's so enjoyable about the "Academy of Adventure" story by comparison.
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    Highschool is apparently considered the best time of a lot of people's lives because of how stressful their average work life ends up being afterwards, which is part of why so many anime are set in schools, so if that's true then the logic does work well enough.

    On the other hand, One Piece is the most popular manga in the world, so...
     
    To me, I'd say it's Brand Recognition.
    The Beacon Era was the look that spread across the world, is more or less the easier one to cosplay, and represents a "Golden Era" as it were.
    It's Hulk Hogan with the Red & Yellow, Sting with the "Crow" look, Naruto with the orange jumpsuit, Deku in his green jumpsuit, Peter Parker Spiderman in a red and blue outfit with weblines.
    For RWBY, their Beacon Era attire is simply their most widely recognizable look.
    Like, if you had someone who only somewhat knows of RWBY and had them look at Beacon Ruby and Atlas Ruby, which one are they more likely to recognize as Ruby first?

    excalibur2008 said:
    Can't help but wonder if team RWBY taking more of a backseat after Beacon might contribute to that.
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    And since when and how have Team RWBY taken a "backseat"?
     
    If anything Beacon was where the girls most often found themselves taking back seats for periods of time. Like how much focus Jaune got in Volume 1. Post reunion the focus has generally been on the girls barring the occasional episode that deals with Ozpin's or Cinder's backstory.
     
    Teen Spirit said:
    If anything Beacon was where the girls most often found themselves taking back seats for periods of time. Like how much focus Jaune got in Volume 1. Post reunion the focus has generally been on the girls barring the occasional episode that deals with Ozpin's or Cinder's backstory.
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    For that matter, in the first half of volume 3, none of team RWBY had any involvement with the larger plot, Yang only got involved when she was framed, and technically Weiss and Blake didn't really get involved until after Penny died. There were character moments, but not main plot moments.
     
    Pugman said:
    And since when and how have Team RWBY taken a "backseat"?
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    Arguably since late Volume 1 when the last three arcs were spent either fleshing out Jaune or introducing Sun and Penny.

    It didn't get too egregious since the last two episodes focused a lot on Blake, but it started to be noticeable when Volume 2 ends on what is basically a montage of every character not RWBY delivering one liners or Volume 3 giving a character arc to Pyrrha.

    Volume 4, ironically enough given how controversial it was, managed to mitigate this by splitting up the roster and allowing these multitude of characters to be fleshed out through the eyes of the RWBY cast. The problem, however, was how it paced out the sequences since you'll have issues like several episodes passing without so much as a mention of someone's subplot or in the worst case scenario with Punished, you're stuck in the middle of one subplot when you just want the resolution to another. But even so, Ren got the major character moment for Volume 4's Ruby subplot (aside from that brief chat between Jaune and Ruby).

    Meanwhile, Volume 5 basically realized that it was hard keeping track of multiple subplots so they tried to cram everyone into one place, but found that Blake needed to get her ass into motion so most of the cast had to wait for her subplot to finish which was mostly just an Ilia-focused arc, then they resolve what was basically a Raven-focused arc where she gets the big epic final clash of the Volume because the actual final battle in the final episode was a simple slap on Adam's cheek that caused him to Naruto run into the woods and then the other final battle was rendered off screen (which, funny enough, one of the scenes playing during that final fight was another off-screen moment), so that we can get another Raven-focused moment with Yang.

    Volume 6 is the only RWBY volume where they actually took moment to realize "wait, the show is named after these four, so let's give them something to actually do in these four episodes instead of letting some adult/other character that isn't RWBY save them or tell them what to do." and so we get to have Ruby learn what the hell her Silver Eyes can do and they can finally do some actual Bumblebee building beyond just simple soundtracks, winks, and merchandising.

    But then Volume 7 rolls around and while it tries to go about the narrative of RWBY doing stuff, a lot of the finale is relegated to "side characters do the thing" that plagued the other Volumes. And I think that's the biggest problem when it came to Volume 8 and how they did it. You look at #RWDE and you see people complain about how Jaune killed Penny, one of the complaints is how it was him and not Ruby, someone who, to those people, felt would have made a lot more sense storywise than just have it go to "side character with a name so appropriate, she probably picked it herself."

    It's why people are nervous with Volume 9 introducing these new characters or even why there's this backlash to cast bloat in general. If the show is gonna spend its time propping up the side characters who the show will just sweep to the background once they get bored, it won't have any time to actually flesh out the main characters.

    I hear a lot of people either bring up that "JNPR are just as much main characters as RWBY" or "the show should have been called Remnants" but the fact still remains that, when that first trailer came up, it was four girls, four colors, four characters: Red. White. Black. Yellow. Not Yellow, Pink, Red, and Green... Or rather Yellow, Pink, and a yellowish green and a more normal green now...

    ... Is it bad that I kinda want that to be a subtext for Volume 9? That the cast is trying to figure out who they are, but they can't because they keep getting sidelined by all the Wonderland cast?
     
    Matrix Dragon said:
    Worst case would probably be early volume 3, when they spent several episodes watching the filler fights, and even that had things like Weiss development with Winter.
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    And the back half which was pretty much make the audience care about Pyrrha so her death actually matters to them.

    Teen Spirit said:
    If anything Beacon was where the girls most often found themselves taking back seats for periods of time. Like how much focus Jaune got in Volume 1.
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    They got to be proactive in Volume 2 and actually investigate things instead of of sitting around where ever while the adults actually handled the plot stuff or they had the prerequisite justify why JNR are still here side plot.
     
    Psyga315 said:
    Arguably since late Volume 1 when the last three arcs were spent either fleshing out Jaune or introducing Sun and Penny.

    It didn't get too egregious since the last two episodes focused a lot on Blake, but it started to be noticeable when Volume 2 ends on what is basically a montage of every character not RWBY delivering one liners or Volume 3 giving a character arc to Pyrrha.

    Volume 4, ironically enough given how controversial it was, managed to mitigate this by splitting up the roster and allowing these multitude of characters to be fleshed out through the eyes of the RWBY cast. The problem, however, was how it paced out the sequences since you'll have issues like several episodes passing without so much as a mention of someone's subplot or in the worst case scenario with Punished, you're stuck in the middle of one subplot when you just want the resolution to another. But even so, Ren got the major character moment for Volume 4's Ruby subplot (aside from that brief chat between Jaune and Ruby).

    Meanwhile, Volume 5 basically realized that it was hard keeping track of multiple subplots so they tried to cram everyone into one place, but found that Blake needed to get her ass into motion so most of the cast had to wait for her subplot to finish which was mostly just an Ilia-focused arc, then they resolve what was basically a Raven-focused arc where she gets the big epic final clash of the Volume because the actual final battle in the final episode was a simple slap on Adam's cheek that caused him to Naruto run into the woods and then the other final battle was rendered off screen (which, funny enough, one of the scenes playing during that final fight was another off-screen moment), so that we can get another Raven-focused moment with Yang.

    Volume 6 is the only RWBY volume where they actually took moment to realize "wait, the show is named after these four, so let's give them something to actually do in these four episodes instead of letting some adult/other character that isn't RWBY save them or tell them what to do." and so we get to have Ruby learn what the hell her Silver Eyes can do and they can finally do some actual Bumblebee building beyond just simple soundtracks, winks, and merchandising.

    But then Volume 7 rolls around and while it tries to go about the narrative of RWBY doing stuff, a lot of the finale is relegated to "side characters do the thing" that plagued the other Volumes. And I think that's the biggest problem when it came to Volume 8 and how they did it. You look at #RWDE and you see people complain about how Jaune killed Penny, one of the complaints is how it was him and not Ruby, someone who, to those people, felt would have made a lot more sense storywise than just have it go to "side character with a name so appropriate, she probably picked it herself."

    It's why people are nervous with Volume 9 introducing these new characters or even why there's this backlash to cast bloat in general. If the show is gonna spend its time propping up the side characters who the show will just sweep to the background once they get bored, it won't have any time to actually flesh out the main characters.

    I hear a lot of people either bring up that "JNPR are just as much main characters as RWBY" or "the show should have been called Remnants" but the fact still remains that, when that first trailer came up, it was four girls, four colors, four characters: Red. White. Black. Yellow. Not Yellow, Pink, Red, and Green... Or rather Yellow, Pink, and a yellowish green and a more normal green now...

    ... Is it bad that I kinda want that to be a subtext for Volume 9? That the cast is trying to figure out who they are, but they can't because they keep getting sidelined by all the Wonderland cast?
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    *sigh*
    Back during the Beacon Era one of the problems was simply put Monty's habit of showing off all the cool ideas he had. An example, I think, was the Dock Fight to end V1 where Ruby got dinged in the head and Penny promptly took all all enemies herself in response.

    As for everything that has happened over the years, do people not realize that the lead/main character(s) are always the ones that develop the slowest? Like here are some examples;
    One Piece - You have the arc character/temporary crewmates that grow over the course of their story during their time with the Strawhats before they reach a conclusion of sorts and leave the team. Meanwhile any growth for the Strawhats themselves is sporadic at best and sprinkled through the journey between their personal moments which usually end with them reaffirming their loyalty to their idiot captain.
    My Hero Academia - You of course have main character Deku growing at a pretty good and steady pace, but over the series we have seen how he has helped others grow and help him grow in turn. Such moments being the Gentle Criminal & Labrava episode where Deku and Gentle both get something out of their encounter with each other, and in the arc before that it was the Overhaul and Eri situation and we see how Deku effect both Lemillion and Sir Nighteye.
    Go! Princess Precure - The lead characters (the 4 Princess Precures) each learn and grow at various rates and each have a few episodes dedicated to each of them, meanwhile the various side characters/character of the day each learn as well over the show. Our leads don't get the big payoff until the final battle with the Big Bad, and even that isn't the end of things as the Leader of the team gets to have 1 final 1v1 against her personal nemesis who has been a thorn since episode 1 and this is where she figures out the final lesson that end up wrapping up all the lessons and themes of this year-long show in one simple final message and idea.

    Simply put the Main Character(s) is/are there for the long haul. They have time for their journey to play slowly but nothing is wrong with them having a set of episodes dedicated to them. Meanwhile side characters, such as ones that only get to be around for an arc/saga/adventure only get a small window of time for their story to play out.
    For characters like CFVY and SSSN they are there to broaden the world, facilitate scenarios for the story, and help certain characters move in their story.
    Any and all characters in Ever After, namely Curious and Little, are NOT adding to "cast bloat" nor are they "taking the story away". The Cat and Mouse alone are clearly there to guide and teach (and maybe even learn themselves) albeit not directly. Meanwhile other characters like Raccoon and "Red Queen" and possibly even The Mystery Woman act as Challenges for our cast to deal with.
     
    Pugman said:
    Back during the Beacon Era one of the problems was simply put Monty's habit of showing off all the cool ideas he had.
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    You say this like that actually changed

    Pugman said:
    As for everything that has happened over the years, do people not realize that the lead/main character(s) are always the ones that develop the slowest? Like here are some examples;
    One Piece - You have the arc character/temporary crewmates that grow over the course of their story during their time with the Strawhats before they reach a conclusion of sorts and leave the team. Meanwhile any growth for the Strawhats themselves is sporadic at best and sprinkled through the journey between their personal moments which usually end with them reaffirming their loyalty to their idiot captain.
    My Hero Academia - You of course have main character Deku growing at a pretty good and steady pace, but over the series we have seen how he has helped others grow and help him grow in turn. Such moments being the Gentle Criminal & Labrava episode where Deku and Gentle both get something out of their encounter with each other, and in the arc before that it was the Overhaul and Eri situation and we see how Deku effect both Lemillion and Sir Nighteye.
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    So a bunch of shows that are that have been running for years and look like they will still be running for years when RWBY should be closing in on the endgame as in it will end in a few years max.

    Of course One Piece can do this it's been running for 1051 standard length episodes it's got time for that.

    Pugman said:
    Go! Princess Precure - The lead characters (the 4 Princess Precures) each learn and grow at various rates and each have a few episodes dedicated to each of them, meanwhile the various side characters/character of the day each learn as well over the show. Our leads don't get the big payoff until the final battle with the Big Bad, and even that isn't the end of things as the Leader of the team gets to have 1 final 1v1 against her personal nemesis who has been a thorn since episode 1 and this is where she figures out the final lesson that end up wrapping up all the lessons and themes of this year-long show in one simple final message and idea.
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    RWBY barely gets character focus while JNR is just getting screen time to rehash previous character plots and they are dumping in side characters with ultimate pointless filler plots.

    Never mind how Rooster Teeth doesn't seem to have problems giving the main characters development in any of their other shows.
     
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    Yeah, but, this goes against the thesis here. If it's actually the first volumes of RWBY where Team RWBY is taking a backseat, then the Japanese didn't ditch the show because Team RWBY "took a backseat" in post-Beacon volumes.

    That said, I disagree with Team RWBY having taken a back seat in overall storytelling in any volume except arguably 4.

    I also disagree that Team RWBY taking a back seat is the reason Japan fell off after Beacon. By far the most likely reason is that after Volume 3, the show was no longer a magical high school show and thus could no longer capture the attention of the otaku demographic.

    EDIT: There were replies in between when I started this and posted it...
     
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    Matrix Dragon said:
    Worst case would probably be early volume 3, when they spent several episodes watching the filler fights, and even that had things like Weiss development with Winter.
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    I think it worth keeping in mind that was also rather intentional I feel, letting RWBY fall into a comfortable state, confident the issues had mostly been resolved only to rip the carpet out from under them.
     
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