RWBY (Franchise) - TV Tropes

"Do you believe in destiny?"

"Legends. Stories scattered through time. Mankind has grown quite fond of recounting the exploits of heroes and villains, forgetting so easily that we are remnants, by-products, of a forgotten past. Man, born from dust, was strong, wise, and resourceful, but he was born into an unforgiving world. An inevitable darkness, creatures of destruction � the Creatures of Grimm — set their sights on man and all of his creations. These forces clashed, and it seemed the darkness was intent on returning man's brief existence to the void. However, even the smallest spark of hope is enough to ignite change and, in time, man's passion, resourcefulness, and ingenuity led them to the tools that would help even the odds."

— Opening narration, RWBY, "Ruby Rose"

RWBY (pronounced "Ruby") is a multimedia franchise from Rooster Teeth centering around an Animesque CGI web production of the same name that debuted in 2013. It is the company's first entirely original IP, and was created by Monty Oum.

The franchise takes place in the fictional world of Remnant, a Death World where humanity struggles to survive the continuous threat of the malevolent "Creatures of Grimm" through the aid of a mysterious energy source called Dust and specially trained warriors known as Huntsmen and Huntresses who fight the Grimm and protect the peace. The franchise title comes from the original show, which itself is named after its four protagonists (a team of trainee Huntresses) and their specific Color Motif: Ruby Rose (red), Weiss Schnee (white), Blake Belladonna (black), and Yang Xiao Long (yellow).

Oum's sudden death in early 2015 during the development of the show's third season (or "volume", as all seasons are referred to) left the future of the series in question until the creative team confirmed they had the required information to continue and complete it. From that decision onward, the show has spawned a range of merchandise and spin-off works to become a multi-media franchise.

This began when an official export to Japan (via Warner Bros. Japan) was announced at RTX 2014, with the first four seasons getting home video releases with a Japanese dub. Those curious about the Japanese dub can order the Volume 1 and 2 Japanese home video releases from Rooster Teeth's US store. There is also a video game, RWBY: Grimm Eclipse. Originally a fangame, the creators eventually teamed up with Rooster Teeth to make it official after RT found out about the game. Steam Early Access for the game began on December 1, 2015 and the full game was released on July 5th, 2016.

On April 1, 2016, the spinoff series RWBY Chibi was announced; it premiered a month later, with episodes being released during the hiatuses between volumes. It gives the franchise a more lighthearted and comedic spin, originally providing mood-changing Lightmare Fuel after the original show's third volume dramatically increased the villains' threat level, considerably increasing the show's maturity level.

Three separate manga stories have been released. The first, written by Shirow Miwa (released across 2016, localized in 2018), adapts all of the Volume 1 character trailers and some additional miscellaneous arcs. Miwa's adaptations of the prequel trailers are considered loosely canonical. Following this was the RWBY: Official Manga Anthology, one for each member of Team RWBY, released in 2017 and then in English in 2018-9. They feature fan artist adaptations of Beacon Academy side stories that are mostly compatible with canon. Finally, there is Bunta Kinami's RWBY: The Official Manga (released 2018), which adapts Volumes 1 and 2 of the show and is released monthly as part of Shonen Jump. Kinami's manga has a loosely canon reputation of "canon till it's not" by the showrunners.

RWBY has since become part of the Arc System Works Massive Multiplayer Crossover BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, which also features representatives from BlazBlue, Persona 4: Arena and Under Night In-Birth.

In the lead-up to the original show's sixth volume, Rooster Teeth struck up partnerships with Scholastic and DC Comics to make licensed RWBY material. Scholastic began publishing a series of YA books in the summer of 2019, with the first book titled After the Fall. It focuses on Team CFVY studying at Shade Academy a year after the events of Volume 3. A sequel called Before the Dawn was announced at RTX 2019 and released in July 2020; its focus is on teams CFVY and SSSN. From August 2019 onwards, DC Comics began making a RWBY comic set during the Time Skip that occurs between Volumes 3 and 4.

The show also got its first mobile phone game, RWBY: Amity Arena, released on October 2018, and a deckbuilding game, named the RWBY Deckbuilding Game, was released on Valentine's Day 2019 for Android, Steam and iOS.

An anime series, titled RWBY: Ice Queendom was announced to air in 2022, produced by Studio SHAFT, GoodSmile Company, and nitro+, as a "canon-adjacent" story taking place during Volume 2.