Yeah the improvement is incredible.
I think the big problem with the finale, was that it failed to establish any kind of geography of fluidity in the Grimm threat. It needs to make you feel like however many Grim they were fighting, there were still more charging at them, and you needed to feel during the fights like they were surrounded in Grim.
Because they didn't manage to do that, it felt like the grim were only appearing in time to get their arses kicked, which ruined all the tension of the moment. When reinforcements arrived, it didn't feel necessary because you didn't know there were still grim around to be fought
Yeah. There's also the fact that, if you watch closely, the Grimm basically just stand there and yell so the characters can look cool. My real problem was that the Grimm were so non-threatening this time. Jaune is able to walk up to an Ursa, psych himself up, and take a half-dozen swings unaided by Pyrrha without the thing even moving. The human enemies could probably do way more damage than the alleged apocalyptic forces of destruction that are the Grimm. And "magic wand fixes the problem" is really never an adequate season finale
Well, that's just the thing; even if they did do more than stand there, the Beowoleves, Ursa and that unnamed new one (the majority of the invasion force) ARE still just Mook-level. Even team's RWBY and JNPR could have handled those
Then of course, we come to the bigger ones, that one Death Stalker and Nevermores. Team's RWBY + JNPR's ammunition wasn't strong enough to pierce them as we saw, because they're mostly standard gun power... I would be surprised if a minigun 'didn't' pierce through them. And I was just plain expecting the teachers (ie the decades of experience ones) to be able to easily dissolve any threat in their way, including such things as manipulating gravity (or whatever Glynda did).
^Frankly, as soon as I saw those Grimm in the tunnel, tension and all, I knew that would be the result. And I was satisfied with such
But of course, when you think about it; if they're so good that way, why is humanity still overrun? Why are all attempts at expansion so doomed to failure? The obvious answer is that there are 'millions' of Grimm out there, and humanity needs that much overpoweredness just to keep the strongest/toughest/smartest Grimm (ie Goliath) at bay. And even then, it's still that they're very much outnumbered, and any loss of humans is a blow.
^Mook-level threat in their way... wish these things had an edit button
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A shocking improvement
I wrote a very disappointed review of volume one's clunkiness and general mediocrity down below. Volume 2 is such a huge improvement I can't even think of a witty analogy to describe the difference. The characters are more likable, the writing has improved, and they don't waste nearly as much of the limited time on filler this round. It's got good pacing, I actually enjoyed some of the character arcs I thought were too long last season (looking at you, Jaune), and it's just overall better in so many ways. The animation is finally about as strong as I wished it could be. The jerky, ugly motions that made me cringe are nearly absent this time around (except the JNPR dance, THAT scene, and some of the finale) and the fighting is as cool as ever. Hell, even the comedy is better. Sun and Neptune just up and ditching a fight to get dinner? Fantastic. Very few of the jokes fall flat in this volume. Even some of the fights are funny.
Speaking of the fights: gorgeous. Giant robots, huge monsters, chainsaw-wielding thugs, a young woman with a parasol, it's got something for everyone. They're just as gloriously over the top as we wanted, and the person-on-person fighting looks beautiful (oh, Neo. I'd watch a show that was just Neo winning fights against anyone and everyone).
Of course, there are complaints, as there must be. Raven's first appearance, for one. Mysterious masked character with weapons and abilities far above the main cast who arrives and leaves only to protect a main character as a deus ex machina? Good to see that the sixth power ranger has arrived. The cast is enormous. We've got three hours or so in a volume, so it's irritating to have to see it distributed among a dozen or so people. The finale. There are a lot of problems with the finale be it animation or the blue-balling of Velvet's weapon, the worst part is the loss of tension. RT spent 3 episodes and a World of Remnant hyping up the danger that the Grimm posed to a human settlement when they could get in, and the finale tells us the threat is literally solved by waving a magic wand. Cinder's nebulous "plan." I get keeping it ambiguous for the viewer, I get it. But give us something more than changing the desktop background at an internet cafe.
Edit: I had a conclusion here, but the word limit made me delete it to say: Jeff Williams is still utterly fucking fantastic.