RWBY: First Round

I'm trying an episode recap this time.

The episode has a beautiful beginning, with Ruby talking to her mother’s grave and giving her mother a catch up. It’s really sweet. I like Ruby’s little joke about keeping Yang in line, and I think Ruby got her sense of humor from her mother. The photo in the opening theme implied that Summer might not have been the best with social interaction, and maybe she’d miss the joke after it was explained like Ruby. Overall, the animation is great. I love the reflection of sunlight on Ruby’s eyes. It’s so beautiful. The one problem is that Tian Yang looks to have been drawn in a completely different style. The shading style looked a lot different and he didn’t move.

Next we go to the fight. The beginning was a bit off. I prefer knowing what’s going on at the start of a fight. Ruby and Weiss got some cool battle poses, but who were they fighting? I mean yeah, Bolin and Nadir since Blake is in one on one against Reese while Yang and Arslan are throwing down, but what are Ruby and Weiss doing? I guess Weiss was launching a glyph from far away, but Ruby seriously looks like she was just striking cool poses. I had the same issue with Pyrrha’s fight with Team CRDL. There are flashes of her fighting Cardin, Dove, and Lark, but Russel takes his time getting to the fight, so does he just spend some time practicing back handsprings while the others fought?

Professor Port and Dr. Oobleck deliver banter and exposition. The tournament setup is good, and it sounds like all students get to the team round. It’s a good style for huntsmen and huntresses in training, since it requires teams to think about who will best represent them and will likely give a lot of them a chance to observe other fighting styles. It also means that Penny will have a lot of time to test herself in fights. The large amount of ships taking people to and from the fair ground suggests that the Dust shortage in Vale, I think, so I swear to God, Velvet and Russel if you get fight scenes you better do more than kick people. I want to see more Dust usage. Weiss and Cinder have each picked a favorite element to destroy people with, so I need more Dust users in the show to satisfy my Dust need. I have no faith in Cardin providing a lot of cool Dust usage, because in Volume 1, he had Jaune do his Dust homework. Seriously, Weiss just made a giant ice fist out of Dust. That had to have taken some intense Dust manipulation. How does she do that? The stadium will give a good opportunity since Bolin was able to snag some lava Dust for Reese to use.

Anyways, once the doctor and professor are finished, the fight scene gets good. Blake and Reese are going toe to toe, as are Yang and Arslan. They’re good match ups. Yang and Arslan are tough brawlers, while Blake and Reese’s weapons have a good amount of surprises. Someone also said it was very Spiderman-esque. Team RWBY has great teamwork between Ruby and Weiss, and it gets even better with the ending move, a team up to prepare the ultimate punch. It was deliciously over the top.

I liked what little I saw of Team ABRN. Arslan’s use of the wire is really cool, and kind of like Blake’s ribbon. Hopefully more characters will put this strategy to use later since large Grimm or really strong fighters can send a lot of them flying. I think Reese’s hoverboard uses wind Dust as a default Dust type, but obviously it can take other crystals, such as the lava one to use in addition to the wind. ABRN seems to have a better balance of individual combat styles than a lot of the Beacon teams. Arslan, Bolin, and Reese are primarily fast melee, while Nadir is primarily ranged. It’s not that balanced, but of the sixteen shown Beacon students, Coco is the only one who isn’t a melee fighter or a melee fighter that can fall back onto ranged attacks. How does Beacon not have teams that are poorly balanced? I suppose it fits Ozpin’s style to stick kids together and say, “alright, it’s your job to find the strategies for this to work.”

We find out that Cinder and her group destroyed another team. Neo in disguise is the fourth member. It’s a cute disguise. Cinder also has skill in hand-to-hand combat, in addition to archery, dual wielding swords, and lava Dust. It’s going to take a lot to stop her. On top of that, the tournament celebrating peace just played perfectly into her hand. Also, I think Cinder has some Dust infused in her body, since she popped a popcorn kernel with her bare hand.

I adored the little bit with Team JNPR and RWBY at the noodle shop. It was great to see their views on their future missions. Ruby is excited, while Blake and Pyrrha are more realistic. It’s expected, but it’s fun to see. Since it seems likely that Weiss’s father cancelled her card, there is going to be some quality Schnee family drama for Weiss to deal with. What I really loved was Ren getting a chance to goof off a bit (“Nora, that’s disgusting, but if you feel the urge…”) as well as Nora taking a break from being her usual bubbly self to reveal some insecurities. Nora and Ren, precious warrior orphans. Also a more self-aware Jaune was nice to see. I have my fingers crossed for Pyrrha and Ren being doubles partners because there haven’t been a lot of combos between them. Also, Ren seems like he’d be better than Nora at countering fighters that Pyrrha may have trouble with.