Alright, Chapter 13. A match Maiden heaven! Or maybe Cinder Falls? There's already a "fall" pun on the title, though...
Yeah, Ruby and Yang vs Mercury and Emerald! Oh, no, wait, not really. It doesn't really happen. Well, at least we have the White Fang battle! Oh, no, wait, that doesn't happen either. Blake vs Adam... No, he went down in half a second and Blake immediately moved on. Geez, all the disappointments, huh. Nora vs Hazel was an interesting matchup, but they didn't do anything cool with it. Even Hazel using new Dust crystals was nothing much. Also, I'm calling major bullshit on everyone handling Hazel that easily all of a sudden.
All in all, that's an impressive amount of people Blake gathered. But why does Adam only have like six people? Isn't he high leader? Wasn't he planning an assault on the entire city? Did he really only bring half a dozen randoms for that? Also, isn't he supposed to be a threat? He really, really wasn't here.
I'll openly admit I thought Yang going down into the vault was going to result in Raven dying. Oh well. Now, onto the best part of the episode, and likely the best part of the season thus far.
Maiden battle! That was awesome! I have to watch the fight again, but it might top Qrow Vs Tyrian for me! It reminded me strongly of Cloud Vs Sephiroth in Advent Children, in all the good ways. It's also a lot more anime than RWBY fights generally tend to go, but given the scale of the powers involved, and just how awesome the fight is, I'm fine with all of that. Raven's fighting style is awesome, with her sword changing elements whenever she sheathes it. And the music accompanying it is great!
I'd be amazed if this was indeed how Cinder died, but if it is, what an awesome way to kill her! I fully expected her to lose the fight but come out on top thanks to some last-minute bull, like Yang arriving or just a death fakeout (I spent the scene with Raven opening the vault thinking she was going to be backstabbed), but none of that happened, which is a strong point in the episode's favor. No anime bullshit here. Emerald's going to be pissed, though.
Oddly enough, I actually felt a bit sad that Vernal died. Not just for Vernal herself, for whom death seems a bit too much, since she was little more than a decoy, but for Raven. She actually seemed to care about Vernal, and wanted her to live. Of course, there's also a lot to be said about Vernal being a casualty despite having absolutely nothing to do with this. In a way, it makes Raven a lot like Ozpin: she involved a girl who was not in any way a part of the situation and got her killed for her own gain. Hypocrisy seems to be this girl's trade.
And then the inside of the vault... wow. I don't know what I was expecting, but that wasn't it. Is it a real, physical location, or is it it's own realm? And what was inside it? I couldn't make it out... The location reminds me of the time temple from Prince of Persia, or the desert from the first God of War. Next episode should tell us more.
And for next episode... Yang Vs Raven? Certainly a confrontation about to happen, not sure if a full-blown fight. Don't really know what I expect other than that. M&Ms are probably going to be arrested alongside Hazel (The last of which I will perpetually call bullshit on, even if it might help Salem bring down Mistral next volume somehow), Adam and the White Fang are probably going down the same path. Blake will properly rendezvous with the others. Stuff's going to wrap up.
Oh, there was also some stuff about Jaune's Semblance. I genuinely couldn't care less. It's obvious and uninteresting, at least to me. Unless they find something really unique to do with that, that'll be my stance on the matter. Also, that future death foreshadowing from Nora.
Pretty amazing episode! Start is bland and weak, but the rest of it is really damn good. Reminds me of the Qrow Vs Tyrian episode in it's entirety, which was mostly forgettable apart from the actual fight. That's probably how I'm going to remember this episode in the future.
EDIT, because I forgot to add this in, and didn't find a good place in the text: After Raven mentioned how Cinder's arm wasn't shielded by Aura, I fully expected her to cut it off, but she never did. Kind of a waste for a Chekhov's Gun, but then, I'm thinking the stinger for this volume is going to be Cinder showing she survived, so maybe later.
edited 16th Jan '18 8:58:41 AM by TheLovecraftian
He who holds fandoms in contempt
The low number of WF members can be explained. The Haven cct tower's destruction was SUPPOSED to be a quiet mission but a certain smug egomaniac with a grudge and a hypocritical bandit leader made matters a bit more complicated. Senor Moustache himself said the mission was supposed to be covert. Bringing an army world have been stupid.
edited 16th Jan '18 9:36:51 AM by CryoJNik
If you can't handle being outed by a signature, that's on you.
Wasn't it supposed to be an assault, though? I remember someone not Adam "Becomes a slobbering idiot at the mention of Blake or humans" Taurus mentioning something like that.
Having caught up on the posts since saturday, I feel I've got to add some things: this fight most certainly does not redeem the volume. If anything, it sort of condemns it, since it highlights just how poor this volume was in overall quality. Not to mention that to get to this fight, you have to get through 12 very weak episodes. We did it in real time, even, though I suspect it'll still be bad even if you watch everything back-to-back. No one wants to spend roughly three hours just to get one good fight.
Also, glad to see I wasn't the only one getting Kylo Ren flashbacks when seeing Adam's performance in this episode. Or thinking they should have brought the Lieutenant from V2. Someone brought this up, and I'll agree: Was this really what Sienna Khan died for? She would have made a far more interesting villain than Zipper Kylo Hitler. And yeah, Giant Maiden Swords felt a bit ridiculous. But I'm willing to let the Maiden dick-measuring contest slide.
Coming off of the post-cool battle happiness, I'd actually decrease my evaluation overall. The fight is still awesome, but the rest of it feels really rushed and poorly done. It was a good episode, but that is only because the fight entertained me enough to ignore the rest of it. Without it, that would actually have been a pretty dreadful episode.
edited 16th Jan '18 10:06:07 AM by TheLovecraftian
The Unknown
To add on to how condemned this Volume is, I heard the CRWBY had 3 extra months to work on production (confirmed at a panel, but I'll be damned to find the link on Reddit again) and triple the budget of Volume 4 (heard this via hearsay, so grain of salt).
edited 16th Jan '18 10:09:02 AM by Karxrida
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
Delicious in the Moomin Valley
So, Ep 13.
- Remember when Ruby mattered? Me neither.
- I'm genuinely upset about Sisters v. M&M's. It's not even about the headbutt gag, it's just... it sort of stopped right after. Once we cut back to Ruby and Yang M&M's aren't even around.
- Hazel angry, Hazel smash. Hazel kind of hypocrite, though.
- Nora angrier! Nora smashier!
- So it's not simple Lay on Hands, but actual Aura Transfer. Well, I'm okay with that. Weiss is back and starts with sass.
- It looked stupid and it did kind of diminished the threat of Adam, but I think this was meant to be a symbolic gesture at best. It's a final affirmation that Blake is no longer afraid of her ex and she's going to beat him up like a ragdoll. We still need to have a look down his mask, too.
- Pain nullification won't help you when you get Lancer'd like that, Hazel. Useless Lesbian is back to Usefulness.
- I do appreciate Hazel telling Adam to sod off, though.
- Maiden fight got anime real quick. Also, lyrics. It did feel like Cinder was outmatched from the beginning, barring the moment when she managed to catch Raven unawares with her arm.
- Vernal sticking to the plan, keeping herself alive through sheer willpower until she was no longer needed. Bye bye, Not-Spring-Maiden.
- Bye bye, Cinder Fell. I mean, she's probably not out of commission yet. I expect Salem to rescue her one way or another. She's yet to be disappointed with her, after all.
- So Spring Vault is actually a giant magical desert. Oh, and hey, One-Armed Yang. Hopefully you can emerge from that vault calm enough to confront Blake later.
While I liked the episode, some of its flaws did make it a little eh. Well, we've got one more left...
Big Grah
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Ruby? Who?
On a different note, would anyone be interested in a more careful analysis of the fight this episode? I'm going to do it anyway for my own pleasure, but since I didn't expect anyone to want that huge animation post either, I figured I'd offer. I've always felt publishing my opinions and personal analysis on matters like this is a bit too self-important, especially since a lot of what I would think is subjective, but like I said, I've been surprised before.
I can also offer a plethora of puns regarding the episode that I didn't make in my previous post.
edited 16th Jan '18 10:18:44 AM by TheLovecraftian
I read a post on Reddit that explained the issues with the big battle. Basically, each fight and set of character interactions was done by a different animator, but instead of having them all work on one big scene they each had their own separate version of the room. So, for example, when Weiss was animated fighting Vernal, no other characters were present. Afterwards they just plopped everyone else standing still into the background. That's why no character not in focus ever did anything and there were a lot of continuity errors.
That explains so much. And is so incredibly annoying.
edited 16th Jan '18 10:32:24 AM by TheLovecraftian
Serial Procrastinator
That also betrays a woefully silly idea to how battle choreography should work at all.
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"
The Unknown
I recently watched the "RWBY is Broken" series on YouTube, and apparently the solution to these problems is easy and efficient: animate everything first, then set the cameras.
edited 16th Jan '18 10:43:51 AM by Karxrida
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
It betrays a lot of misconceptions from CRWBY, from choreographing, to camera work, to scripting, to animating as a whole. It's actually making me a little bit angry, in fact. I wasn't expecting excellence, but this is a very idiotic way to go about things. This loses some of the trust I have in RT for making a good series.
A good practice in any animated effort.
edited 16th Jan '18 10:44:58 AM by TheLovecraftian
Even with three extra months of production time, Rooster Teeth also has more on their plate than ever before, and it definitely looks like the showrunners aren't really up to the task of managing a project with the sort of budget they're working with, every indication is that it's been squandered.
Adam going down like a punk is definitely something I feel like comes down to deadlines and poor resource management rather than the screenwriters; I imagine they'd have been more than happy to have him go down in an epic 3v1 against Blake, Sun, and Illia, which would be far more believable than Blake just sucker punching him. The same goes for RNJR sitting around in a house for the entire middle portion of the season, which is very much the sort of thing that tends to happen when you're rushing or running out of money.
edited 16th Jan '18 10:50:00 AM by CaptainCapsase
Delicious in the Moomin Valley
I expect we'll have a proper Blake/Sun/Illia v. Adam fight next episode - since he's obviously not down for the count yet - as the Yang and Raven confrontation can only end in messy murder if they come to blows.
It makes a certain degree of sense, but the execution just makes it look poorly.
edited 16th Jan '18 10:49:32 AM by FergardStratoavis
Big Grah
Serial Procrastinator
The main thing that sticks out to me is this; if you wanted to write five 1-on-1 battles (and Ren and Nora V Hazel) why not find a way to split the group up?
So that was an episode, most other thoughts aside I have to ask: why exactly are you all talking as if Blake took Adam down?
The fight was cool, don't have much more to say on that. I'm not going to say it "redeems" the volume, because I think that's a pretty silly sentiment to hold anyway, and I've never cared about the fights as much as most of you seem to anyway. Yang just leaving her arm was weird.
Good on whoever called what Jaune's Semblance actually is.
edited 16th Jan '18 11:06:19 AM by LSBK
Serial Procrastinator
I don't think we are, it's just that Adam getting knocked down like that makes his threat level just tunnel through the floor compared to what it was previously.
edited 16th Jan '18 11:09:02 AM by Sigilbreaker26
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"
Seriously, what's up with Rooster Teeth's buffering this year?
- Okay, episode title is probably another pun on Cinder's name. I guess Raven defeats her then.
- Ruby using Ozpin's tactics.
- Jaune describes what he's doing almost the same way Unohana describes Shinigami healing.
- Aura Amplification will achieve far more than just 'healing'. Well, we did all expect Jaune to have a broken Semblance.
- I wonder if Ren's Semblance could have calmed Hazel down? Maybe the Dust is messing with Hazel's mood too much.
- Welcome back, Weiss.
- Even if we don't know the full truth about Gretchen (such as how old she was), Hazel's too far over the line to be lecturing Ozpin on putting children in danger. He's the one who thinks torture is a good way of avenging her death (think about it: killing someone who can't really die over and over is just torture — and the murder of an awful lot of young boys who aren't asking to become Ozpin's new host just to die by Hazel's hand).
- Does that mean injecting Dust into the body does have a safety limit and can cause pain if overdosed?
- The irony of Hazel's Semblance: block out physical pain, but wallowing in emotional pain he can't resolve.
- Let's ignore Nora's moment of Narm.
- Oh, look, more Dust. There's a moral here about steroid abuse.
- And looks like Jaune has a lot of
healingAura Amplification to do. - Hazel getting a little revenge against Adam.
- Eh, Faunus have clichéd confrontation. I'll give the Menagerie force points for being smart enough to get the Mistral police to witness who the criminal Faunus are and that other Faunus are willing to police it in a way that complies with the law. Not a fan of the scene where Blake temporarily knocks Adam down. I get why it's supposed to be important, I just don't like the way it's done. Even the music is poor.
- That said, Weiss is how to do the 'awesome' moment right: nice use of Queen Lancer and nice portrayal of how amplified her Aura is.
- Ruby takes advantage of the distraction to give orders. Good.
- Maiden battle!
- Cinder thinks Raven's been a Maiden for a decade or less.
- Aura and Grimm arm being incompatible confirmed. No surprise. Does Aura weaken with lost limbs or non-human replacements? That's been a question ever since Ironwood, and is relevant to Yang, too. Especially since Penny's existence suggests Aura can't handle cybernetic replacements without intervention.
- Did their Auras break together? Why are they the same colour? The colour makes sense for Cinder, but not really for Raven (I'd expect something like her portal colour).
- Vernal, loyal to Raven to the end.
- And Raven doesn't rely on someone to just fall to their deaths, she goes the extra mile to freeze Cinder solid, too. Seriously, are we expected to assume this works after Raven broke free?
- Castle Greyskull vibes from that abyss though. Does it have a bottom?
- Raven briefly hesitates before activating the door.
- Okay, Spring Maiden touches door, it opens, someone passes through to collect Relic and come back out. Do I think Ozpin's that straight-forward? No.
- I wonder if Ozpin can sense a Relic chamber being opened?
- And it's the Magical Land of Anti-Narnia. Barren mirror of the previous room. It looks like a portal to another world, but I think it's a portal to another time: it has that 'in the distant future, the sun is a dying Red Dwarf and life ceased to exists millions of years ago' feel to it. After all, I believe that entrance statue is the Goddess of Time, hence the chains (of Time) and the stopwatch being the key.
- It'll be interesting to see how difficult it is to cover the ground to the Relic, or to physically obtain the Relic. Or to get out of the 'room' once in it. I wonder if there's a similar catch to touching/using the Relic that there is to using The Sword of Shannara.
- Raven ignored the petals. Bad move, I think. Asian bonsai tree theme suggests Asian wisdom-tree stories. Examples:
- The peach tree with its fruits of wisdom and longevity (oh, look, time again).
- The Peach Blossom Spring story (spring=source, not season): a utopia of humans and nature living in harmony that can only be found by accident, never by intent.
- The Bodhi Tree under which Buddha achieved enlightenment. It's fruit contains great power, including healing and wisdom. Its leaves and flowers bear some (not perfect) resemblance to this tree, and (like this tree), is supposed to sway with the wind even when there is no wind. Obviously, the Bodhi Tree is what I'm dwelling on her.
- Yes, I think that tree will be bare and lifeless once the Relic is gone.
- And I guess we'll see whether Yang stops or helps her mother, or whether she's simply witness to whatever occurs that Raven might find unexpected (or even a rescuer if needed). Such as Cinder reappearing and killing Raven from behind, for instance.
edited 16th Jan '18 12:47:41 PM by Wyldchyld
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
That was me! I called it!
edited 16th Jan '18 11:12:11 AM by Shaoken
It really shouldn't, though. That just strikes me as incredibly silly: "Oh no, a villain actually got hit once, even though he's obviously still fine. Obviously he's no where near as strong as he used to be."
edited 16th Jan '18 11:12:28 AM by LSBK
The Unknown Unknown
Sounds like the finale is going to make or break this season. It promised a lot, but it's disappointed more than delivered.
A cruel, sick joke is still a joke, and sometimes all you can do is laugh.
@Sigilbreaker I would presume that's partly an issue of ambition, and partly an issue of trying to live up to Monty's fame. Large fights with several participants were what gave Monty his fame, and the ambition of doing that probably fell apart due to time constraints and general lack of talent in reproducing such a large-scale brawl. Put that together with the writing, which paused a lot of the fights and had people jumping from one fight to the other, and aforementioned misconceptions about animating and directing and I'm certain that RT wanted this to have Dead Fantasy for their finale, but found themselves way in over their heads.
Personally, I'd say this season broke long ago. Somewhere around chapter 5, actually. It's easily my least favorite, and barring a finale with Disney Renaissance level production and quality, I'm not seeing them recover from that in one chapter.
edited 16th Jan '18 11:15:52 AM by TheLovecraftian
The fights pausing and going all over the place may be the cause of the derpy writing here, not the other way around; using an assload of awkward cuts is a tried and tested way of papering over the fact that you're running out of time, money or both in a scene, and there's just so many places where it feels like the screenwriters had to come up with a last minute workaround for something on the production end falling through. In fact, going off of what's been said about their work practices on various RT podcasts, I think production mismanagment and overambition are much bigger problems for the show than the screenwriting.
Back when Monty was still around, they could rely on him pulling a rabbit out of his hat with multiple consecutive 20 hour shifts to paper over all the grossly inefficient things about how Rooster Teeth produces their shows. Without him, the fact that the show is being produced on a episode by episode basis is very glaringly obvious. Hopefully they come to realize after the clusterfuck that was volume 5 that they need to scale back their ambitions, streamline their production, or give themselves more time to get this stuff done.
edited 16th Jan '18 11:27:40 AM by CaptainCapsase
While I'd say it's more that both issues are happening simultaneously, and simply making each other worse by interaction, the screenwriting is certainly not the worst part. The Raven reveal last episode is definitive proof of that. During fights, however, it has taken a nose dive in quality. Monty payed good attention to that, at least in the parts that the fights interacted with. He also went over them a lot due to never ever taking a proper break.
edited 16th Jan '18 11:23:59 AM by TheLovecraftian
Well, obviously it could only go to this character...
YO. Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie.