PixlBit

A Breakdown of Episode 6

Hello everyone and welcome back to yet another episode of RWBY.  When we last left off the two person teams were beginning to form and danger was afoot in the Emerald Forest. So let’s get things started with the latest youtube video embed of RWBY episode 6, The Emerald Forest.

We start off seeing Yang walking thru the forest as a quick figure is seen making a dash along the way. She calls out for Ruby and hears movement in some nearby shrubs. Instead of finding Ruby, Yang finds two monster-like bears that Yang immediately confronts.  During the battle they happen to cut a piece of Yang’s hair loose which causes her to get angry and take out one of the monster-like bears. Before she can finish off the other one, Blake appears and takes it out with her weapon of choice thus deciding who her partner is.

Elsewhere in the forest Weiss herself is in the process of defending herself from her pack of monsters she met last episode. As she prepares herself to strike, Ruby gets in the way of her attacking, forcing her to direct her fire rapier strike to hit a nearby tree instead of Ruby. As Ruby collides with Weiss they both gather themselves and prepare to fight only for them to quickly retreat when the remains of Weiss’s fire rapier attack starts a forest fire.  After their escape both Ruby and Weiss begin to argue over what just happened when it comes to their differences in fighting styles. After their argument they both storm off into the forest with Ruby take out a tree with Crimson Rose in frustration. A black feather falls along with the tree that Ruby cuts down.

Pyrrah and Jaune are also walking in the forest when they hear the sound of combat. Pyrrah suspects that the others in their group are also facing off with monsters. As they continue toward the temple, Jaune is accidentally hurt with a tree branch cause Pyrrah to take a moment to explain the use of “aura”. As Pyrrah explains what “aura” is and where it comes from we see Lie being confronted by two giant snakes. As Pyrrah explains the use of “aura” and how it can be used to shield ones from harm we see Lie use it to defend himself against one of the snakes when both is blade guns are knocked out of his hands. With Lie’s aura he is able to keep a snake from biting him and have the strength to break the snake’s teeth, jam one into its eye and palm punch the jagged end so hard that it causes the snake’s head to explode. As Lie runs toward the second snake, we see Pyrrah touch Jaune and perform a chant that unlocks his “aura” with the use of her own. After it is done Pyrrah is appeared tired but quickly recovers as both of them are covered by a bright light. Pyrrah comments that she has unlocked Jaune’s “aura” and that he has “a lot of it” after the small scratch on his face quickly heals.

We cut back to Lie who has just finished dispatching the other snake with little trouble. As he put’s away his blade guns he hears a strange animal call and Nora appears, hanging upside down. Lie comments that he doubts that’s what a sloth sounds like causing Nora to respond with a poke to Lie’s nose. Roll credits with Jaune and Pyrrah backdrop.

High Points

 

MORTAL KOMBAT! *Cue Mortal Kombat Theme Song*

After the buildup/character development from four episodes we finally get to see some action! Though the action is brief we get to see Yang, Blake, Ruby and Weiss strut their stuff as they take on the monsters in the forest. We also get to see team RWBY take on the monsters in their own personal ways. Yang goes all out with a fist fight with monster-like bears, even going a bit berserk like she did in her Yellow Trailer when a piece of her hair is removed by one of the monsters. We also get to see how sneaky Blake can be by killing the last monster from behind.  We get to see how Weiss’s combat style is more centered on control and stance much like a fencers though we don’t get to see her performing graceful leaps or shoulder rolls in this fight. Instead we get to see how she uses her weapon in conjunction with dust. Ruby is the least surprising when it comes to combat as she continues to take on monsters head on with quick movements and blade swipes. We also got to see how team RWBY may or may not be able to coordinate with each other well when it comes to combat as Blake stole Yang’s kill and Ruby getting in the way of Weiss’s precision attacks.

 

Arrival of Blake

I was wondering when she’d appear in the series since we didn’t get to see her in the last episode. I’m guessing she was launched with a different team and just happened to end up with Yang given her tendencies on being a loner. It at least answers one question on where Blake was during this whole ordeal. Plus her breaking the fourth wall (intentional or not) complete with a smirk on her face as if to say, “Yeah I’m finally here. Kept you waiting long enough didn’t I.” was priceless.

Low Points

 

The Force Chi Aura

This one personally I don’t understand why the concept of “Aura” was added. I’d much rather that they showed how “Dust” was used during combat with or without its use in weapons. But instead of focusing more on the use of “Dust” and the special combat styles that each of the characters could use with it, we instead get schooled by Pyrrah, with Jaune as audience surrogate, in how “Aura” is something that each person possesses with the exception of the monsters of Grimm given that they are part of the darkness. While it’s understandable this was added to give the series a bit more mysticism since they speak of the darkness and the monsters of Grimm in ancient terms, it felt more gimmicky to me as if to help explain why hunters and huntresses are a rare breed of individuals instead of people that have shown an aptitude to fighting the creatures of Grimm. Hopefully I’m wrong about this and instead “aura” will be more interchangeable depending on how people use it, like how Lie uses “aura” similar to chi power when fighting hand to hand or with Jaune in simplifying it as it being a “force field”. But with that said it would help explain a lot when it comes to Yang’s fire anger attacks, Ruby’s quickness, Weiss’s magic like castings or Blake’s ninja like qualities. I’d hope all of that was because of them just being exceptional individuals with unique combat training but I’m not holding my breath.

 

Nora not helping.

Lie had to take on TWO GIANT SNAKES, lost both his blade guns in the fight, and had to use aura to fight them off and you decide to show up right after the fight is over with your not-sloth animal call! You fail! No cookie for you! If I was Lie I would’ve been asking where were you Nora instead of smiling after Nora “booped” his nose.

Thankfully this episode was a bit longer to help show some more action and conflict between Team RWBY, even if half of the episode was used to help explain the concept of “Aura”. It can only get action heavy from here since Team RWBY and Team Phantasy Star (that is what I’m calling Jaune’s team from here on out) have yet to reach the temple and claim their artifact to guard/take back to the cliff. Though it still does leave us with more questions.

Question, question, question

 

How did Jaune not know about “aura” itself on its use and how to activate it? It’s curious enough that we don’t know how he’ll be in combat since we saw he didn’t even know what a “landing strategy” was. We’ll have to see if the rest of the cast is oblivious to “aura” or if Jaune is just the odd man out on this one.

Do Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang also possess “aura” as well? And if they do how exactly was theirs activated?

How does “aura” exactly work in tandem with weapons? We’ve seen how “dust” could possibly work with Weiss’s weapon.

In the end I can’t fault this episode for finally getting things on track when it comes to action. We get to see the girls in action and Jaune slowly coming into his own. Though the concept of “aura” kind of threw me for a loop, it does fit with the narrative. I only hope it won’t be used as some deus ex machine to explain Ruby’s importants in the series. If you haven’t checked out episode seven why not give it a go. And if you’re new or behind on this series, you can always check out Rooster Teeth’s website or on Crunchyroll to get back on track. Till next week I’ll try to break down what exactly happened (it’s oddly confusing) in The Emerald Forest, pt.2

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

Ta-ta

“N”