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A Breakdown of Episode 3

Here are again for another week of RWBY Tuesday. I have to say I’m rather enjoying doing this once a week. It keeps my fingers active on the keys as well as active on my game system’s controllers. Though I’m sure part of this reason of extra time for RWBY Tuesday is from the loss of my recently repaired and thus broken Xbox 360, something I still mourn daily. Also I’d like to thank all who commented on this blog series, be it on here or on the other various blogging sites I post on. Your insights and words have been most helpful in letting me know I’m doing what I hope is a decent job at breaking down the episodes in a manner that helps explain things. I’ve even learned new insights on some breakdowns that I had previously overlooked in past episodes. Here’s hoping I can continue to do a better job in the future. So with that said here’s the video embed of RWBY Episode 3: The Shining Beacon, pt 2.

We begin this episode with Ruby and Jaune finding their way to the school’s auditorium, where the rest of the arriving students have gathered. Yang yells to Ruby letting her know that she saved a spot for her next to her during the presentation. Ruby leaves Jaune to himself while she joins Yang and explains how her first day has been horrible after she left her. At first Yang thinks she’s over exaggerating till Weiss happens to overhear Ruby’s comments and beings to lecture her in the use of dust. Though Ruby does her best to befriend Weiss once again, at the urging of her sister Yang, Weiss again rebuffs Ruby sarcastically. Professor Ozpin then takes the stage to address the newly arrived students. Unlike the time when he spoke to Ruby, the professor is a bit harsh toward the students with his speech. Once dismissed the students retire to the ballroom where they all have what Yang calls a “big slumber party”. Ruby writes a letter to all her friends back at Signal and talks with Yang about her poor attempts in trying to make friends. After Yang tries to give Ruby some encouragement she tries to force her to try to make friends with Blake who happens to be nearby reading a book via candlelight. Yang does her best to coach Ruby in trying to make nice with Blake though eventually Yang dubs Blake a lost cause. Despite this Ruby and Blake are able to find a common interest in books. The episode ends where Yang causes a sisterly fight with Ruby over her cuteness in meeting a new friend, raising the ire of Weiss who also happens to be nearby who was trying to sleep. We finally get to see all four of the main characters as Blake blows out her candle. Roll credits with Weiss themed background.

High Points

 

Breaking some of the anime clichés

It was as if the makers of RWBY realized what they were doing and decided to pull back a bit on the clichés that have trapped the best of anime adaptions. They even go as far as having Jaune almost break the fourth wall when he laments on where’s he going to find “a nice, quirky girl to talk to.” after Ruby ditches him for Yang, only for us to see a new female (and might I say “interestingly” dressed) character in the background as he goes off to find a place in the crowd. I was almost expecting the “dramatic reveal music” to play when she was revealed, the same girl we’ve been seeing in the series intros. Whether she’ll be just a “nice, quirky girl to talk to” or a potential love interest of course is yet to be revealed. But it’s good to see that my initial impression of Jaune being the possible first death in Ruby’s life, because he just happened to be the first boy that took a possible interest in her, could be proven incorrect.

Though not all clichés are removed in this episode, they too seemed to have been softened up as we see them executed in this episode. The best example of this is the scenes with Yang and Ruby involved with Weiss and Blake. From Ruby’s startled jump into Yang’s arms at Weiss’s arrival, Weiss’s “chimpmunked” voice over, to Yang and Ruby’s conversations all seemed to flow naturally than be what could’ve been a scene lifted from any anime out there. Even the sleepover scene was a nice touch as it was able to transmission over to Blake’s encounter with ease, after we get to see some sisterly bonding between pillow throws and catfights. I can totally seeing sisters fighting like how Ruby and Yang did, complete with pillow throws and friendly tussles. Even if the tussle looked more like a fight scene from a loony tunes cartoon. It was better than a typical fight scene from an anime at least. The cat meows were a nice touch though…

Ruby’s second encounter with Weiss and Blake

Ruby’s encounters with the two are much better portrayed this time around. Though both Weiss’s and Blake’s characters remain the same, they appear softened in this episode if only to show a different side to their character that helps explain why they acted like they did when we first saw them. Weiss’s distain toward Ruby seems to be more focused on the fact that Ruby is ignorant of the use of Dust than with Ruby herself as a character that knew nothing of Weiss’s social standing. Though Weiss still does belittle Ruby when she tries to befriend here again, I didn’t see it as harsh as their first encounter. It almost bordered on the comical given the playfulness in Weiss’s voice on what they could do together once they got done shopping for school supplies. Weiss even goes as far as including Jaunce in on the conversation which leads to a more comedic affect when he later butts in on how he is a natural blonde. For me I figure Weiss’s response to Ruby’s acts of friendship were only helpful to show how sweet and innocent Ruby is when it comes to the art of making friends. Even seeing Ruby’s naïve reaction in thinking Weiss’s overture of friendship as actually genuine added another level of cuteness I didn’t think she could reach.

Ruby and Yang’s encounter with Blake also helped to relieve some of the stigma that I originally thought would be portrayed of her when I first saw her. Originally I thought Blake would play out as the tragic loner of the group, only deciding to reach out only when she saw fit to do such. Instead we learn that perhaps she isn’t the loner I thought she was to be, but instead someone that values her privacy. A person that was interested in her hobby than in trying to make friends that at times can be “too dramatic”. A character trait I can relate to, and perhaps a possible character trait that Blake harbors than just the initial impressions we could’ve got back in episode 2. Yet despite this Blake does at least attempt a conversation with Ruby and Yang as they bother her in trying to read, albeit a bit rudely when she doesn’t accept Ruby’s hand in friendship. It’s also interesting to note that despite Yang’s attempts to help the conversation along (with Ruby’s insistence “Idon’tknowhelpme.”) it’s Ruby herself that is able to find something in common with Blake when Yang herself decides she’s a “lost cause”.  What I personally liked is when Ruby is able to explain not only the stories she likes but also in how they shaped her in deciding what she wanted to do with her life in front of Blake. Unlike the “fangirl’ approach we saw back in epsidoe 1 with Ozpin, Ruby is more heartfelt with Blake that not only explains Ruby’s character better, but also shows that Blake may feel the same way in some subtle context. Even when Blake refers to Ruby as a “girl”, I didn’t take it as a condescending tone but more of an acknowledgement of Ruby’s lofty goals. And that despite her best intentions fairytales can’t be like real life. A response that Ruby is able to answer in a way that I’m sure shows that there’s more to Ruby than what I’m sure both Blake and Weiss would initially considered.

 

Jaune’s “onesie”.

You have to admit seeing Jaunce walking around in a onesie was pretty bad-ass.

Low Points

 

Continuity errors

Though there are not exactly many low points with this episode it did leave some issues I could not ignore. Despite what was said by certain characters in this episode, what they said didn’t exactly translate over to this episode. In this episode it was implied that Ruby caused a big enough explosion with her fire dust sneeze to make a crater on the school grounds, thus Jaune’s joke of her nickname being “Crater face” yet when I look back on that episode I saw no crater made? All that happened was some fancy special effects, a big boom and Weiss blackened like a Tex Avery cartoon character. Yet Ruby keeps speaking about creating a big crater and going as far as suggestion to Blake that she can call her “Crater face”.  Not exactly a low point per say, but still it would be nice that continuity could be maintained between episodes.

 

Dark silhouette switch up.

Again I keep getting thrown with how this series intends to portray other NPC’s in this world. Originally they were to be portrayed as dark silhouettes, giving the impression they were only there to show that the world was inhabited and not to be interacted with. Yet in episode 2 we see Yang going with a group saying that they were her friends, thus breaking the notion of these blank slates just being there to take up space. Then we get to episode 3 where we totally forgo with the blank slates and actually have some actual animated boys that Yang is to leer at during the ballroom sleepover scene. I can kind of understand why they’d want to have actual people for Yang to look at, even if one of them was Jaune in a onesie, since having her leering at dark silhouettes would seem kind of odd. This is more of a nit-pick given that I’m sure there is a good chance that these animated individuals might show up in future episodes. But still I’d like to see more consistency in what exactly the series intends to do with dark silhouettes and actual created NPC characters.

 

Jaune’s “onesie”

I know I put this as a high point but c’mon! It’s a onesie. If you’re going to at least wearing something like that with a group of people, wear it “Like a boss”!

In the end this episode works much better from the last episode. It has tighter character interactions, better personification explanations of Weiss and Blake to make their previous encounters less rigid and some added comedy that is known from Rooster Teeth Productions. They show how much closer Yang and Ruby are as sisters and how they differ in their social views. Though Yang does what she can to help Ruby make friends she also wants her to be able to spread her own wings and fly her own path. Both Weiss and Blake are given better character depth in this episode than their first encounter in the last episode, giving more gravitas to the fact that indeed “The Shining Beacon” shouldn’t have been cut into two parts as indicated by this episode’s title. It would’ve made their introductions easier to swallow than being assumed to be holdovers of typical anime clichés of spoiled girl and loner girl.

Episode 3 does make up for some of the misses that episode 2 brings up so it’s good to see that the series intends to spread out from its anime inspired roots. Though I’m sure RWBY won’t totally abandon them, which I personally hope they don’t given my interest in anime, it’ll be interesting to see if RWBY can strike a balance to create a series unique to what Rooster Teeth normally produces.

I fear I got a little long winded in this blog, there was so much to write about that I fear I might’ve gotten out of hand. I just hope I was able to breakdown this episode just as good episode 2. As you can see I still have a lot of balancing to do.

Till next week we’ll breakdown episode 4 that not only introduces even new characters, but starts to bring them altogether in the narrative. You can check it out here by clicking on the link below.

Episode 4

Any thoughts about this episode? Agree? Disagree? Undecided? Let me know in the comments!

Ta-ta

“N”