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A Breakdown of Episode 4

Another week gone by, another RWBY Tuesday blog posted up. Not sure how well this blog will be given that I’m actually hammering this out at the last minute. Usually I work on it off and on over the week and finalize things over the weekend. You can thank the Final Fantasy XVI Beta Phase 4 for throwing a wrench into the works. Still going to try to at least keep this self-imposed deadline! When we last left with RWBY the four main girls of the series finally are seen in the same screen thus preparing us for what lies ahead. If you haven’t seen episode 4 you can check out the video embed by thanks of youtube.

The show beings with the introduction of two new characters, Nora Valkyrie and Lie Ren, as they wake up and prepare for their first day at Beacon Academy. Right off we learn they have been long time friends. As they gather their weapons in the locker room we see Ruby and Yang also getting ready for the morning. Ruby is finally happy to forego the unpleasantness of trying to meet new people and let her fighting skills do the talking. Yang once again tries to steer her dear sister toward being more social along with trying to loosen the sisterly bonds once more. As they chat Jaune is seen walking between their chat confused on where exactly he put his equipment. As he still searches he ends up walking past Weiss who is talking with another new character by the name of Pyrrha Nikos, the same girl we’ve saw at the assembly in the last epsidoe when Jaune  was wondering where he was going to meet another nice girl to talk to. It turns out Weiss knows of Nikos and is doing her best to team up with her, given there is a rumor going around the school that teams were to be formed today. Before she could finalize her plans for school superiority, Jaune overhears Weiss’s and Nikos’s chat and does his best to impress them into joining his team. Nikos seems interested in knowing Jaune while Jaune is totally oblivious to how well known Nikos is with her high academic honors, honors that Weiss is well aware of. Their chat ends when Nikos ends up spearing Jaune to the wall with her weapon when he gets a little overbearing for Weiss, leaving him confused when his attempts of showing confidence fall short. Ruby helps Jaune up and along with Yang, leaves the locker room.

The next scene has us seeing all the character’s we’ve seen thus far standing on  a cliff, that overlooks a sprawling forest, underneath their feet is an embossed metal plate that turns out to be a springboard.  We see Professor Ozpin and Goodwitch telling the students that indeed they will be assigned partners as of today. That their partners will be the first people they see upon “landing” in the forest.  Ozpin continues to instruct the students to make sure they meet someone they are comfortable working with for their test is for them to make their way thru this monster infested forest, find an abandoned temple, gather up a relic located there and guard it as they make their way back to the cliff. When Ozpin asks if there are any questions, he ends up ignoring Jaune’s question at first about how they’ll be “landing” in the forest. As each of the students get launched into the air from their respective springboards we learn that all the students will be using their own landing strategy, a landing strategy that for some reason Jaune is unfamiliar with. The episode ends with all the students flying in the air toward the forest as Ozpin takes a sip from his ever present coffee mug. Roll credits with Blake backdrop.

High Points

 

New Characters!

It’s good to see a few new faces to the mix in RWBY. We all knew these faces would be made known to us eventually given how they are displayed in the series intro. But now we get to see what their characters will be like. We can already tell that Nora Valkyrie is going to be the over hyperactive anime type girl that can’t seem to keep her mouth shut. Oddly we get to learn more about her and Lie Ren’s personal connection together than we did with Ruby and Yang’s when we first met them. Lie Ren is looking like to be the quiet type of character that lets his friend Nora do most of the talking as he does his daily routine. Strangely he doesn’t seem to mind her character traits of being a chipper motor mouth yet at the same time showing indifference to her plan in trying to be on the same team together. It’s as if he knows that he’ll eventually be on the same team as her….

It’s also good to finally but a name to the face of the one girl in the background when Ruby left Jaune back in episode 3. And it also appears that Pyrrha Nikos is another well-known person in the world of RWBY. A character that Weiss is more than happy to fill us in on, if only to give us an exposition dump that doubles as an FYI for Jaune who is unaware of Pyrrha being from Sanctum Academy, graduating with top honors and being the record holder of multiple wins at a regional tournament. Pyrrha seems like a carefree spirit who oddly has a curiosity for Jaune. Even when Jaune brushes her to the side to impress Weiss in joining his team during their first introduction, Pyrrha is still nice to him and actually boosts his confidence when she says he’d make a great leader after Weiss points out that Jaune is way out his league when compared to Pyrrha. Pyrrah didn’t have to do any of that but when she did it showed that there was compassion in her that didn’t border on pity or false hope.

 

Comedy!

It’s also good to see that some of Rooster Teeth’s style of comedy is making itself known in this episode. The character interactions between everyone this go around were a nice change of pace with some of the other character interactions we’ve seen thus far. Seeing Nora and Lie interact, as the chatterbox and the straight man, helped to bring home their personal closeness without having to resort to some kind overly long winded flashback segment that explained their closeness. The fact that Lie is able to perform regular activities with Nora’s constant jumping around added to the comedic effect of their different personalities. In their case opposites really do seem to attract.

When I couldn’t think Ruby couldn’t get any cuter she’s somehow able to raise that bar without going overboard. Just hearing her talk to Yang about how she doesn’t need to grow up and make friends while fighting was just hilarious. And her response that “she drinks milk” brings in the chuckles if only to show how naive she is when it actually comes to social interactions. And despite Yang’s best intentions to help Ruby break out of her shell, Ruby is more content in letting her “sweetheart” do all the talking also helps to add a new comical aspect of their character that doesn’t need to rely on slapstick to get the laughs in. though I can relate with Ruby when she was holding her weapon like how I do with one of my assault rifles NO WAIT rare games my loving wife. Even her reaction upon learning of teams being formed, complete with scene shatter was silly, albeit in an anime sense.

But the best comedic interaction this episode has to go with Pyrrah, Weiss and Jaune when it came to their team building. We have Weiss’s “Naruto’s inner sakura moment” when it comes to her plans of team dominance, Jaune’s attempts of displaying confidence, Pyrrah’s attempts to show interest in the completely clueless Jaune along with Weiss’s attempts in trying to educate Jaune in exactly who he’s dealing with, complete with a cereal box overly of Pyrrah’s face like a “Wheaties’s celebrity. Finish it off with Jaune’s silly response to Pyrrah’s compliment and some incidental comedy of Juane getting speared to a wall by Pyrrah, complete with a sincere “I’m sorry”, finishes their routine that almost had me clapping on how well written their act was. Even seeing Ruby help up poor Juane off the floor with Yang’s commentary fit right in with all that I saw, something I’d never expect out of a locker room scene.

 

Jaune’s character growth.

Though we’ve seen the other characters show some form of character, I had a hard time trying to peg who Jaune was going to be in this series. At first I thought he was going to be the possible lover interest of Ruby’s that would die tragically like in most anime series that have the same archetype. Then I feared he might play the role of the over-confident character that would almost border on the arrogant as his skills improved. But instead it would seem he’s going to play the part of the unsure leader and occasional comedy fall guy in this series, a role that might serve him best since he’s not really a main character but at the same time could pose as a possible viewer surrogate given his lack of experience.

 

Low Points

Anime clichés are here to stay.

 Though not exactly a low point per say, given how the series is anime-inspired, it would appear that RWBY will firmly keep its feet centered in the realm of anime. Personally for me that won’t be an issue given my interest in anime. But like I said in prior blogs I had hoped that Rooster Teeth would try to add a little more of their past works into the series to make it something unique than just your standard anime offerings.  I had hoped the series might try to bridge the gap with what they’ve done before and win over some fans that might not like anime, but still find enough of Rooster Teeth’s style in RWBY to warrant a watch. Instead it would appear RWBY will be the exact opposite. Again not exactly a low point but we’ll see if any non-anime fans are won over by RWBY or if anime fans start branding it as yet another “American anime”.

 

New character’s clothing design choices.

Now I’m no fashion expert so I don’t like bringing this up myself. I’d be the last to speak about looks and what to wear. Remember I’m the guy that thinks “bowties are cool” and wears a cowboy hat that’s been dubbed the “Rick Grimes” hat because of the big tin star pinned on the front of it. But when I saw Nora and Lie’s outfits my first thought was they looked more like characters out a Phantasy Star Universe user created character program than RWBY characters. I’ve been holding my tongue on this ever since I saw their characters in the intro screen and I wasn’t sure what to say. I personally hoped that perhaps they’d have a change of clothes but after seeing Jaune keep his outfit my hope slowly changed to acceptance. Granted Nora’s is more like the original Phantasy Star than Phantasy Star Universe but I couldn’t shake that comparison between the two just the same. More so with Lie and his “bladeguns”, they almost look like similar guns found on planet Neudaiz. Maybe they PSU in RWBY?

I’m not sure of what to make of Pyrrah’s outfit. And the oddest part is that I don’t know why. I just get a “roman centurion/Xena warrior princess” like vibe with her garb, as if I’d expect her to be a part of Ceasar’s Legion from Fallout New Vegas while screaming at the top of her lungs than in the world of RWBY. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for short skirts accentuated with thigh high boots coupled with a strapless top, but after seeing the almost gothic styling’s of Ruby and company seem to make her out of place. Perhaps I’ll warm up to it in future episodes. (spoilers: I do….)

Overall another good episode that builds off of episode 3 and continues to give us a little more than what we expected. I laughed at the parts I was supposed to laugh to; I enjoyed seeing the return of tightly written and well delivered comedy scenes that Rooster Teeth is known for, there were some welcoming surprises I wasn’t expecting when it can to new character traits and just enough vagueness to keep me guessing till the next episode. And speaking of vagueness…

Question, question question.

Where is Blake? I didn’t see her anywhere in the locker room or on the cliff?

Who were the other characters on the springboards that didn’t warrant an introduction but were not exactly the “dark silhouettes” of NPC’s. Are they future “red shirts” to be killed off in the forest?

Who will Ruby be teamed up with?

Will Jaune stick his landing?

All of these questions and more will (hopefully) be answered in episode 5! Also RWBY is now on Crunchyroll as well.

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

Ta-ta

“N”