I think I've talked a lot about how important it is to recognize the flaws and limitations of shows you love, usually in regards to RWBY, which I have always argued is a flawed gem both to people who bash it and people who I think are perhaps too defensive about it. The thing about RWBY is that it's one of my favorite shows... ever, pretty much, even though I acknowledge that there are a lot of shows that are much shinier, more well-polished gems that gleam quite brightly and are probably worth a lot more money, yet that don't really fire up my imagination or keep me coming back to them nearly as well.
I'd say some of that has to do with novelty. There aren't many animated shows I've seen that do some of the things that RWBY does. I'm not talking about the action, as great as RWBY's action can be when at its best, or about the character designs and artwork, which similarly reach greater heights with each Volume and make great fodder for coming up with my own. I'm not talking about the wonderful music, and I'm only sort of talking about how much I love the characters' personalities. There are a lot very little things RWBY does that few animated shows I've seen have ever even attempted, much less done so well. The one that most sticks in my mind - the one I'll be gushing about for a while - is the body language. Yeah, I won't blame you if you roll your eyes and stop reading right here, it's exactly as nerdy and lame as it sounds.
Gods of Light & Darkness, the body language in RWBY is so great! Even from the very beginning, when the animation itself was of... well, early RWBY, the actual body language was always spectacular. There's so many little movements and motions and expressions and interactions going on, often in the background, often without any actual camera focus or anything else to draw attention to it, that you'd almost never see the first time around. I actually rewatch basically every episode of RWBY multiple times just to catch new ones that I missed before. It just adds so much, not just to the characters themselves, but to your investment into them and into the world and story. Even when you don't recognize these things consciously, you still see it and your mind realizes it, and it just sucks you in without you even noticing. Every time I see one of those little moments, little things in my mind just click and I go, "Oh yeah, that is what that character would be doing in that situation. That's so like them."
How many characters do you know and understand that well? How many characters can you vividly imagine the little interplays and minute shifts in body language of, to the point that you react to seeing it with "Yeah, that's what they'd do"? RWBY is compared to anime a lot, but it blows just about any anime I've ever seen out of the damn water in that regard.
Seriously, take note of the body languages and what characters do when they're in the background in just about any anime. There's almost never even the slightest bit of real nuance there; characters are either completely melodramatic, every little shift in emotion or character tic exaggerated to extremes and shoved in your face even when they're in the background, or they're stoic fenceposts and you're supposed to read extreme emotion into a raised eyebrow or something. Western cartoons aren't much different, largely since, especially these days, the art styles are simply too stripped-down and stylized for that kind of thing to work.
But I could gush about this for hours and I'd be giving you nothing of value. So I'll just show you a few of these moments I keep blathering on about and let you judge whether or not I'm just a loony fan who reads way too much into his cartoons. I won't deny there's a good chance that's the case. We'll begin at the beginning. Volume 1, Chapter 1: Ruby Rose.
1:25-1:50, you'll notice that Roman's walk cycle is slightly different from Junior's goons. They have a bit of a gangster swagger to them, but Roman's walk is more exaggerated, fitting with the "dashing rogue" image he tries to give off at all times. This is an easy one.
2:10-2:12, you see Roman shake off his cigar and the old man's gaze lingers on that, his expression seemingly annoyed at this asshole shaking ash onto his glass countertop. They haven't actually made any threatening moves yet, so for the moment the impending robbery isn't quite a "reality" for the old man yet, so he can still be pissed off at this minor show of bad behavior on Roman's part.
2:32-2:36, Roman pulls out the case and simply says, "Crystals," clearly demanding the shopkeep start putting the crystals on display into the case. He follows this up just a second later by clarifying, "Burn, uncut." You can actually see the shopkeep begin to reach for a green crystal before Roman clarifies his demand, at which point he instead reaches for a red one. Just think for a second what a minor detail that is, but how much it can add to the scene.
5:56-6:00, you see Cinder not only need to grip the door of the Bullhead to keep steady, but also looking rapidly in several directions as Glynda encircles them with those big telekinetic rubble-snakes before she actually devises a response. Cinder isn't some perfect Villain Sue who's always calm and in control right up until the plot dictates the heroes need to defeat her now; she's good, but she's far from flawless, and she still isn't perfectly comfortable with her stolen powers. That's important, because Cinder didn't suffer any real, major setbacks for some time, and without little touches like this you can bet we'd hear even more complaints about her than we already do.
6:10-6:14, similar to Cinder's little moment, you see Glynda take a second to work out the situation as Cinder does her "screaming volcanic explosion" thing. She looks down for a second, then her gaze locks on Ruby and she realizes she needs to get Ruby out of the way of the blast before jumping out of it herself. Glynda is similarly not untouchable, nor does she instantly know exactly what to do in any given situation.
8:50-8:58, it's another one that's pretty easy to notice, but Yang's excitement and pride at Ruby getting into Beacon carries into her body language without being at all over-exaggerated or out of character. That little bounce on her heels she does is just perfect. Yang, by the way, is a goldmine of these little touches in body language that just makes her character pop. On to Chapter 2, The Shining Beacon, pt. 1.
1:10-1:20, not really a hidden moment or anything, I just want to point out that I love Yang's "What are you even?" face as Ruby goes chibi and starts fangirling over random weapons.
2:33-2:36, Blake doesn't just conveniently grab the Dust vial so that the Schnee emblem is facing her, she actually has to turn it over in her hand a little to look at it. Much like the scene with the shopkeep, this is a little touch that most shows would never bother with, but this one does.
3:25-3:35, much like earlier with Torchwick and the goons, we see a distinct difference in walk cycles. Weiss practically storms off, while Blake has a slower, more languid (and more sexy) strut. Also, both of them walk more or less realistically like someone wearing high heels, with one foot in front of the other.
Jaune honestly is going to just get his own paragraph, because he's such an expressive character I won't bother to point out everything he does. Jaune is very much a character who "talks with his hands;" his words and emotions are always accompanied by action, and he's never standing still while talking. He's also got a bit of a slouch that is much more the posture of a normal teenager than a combat-trained warrior-in-training, and his stride is a bit awkward, as if he's still getting used to walking around with Crocea Mors belted at his side. He has a distinct lack of personal space, and seems not a bit uncomfortable with getting right up into peoples' faces or having the same done to him, which isn't at all unusual for someone who grew up in a very large household where you have to share your space with a bunch of people. Especially one with a lot of women; women (at least in our society) are typically much more willing to be physically affectionate with each other and their families than men. A lot of stuff about Jaune and his mannerisms start making sense when you learn he has seven sisters.
Next, The Shining Beacon, pt. 2:
1:06-1:18, aside from the goldmine that is Ruby's facial expressions and how they shift as she tells her account of her encounter with Weiss, you also see the Great Weiss Shark get steadily more irritated as Ruby tells it, because it paints her as the villain when she still thinks she's totally justified in her behavior (Ruby, for example, neglects to mention that the luggage she knocked over was full of Dust). Note that she practically waits for her cue to open up with dressing Ruby down again and her first line is pretty much a response to Ruby painting her earlier tirade as just Weiss being unreasonable and not mentioning the Dust by pointing out how lucky it was that the only explosion was the little one caused by Ruby's sneezing on a badly-closed vial.
4:02-4:04, another very minor one, but Blake isn't sitting with her back flat against the wall. She's slouching, with only her upper back touching the wall. As someone who does a lot of reading, I can attest that I do that a lot more often than sitting with proper posture; it feels more natural and relaxing when holding up a book. Messes up your back after a while, though.
4:04-4:12, we get something from both Ruby and Yang that shows exactly the kind of thing I love about this show's body language and expressions. Yang gets a sly expression on her face and you can see the exact moment she decided to drag Ruby over to talk to Blake; fittingly for Yang, it was all of 2 seconds before she went through with it. And in the very brief moment between Yang saying "Well, now's your chance" and making sure Ruby has no real choice in the matter, you see Ruby roll her eyes at what she thinks is just a suggestion.
5:18-5:21, Yang is bemused at Blake's description of her book, but when she sees Ruby react and step forward to start talking about it, you can see Yang start to step back to let Ruby talk; Yang only stepped up when Ruby was flailing and struggling for something to talk about, and once Ruby finds her footing, she takes a step back and lets her do it like the wonderful older sister she is.
Okay, last one, I promise. Chapter 4: The First Step, pt. 1.
1:27-1:29, you know I could make a whole essay just about Ren and Nora, but I'll restrain myself for everyone's sake and because it's not entirely relevant to this particular topic, since if there's one thing Nora herself rarely is, it's subtle. That said, there are a few things. Such as this moment here, where in the span of less than two seconds Nora's racing thoughts lead her through three different facial expressions just from Ren saying "I don't think sloths make a lot of noise." Her eyes go in one direction, then flicker in the other as she adopts a considering look, before suddenly she gasps in realization, her eyes widen and her smile comes back as she suddenly realizes that that makes it work even better, with the kind of logic that can only make sense to Nora and Ren.
2:10-2:30, this is something you don't see very often at all, so it's good to make notice of it here: Yang is visibly nervous and being careful with her words as she tries to encourage Ruby to open herself up and make new friends. She knows that Ruby doesn't make friends easily, so she's trying to handle this carefully and doesn't want to mess it up, because that would hurt Ruby, and the idea of hurting Ruby, either physically or in her development, is probably one of Yang's few true fears. Yang is shifting her weight from foot to foot, and even starts nervously stroking her hair and clasping her hands together as if she can't decide what to do with them. There's a sense of vulnerability in her body language that Yang almost never shows, but it's very clear here and that speaks a lot to just how loving a sister Yang is. Almost nothing can truly frighten Yang, or put her on the nervous and defensive, but trying to get her shy, awkward sister to develop and grow socially without it blowing up in her face does just that.
3:16-3:19, when Jaune butts in on Weiss and Pyrrha, you can see Pyrrha move around to get a better look at him, and Weiss, burst out of her delusions of school conquest, momentarily has a hilarious look of surprise.
3:37-3:45, when Jaune steps up to Pyrrha, you see a brief flicker of surprise on her face, and when he calls her "hot stuff," there's a very faint but amused smile on her face, accompanied by her changing her posture from standing with her weight shifted to one side and an arm on her slightly cocked hip to spreading her legs a bit to stand straight and clasping both hands in front of her. Said amused smile, incidentally, disappears when Weiss suddenly butts in to start informing Jaune of how out of his league he is, but it comes back as Jaune admits to not recognizing her name.
6:00-6:06, the obvious responses to Ozpin's warning to take the test seriously or they'll die is Jaune's quietly freaking out and Nora's excited grin at Ren. Less obvious is Ruby also looking just a little bit nervous (and personally I think Jaune's much more obvious fear is helping to calm Ruby down), and Ren's expression going from neutral to a serious, determined nod. Also note he's not looking at Ozpin, Nora or anyone else; he's in his own head right now, likely thinking about the things that led him here. Also note that Nora's happy grin turns into an amused smirk as she sees Ren's determined little nod. It's easy to see the times Ren is fondly exasperated with Nora's sillier tendencies, but Nora seems to view how uptight and overly serious Ren can get in much the same manner; there's a lot into their relationship you can read from just this little momentary exchange, more and more as you see more of the two interacting and get a clearer picture of their relationship and their history.
Okay, gonna stop myself there before I start doing this for the whole damn show even though I was supposed to just be providing a handful of examples to support my point. Both because this is all pretentious and fanboyish enough already and because I honestly think it's a much more fulfilling experience to rewatch the show and discover little moments like these for yourself than to just hear me ramble about them and point them out to you.
So yeah, got that off my chest. Just about every character in RWBY has a wealth of character-building moments that go completely unspoken and without the slightest bit of focus from either the story or the camera, and it's things like this that make RWBY such a wonderful, novel show in my eyes. It's a big part of why the characters feel so real to me, and why I take so much inspiration from them. I'm not sure I can think of many, if any, animated shows that are this good at giving us a character who expresses themselves in countless subtle ways without ever trying to club you over the head with it or deadening all other expression so that you have to see it when it happens.
But hey, feel free to tell me about how much I'm completely overstating all of this and how silly this whole long, rambling post is.
