Web Animation / RWBY Chibi

"Nothing bad... ever... happened. EVER."

Join the cast of RWBY in a new series of cute, comedy shorts with infinite possibilities! It's playing tag! It's baking cookies! It's posing as police officers! It's... really quite absurd. It's RWBY CHIBI!

— Official description on Rooster Teeth's website

RWBY Chibi is a CGI animated series from Rooster Teeth, and a spinoff of their RWBY series. The characters from RWBY are chibi versions of their original selves that participate in non-canon comical antics sometime before the events of RWBY Volume 3.

A preview of a number of skits was first shown at the end of the RWBY Volume 1 Tugg event in April 2016. Season 1 would officially premiere on the Rooster Teeth website a month later, airing from May to October, between Volumes 3 and 4 of RWBY. Future seasons of Chibi would similarly debut between volumes of its parent show, with Season 2 airing from May to October 2017 (between Volumes 4 and 5), and Season 3 airing from January to August 2018 (between Volumes 5 and 6).

After a three year hiatus, the series returned for its fourth season, which aired as part of Neon Konbini, an animated anthology series that includes new skits from Rooster Teeth Animated Adventures, in addition to brand-new series such as S.T.A.R Bursters and Hero High. The season aired from May to July 2021, between RWBY Volumes 8 and 9. On March 4th, this season was released seperate from said anthology with its episodes aired in a different order.

First members see episodes of both RWBY Chibi and its parent show a week early. As a courtesy, please refrain from troping until public release.

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RWBY Chibi contains examples of:

Tropes A

• The Abridged Series: Has shades of this, with the characters being affectionately parodied and many of the memes the main series is known for being referenced. What's interesting is that it's made by the same company that made the original series.
• Accidental Misnaming: In "Evil Interview", Cinder keeps calling Cardin "Karen". Cardin tries to correct her, but reconsiders after she uses her powers to set a piece of paper on fire.
• Actor Allusion: In "Road Trip", Jaune sings the theme for Camp Camp. Jaune's voice actor is Miles Luna, who wrote and performed that song.
  • "Tai's Tech Vlog" is one to Taiyang's voice actor Burnie Burns and his regular vlogs. This also extends to Tai crashing a drone trying to get a birds-eye view of Beacon Academy, as Burnie once did while filming the RT office.
  • While in the main show Yang only made one pun, on Chibi she finally becomes a Pungeon Master on the same level as her portrayer Barbara Dunkelman, with three whole segments dedicated to her puns.
  • The last alternate universe Nora sees before the one with Samantha Ireland has Jaune and Neptune writing notes on clipboards, given they're voiced by RWBY writers Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross.
• Adapted Out: Glynda Goodwitch is nowhere to be seen, with Winter often taking her place, even in gatherings which you'd expect to consist only of Beacon staff.
• Adaptational Comic Relief: The show is designed to be a cute, light-hearted Slice of Life comic. As a result, all of the characters in the show are much more frivolous, quirky and silly than they are in the main series. The characters who are serious and practical in the main show are especially light-hearted and comedically petty.
  • The normally quiet, stoic Ren has become The Comically Serious. A lot of humor involving him is derived from his calm, serious, and focused demeanor being applied to such silly things as playing tag, pillow-fighting, or playing the role of a harsh-tempered dance instructor.
  • In the main show, Ozpin is a calm, empathetic, and enigmatic headmaster who commands respect. His chibi form is a laid-back analog of a school director who is cheerfully oblivious to genuine danger and happily self-absorbed about sending the kids on 'training quests' that are nothing more than personal errands, such as retrieving his missing possessions after some kind of embarrassing work party.
  • Taiyang's caring, serious paternal instincts in the main show are downplayed to over-emphasise his terrible pun-based "dad jokes", making him an embarrassing, goof-prone father. He's also got an inferiority complex about Qrow's edgy coolness factor, and therefore is obsessed with trying to prove he's worthy and cool.
  • On the villains' side, Cinder's quiet, calculating menace and competence have been changed to grandiose, evil plotting that is conducted out in the open complete with cartoon lists and diagrams, lame excuses when caught engaging in suspicious behaviour, and melodramatic self-inflicted errors of judgement. Likewise, Roman's scheming persistently failing due to over-cleverness or comedic stupidity (and in one case, being actively sabotaged by Zwei). Emerald and Neo are likewise reduced to making sarcastic commentary from the sidelines about their respective bosses' idiocy, while Mercury has become a bit of a Manchild who's been shown laughing at Cinder falling down a flight of stairs, has a rocket launcher specifically for killing kittens, and plays with sock puppets.
  • The threat of the Grimm has been reduced to comedy fodder. Ruby drags around a beowolf that is clinging to her cape by its teeth and Nora terrifies a few while using them in hare-brained schemes to get Ren to rescue her; when successful, she hugs one so hard its arm breaks. Cinder walks puppy beowolves and Zwei can intimidate beowolves, which submit like dogs. A skit in Season 2 has two particular Beowolves, Mike and Marty, feel that they're doomed by Cinder's melodramatic evil plans, spending one of her planning sessions discussing over coffee the death of their mate, Larry, and being harassed by an effeminate, lisping Geist called Floyd. They decide to cheer themselves up by killing innocent humans... and once they go to town a season later, they fail miserably. In a third appearance, they're just used to demonstrate the Grimm are too savage and dumb to become pets, no matter how much Penny wants it.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Many characters suffer this, in part due to Rule of Funny.
  • Ruby goes from a heroic Plucky Girl to an entitled jerk that makes Weiss look tame. Writer Miles Luna outright describes the Chibi incarnation of Ruby as "kind of a little shit".
  • While Weiss was no saint in the original show, she did eventually warm up to people. This version of Weiss thought it would be funny to drop a bucket of frozen ice on Ruby as a prank, uncaring that she might actually be hurt from it.
  • Yang always had a Hair-Trigger Temper and a bad sense of humor, but Chibi turns it up; when Nora is left comatose after eating multiple plates of waffles, Yang only sees the situation as joke material and is more concerned with cracking bad puns than Nora's health.
  • Blake herself adopted Sun's kleptomania in an early episode, stealing everything that wasn't nailed down and even getting in a car chase with the police.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: In contrast to the above, the villains are nicer and more affable than their canon counterparts, both to each other and their foes. At one point, they even join what they think was a band competition and even attempt to have friendly soccer game with the heroes.
• Adorable Abomination:
  • Chibi Beowolves are far cuter than they have any right to be. This includes Mike and Marty (the ones questioning Cinder's evil schemes in Season 2), the one that tilts its head quizzically as Nora laments her inability to get Ren to notice her Deliberately Distressed Damsel scheme, and the corgi-sized one Cinder walks on a leash sometimes. One segment even has Penny wanting to make a pet out of Mike!
  • Two episodes feature chibi Geist Grimm, which possess household objects like bookshelves, pancakes, or Roman's hat. A Geist attacking Ren is accidentally defeated by Nora, who wolfs down the pancakes its possessing without ever knowing there was a Geist in the room. Another Geist is interrupted while trying to haunt a sleeping Neptune and takes refuge in a bath brush that promptly gets used when Sun takes a shower. Their antics are so ineffective at stirring up trouble that they're always defeated with sad, wide-eyed expressions and are therefore portrayed as mischief-making children rather than humanity-destroying monsters.
• Advice Backfire: In Volume 3, Episode 7, Oobleck preaches to the gang that books are a panacea for all of life's issues. Blake, of all people, points out how flawed this idea is, and she's proven right when Ruby comes into the room with the Necronomicon and unleashes a slew of ghosts into the room.
• Affably Evil: Mike and Marty from Volume 2, Episode 14 act more like a pair of regular workers than vicious Beowolves. However, they're still Grimm who enjoy killing and eating innocent humans. They return in their next volume with poor attempts to disguise themselves as humans to get some food.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Seems to be common among the members of Team JNPR, but the biggest fan response came when Pyrrha stroked Jaune's hair before tagging him in a Season 1 sketch. Nora bonking Ren repeatedly on the head may also count, even if she was mostly doing it out of boredom.
• All Animals Are Dogs: Beowolves are, at least. First evident with the one Ruby drags through the scene clamped on to the hem of her cloak, wagging its tail. Cinder also keeps a little one on a leash which engages in typical dog behaviour such as growling and straining at the leash when it encounters Zwei, who is also barking and straining at the leash. It eventually slinks off with Cinder, tail between its legs while Zwei keeps barking at it.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Yang edits her father's profile on a dating website to make him seem like an edgy thrill-seeker. The lie works its magic almost instantly, giving Tai a hit... from Cinder.
• All Love Is Unrequited: In the main show, Jaune liked Weiss for a while before moving on, Nora doesn't know how to tell Ren how she feels because she doesn't know if he reciprocates, and Pyrrha won't tell Jaune how she feels while Jaune is pining over Weiss. Chibi mocks the teenage drama during a skit where Jaune is rejected by Weiss when he wants to study with her. Dejected, he rejects Pyrrha who asks the same of him. Upset, Pyrrha then rejects Weiss, who wanted to study with her. Witnessing the entire thing, Ren declares it's unbelievable that they cannot see the obvious. Nora growls a sarcastic agreement while waving a placard at him that says "Notice me!".
• All Women Are Lustful:
  • In the very first episode, Ruby finds Blake's adult romance novel in her bed and glances innocently at it. Discovering it to be a mature novel that even contains a centerfold, she reprimands Blake for having such a book. However, she refuses to give it back because she's enjoying it. Also, her reaction to the centerfold became quite memetic.
  Ruby: Now that's a katana!
  • When Weiss notices Yang using binoculars to spy on the boys while they're taking showers in their locker room, she declares that Yang is horrible; however, she does so while using the binoculars to take a peek herself. When the next naked male to enter their vision is the elderly, overweight Professor Port, they recoil from the binoculars in horror.
  Yang: I'm blind!
  • Winter sneaks into a library aisle with the intention of grabbing a novel called "Cold Heart, Hot Love". Qrow grabs it seconds before she does. When she demands at sword-point that he hand it over, he tells her he'll underline all the good parts for her. They end up in a brawl so intense that neither of them seem to notice or care that they've both lost the book.
• Aloof Big Sister: Winter is depicted as such in Season 2 Episode 15, standing back and watching as Weiss runs for her life from Grimm while declaring that Weiss has to learn how to do things herself.
• Alternate Continuity: Episode 6 confirms that the Chibi-verse will not be the same as the main show's universe when Nora addresses the camera directly, emphatically declaring that nothing bad ever happened. Ren suggests the show will stick to comedy.
• Alternate Self: Chibi Ruby is one to the main series Ruby, with the two of them meeting in Ruby's dream during "RWBY Dreams".
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: In Season 2's "Parent Teacher Conference", Qrow and Taiyang are depicted as such, bickering Like an Old Married Couple rather than focusing on the incident Yang and Ruby caused at school. After seeing this, Ozpin decides that the girls have been punished enough. Ruby even apologizes for their behavior!
• And Call Him "George":
  • In Episode 17, Nora manages to break a Beowolf's arm from hugging it too hard.
  • In Season 3, Episode 16, Ruby dreams about meeting her main series version, who after some mutual squeeing does this to her. In the real world, the reason she can't breathe is Zwei sleeping on her face.
• Anticlimax:
  • "Sissy Fight" in Episode 5. After a lengthy build-up to a fight between Ruby and Weiss, they ultimately end up slap-fighting.
  • In Episode 2, when it seemed like Blake and Yang were about to get into a fight when the latter tensed the cable off Gambol Shroud...but it turned out they were tensing it for Ruby to use it to play jump-the-rope.
• And I Must Scream: Weiss, after being hypnotized by Ruby. Part of her is aware, but unable to fight Ruby's subliminal programming. She even refers to it as screaming inside.
  Ruby: Let's go, bestie! I have our whole day planned!
  Weiss: That sounds super fun...even though I'm screaming inside!
• Animated Actors: Both in the Season 1 finale, which has the cast as sitcom actors (with even a commercial break), and the Season 4 segment "Behind the Scenes", where Ozpin shows how the show is done.
• Anti-Role Model: In Season 2 Episode 10, Qrow teaches Ruby and Yang such "life lessons" as "love is for suckers", "rules are for fools", and "it's Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught". He then takes them to set off illegal fireworks. Lampshaded in "Coming Home to Roost" when Blake speculates that he's not the worst role model anyone could have and Yang comments that "role model" probably isn't the right way to describe him.
  Blake: I suppose there are worse role models out there.
  Yang: I mean, he's definitely cool, but I'm not sure I'd go as far as to say role model.
• Anvil on Head: Exaggerated in "Mysterious Red Button", where Cinder is crushed by a noodle cart, a loaded refrigerator, and a bloated Nora, in that order.
• Art Evolution: Season 2's animation is a considerable step up, what with the added focus on making character models more lifelike with lighting.
• Art Shift: Aside from the characters becoming Super-Deformed, the show drops the Cel Shaded appearance of the main series.
  • The shading returns in "RWBY Dreams" when main series Ruby appears, making her feel out of place, albeit intentionally, compared to her Chibi counterpart and the background.
  • The "A Slip Through Time and Space" episodes utilize live action sequences, with the second one also featuring some Stop Motion.
• Ascended Extra: Taiyang, a minor character in the main series, is one of the most recurring supporting characters starting with the second season. Neptune is one as well to a lesser extent, frequently appearing alongside Sun, with far more to do than he did in the main series.
• Aside Glance:
  • Jaune at the end of Episode 16 after Blake confuses him for Sun when he asks about what it feels to be a "supporting character".
  • Neo does this frequently, as her signs are frequently aimed at the audience. Some of them point out things such as that Roman's luck not going to get any better.
• Audience? What Audience?: Blake is the only one not in the fourth-wall breaking PSA of "Books Fix Everything". To the point that when a "Good to Know" logo suddenly shows up, Blake gets befuddled.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Pyrrha's powers, cool as they might be, tend to malfunction a lot more in this show than in the main series, making pots and pans stick to Nora and screwing up compasses by making them point towards her.
  • Discussed briefly about Blowhard as Weiss has no idea which end to hold it from and the blades make it hard to aim it to be fired. As Port proudly boasts, "Ho-ho! Personal preference!"
  • In Episode 17, Sun and Neptune buy a whole bunch of police and army gear in order to "upgrade". However, they got so much and it's weighed them down so badly that Mercury and Emerald run up and steal their motorcycles and they can do nothing about it except flail helplessly.
  • Talaria causes Mercury a lot of problems in daily life. He can't go through metal detectors without alerting security and when he tries to kick a ball during a game of five-a-side football, it accidentally goes off, destroying the ball.

Tropes B

• Back to Front: "Put It In Reverse", about Taiyang giving Ruby a driving lesson, is told this way. It starts with Ruby recklessly driving, goes back to him suggesting her to take the road, then Ruby starting the car, and finally her asking dad to teach her. It then ends to an In Memoriam for the destroyed vehicle.
• Badass Adorable: Zwei might be an adorable corgi that plays around with team RWBY, but he's fierce enough to intimidate Beowolves as well as Mercury and Emerald, and he has saved multiple members of the cast and defeated villains like Cinder and Roman all by himself.
• Badass Biker: Parodied by the "Cousins of Chaos", who say they're bad boys but are really far from it.
• Bad "Bad Acting": In "The One With The Laugh Track", there is an in-universe commercial for Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Flakes starring Pyrrha. Pyrrha's dialogue is stilted and awkward, and she is clearly displeased with having to take a bite out of the cereal.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • The second episode off-sets Blake and Yang to make it look like they're engaged in a fight. It turns out they're stretching out a rope for Ruby to play jump-the-rope.
  • After Weiss and Ruby get into an argument with each other, they meet outside, draw their weapons, leap at each other and... start slap-fighting.
  • When Roman shows Cinder "the best part" of his music band for the upcoming battle of the bands, he has Neo roll out a cannon. Cinder, originally against the band idea, starts to praise Roman, thinking that the band was going to be a diversion so they could fire the cannon at their enemies. The cannon then turns out to be a prop that shoots pyrotechnic sparks.
• Balloon Belly: Nora has a big appetite for sweet things, and can scoff an amazing quantity of food that leaves her with a massively swollen belly and a craving for more. She swallows an entire cake whole and only thins down after belching. Whenever Ren makes pancakes, a swollen Nora is evidence that she's stolen them all; she accidentally defeats a Grimm attack when she swallows a fresh batch of Ren's pancakes without even noticing they were possessed by a Geist and even took on a Beowulf-shaped-cake as soon as it blew to pieces.
• Battle of the Bands: A Story Arc in Season 2 features several characters preparing for a Battle of the Bands contest which takes place during the season finale, with most of the Chibi cast forming a musical act. Subverted in that this "Battle" of the Bands is a musical-themed fighting tournament instead.
  • Puns And Roses (RWBY and Nora): A Yang-led rock band beset by Tai's constant desire to film his daughters' performance for (humiliating) posterity.
  • The Nep-Tunes (Neptune, Jaune, Sun and Ren): A traditional boyband, complete with electronic music and a Ren-devised choreographed dance routine.
  • The Trouble-Clefs (Roman Torchwick, Emerald, Mercury, two Grimm and Neo): An alt-metal band - and the only band to actually play music on-stage^note A remix of Cinder's theme song - who, funnily enough, decided to have Neo on vocals. The other bands, however, cuts her off before she can sing.
  • P3N-3 (Penny): A one-android EDM/dubstep outfit, thanks to a full DJ rig contained within her waist.
  • But, to the villains' surprise and dismay, the event is a literal battle of the bands, with the other contestants using their instruments to physically assault each other.
• Bedtime Brainwashing: In "Super Besties", Ruby whispers to a sleeping Weiss to plant subconscious orders, all to get Weiss to be her "bestie". It's shortly revealed after that the other members of Team RWBY have been subjected to the same thing; Yang is forced to give up the keys to her motorcycle when Ruby asks for them, and Blake is wearing a "Backup Bestie" t-shirt without realizing it.
• Behind a Stick: Blake exploits this trope twice: once with a lamp to hide from Zwei in Season 1 Episode 2, and again with a narrow tree trunk while tailing Ruby in Season 3 Episode 6.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Ozpin certainly thinks this is the case between Winter and Qrow, after his attempt at reconciling them results in yet another fistfight.
• BFG: The student weapons from the main series are present, naturally, but Neo's Death Ray gun from Episode 20 easily tops them all (at least in size; we never see it fire).
• Big Ball of Violence: "Mortal Frenemies" has this thrice as Winter attacks Qrow. Ozpin calls it "flirting", though whether he's being sarcastic about it isn't clear.
• Big Eater:
  • When Nora becomes enthusiastic about eating something, she will eat it in huge quantities until she balloons up to twice her size. When she spots a cake in the kitchen, she eats the entire thing and only deflates back down to size when she belches. She later eats all of Ren's many pancakes, ballooning up again, and still demands syrup afterwards.
  • Ruby is very much addicted to sweets and cookies. Her first sketch has her gobble down on a bag of "Choco Chippies" when trying to make cookies.
• Big "NO!":
  • Yang as she cradles a collapsing Ruby after the pillow fight in Season 1, Episode 17.
  • Cinder in Season 1 Episode 21, followed by a bout of Inelegant Blubbering, when world peace is achieved.
  • In Season 2 Episode 8, Ruby tries to trick Zwei into going the vet by pretending he's going to a 'pet party', but when she explains this to Nora, the latter fails to catch on and loudly suggests what Ruby's really doing. Cue a Big "NO!" from Ruby as Zwei cottons on to her intentions, before smashing through the nearest door and causing chaos offscreen in his bid to escape.
  • In Season 2 Episode 23, Ruby, Yang, and a Bound and Gagged Ren all do this when Nora begins chugging down the espresso shots Ren made.
• Big Red Button: The "Mysterious Red Button" in the Season 3 sketch, that is even a Context-Sensitive Button that changes considering who's pressing (dropping fish, turning off the sun, creating person duplicates, making the villains suffer, and ending the episode).
• Big Sister Instinct: When Ruby can't open a jar of pickles, Sun tries to help her but also fails. Yang turns up because her "big sister sense" is tingling. She insists on opening the jar of pickles for a reluctant Ruby, who drags Sun off to a safe distance while Yang wages open warfare, complete with Ember Celica, on the jar. In a later skit, she destroys a tree just because an apple falls on Ruby's head.
  Yang: You dared to make my baby sister hungry? You're going down, jar!
• Big "WHAT?!":
  • Ruby's reaction to when Yang calls her character in Ruby's Red Riding Hood play a "Mary Sue" is a drawn out "What?"
  • In Season 2 Episode 13, when Blake and Weiss point out how Ruby's surprise parties always, always go wrong:
    Ruby: Whaaaaat whatchu talkin' bout?
• Birthday Party Goes Wrong: Downplayed. Ruby's birthday falls on Halloween, so she uses it as an excuse to get extra candy and even take candy from her friends. When she requests her friends get her a costume to wear to the Halloween party that night, the friends get their revenge by dressing her up as a trash can, leaving her frustrated and upset at the party.
• Bizarre Human Biology: Episode 5 emphasizes that Blake has both human and cat ears. When Ruby tries to discipline Zwei by using a dog whistle, she discovers that Faunus can hear the whistle as well when an infuriated Blake and Velvet (who has rabbit ears) burst into the room to stop her.
• Black Comedy:
  • "Evil Class" has Cinder in a Beacon classroom, teaching other villains about booby traps. On the blackboard behind her are various cartoon summaries of evil plots. Obvious comedic images, such as a 'no entry' sign crossing out a picture of Zwei the corgi, are joined by another image: Pyrrha, with a hint of angel wings on her back, kneels helplessly on the ground as a volley of arrows fly at her, turning her traumatic death in the main show into a source of mockery that fits Chibi Cinder's overly dramatic, cartoon evil.
  • The Freeze-Frame Bonus banner ads in episode 2.17 include “[Cremation] JARS BY CINDER, STORE YOUR FRIENDS”. This is a reference to Cinder killing Pyrrha in the main show by burning Pyrrha's body to ash.
  • One short has Nora stirring a witch's brew with the requisite underlighting. Pyrrha and Jaune ask what she's doing, to which she responds "I'm making a love potion for Ren." Pyrrha, perhaps sensing something amiss, absconds with Jaune, leaving Nora to her trickery. Nora then reveals she's got Ren, when he surfaces from the bubbling liquid gasping for air; he points out that he can't breathe, but she pushes him back under with her stirring stick (really Magnhilde), and resumes humming crazily.
• Black-Hole Belly: Nora is able to eat her own body weight in food. While she initially will look bloated and stuffed, a simple belch quickly returns her size to normal.
• Blank White Eyes: Whenever a character reacts with disbelief to someone else acting in a ridiculous or crazy fashion, their eyes turn to blank, white circles. It also happens whenever they feel they might be caught red-handed doing something either embarrassing or nefarious. Some examples include Weiss's disbelief at Jaune destroying her scroll to prevent her from hearing his embarrassing voice mail messages, Blake's horror at Jaune's awful bum-wiggling dance while using Team RWBY's weapons, Yang finishing an intensive weight-loss routine only to witness Nora swallow an entire cake whole, and Cinder's realisation that Ruby and Nora have just walked into her plotting session while her evil plans are on display.
• Bland-Name Product: In Episode 8 of Season 2, Jaune wears a mostly white latex mask while referencing the rock bands "Smooch" and "Lunatic Jester Brigade".
• Blatant Lies:
  • Cinder and Emerald's segment in episode 18 consists of the former trying to convince Ruby and Nora that her elaborate whiteboard scheme isn't evil, billing it as a recipe for a cake for a kitten charity instead. To the surprise and confusion of Emerald, the girls buy into this flagrant excuse, despite Mercury walking in with a Kitten Killer 9000 rocket launcher.
  • When Penny joins Ruby and her friends for a game of dodgeball in Season 2 Episode 1, Ruby tries to convince everyone that Penny (who has just adjusted her target parameters to match Ruby's clarifications about the game) is "completely normal". Penny backs this up by saying that she's "a normal meat person, just like you!" Cue everyone exchanging suspicious glances.
  • In "Nurse Nora", Ren has a broken leg and gets stuck with Nora over-enthusiastically playing nurse. Things escalate until Nora goes full Yandere and threatens to break the other leg, so Ren gets up and lies that he's been cured. He then walks off while limping and saying "ow".
• Bottomless Magazines: Averted with Weiss and Yang's sparring match. Yang forgot to load Ember Celica and just gets an empty click when she tries to finish the fight with her gauntlets. So she just punches Weiss.
• Bowdlerise: The original "Cinder Who?" fan comic had a segment where Cinder compliments Glynda's breasts in a vain attempt to get her to stop a room inspection. In Chibi's adaptation of the comic in Episode 21, Glynda is replaced with Sun and Neptune and Cinder compliments Sun's abs instead.
• Brain Bleach: In Episode 24, the girls are spying on the boys as they use the men's shower. When Yang gets her turn to spy, she sees a sight that leaves her screaming that she's blind. She saw Professor Port in the shower.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • The final segment of Episode 6 is titled "The Fourth Wall". Team RWBY are stunned to discover that there are significant differences between the Chibi-verse and the main show. While they try to comprehend this difference, Nora faces the camera and directly addresses the audience, vehemently insisting that nothing bad ever happened.
  • Roman proceeds to break it further in Episode 20 by wanting revenge on Team RWBY for moving on to a silly spin-off comedy series and leaving him behind for the majority of the beginning. Neo also looks towards the audience, telling them via sign that things aren't going to be different.
  • Episode 23 doesn't break it so much as obliterate it... Nora goes through a number of parallel dimensions... including one where she's a woman named Samantha Ireland recording dialogue for a web cartoon. Episode 23 of Season 2 pushes it one step further: Nora awakens as a Nora figure in the Rooster Teeth deposit!
  • The first episode of Season 2 turns the opening into a skit of its own, with Yang accidentally knocking the title over and Ozpin, acting as the opening director, stating that "we have a show to do". Cinder also expresses her disbelief to the audience after Ozpin believes that the rose in the logo fell on him by accident, when in fact she'd pushed it onto him.
• Brick Joke: In Season 2 Episode 8's "Boy Band" it's revealed that Neptune is allergic to Jaune's latex makeup, causing his hand and head to swell horribly. In the finale, he catches Jaune, who's still wearing the makeup, and promptly swells up again.
• Brutal Honesty: In Season 2 Episode 13's "Surprise Parties", Ruby wants to throw a surprise party for Pyrrha. While Blake tries to gently tell her that things tend to go wrong whenever she throws a surprise party, Weiss just flat-out tells Ruby to her face that she's terrible at doing so.
• Bubble Pipe: Blake is desperate to meet the author of her favourite book "Howling at the Moon" and fantasises about who he might be because he's mysteriously secretive and writes such good romance. When she discovers the identity of the author, she freaks out and flees the shop in horror. The author's response is simply to start smoking a bubble pipe. The author is Zwei; Ruby isn't impressed with him and seems to think his obedience school has really gone all out on him.
• Bucket Booby-Trap: The team pranks Weiss by having a bucket full of water fall on her as she enters their dorm. She returns the favor the next day to Ruby, though she froze the water first.
• Bumbling Dad: Chibi Taiyang. His very first appearance cements his status as a Pungeon Master just like his daughter, and a later one has him trying to outdo Qrow in terms of coolness and failing abysmally. Fortunately, his daughters love him all the same in spite of his awkwardness.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Jaune. Episode 2 has him in a cast and crutch, episode 4 has his failed attempts at calling Weiss and episode 5 has him annoyed that he and Ruby are dressed the same...in Weiss' outfit. Even in his transition he can't catch a break; he ends up falling over and having to simply run away. In Episode 16, Blake mistakes him for Sun when they're reading together...and the list goes on and on. It'd be easier to name the times when he's NOT the laughing stock of the universe. It's even lampshaded in-universe during Season 2's "Magic Show"; when Jaune accuses Ruby of making him look bad, Ruby retorts, "You don't need any help to do that."
  • From his first appearance, Roman was determined to get revenge for the events of the main show and that things would be different. Neo indicated things would not be different and Roman was promptly defeated by Zwei blowing him up with his own Melodic Cudgel. Every time Roman crosses paths with Team RWBY or Zwei, things go horribly wrong for him, including once sinking into a floor made out of lava when confronting Ruby.
  • Much of the comedy surrounding Neptune takes his fear of water up to 11, to the point where he can't even shower without pool gear. When he's not suffering from hydrophobia, he's being humiliated in other ways: he is trolled by Sun, allergic to Jaune's makeup, and at one point during an interrogation of Nora, Nora ends up brow beating him, replacing him as Sun's partner, and getting him to confess to a crime that she committed.

Tropes C

• Call a Human a "Meatbag": Penny tries very hard to pass herself off as an ordinary human instead of as the lifelike robot she really is. However, when she claims that she's "a normal meat person, just like you", the students get very suspicious.
• Call-Back:
  • Yang buys Blake a ball of yarn in Episode 2, something Blake is not amused by because she feels Yang is stereotyping her cat-heritage. In a later episode, Yang buys Blake a tea-set because she still feels bad about the joke. Blake loves the gift, but Yang's relief is short-lived when she discovers that Blake regards the box the china came in as the gift and starts playing in it just like a cat.
  • When Weiss slamming doors accidentally destroys Ruby's house of cards, Ruby's revenge consists of leaving muddy footprints all over the kitchen floor that Weiss has just cleaned. In Episode 6, Jaune tracks mud all over her cape when he walks through the kitchen while she's sitting on the floor reading a comic.
  • In Episode 14, Weiss gets disgusted by Ruby picking her nose, which also happened in the main series.
  • The start of the pillow fight in Episode 19 is a clear reference to the Ruby/Weiss duel in Episode 5, complete with music and Zwei rolling past like tumbleweed.
  • At the end of Episode 24, we see all four pictures from the "Zwei Picture" contest on a wall.
  • That compost and aliens game from Episode 22? Team JNPR is still playing it in the next season premiere; the game also appears in Episode 11.
  • A Freeze-Frame Bonus in "Computer Virus" has a computer infected and showing a dozen spam banners, and most are things shown in previous episodes (Compost King, Whack a Grimm, Kitten Killer 9000, Real Chibi Beans coffee, Neo's Neo).
  • "Movie Night" has Jaune's movie featuring the Huntsman that he dressed up as during "Fearless Hero".
  • "Road Trip" has Ruby stuffing a lot of previously seen items (the bass guitar shaped like Crescent Rose, Ruby's pull cart, Taiyang's skateboard, Nora's teddy bear), and using Tai's camera from the previous season. She also eats a bag of Tater Chips, like the one Jaune used recording an ASMR video.
  • "Love Daddy" shows Taiyang's profile has him still wanting to be a "Cool Dad" (even his age is listed as "cool"!) and his profile picture has him in the Tai-dye shirt.
  • "Grimm Passengers" both takes place during "Road Trip" and has Marty and Mike again being called "dingoes".
  • "Mercury's Girl" brings back Cinder Doll, though she's the second hand puppet owned by Mercury.
• Calling Your Attacks: During "Teenage Faunus Ninja Catgirl", every time Blake uses a smoke bomb to make a quick exit, she declares "Ninja Vanish!"
• Can't Hold His Liquor: In "Cool Dad", Taiyang, mockingly imitating Qrow, takes a swig of the drink Qrow left behind... and promptly spits it out.
  Taiyang: [clutching his throat] It burns!
• Cape Snag:
  • In "Cape Troubles", Ruby's cape gets caught against something twice. The first time she closes the door to her dorm while it's still in the frame, while the second time a comic book keeps it in place before she jumps off her bed, causing her to nearly hang herself.
  • Qrow's transition animation has him being slapped and then dragged away by wind on his cape.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Both Cinder Fall and Roman Torchwick frequently go on about how evil they are, complete with Evil Laughs. Cinder also has an "Ultimate Evil Plans" scheme on a whiteboard, her plans include instructions such as "Chaos: Yes, please!" and "Hugs: NO!", and she has a dislike of puppies. Roman, meanwhile, is bent on revenge on Ruby.
• Cartoonish Supervillainy: Cinder constantly emphasizes her "NEFARIOUS PLANS" and how evil she is, and goes out her way to be a jerk in general. Her plans also tend to be silly, such as wanting to troll people on the internet or use a specialized cannon to kill kittens.
  • Roman has access to a Death Ray and is always engaging in elaborate schemes to attack Ruby and her team.
• Cassandra Truth: In an Episode 22 skit, Ruby warns everyone about to enter the room that the 'floor is lava,' and the members of her team appear to more or less humor her without actually believing her. When she tries to warn Roman Torchwick of the danger, he steps into the room and ends up melting as a result.
• Catchphrase: For Cinder, it's some variation of "my nefarious plans".
  • Neo's insult of choice seems to be "dum-dum".
• Catapult Nightmare: A justified case in "RWBY Dreams". If Ruby didn't jump, she wouldn't have taken Zwei off her face!
• Character Exaggeration: Character quirks from the main show are exaggerated for comedy.
  • Ruby's compassionate, all-inclusive nature and younger academic age in the main show, has been turned to persistent immaturity seen from little kids, along with an obsession with making everyone her BFF. She constantly whines if she's not the center of attention, she endlessly annoys Weiss even when the latter is trying to study, and she engages in extreme measures to obtain these things (such as hypnotising all her team-mates to give her friendship, money, and access to Yang's beloved motorbike). She even tries to make Cinder her BFF, even though she hardly knows her.
  • Weiss is excessively aloof towards everyone, and her knowledge of domestic maintenance (cooking, cleaning, etc.) depends on what the comedy needs. She will perform ballet routines with a hoover, but claims to not know what the word "cleaning" means.
  • Blake's cat traits are taken to stereotypical levels, with one of Chibi's recurring gags focusing on her antagonistic relationship with Zwei, though ironically she later cuddles up to him and both dislike the vacuum cleaner. And on a lesser scale, once she's reading she tends to be oblivious to most things (such as being used as a weight-lift by Yang, or that Ruby is fighting off-screen with a Grimm), which wasn't the case in the main show.
  • Yang's temper is now so volatile that her teammates can easily prank her into activating her Semblance and use it to toast marshmallows. Asking her to open jars is a terrifying experience, involving her entering full attack mode just to get the lid off. Her desire to turn everything into a bad pun is now so constant that she even puns Nora's situation when Nora is comatose and everyone else is worried she needs to be hospitalised.
  • Jaune is the butt of a joke almost every time he's on screen. He drowns in a swimming pool, he is bandaged to the eyeballs after Nora's training, and he breaks his leg simply from tripping over something.
  • Pyrrha lost control of her polarity semblance only once in the main show as a result of extreme emotional stress. In Chibi, it's instead uncontrollable, accidentally sticking pots and pans to Nora or rendering compasses useless. Her crush on Jaune is incredibly obvious here while his Oblivious to Love traits are equally ramped up.
  • Ren is the long-suffering friend at the end of his tether with a completely crazy, food-obsessed Nora. Nora is also considerably more passive-aggressive in her crush on Ren, trying to get him to realize things rather than say it herself. She eventually becomes full-blown crazy, engaging in increasingly abusive acts against Ren to get him to fall in love with her, such as breaking his limbs so she can nurse him and drowning him in a cauldron full of love potion.
  • Neptune's fear of water is made so extreme that he can't even shower without being fully clothed with water safety gear. Even a tiny puddle in the gutter has him clinging to Sun in fear. At one point he lets Jaune drown in the swimming pool to avoid getting near the water.
  • Zwei had shown instances of Badass Adorable and Intellectual Animal. In Chibi, he can defeat villains efortlessly and do complex tasks such as writing books.
  • The villains are stereotypical evil cartoon villains. Both Cinder and Roman engage in evil laughs when plotting, and suffer comical defeats at the hands of Zwei, who appears to be the only character in the show who knows the truth about the villains. Cinder hates puppies and has an "Ultimate Evil Plans" scheme on a white board that include instructions such as "Chaos: Yes, please!" and "Hugs: NO!". Roman plots in the shadows, has access to a gigantic Death Ray and is determined to get revenge for how unsuccessful he was in the main show.
  • In the main show, Zwei is considered in-universe to be cute and useful in battle, but everyone in the Chibiverse loves him: Jaune shares manly problems with him; Ruby regards him as a play mate; even Blake sneaks cuddles with him when no-one is looking. He's also the only useful character in the show; his exploits range from acting as a one-dog stagehand, saving Ren by defusing a bomb and acting as a live subject for art classes. He also knows who the villains are and continually foils their Evil Plans without any of the kids noticing. In fact, Ruby thinks he's lazy.
  • In the original show, Ozpin launches brand new students into a forest full of dangerous monsters while drinking hot chocolate and casually bends rules to let his students go on missions classified as too dangerous for their skill level; General Ironwood worries about Ozpin's passivity. His first Chibi appearance in "Director Ozpin" reveals that he's not passive; he's instead completely oblivious to any sort of danger. He dismisses warnings, misses sabotage that happens right in front of his face, and suggests the kids go play in the monster-filled forest instead of making up danger.
  • Penny's robotic nature, which is a secret known to very few and is played for drama in the main show, is highlighted for comedy in Chibi. She is introduced to the Chibi-verse in the Volume 2 teaser, where she is presented to Ruby in a toy box that states that batteries will be required. The Volume 2 premiere shows she is not as competent as in the main show at hiding her true nature. When Ruby's gang tries to teach her a game of what she calls "Dodge The Ball Then Eliminate Your Enemies With The Ball", she uses her targeting technology to utterly wreck them with extremely powerful and accurate ball throws.
• Childish Pillow Fight: That's what Sun, Neptune, and Ren were expecting when they heard that Team RWBY was having one, but they forgot that for Team RWBY, pillow fights, as with food fights, are Serious Business. The 3 boys tried to have one themselves, but failed, of course.
• Chirping Crickets: The tumbleweed variant shows up a couple of times... only the tumbleweed is Zwei.
• Circling Birdies: After Cardin is KO'd by Qrow in "Animal Cruelty", crows start flying around his head.
• Cliffhanger: Parodied in "Road Trip", as the episode freeze frames in Yang attempting to jump over a road block to evade police pursuers.
• Clutching Hand Trap: In Season 1 Episode 18 after very intensely removing the lid off a jar of sweet pickles for Ruby, Yang sticks her hand in to try one out, only for this to happen. Her response: "You just don't know when to quit, do you?"
• Comedic Sociopathy: There is a lot of slapstick comedy in the show, involving the characters suddenly going out-of-character to engage in an action that hurts others in a way they would never do in the main show.
  • When Ruby catches Weiss with the old trick of balancing a bucket of ice-cold water on top of a partially open door, Weiss decides to retaliate. She uses her abilities to freeze a bucket of water into solid ice, which hits Ruby on the head and knocks her unconscious. While Weiss preens over the success of her trick, Yang and Blake try—and fail—to make her care about how badly injured Ruby is.
  • Sun and Neptune disguise themselves as detectives and force Jaune to accidentally drop litter just as an excuse to beat him up and, when Neptune temporarily covers for Sun as the pool life-guard, he turns a blind eye when Jaune starts drowning right in front of him. The memory of the drowning incident at least forces Neptune to admit that his fear of water is a problem.
  • Ruby aims the business end of Crescent Rose at Blake during a school play. Blake is shocked that it's not a prop and departs the stage swiftly. Ruby also leads her team in a pillow fight where the pillows make gun-cocking sounds, knock people across the room, and Yang might be using Ember Celica to launch pillows.
  • Nora forces Team RWBY to work out past the point of utter exhaustion, and in Team JNPR's case, serious injury.
  • When Sun and Neptune try to do an inspection of Cinder's room to search for "evil plans", Neo wants to open fire on them with her giant Death Ray. Mercury is egging her on and Emerald is desperately trying to stop them. The wardrobe can be seen in the background with all the "evil plans" equipment messily stuffed inside it.
  • When Nora is left in comatose after eating five plates of waffles, Sun, Ren, and Neptune worry about her health while Yang cracks puns about her situation. Even when the others point try to get her to prioritise Nora's health, Yang can't stop viewing the situation as joke material. When Sun demands to know why she's like this, her father appears with his own set of puns. Neptune, Ren and Sun give up trying to help Nora at that point and flee the dad jokes in horror.
  • Head trauma is a common joke: Nora deals with boredom by hitting Ren over the head multiple times with Magnhilde; Ruby hits Blake over the head with the "Ninja's of Love" book, decrying its "filth"; Weiss gets beaned in the head by a fire extinguisher for ruining Ruby's cake; Weiss pranks Ruby with a frozen bucket of ice which gives her a concussion; Ren throws his book at Sun's head after Sun intimates that Ren doesn't like pillow fights, and Penny is decapitated when hit in the head during a dodgeball game.
  • While the rest of Team RWBY is asleep, Ruby hypnotizes them all to do her bidding the next day, complete with creepy voice, creepy soundtrack, and dramatic thunder and lightning. The next day, Weiss is screaming on the inside even as she helplessly agrees to Ruby's demand to go on a "Super Bestie" day of fun with her while Yang is equally horrified to find herself turning over the keys to Bumblebee and spare cash as soon as Ruby demands it. Blake recognises exactly what's happened and explains that Ruby's success means that Yang and Weiss are weak-minded, but she's completely oblivious to the fact that she's wearing a "Back up Bestie" t-shirt.
  • In Season 2 Episode 15, Nora attempts to check up on Ren when he breaks his leg, which includes stating that he's dead after trying to listen to his heartbeat through his leg cast, offering to check his temperature through the non-oral way, and testing his knee-jerk reflex with Magnhilde. Ren is so disturbed by her behavior that he pretends he's recovered and runs for it, prompting Nora to give the camera a frightening expression and say "I knew my love would cure him!"
  • In Season 2 Episode 17, Ruby downright causes a heart attack on Professor Port, forcing Neptune to improvise a defibrillator from Tri-Hard.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • In Episode 23, Neo and Roman are about to leave the Dust store that they've just robbed at the same time that Sun finds Neptune's mustache so he can figure out why his crime senses are flaring. As Neptune shouts that he's got it, Neo and Roman freeze in their places...only for Neptune to slightly push a trash can to the side to ensure that it's up to code.
  • In Episode 24, Sun tries to pick up Blake by inviting her to "the gun show" (re: his muscles). She accepts despite it being cheesy. However, Neptune barges in, complaining about not being able to go anywhere and hang out with him and wants to go to a real gun show; he drags off Sun to do just that.
• The Comically Serious:
  • Ren takes everything he does extremely seriously and goes about his tasks with a zen-like focus — which makes for comedy gold when said tasks include playing tag, pillow fighting, and choreographing a "spontaneous" dance routine.
  • Neo is portrayed as being much serious than her partner in crime, Roman, though she communicates with him much like Wile E. Coyote would. Where she even got so many signs the world of Remnant may never know.
  • Blake usually plays the role of the Emotionless Girl and therefore gives the deadpan and under-reaction punchlines for jokes. Her 'performance' as the Big Bad Wolf is lethargic due to her lack of interest; instead of pretending to terrorise the grandmother, she tells the rebelling Yang to get back into bed in a bored tone. When Jaune laments his boring role in the show as a minor character who doesn't get to do anything interesting, she barely stops reading while suggesting she can't tell him and Sun apart. When the girls are getting ready for a girls' night out, Yang declares to Jaune and Ren that even Blake is excited. Blake confirms she's ecstatic in a monotone.
  Yang: We got VIP passes to a hot new nightclub, even Blake is excited!
  Blake: (deadpan) I'm ecstatic.
• Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Nora tries to play the Damsel in Distress part for Ren to rescue her, but third parties keep jumping in.
• Composite Character: In situations where one would logically expect to see Glynda Goodwitch, Winter Schnee appears instead, as Glynda's voice actress was fired from the company before the show started.
• Computer Viruses Are Computer Illnesses: In "Computer Virus", Ozpin, Port, Oobleck, and Winter are confused as to how their computer got a virus, when it's revealed that Penny caused it when she sneezes and pop-ups appear on the screen.
• Cool Big Sis: Ruby regards Yang in this light, with a whole skit dedicated to comparing their relationship to that between Weiss and Winter.
• Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears: When Yang is opening a jar of pickles, Ruby covers Zwei's eyes while Sun covers her eyes.
• Covert Pervert: Yang in Episode 24, when she uses binoculars to spy on the boy's showers. Weiss gets a few peeks in as well before calling Yang terrible, although Yang notes that she's the one still looking. However, things go awry when Yang sees Professor Port entering the showers.
• Cranial Processing Unit: When Penny is accidentally decapitated by a dodgeball in the Season 2 premiere, her severed head briefly talks, scaring everyone else away, before her body reattaches it with no ill effect.
• Creator Cameo: Barbara Dunkelman and Samantha Ireland (the voices of Yang and Nora respectively) have briefly appeared as themselves.
• Cringe Comedy: The entirety of "Stand-Up Yang" involves Yang delivering a boatload of terrible puns, much to the dismay of the audience. "Dad Jokes" later emphasises that she can't stop making puns even when a friend's health is on the line, and reveals that the reason why she's like this is because her father is even worse at telling terrible jokes at terrible moments than she is. He's so awful that everyone gives up trying to help the comatose Nora and flees the room. "Punished" goes on a whole new level, with the bad joke showoff making Weiss Head Desk and Blake leave the room, before Ruby interrupts to turn the thing into a PSA against puns.
• Curse Cut Short: In "Late to Class", Ruby unintentionally tunnels into Oobleck's classroom during Saturday detention. When she finds out, she lets loose with a "SON OF A-" before being cut off by the transition to the next segment.

Tropes D

• Dame with a Case: Played for laughs in the episode "Neptune Noir", where Neptune Vasilias, a junior detective, pretends he's in a Film Noir. Seductive villainess Cinder Fall arrives, looking to hire the detective to help her find the Fall Maiden. However, she can hear Neptune's inner monologue/narration, leading her to be turned off by his unprofessionalism and desire for "smooches", leading her to go to the dog Zwei as an alternative.
• Damned by Faint Praise: In Episode 21, Weiss is writing a letter to Winter. She initially calls Ruby "interesting", but after the latter tries to eat a cookie through her nose, the only other thing Weiss can think of to describe her is "...a person".
• Death as Comedy: In the first series, when Ruby tries to mention some of the tragic events of the main show, Nora interrupts, emphatically telling the audience that nothing bad ever happens in the Chibi world, prompting Ren to suggest they stick to comedy. Death and near-death is therefore a common source of comedy in this show.
  • "Cape Troubles": Ruby hangs herself when she tries to jump from the top bunk only to have her cape get caught by accident. Her face even starts to turn blue from lack of oxygen as she gasps "Not like this! Not like this!"
  • "Neptune's Phobia": Neptune stands in for Sun as the swimming pool's life-guard. When Jaune slips and falls into the pool right beside Neptune's chair, Jaune struggles for air and desperately calls for help. However, Neptune looks the opposite way and ignores what's happening. Eventually, Jaune sinks below the water and releases one final bubble that pops into the word "dead".
  • "Boy Band": Jaune shows up wearing latex make-up. As soon as Neptune touches it, he reveals he has a latex allergy. As his friends watch, his hands and face turn red and swell up to comedic proportions. When Ren asks if there's anything they can do, Neptune's head doubles in size and he gasps out "Re-.. member me... as I was".
  • "Surprise Parties": The rest of Team RWBY refuses to help Ruby throw a surprise party for Pyrrha's birthday on the grounds that all of her other attempts to throw surprise parties have resulted in chaos, leading to a flashback montage of her doing so. The last attempt led to Professor Port suffering a near-fatal heart attack, forcing Neptune to use Tri-Hard to resuscitate him. Ruby can barely muster a defense after this.
    Ruby: I mean... he didn't die-die!
• Depending on the Writer:
  • Weiss' knowledge of domestic maintenance varies depending on where the gag takes her. In some episodes, she delights in cleaning and is even shown doing ballet routines while vacuuming up Team RWBY's dorm, but in Episode 18, she's totally hopeless when it comes to cooking, and doesn't even know what Ruby means by "cleaning up".
  • The villains, while often incompetent, will vary in intelligence episode to episode. For example, while Roman and Neo have been semi-competent in cases such as robbing a Dust shop and siccing a Geist on Team RWBY, they can both be idiots when Cinder tries to teach them in "Evil Class".
• Deliberately Distressed Damsel: In Episode 17, Nora tries to engineer a situation where she's being "attacked" by a Grimm and needs to be saved by Ren. The first two times she's saved by Sun and Yang instead, while the third time has Ren see she has it under control and leave.
• Department of Redundancy Department: Jaune tries to call Weiss while introducing himself as "Jaune Arc of the Arc family. With the last name Arc."
• Description Cut: Season 3 has twice Ren saying something about team RWBY that ends in an amusing cut:
  • Episode 1: Ren goes "Next time we see the girls, they are in so much trouble... ", the girls are evading Hot Pursuit for accidentally robbing a bank.
  • Episode 5: A bored Ren goes "Maybe girls' night would've been more fun... ". Cue a burning nightclub, because they made true of Yang's boast that they would set the town on fire!
• Didn't Think This Through: In "Evil Class", Cinder demonstrates a Dynamite Candle booby trap for the entire class. When Emerald points out that the trap is too obvious, Cinder misinterprets it as Emerald just not understanding the concept and lights the dynamite right then and there... and has just enough time to realize what a bad move that was before the dynamite explodes.
• Dimensional Traveler: On at least two occasions, Nora overdosing on caffeine has allowed her to travel to other parallel universes, notably into the real world.
• Dirty Cops: Junior Detectives Sun and Neptune frame Jaune for littering by deliberately spilling his drink, and then beat him over it.
• Discredited Meme: In-universe example. By Season 2, Weiss and Blake are tired of the "Now that's a katana!" joke.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The skit The Mystery Bunch opens with Sun catching Neptune interrogating a bear plush with Ruby's hair, but the way the scene is set up, along with Neptune claiming that Sun plays with dolls while he doesn't, makes it appear that Neptune might have been playing with something else.
• Dramatic Gun Cock: Ruby does this to a pillow to start her team's battle in "Pillow Fight".
• Drill Sergeant Nasty:
  • Nora reveals herself to be one in "Nora Workout" when she drives Team RWBY to the point of exhaustion with the warm-up, and it's revealed that Team JNPR got it even worse since they live with her (Pyrrha and Ren both have an arm in a sling, Jaune has a full body cast).
  • The normally quiet and laid-back Ren takes dancing very seriously. When Team JNPR is practising their dance routine, Ren gets very annoyed when Pyrrha makes a mistake. He is also making Jaune lose seven pounds before they are fitted for their dance costumes, and has been paying close enough attention to Jaune to know about the empty bag of crisps underneath Jaune's bed. Nora is reduced to tears.
  Ren: Pyrrha, you know I love you, but kick step, kick step, body roll is NOT ROCKET SCIENCE!
• Drives Like Crazy: "Put it in Reverse" is about Ruby attempting to learn to drive. As soon as she hits the actual road, she's reckless enough to destroy the family car.
• Dude, Not Funny!:
  • Weiss takes revenge on Ruby for her Bucket Booby-Trap prank in Season 1 Episode 7 by doing the same thing with a bucket of ice, causing Ruby to get knocked out. While Weiss is amused by the outcome, Blake and Yang are upset with Weiss's dangerous prank and fear that Ruby might have a concussion.
  • When Sun, Neptune, Ren, and Yang find Nora in a food coma in Season 2 Episode 4, Yang starts cracking bad puns instead of trying to help. When an annoyed Sun asks why Yang does this, her dad, Taiyang, shows up and starts making terrible jokes of his own, demonstrating that bad humor at bad moments is a Xiao Long family trait.
• Dungeon Bypass: "The Great Escape" starts with Yang blasting through a wall, at which Winter notes she was supposed to look up clues for getting out of the escape room.
• Dynamic Entry: Whenever Ruby has to open a door, she slams it open, and loudly announces her presence by shouting. This gets on Weiss' nerves to no end.
  Weiss: Will you please stop doing that?!
• Dynamite Candle: Cinder's booby trap demonstration in the Season 2, Episode 7 skit "Evil Class" is a dynamite stick in a cake, which Emerald points out would be too obvious for anyone to fall for. Cinder is so frustrated that no-one in the class is obediently lapping up her plan that she sets off the dynamite herself.

Tropes E-F

• Embarrassing Voicemail: In one skit, Jaune leaves Weiss a series of voicemails trying to ask her out on a study date. They become increasingly desperate and angry as she fails to return his calls, concluding in an angry rant about how much he hates her selfish, arrogant behavior. Right after he finishes that one, Weiss walks up to him and asks if he's seen her phone because she lost it somewhere and has been searching for it all afternoon.
• Ennio Morricone Pastiche: The set-up to Ruby and Weiss' duel in Episode 5 has a Mexican Standoff, complete with a soundtrack vaguely reminiscent of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Zwei rolling around to resemble a tumbleweed.
• Every Car Is a Pinto: The result of "Driving Lesson" is an engine that literally exploded (plus extra damage) after hitting Penny. Also, "Cousins of Chaos" has three motorcycles exploding for no reason after they successively crash to the ground.
• Eviler than Thou: "Evil Interview" has Cinder being so evil it drives away her new potential employee, Cardin Winchester (who is only a bully, in contrast to someone willing to set one of her lackeys on fire...).
• Evil Is Hammy:
  • In contrast to her original portrayal as a quiet and terrifying villain who keeps her plans secret, Cinder now boasts about her evil plans out in the open while evilly laughing. At one point she even curses Zwei for foiling her plans after he defeats her.
  Cinder: My nefarious plans, my evil schemes, all ruined! Curse you, adorable corgi!
  • Roman spies on the girls playing fetch with Zwei and rants about how Team RWBY moved on to a spin-off comedy show as if they could leave him behind. He loudly declares that, unlike in the main show, he will succeed in this show and things will be different. Neo holds up a signpost that states "They won't", but it doesn't stop Roman dramatically demanding a Death Ray.
  Roman: PREPARE THE DEATH RAY!
• Evil Is Petty:
  • Mercury attempts to invoke this after he pops a soccer ball during a game between heroes and villain, saying that ruining their fun is kind of evil. Everyone else on the side of evil is just irritated that he ended the game before it even started and that he took away their chance of actually winning for once.
  • Befitting her status as a cartoonish Card-Carrying Villain, Cinder's standards for evil are rather childish and petty. In Season 3 episode 2, she has an entire billboard devoted to such things as stealing candy and kicking puppies.
• Exact Words:
  • In Episode 23, it's revealed that Ren has ordered Nora to never make coffee because of the impact coffee has on her hyper nature. However, he didn't tell her not to nudge other people into making coffee for her, and he definitely didn't tell her not to drink coffee any more.
  • Weiss orders Nora to bring cake to the party in Season 1 Episode 24, but she fails to specify what she means by 'cake'. Nora's response is to bring a small mountain of her favourite kind of cakes: pancakes.
  • Many skits throughout the second season show the characters experimenting with instruments, costumes, catch phrases and special effects in preparation for a Battle of the Bands competition. On the big day, Team Trouble-Clef (the villains, minus Cinder) play their hearts out until they realize the "Battle" is not the musical competition they thought it was; it's a musical-themed fighting competition and everyone else's instruments are modified weapons.
  • In Season 3 Episode 5, when preparing for a girls' night out, Yang and Ruby declare they're going to "set the town on fire." The ending reveals they were being quite literal: they actually set a building on fire.
• Faceless Masses:
  • In the first volume of the main show, background characters were featureless silhouettes that reused the same character models, including the shapes of the main characters. In Episode 5, Team RWBY notice the silhouettes and pause to discuss how creepy these shadow people are, especially the ones that look like silhouettes of themselves.
  • The final episode of the first season finishes with the revelation that the show has been a sitcom with a seated audience. When Ruby thanks everyone for the show, the camera angle pans out to reveal the audience and camera crew are all shadow people.
• Failed a Spot Check:
  • Episode 13: Blake checks the entire room for Zwei, including between book pages. Relieved he's not around, she lies down on her bed for a nap having failed to spot that he's on her bed, playing the pillow.
  • Episode 23: Neptune has his "crime sense" tingling, and finally realizes it's because a trash bin was slightly off position... while Roman and Neo are robbing a shop right behind him.
• Fake Crossover: The "RWBY Dreams" skit contains a dream where Ruby meets her non-chibified self from the main RWBY series, complete with her original cel-shaded character model.
• Fall of the House of Cards: "Sissy Fight" has Ruby trying to build a card house, which collapses when Weiss slams shut their dorm's door.
• Fanservice Faux Fight: What Sun, Ren, and Neptune were hoping team RWBY's pillow fight was going to be. Of course, since this is RWBY (Chibi no less) it was instead Serious Business.
• Fantastic Racism: Played for Laughs in Episode 2 as Ruby, Weiss and Yang look at Blake, who accuses them of profiling just because she's part cat and they're looking for a cat burglar. While she's stealing things. Shows up again in a later skit in the same episode when Yang offers Blake a cat toy.
• Felony Misdemeanor: In Episode 12, Junior Detectives Sun and Neptune frame Jaune for littering by knocking his drink out of his hand, and then promptly beat him up.
• Flat Joy: How does Blake express her excitement at going clubbing in "Girls' Night Out?" By saying "I'm ecstatic" in her usual subdued voice.
• Forced Perspective: In Episode 20, a bit starts with Zwei growling at what looks like a massive (normal-sized) Beowolf...only for the camera to zoom out and reveal that the Beowolf is Cinder's tiny pet.
• For the Evulz: What Cinder and Mercury have been reduced to; Cinder actually wrote that she hates hugs on her ultimate evil plans (Yes, that is how she labeled them) and Mercury has a bazooka for killing kittens.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • In Episode 2, Blake storms out of the room, stealing things as she goes, before suddenly rushing back in to steal the remote from Yang. It's a blur of motion at normal speed, but freeze-framing reveals she's running on all fours, her bow is missing to reveal her cat ears and her eyes have become vertical slits just like a cat.
  • At the end of Episode 17, two thieves jump onto Sun and Neptune's new motorcycles and drive away. Although they're on screen for a brief moment, determining from their colors or pausing the video reveals who they are. It's Emerald and Mercury's introduction to the show.
  • Book titles throughout the series:
  The Man With Two Souls II: The Man with Four Souls
  Another Pun
  How to Arm Yourself
  Cold Hearts\Hot Love
• Full-Name Ultimatum:
  Weiss: Ruby! Rose! I have tolerated your foolishness for too long!
• Funny Background Event:
  • In "Fighting Game", while Yang taunts Ruby over a game she won, Zwei is dragging Blake across the hall.
    Yang: Zwei! What did I say? Blake is not a chew toy!
  • In "Magnetic Personality", while the guys are trying to figure out why the compass has been leading them in circles for hours, Nora is cheerfully strolling in the background the whole time.
  • During the "Cinder Who?" sketch in episode 21, while Cinder's shopping for clothes, one can spot a store called Always 17 having a sale on all evil clothing. Also, while Cinder's trying to stall Neptune and Sun, one can see that among her evil plans and crate of dust is a teddy bear.
  • The first sketch of Episode 23 has Neptune's crime senses going off and him and Sun trying to find out what has happened... all while Roman and Neo rob a Dust store behind them.
  • In "Cannonball!", Yang, Velvet and Nora are just relaxing in chairs in the background. Once Penny drops, all three are upside down! (the same sketch has Zwei as the lifeguard).
  • "Mystery Bunch" briefly has an appearance by Qrow in a speedo.
• Fun with Subtitles: The YouTube videos have fan-created subtitles that contribute their own jokes to some of the sketches, albeit sometimes only for a limited period of time. At the end of "Jaune Calls Weiss", after Jaune destroys Weiss' scroll, the captions at the time read: "(This is the point when Jaune knew he f*&%# up)". At the end of "Book Swap", Blake successfully swaps out one of the books holding up Yang's bunk bed, just for Ruby to ask if she can borrow the book Blake has just substituted. The subtitles accompanying Blake collapsing into a fetal position state "Faunus_BlakeBelladonna.exe has stopped working". When Taiyang tries to give Zwei his medicine and Zwei keeps spitting the pills out, the subtitles read "Nope.avi".
• Furry Reminder:
  • Just about every other gag involving Blake are ones that have her engage in typical cat behavior. This includes hiding from Zwei, jumping into a box while peeking out of it, and hating the vacuum cleaner.
  • In "Whistle" Ruby uses a dog whistle to reprimand Zwei for misbehaving. This attracts the ire of Blake and Velvet, who both have animal ears with far more sensitive hearing than normal humans, and the former of whom angrily slaps the whistle out of Ruby's hand, visibly irritated with Velvet at the noise.

Tropes G-H

• G-Rated Drug: Nora has acid trips every time she drinks coffee; they're so strong, she slices through the fourth wall and experiences visions of the real world.
• Gag Series: There is no drama, plot, or sense in this show. It's just a series of short Slice of Life segments that revolve around Rule of Funny.
• Gasshole: After eating a whole cake in one bite, Nora gets rid of her Balloon Belly just through belching.
• Gory Deadly Overkill Title of Fatal Death: When Weiss falls sick in Episode 11, Ruby tries to take care of her the way her father used to care for her whenever she was ill. The sickness-cheer-up package includes a video game called "Kung Fu Ninja Slayer Ultimate Death Battle II".
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Ruby's team and Cinder's team face each other, smack-talking and growling in each other's faces, clearly preparing to unleash violence on each other. The camera pans back from their faces to reveal Nora preparing to toss the ball to kick off a game of five-a-side football.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: Neptune complains that he never gets to be the bad cop. He tries to steal the role, only to have Nora out bad cop him into a confession.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!:
  • In Episode 16, after Weiss freezes her motorcycle solid at the start of a race, Yang exclaims "What and how?!" It's an unusual, yet perfectly appropriate exclamation — and certainly much more family-friendly than the more common, phonetically-similar and equivalent in meaning "What the hell?!"
  • Yang gets into it again in Volume 3, episode 1, declaring that Team RWBY's going to have the "best hecking road trip ever!"
  • In Volume 3, episode 10, Roman shouts "What the fricklety-frak!" when Mercury pranks him by putting glue in his hat and Melodic Cudgel. Similarly, Cinder curses, "What the fracklety-frick?!" when signs leading her to the Winter Maiden turn out to be leading her to a snowman.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: Zwei's saving the day in Episode 19 remains unknown to Ruby, who believes he's just lazing around. Him stopping Roman and Neo in Episode 20 is witnessed by none of the gang.
• The Ground Is Lava: In one skit, Ruby tells everyone who enters her room that the floor is lava. Weiss, Blake and Yang, under the impression that she's just playing a game, humor her by avoiding touching the floor. When Roman bursts in, he refuses to play along and jumps on the floor... then promptly melts, leaving only his hat behind.
  Ruby: I tried to warn him.
• Guilty Pleasures:
  • Blake is clearly ashamed that she reads a book like Ninjas Of Love, and greatly fears that somebody might find out.
  • Winter tries to obtain the book Cold Heart/Hot Love without no one noticing. Qrow beats her to it, and says he will highlight the good parts.
• Halloween Episode: All three skits of Episode 2:21, ""Happy BirthdayWeen", are Halloween-themed, with Ruby and Yang cooking a pumpkin pie, Nora brewing a love potion while cackling over a cauldron like a witch, and Ruby revealing her birthday is on Halloween.
• Ham and Cheese: In-Universe. In "Little Red Riding Hood", Yang clearly knows she's not in a good play, but still takes the opportunity to have fun anyway.
• Hammerspace: Neo has a tendency to pull anything she needs out of nowhere. She communicates with huge signs that she appears to pull from behind her back, and does the same thing with a Death Ray that is five times her size. Roman doesn't seem to find the signposts strange, but the Death Ray floors him with shock.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Part of the gag in "Tubby Tummy". Yang is anything but pleased to witness Nora eat an entire cake in one bite, balloon up, and return to normal size with just one burp, whereas Yang just went through a rigorous Training Montage to lose weight.
• Hard-Work Montage: In "Tubby Tummy", one has Yang going through rigorous exercises as she tries to lose weight, while an appropriate remix of "I Burn" plays the whole time.
• Harmless Villain: Cinder's gang is in the Chibi show, and still trying to carry out the nefarious plots of the main show, but this time, their machinations are cartoonishly incompetent. Cinder plans in the open, comes up with terrible excuses when caught red-handed, and Roman cartoonishly plots revenge for his fate in the main show from the shadows while Neo acts as his sidekick and wields an enormous Death Ray. Although the main characters buy into ridiculous excuses such as planning cake baking for kitten charities, or completely fail to spot Roman ranting loudly nearby about how he'll defeat them, Zwei is much more savvy and regularly defeats all the villains.
• Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": Ruby gets Team RWBY to perform a play about Little Red Riding Hood, but finds Yang sabotaging the skit as it progresses. When Yang and Ruby argue mid-scene, Yang accuses Ruby of being a self-inserted Mary Sue, pointing out that Ruby's written the play to revolve around herself, and used the dialogue to emphasize that she's beloved by all who meet her.
• Hero with an F in Good: The Junior Detectives are blind to crimes happening all around them, and prone to violence and arson just to make themselves look cool.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: Remnant often displays things in a manner that parodies the real life version and makes it relevant to the monster-infested world in which the characters live. Arcades exist, but instead of Whack-A-Mole, they have the Whack-A-Grimm game.
• Hollywood Drowning: Episode 15 features poor Jaune slipping into a pool and drowning in a comically exaggerated fashion. Sadly for him, the lifeguard on duty is Neptune, a major hydrophobe, who just pretends not to notice.
  Jaune: "Help! *SPLASH* Someone! *SPLASH* I'm drowning! *SPLASH* I'm in the water and I'm drowning! *SPLASH* Right now! *SPLASH* Drowning! *SPLASH* I might die! *SPLASH* This could be it! *SPLASH* If only someone—! *SPLASH* Could jump in the water! *SPLASH* And save me! *SPLASH* This is it! *SPLASH* I see the light! *SPLASH* I'm going toward it! *SPLASH* So warm... bllargghh... glargh... glargh... *air bubble rises into the air and pops* Dead."
• Honest John's Dealership: In season 2, Episode 19, Roman opens a motorcycle dealership called "Crazy Roman's Steals and Wheels". The motorcycles he sells are passed off as functional but are just junk. The motorcycle Yang buys falls apart as soon as she tries to drive it out of the store.
• Horrible Judge of Character: In Episode 1 of Season 2, Ozpin fails to see the very obvious signs that Mercury and Emerald are sabotaging everything while attempting to get rid of Team RWBY. Even after being crushed by Cinder pushing the RWBY Chibi logo on top of him, he claims that it fell on him completely by accident. Cinder even lampshads it:
  Cinder: Honestly? Sometimes I think it's too easy.
• Hostile Hitchhiker: The "Hostile to Hitchhikers" variant appears on Episode 3:01 with Cinder driving around picking up victims for "nefarious reasons". Ends up turning into Pity the Kidnapper when, after picking up Jaune and Ren, they defend themselves the only way they can: by Jaune willingly becoming the most annoying hitchhiker ever, singing the theme song of Camp Camp until Cinder can't take it anymore. And on a straighter example, Episode 3:04 has the Beowolves Mike and Marty attempting to kill whoever picks them up, but it doesn't work.
• Hot-Blooded: Yang, in keeping with her canon personality (although as far as we know, canon Yang never got in a fight with a jar of pickles). It results in her teammates abusing her Burning with Anger tendencies... to toast marshmallows.
• Hot Pursuit: One occurs in chapter 2 with Blake on Yang's motorcycle with all of her stolen goods, but it's only described on the news.
• How the Character Stole Christmas: Roman's evil plan in Episode 2:24 is to steal a Nondescript Winter Holiday. Except that, instead of stealing the stuff like Grinch did, he uses a device stealing the holiday spirit.
• Hugh Mann:
  • Penny is very bad at hiding her robotic nature.
  Ruby: She's completely normal, isn't that right, Penny?
  Penny: That is correct. I am a normal meat person just like you!
  • Mike and Marty are even worse in "Grimm Passengers". At least Penny doesn't show off her claws.
  Marty: Hey there! I'm just a human dude.
  Mike: Me too! I'm also a people.
• Hurricane of Puns:
  • When news breaks that there's a cat burglar on large in the city, the news anchor in charge of the story (Lisa Lavender) manages to throw in several cat-related puns while explaining the situation.
  Lisa: Reports of a cat burglar being on the prowl in Vale have flooded the police department this week. Whether these claims are legitimate or merely a yarn, citizens are encouraged to stay indoors.
  • Yang's open mic act in episode 16 is made almost entirely of puns. Bad ones.
  Yang: Did you hear about the teacher at Beacon who had an eye patch? I heard they had to let him go... turns out he only had one pupil!
  • Yang and Taiyang indulged in it twice (though in the latter, they also fit as literal dad jokes). It runs in the family, of course.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Neo is shown to now be one to Roman Torchwick. She frequently plays the Only Sane Woman while Roman is busy hamming it up with his Evil Plan, to which Neo will hold up sarcastic messages with her sign knowing all to well that they won't work out.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • In Episode 1, Ruby calls out Blake for having a dirty book. However, when Blake asks for it back, Ruby knocks her out and keeps it.
  • In Episode 2, news breaks that there's a cat burglar at large. Ruby, Weiss and Yang all glance at Blake, who takes offence at them automatically assuming that she, a Cat Faunus, could be the culprit. However, she begins stealing objects from the room while chastising them and flees by stealing Yang's motorcycle. The news story continues in the background with live updates of the cat burglar fleeing the scene of their latest crime, and the description is clearly Blake and the objects she's just stolen.
  • In Episode 10, Ren sees a Love Triangle occur between Jaune, Pyrrha, and Weiss (who all reject each other), and laments that they can't see what's in front of them... while Nora angrily waves a sign behind him that says "Notice me!".
  • In Episode 16, Ruby teases Weiss for showing up to a race on her grandma's tricycle... while she is riding in a wagon with flame stickers on the sides, pulled by Zwei.
    Ruby: Hahahahaha, I wish you could see how dumb you look! (Sees her wagon's flame sticker peeling off) Oh no, my stickies!
  • Episode 20 has Roman telling Neo to stop being a showoff whilst wielding the gigantic Death Ray… in spite of his very Obviously Evil Evil Is Hammy routine.
  • Episode 24 has Yang using binoculars to peek on the boys' locker room to spot naked men using the showers. Weiss calls her terrible, even though she's having a look herself.
  • In Season 2 Episode 19, Roman and Neo set up several scam businesses including selling foul tasting energy drinks or defective motorcycles. Then right after they open up an attorney service which fights for people who have been scammed by the very crimes they committed earlier. All of the "satisfied customers" from before arrive to beat them up.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: Nora eats an entire cake in one bite, puffs up, then immediately goes back to normal in Episode 8, much to Yang's anger.

Tropes I-K

• Ignorant About Fire: One skit involves Weiss watching over Ruby's cake in the oven for five minutes while she goes to do something. When Ruby comes back, Weiss is frantically running around in a panic while the oven, cake, and half the kitchen burn. Despite the fact that she has ice powers.
• Impact Silhouette: When Ren, Neptune and Sun try to help a comatose Nora, they're constantly interrupted by Yang making jokes about the situation. When Sun asks her why she does that, her father appears and starts cracking dad jokes. Ren and Neptune find excuses to flee, but Sun can't think of anything; he instead jumps through the kitchen window, leaving behind a Sun-shaped hole in the glass.
• Impossible Pickle Jar: Ruby struggles to open a pickle jar, and eventually having to use Crescent Rose to open it.
• In the Blood: As revealed in "Dad Jokes," Yang gets her penchant for horrible jokes from her father.
• Inelegant Blubbering: In the "Cinder Who?" skit of Episode 21, there's a bit called "Cinder Bawls" where Cinder is reduced to this after world peace is achieved.
• In One Ear, Out The Other: The "Fireflies" skit has a firefly entering Penny's ear, making her eyes glow from the inside, and then leaving through the other ear.
• Insane Proprietor: Season 2, Episode 19 has Roman open up a motorcycle dealership called "Crazy Roman's Steals and Wheels", with "absolutely unhinged" prices. Of course, the whole thing's just an attempt to con people into buying junk bikes that fall apart at the drop of a hat.
• Insult Backfire: In Episode 16, when Ruby, Yang, and Weiss are about to have a street race and Ruby and Yang are giving Weiss a hard time for her pink tricycle:
  Yang: Where'd you get that thing? Your grandma?
  Weiss: As a matter of fact, yes. This was Nana Schnee's favorite bike. She called it "Stardust".
• Intentional Engrish for Funny: The Syrupu writing on Ren's syrup bottle.
• Intentional Mess Making: An early episode has Ruby deliberately leave muddy footprints everywhere right after Weiss finished cleaning as part of an ongoing fight the two where having.
• Ironic Name: Neptune's named after the king of the sea in Roman mythology, yet he's deathly afraid of water to the point of wearing clothes and water wings in the shower. Ren even lampshades it while taking him (read: dragging him by the foot) to the beach:
  Ren: I don't understand. Your name is Neptune.
• I Call It "Vera": As revealed in Season 3 episode 11, the Xiao Long family car is named Zippy. Taiyang is even shown in tears when Ruby totals it.
• I Can't Believe I'm Saying This: In "Surprise Parties," when Yang refuses to help Ruby throw a surprise party for Pyrrha, Weiss agrees... and then quickly states that it "felt strange to say."
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: In "Dad Jokes", to avoid hearing the Xiao Longs' horrid puns and jokes, Ren says he has to iron all his clothes, Neptune claims to have conquered his fear of water and is taking swimming lessons, and Sun fails to come up with an excuse and just jumps out the window.
• In the Style of: "Don't Pet the Grimm" is an extended Dr. Seuss homage, with Ozpin even wearing the famous headwear of The Cat in the Hat.
• It's a Costume Party, I Swear!: "Dangerous Quest" establishes that Professor Port once pranked Ozpin by convincing him to turn up to a location wearing a fancy dress costume that could compromise him. There is photographic evidence of the event, which Ozpin manipulates Ruby into obtaining for him. While he knows Ruby peeked at the photos, he doesn't realise she took copies of them.
• It's All My Fault: Played for Laughs when Jaune gets confronted by Junior Detectives Neptune and Sun for "dropping" litter (Neptune knocked it out of his hand). And when they tackle him for reaching for his library card, he asks out loud why he never learns.
• I Warned You: In Episode 22, Ruby's playing a game of "The Floor is Lava" and expects everyone to hop on objects to get there. While Weiss and Yang use their Semblance and weapons to get across, Roman Torchwick is just utterly annoyed and tells Ruby she's the first to die. He hops on the floor and immediately sinks, to the surprise of the rest of Team RWBY. Ruby's response: "I tried to warn him."
• Iyashikei: A Western example of what is mainly relaxing fun and silly antics by Super-Deformed versions of the RWBY cast, which comes in the wake of the very serious turn that the main series takes in Volume 3.
• Jerkass Has a Point: In "Surprise Parties," while Weiss telling Ruby point-blank that she's terrible at throwing surprise parties is undoubtedly harsh, she makes a valid point considering that her previous attempts have resulted in chaos, including Professor Port suffering a near-fatal heart attack. Blake even agrees with her.
• Kaiju: "Play with Penny" features a giant monster that only appears as a shadow.
• Karmic Death: During a game of "The Floor is Lava", Ruby dramatically convinces everyone to move around the room without touching the floor because it's "made of lava". Roman is having none of her nonsense and walks into the bedroom to kill her. He promptly discovers Ruby isn't playing games when he sinks into the floor and immediately dies.
• Kids Prefer Boxes: When Yang buys Blake a present to make up for teasing her, Blake is absolutely thrilled. She gingerly takes out the tea-set while gushing to Yang about how perfect it is... and then dives into the empty box and peeks out of it like a cat, completely ignoring the tea-set she has just removed.
• Kick the Dog: Parodied. Cinder actually has a chart indicating a growth in how much the villains have kicked puppies and stolen candy, with Mercury owning a bazooka named specifically for kitten killing.
• Kleptomaniac Hero:
  • Blake takes umbrage at being called a "cat burglar"... while helping herself to pretty much anything that isn't nailed down and making a run for it on Yang's bike.
  • Season 3, episode 1, has Ruby somehow manage to accidentally rob a bank.

Tropes L

• Lame Comeback: In Season 1, Episode 5, just before Ruby and Weiss have their "fight", Weiss delivers an ultimatum in her standard cultured fashion. Ruby tries to answer in a similar way but stumbles on her words, prompting Weiss to say a Flat "What" (with Blank White Eyes) in response:
  Weiss: Ruby Rose. I have tolerated your foolishness for too long!
  Ruby: The foolishness you've tolerated compares not to... the-the foolishness in which you... fooled!
• Lampshade Hanging: A lot of the show's humor consists of poking fun at the main series by taking the complaints or questions of fans regarding the main show and turning them into gags for this show. For example, the fandom questions how the You Can't Thwart Stage One concept could have led Cinder to carrying out her plan so successfully in the main show, right underneath the nose of the supposedly experienced, wise and intelligent Professor Ozpin. Cue this show, where Cinder's machinations are cartoonishly simple and obvious, and yet Ozpin is so oblivious that she can try and kill students right in front of Ozpin while he's talking to them about the possibility of someone trying to kill them, and he still doesn't cotton on what's going on.
  Ozpin: (muffled) Hello? Can I get some assistance? This giant rose seems to have fallen on me, completely by accident!
  Cinder: (standing on top of the rose logo she just pushed on top of him} Sometimes I think it's too easy.
• Lampshaded Double Entendre: From the "Little Red Riding Hood" sketch. Even if she was getting tired of Yang's antics, Blake could have chosen her words a smidge more carefully...
  Wolf!Blake: Just get in bed, Grandma.
  Grandma!Yang: Easy there, Wolfie! You haven't even bought me dinner yet! Heyo!
• Large Ham:
  • Yang clearly wanted a much bigger role than the one she got in Ruby's play and so she tries her hardest to upstage everybody else.
  • Roman and Cinder both seem to have come down with an acute case of cartoon villainy.
  Cinder: Noooo! My nefarious plans!
  • Taiyang as The Fixer:
  Oh, okay, that’s fine. Hey, at least let me start a bonfire for you, so you can throw all your money in it. Because that’s what you’re going to do by going to a “mechanic”. Oh, and while you’re at it, throw my corpse in the fire, too, because apparently I’m dead to you.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In "Happy BirthdayWeen", Ruby acts like everything should go her way and everyone should do what she wants because it's her birthday, up to and including forcing Team JNPR to give her their Halloween candy as a present and stealing an entire bowl of candy left out by Dr. Oobleck. By the end of the skit, the rest of Team RWBY has gotten sick of it; when Ruby tries to convince them to buy a Halloween costume for her, they dress her up as a trash can complete with a sign saying "TRASH".
  • "Animal Cruelty" has Cardin throwing rocks at birds. One of them is Qrow, who proceeds to punch him unconscious.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • When Zwei is looking for Blake in episode two, he charges at the screen, stops and pants at the screen before he re-catches Blake's scent.
  • The broadcast on the high speed chase describes Blake as having a "cartoonishly large amount of stolen goods falling from the bike. What will they think of next."
  • In Episode 5, Team RWBY notices the "Shadow People" from Volume 1, and speculate about how creepy it is. They even notice that some of the Shadow People are silhouettes of themselves.
  • In Episode 6, Team RWBY discuss which teachers they like. In the main show Professor Peach has been referenced but never shown on-screen. In Chibi, Ruby comments that Professor Peach isn't around very often.
  • In Episode 6, Yang is interrupted while talking about "bumblebee". Bumblebee is variously the name of Yang's motorcycle, the name shipping fans have given to the Yang/Blake pairing, and the name of Blake and Yang's combination attack (which is also named after the fandom's shipping name).
  • At the end of Episode 7, Jaune sees Team RWBY's reaction to him using their weapons, and says "don't be jealous". Now, who's more likely to be jealous of him; the girls who get to use these weapons all day... or the viewers?
  • In Episode 16, Jaune contemplates the consequences of Ruby's latest exciting adventure and asks his reading partner, Blake, if she ever feels like a secondary character who is just "there" while everyone else gets to experience the actual events of the story. As one of the main characters who is almost always involved in the events of the story, Blake answers "no".
• Letterbox: The soccer game in "Kick Off" is presented in a 4:3 ratio, but it goes away once Mercury deflates the ball by accidentally shooting it with Talaria.
• Levitating Lotus Position: Parodied; Ren achieves this in Episode 9 during his Training Montage, but the camera pans out and we see a fan underneath him.
• Libation for the Dead: "Inner Lives of Beowolves", from the episode "Cannonball!", features a pair of Grimm discussing a friend who got dusted by "that blonde with the awful puns". They're pouring themselves coffee as they do this and then promptly pour the coffee into the ground as a farewell.
• Lighter and Softer: When RWBY became much more serious and high-stakes around the latter half of Volume 3, RWBY Chibi was born out of a shared desire by creators and FNDM to keep the lighthearted hijinks and comedy that had defined much of the series' identity so far. From the outset, Chibi is more surreal and humourous than even the earliest volumes of the main show.
• Like an Old Married Couple: Taiyang and Qrow are portrayed like this in Season 2 Episode 13. When Ozpin calls them to his office to tell them about an incident that got Ruby and Yang in trouble, the first thing they do is start bickering over which of them was responsible for the girls acting that way. Then the argument devolves into Taiyang threatening to evict Qrow after the latter insults his cooking.
• Literal-Minded: Ren can act like this at times. When Jaune tells him they're going to "raise the roof", he looks at the ceiling and asks if there's something wrong with it.
• Little Red Fighting Hood: Ruby's adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood as a play features her as the titular character, but gives her Ruby's Crescent Rose so that she fights the wolf herself.
• Lock-and-Load Montage: How Junior Detectives Sun and Neptune's upgrades are shown in Episode 17.
• Look Behind You: When Season 2's first episode begins, the title scene starts collapsing around Team RWBY causing Ozpin to intervene. When the girls try to explain that they think they're being sabotaged, Ozpin dismisses them and tells them to go and play in a forest full of monstrous Grimm. When the students later accuse him of sending them on meaningless quests to recover his lost property, he shouts out "Look! A distraction!" before fleeing their presence.
• Loophole Abuse: In Episode 23, Nora asks Ruby to pick up the coffee beans. Then she asks her to put the beans into the coffee blender. Then she asks her to blend them, then add water, then boil, then pour it into a nearby cup. As the very suspicious Ruby finishes going through all the steps required for making a cup of coffee without having been directly asked to just make a cup of coffee, Ren intervenes telling her not to give the coffee to Nora. He explains that he told Nora she isn't allowed to make coffee any more because of the effect it has on her already hyper nature. Nora has clearly spotted the loophole in Ren's command as he didn't say she cannot nudge others into making coffee for her, and he definitely didn't say she can't drink it any more. Ruby actually calls him out on this, pointing out that what happens next is at least partially his fault.
  Ruby: Huh. Uh, that's some bad logic, Ren. This one's on you.
• Lovely Assistant: Ruby was originally meant to be Jaune's in "Magic Show", but she decided to do her own show instead.

Tropes M

• Magical Defibrillator: After Port suffers a heart attack in class, Neptune jumps into frame with Tri-Hard electrified, shouts "CLEAR!", and apparently manages to resuscitate him.
• Martial Arts Headband: Ren spontaneously manifests a headband just before his Training Montage in Episode 9. Ruby owns an identical one, too.
• Medium Awareness: Torchwick seems to be totally aware that everyone's crossed over into a light-hearted spinoff series. Other characters also seem to have moments of this, like when Team RWBY is surprised to see Pyrrha, leading Nora to angrily tell the viewers that nothing bad ever happened.
• Metal Detector Checkpoint: In 22, Cinder and her lackeys go through one. While she and Emerald are clean, Mercury's Artificial Limbs not only mean he has to stay behind, the security guard puts him into the x-ray machine.
• Minion with an F in Evil: The Beowolves Mike and Marty. Their introduction in Season 2 is akin to an office comedy, with them not caring about the evil schemes of their boss Cinder. And when they decide to "go and devour the flesh from some innocent humans" in the next season, they're impressively incompetent in their scheme to become Hostile Hitchhikers.
• Mistaken for Profound: In Episode 20, Ruby encounters Blake in the common room. She's depressed about the recent test, but Blake's stoic silence cheers Ruby up, who says that Blake is right and she shouldn't be taking it so hard. Jaune then turns up, telling Blake he's going to tell Weiss how he feels about her. Blake doesn't react and Jaune realises that Blake is right, it would be a disaster to tell Weiss. The Weiss turns up and spots the stern expression on Blake's face. She immediately concludes that Blake has found out about what Weiss did the other day. Intimated by Blake's silence and stillness, Weiss caves and bribes Blake with a lifetime's supply of tuna if Blake will keep it secret. Once everyone has gone, Blake turns up and gets rid of the shadow clone that everyone has mistaken for the real Blake. As she speculates about why her clones occasionally refuse to disappear, the others file past her, thanking her for her advice, for being a good listener and depositing a huge box of tuna. Blake is very confused.
• Mr. Fanservice: Sun has a remarkable ability to never be wearing a shirt, in any situation. Sun calls out his abs-appeal while heading to the beach.
  Sun: Sun's out with his guns out!
• Mundane Utility: Any weapons, abilities, or Semblances used in the show usually won't be used for combat purposes and instead be used for everyday problems, trivial matters or playing games.
  • Games: Gambol Shroud is used by the girls to play jump-rope, Myrtenaster is used by Weiss to play Pin the Tail on the Donkey, and Team RWBY's idea of a pillow fight is to launch pillows with their fully-loaded weapons; Blake uses her cloning Semblance to defeat Yang at tag and Pyrrha uses her magnetism to create UFOs out of Akoúo̱ during a Compost King farm-yard game.
  • Hobbies: Weiss uses her ice-powers to freeze the swimming pool so she can ice skate, Weiss and Blake can both use ice-powers and Dust to create amazing ice sculptures and Ruby, Weiss and Blake enjoy winding up Yang because, when her temper snaps, her fiery Semblance is useful for roasting marshmallows. Velvet uses Anesidora to make fun of Professor Port's mustache.
  • Mundane problems: Ruby and Yang use Crescent Rose and Ember Celica to open a jar of pickles, Ruby turns Crescent Rose into a sniper rifle to shoot a pill into Zwei's mouth, and Neo uses her illusion Semblance to quickly swap outfits for a fashion show during a presentation for Roman, including those of Weiss, Ruby and Roman himself.
• Mushroom Samba: Nora accidentally triggers an intense one in Episode 23 when she drinks too much coffee. It causes her to slip through multiple parallel universes (including a real-life one), and finds herself stuck in a universe where Ren talks with Ruby's voice and Zwei talks with Jaune's.
• Must Have Caffeine: As if Oobleck's Chibi model having a coffee stain in his shirt wasn't enough, "Life Hacks" has him taking off like a rocket after chugging his thermos dry.
• My Grandma Can Do Better Than You: In episode 13, Nora says her grandma can punch harder than her trainees, and then adds "seriously, she is scary strong".
• Mythology Gag: The Chibi universe deliberately uses elements from the main show for comedy or just to expand on in a humorous situation. Examples include bringing back the gravity dust that has only been seen in the Red Trailer, Ruby nonchalantly mentioning Crescent Rose is "also a gun", Weiss accusing Ruby of stealing her notebook the way she accused Ruby of stealing her binder in the main show, or Sun and Neptune abusing their Junior Detective roles.
  • Volume 1 of the main show relied on silhouettes to represent background people, even reusing blacked-out main characters. In Chibi, Team RWBY discuss how weirded out they are by seeing shadow people wandering the streets, especially since some of the shadow people look suspiciously like their own silhouettes. At the end of the series, the show is revealed to be a sitcom with a live audience. When the camera pans out to the audience and camera crew, they're all shadow people.
  • Jaune's cross-dressing for parties is taken to the logical conclusion in Chibi: he and Ruby are wearing matching dresses (Weiss's combat dress), so an irritated Jaune points out that one of them is going to have to change.
  • During the cross-dressing party, Blake is wearing Yang's combat clothes and stands in such a way as to keep her left arm obscured from the audience as if it's partially missing.
  • Pyrrha's tragic loss of Semblance control in the main show when caught by surprise is played for laughs in Chibi. Every time she's taken by surprise, magnetic objects go flying. She also screws up orienteering because the compass always points towards her.
  • When Team JNPR plays tag, Nora flops out of a tree to hang upside-down when she pokes Ren to tag him as 'it'. It refers back to the moment in the main show where they became team mates, and only misses her 'Boop!' statement.
  • In the main show Neptune refuses to take Weiss to the dance because he doesn't want to admit that he can't dance. In Episode 14, the Chibi Neptune reluctantly admits that he is taking dance classes.
  • In the "Cinder Who?" short, the "Cinder Mall" part shows Cinder holding up her disguise outfit from Volume 3.
  • Team JNPR's dance number in the main show led to a lot of fan jokes about how a dance number could be so perfectly synchronised if it was genuinely spontaneous. Episode 23 has Yang mention that very question to Pyrrha... who has a flashback to the absolute nightmare that is Ren drilling the dance routine into them.

Tropes N

• Narm: In-universe. During Ruby's Red Riding Hood play in Episode 12, right before Ruby/Red is attacked by the Wolf/Blake, Yang appears, despite her character being dead, to tell a joke, causing the audience to laugh. Ruby chastises her for telling jokes during "a sad scene".
  "The audience can't be sad if they're laughing!"
• Nerds Love Tough Schoolwork: Weiss. Several skits begin with her studying excessively, and in the skit "Read the Sign," she's shown with the teachers of Beacon demanding more homework on weekends.
• Never Mess with Granny: In Episode 13, Nora describes her grandmother as "scary strong".
• Never My Fault:
  • In Episode 18, Ruby asks Weiss to look after her cake as she steps out. Weiss has no idea how cooking works, even calling the kitchen the "food room", so she messes with the buttons and knobs on the oven. 5 minutes later, the kitchen is on fire and Ruby's cake is ruined. Weiss says that it's Ruby's fault for putting her in charge.
  • In "Parent Teacher Confrence", when Taiyang demands to know what his daughters are in trouble for, Ruby hurriedly claims that society's at fault, that she's young and impressionable, and "video games made [her] do it".
  • In Volume 3 episode 11, Ruby herself gets into the act when she takes driving lessons from Taiyang, which ends badly. Ruby demands to know why Taiyang made her do this, and Taiyang points out that the driving lessons were her idea in the first place.
    Ruby: Well, I changed my mind!
• Never Say "Die":
  • In Episode 6, the gang are all shocked to see Pyrrha walked onto the set. Ruby starts demanding to know how she's there, but Nora aggressively intervenes, refusing to permit Ruby to say the word 'die'. She emphatically states to everyone, including the audience, that nothing bad ever happened, strongly indicating the Chibi-verse will deviate a lot from the main show's universe.
  • Averted in "Surprise Parties," when it's revealed that one of Ruby's previous attempts to throw a surprise party caused Professor Port to suffer a heart attack. Weiss openly shouts, "We killed Professor Port!", and Ruby futilely tries to defend herself by pointing out that Port didn't "die-die."
• Nightmare Sequence: Occurs to Cinder (it starts out well, with four Cinders managing to take over Vale... but then the alternates decide to take down the original), Blake (along with people behaving like fish, a fish she eats is "bad" enough to talk!), Weiss (Oobleck notes she has learned all there is, and people bully her for being a "know-it-all"), and Ruby (a non-Chibi version of herself decides to squeeze her until she nearly suffocates).
• No Indoor Voice: Ruby tends to yell whenever she's excited, no matter how nearby other people are.
• Noir Episode: "Neptune Noir", natch. It even ends with a Chinatown reference.
• Non-Standard Character Design: The only character appearing in the series who doesn't fit its Super-Deformed, plastic-shaded style is the regular RWBY series' Ruby (appearing in season 3's "RWBY Dreams" skit), who retains her cel-shaded model utilized from Volume 4 onward, while keeping her Volume 1-3 design, but being animated in the same deliberately choppy style of Chibi.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Jaune broke his leg sometime prior to Episode 2 due to an accident involving a candlestick Blake left behind.
  • In the last bit of Episode 16, Ruby returns from her long day of adventure with a Beowolf inexplicably stuck to her cape. A very happy Beowolf that is wagging its tail. She does not want to talk about it.
  • Weiss did something that she thinks Blake has found out about. She doesn't know how Blake found out but she's so desperate to make sure Blake never reveals the secret that she'll ensure Blake receives a lifetime supply of tuna to keep silent.
  • In Season 2, the students are all sent on missions for Ozpin which turn out to be his attempt to retrieve various mundane items that belong to him. These items include a scroll that contains embarrassing photographs from when Port tricked Ozpin into dressing in some kind of costume. Ruby informs Ren that she has copied the photos.
  • Yang and Ruby get into so much trouble for something that their father and uncle are summoned to the headmaster to address the problem. However, all that's known is that it involved a fire and cats needing to regrow their fur. Instead of focusing on the incident, Tai and Qrow end up arguing over who does the most for their family, leading to a major falling out over how Tai cooks noodles. After watching this unfold, Ozpin concludes the girls' have been punished enough and Ruby apologises to Ozpin for Tai and Qrow's behaviour.
  • "Road Trip" ends with Team RWBY being pursued by the police because Ruby managed to rob a bank by accident, something that even she doesn't know how was possible.
  • After seeing the match on the dating site for Taiyang is Cinder, Qrow quips that he's dated worse, to everyone's bewilderment.
  • "Girls' Night Out" ends with the nightclub Team RWBY went to in flames, with Blake traumatized, Weiss shocked and both Ruby and Yang proud of having committed whatever happened to make good of the latter's promise to "set the town on fire".
• Not So Above It All:
  • Blake is usually pretty serious, and gets really annoyed when the others try to apply cat-related stereotypes to her (being called a cat-burglar, being offered cat toys, etc). However, she will occasionally indulge in the behavior she claims to despise being stereotyped over, such as climbing into a large box that contained a gift (while ignoring the gift).
  • When Neptune announces to Sun and Ren that the girls are about to have a pillow fight, Sun is initially thrilled until he spots Ren still reading his book. He begins to accuse Ren of not being the kind of person who would stoop to spying on girls engaging in pillow fights, but Ren interrupts him by throwing his book at Sun and stating they had him at "pillow fight". He later reveals he has very strong views on exactly how a pillow fight should be conducted.
• Noticing the Fourth Wall: The ending skit of Episode 5 has the girls noticing all the black human figures with Only Six Faces around them.

Tropes O

• Oblivious to His Own Description:
  • In Episode 10, after witnessing the Love Triangle between Pyrrha, Jaune, and Weiss, Ren remarks that they can't see what's right in front of them... while Nora, who's crazy about him, is waving a sign reading "Notice Me!" surrounded by pink hearts.
  • In Season 2 Episode 1, after the opening sequence goes pear-shaped, Ozpin states that he'd have to be a pretty incompetent leader if he didn't notice sabotage happening right under his nose. This is almost immediately after Mercury and Emerald respectively conked Ruby on the head with a boom mike and dropped a stage light dangerously close to Yang, complete with false apologies. Following this, Ozpin gets flattened by the rose symbol when Cinder pushes it over... and still believes that it fell on him by accident.
  • In "Super Besties," after Ruby has used Bedtime Brainwashing to force Weiss to spend the entire day with her against her will, and to force Yang to hand over spending money and let her use her motorcycle, Blake tells Yang point blank that she and Weiss "have weak minds and are easily manipulated"... while she herself is wearing a "back-up bestie" T-shirt, courtesy of Ruby.
• Oblivious to Love: In Episode 10, Ren remarks how Jaune, Weiss and Pyrrha don't notice what's before them... while Nora is holding up a sign saying "Notice Me!" surrounded by pink hearts.
• Oddly Visible Eyebrows: The chibi artwork relies on oversized faces that express through eye, eyebrow and mouth movements. Most characters have different types of fringes, but their eyebrows are always visible even when they should be hidden by hair. Eyes are not given the visibility treatment, resulting in characters such as Roman, Cinder and Winter, whose hair covers most of one side of their faces; their affected eyebrows continue to visibly emote over an eye that is either mostly or fully invisible.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • "Return of the Pickles" (Season 1 Episode 18) has first Ruby then Sun fail to open a jar of sweet pickles. When Sun suggests asking Yang for help, Ruby immediately panics and frantically states that Yang should never be asked to open jars. Yang shows up moments later, and after Sun accidentally lets slip of Ruby's predicament, she very intensely removes the lid, only to then get her hand stuck in the jar when she attempts to try one out. Her response is to prepare to attack the jar once more... causing a now thoroughly terrified Ruby, Sun, and Zwei (whom Yang had tossed at Sun while opening the jar) to run for their lives.
  • Season 1 Episode 18 also gives us "Evil Plans", which has Cinder brush off Emerald's concerns that making their Evil Plan out in the open might not be the best idea. Ruby and Nora promptly burst into the room, causing both of them to sport Blank White Eyes and then swiftly cover the board, with Cinder shouting "NOT EVIL!"
  • In "Fearless Hero" (Season 2 Episode 5), Jaune takes on a superhero identity called The Huntsman and saves Velvet from the series' villains. When Velvet asks him if he was scared, he proceeds to tell her that he fears nobody. He then hears Ruby, Yang, and Nora angrily shout that their cape, gauntlets and hammer are missing. All of which Jaune has taken for his superhero persona. Upon hearing them, he begins to panic.
  • In "Nurse Nora", Ren has a moment of panic when he realizes Nora doesn't intend to take his temperature orally. He immediately slaps the thermometer out of her hand.
• Only Sane Man: Emerald is the only villain that's constantly shown to have a level head or common sense. She questions Cinder's plans and points out their flaws, recognizes the absurdities around her, and is not as easily fooled by things like Jaune's Paper-Thin Disguise in "Fearless Heroes".
  • Despite occasionally suffering from Selective Obliviousness and sending his students on "quests" to retrieve his lost possessions, Ozpin is still the most level-headed member of the Beacon staff by quite a margin. This is best demonstrated in "Mortal Frenemies" (Season 3 Episode 3) when he expresses understandable frustration towards Winter and Qrow for their constant fighting and tries to get them to make amends, though predictably, it ends poorly.
• Orbital Shot: Used twice in the second bit of Episode 9 to illustrate Ren's shock at being "it" in tag.
• Orphaned Punchline:
  • The last bit of Episode 5 starts with the end of Ruby retelling her story of reading Blake's Ninjas of Love book (from Episode 1). A scene in Episode 7 also has her using the same line with Yang and Blake.
    "So I said, 'Now that's a katana!'"
  • The last bit of episode 6 starts with Yang finishing a joke before being interrupted by Team JNPR entering.
    "And I said, 'Bumblebee? More like-'"
  • The first skit of Episode 9 of Volume 2 starts with a familiar joke, only this time it's not as well received.
    Yang: And she said—
    Blake: (with exasperated air quotes) "Now that's a katana."
• Other Me Annoys Me: "RWBY Dreams" has Ruby dreaming of the original Ruby, with both finding each other adorable until the canon version proceeds to squeeze Chibi Ruby until she nearly suffocates.
  Ruby: Betrayed by my own cuteness!
• Over-the-Shoulder Carry: Ruby does this to Penny in "Find a Penny".

Tropes P-Q

• Paper-Thin Disguise:
  • Sun and Neptune's "Junior Detectives" guise consists of simply a press-on mustache... A mustache that is a totally different hair color than either Sun or Neptune. But it's enough to confuse Jaune.
  • In "Fearless Hero," Jaune and Zwei dress up like superheroes, under the aliases "the Huntsman" and "Wonder Zwei," but all they do is wear red masks over their eyes, and in Jaune's case, a cape. It's enough to fool all of the villains... except Emerald.
  • "Late for Class" has Ruby pretend to be a foreign exchange student to try and get out of trouble for being late to Oobleck's class. Her disguise? Groucho glasses and a crusher cap. Needless to say, Oobeck isn't fooled.
  • "Grimm Passengers" has the Grimm duo Mike and Marty wearing hats and sunglasses attempting to get a ride. Everybody who they encounter somehow fall for it, even when Mike and Marty put on their disguises in plain view of Jaune and Ren.
• Parasol Parachute: Zwei blows up Roman and Neo with Melodic Cudgel. A soot-covered Roman crashes back to the ground but an equally-blackened Neo floats gently down with the aid of Hush.
• Parental Substitute: Klein evidently is this for all of the Schnee family, putting his foot down and causing Winter to pipe down when she acts up.

  Klein: Now listen here young lady! Your sister needs to socialize just as much as she needs to study! Don't forget, I raised you too!

• Partial Transformation: "QrowCrow" has Qrow's return to human form stopping at only the head. He appeals to Ozpin, who fixes it... by making him a human with a crow head.
• Perp Sweating: Sun and Neptune attempt this on Nora. They fail.
• Perspective Flip: "The Inner Lives of Beowolves": The sketch starts out with Cinder Fall rallying the Grimm to do her terrible bidding, and as her speech devolves in Blah, Blah, Blah, we focus on a pair of Beowolves who are now speaking English, acting like a pair of blue-collar workers taking a coffee break.
• Pietà Plagiarism: Ruby does it with Pyrrha in "Behind the Scenes". Along with grieving in the show's expected style.
• Pity the Kidnapper: When Cinder kidnaps Jaune and Ren in "Road Trip", Jaune sings the Camp Camp theme song, successfully aggravating Cinder into throwing them out of the car.
  Cinder: No nefarious plan is worth this torture!
• Poke the Poodle: The Cousins of Chaos are bad boys because Ren has a library book three weeks overdue, Neptune passed 20 items in the 15-or-less checkout, and Sun didn't wash his hands in the bathroom. Jaune is accepted because he might not be wearing underwear.
• Poor Communication Kills: In "Evil Class", Emerald points out that Cinder's dynamite-cake booby trap is way too obvious for anyone to fall for. Cinder misinterprets it as Emerald simply not understanding the idea, and promptly lights the wick to demonstrate.
• Potty Emergency: In Episode 17, Jaune is desperate for the toilet but has to wait for Ren to finish. While he's outside the door, jiggling around and chanting mantras to himself to hold it in, Pyrrha stops by. He's so embarrassed that he pretends he's inventing new combat moves. As more people dive into the toilet before he can, his desperation reaches a point where he's squirming on the floor. Eventually, he's accidentally slammed into the wall by a departing Sun and slinks off away from Pyrrha, no longer needing the toilet but now desperately wanting to do some laundry, while she cheerfully suggests he teaches her those interesting 'combat moves' at a later date.
• Powder Gag: In "Ruby Makes Cookies", when Ruby tries to get the flour out of its bag, it won't come out. She shakes it until it all falls out, sending flour exploding everywhere. The camera goes into white-out as it becomes covered in flour.
• Power Incontinence: Pyrrha doesn't seem to have complete control over her polarity Semblance. She covers Nora with every metal appliance in the room when startled, screws with Jaune's compass just by being in the vicinity, and launches Miló into the ceiling when distracted. And she doesn't feel comfortable being around VHS tapes (she would blank them).
• Product Placement: Season 2, Episode 23 employs Nora breaking the fourth wall again, but this time to promote Rooster Teeth's holiday sale.
  Ruby: They make tapestries dedicated to us, they write songs based on our adventures, they even wear stylish and comfortable clothing in our honor!
  Nora: Wow! I'll bet they're affordable as well!
• Psychopathic Manchild: In Season 2 Episode 12, after multiple failed attempts to kill Ruby, Roman whines and throws a temper tantrum, throwing himself on the ground, crying, and kicking like a toddler; he instantly cheers up when Neo suggests they get frozen yogurt.
• Public Service Announcement: Two mocking ones are featured in season 3, "Punished" (the Xiao Longs are showcased as why "puns are no laughing matter") and "Books Fix Everything" (Oobleck advocates for a "Reading Is Cool" Aesop).
• Pull a Rabbit out of My Hat: During a "magic off" between Jaune and Ruby, Jaune decides to pull a rabbit out of his hat to prove he's better at magic than Ruby. He does indeed pull out a rabbit by its ears... a very pissed off Velvet, who proceeds to start yanking his ears in retaliation.
• Pun: In Episode 20, after a game of fetch with Zwei ruined Roman's revenge plan and gotten both him and Neo blown sky high:
  Roman: I can't feel my legs! Neo, how do I look?
  Neo: (floating slowly toward the ground) Fetching.
• Pun-Based Title: A few of the episodes, such as "Geist Buster" (Ghostbusters), "Coming Home to Roost" (though not a chicken, but a Qrow), "Steals and Wheels" (after all, you can't expect Roman to deal and wheel), "Monsters of Rock" (not the festival, but actual monsters playing rock), and "Punished" (punishment through horrible puns).
• Pungeon Master: Yang's voice actress is well known for coming up with bad puns for everything, so Yang has been given the same ability in the Chibi show. Her stand-up routine in Season 1 Episode 16 is so riddled with bad jokes that she upsets the audience, to the point where Sun takes over and succeeds in amusing everyone where she fails. Much later, when Nora is comatose from eating too many waffles in Season 2 Episode 4, Yang starts cracking jokes instead of worrying about Nora's health. When Sun demands to know why she's like this, her father shows up to duet bad jokes with her, revealing that Yang's terrible sense of humor runs in the family. When the two do this routine again in Season 3, Ruby turns it into a PSA about how "puns aren't a laughing matter" and should be stopped.
  • Neo's been known to crack her share of puns as well. Pulling out a sign saying "hats off to you" when a Geist possesses Roman's hat comes to mind.

Tropes R

• Rage Breaking Point: In Season 1 Episode 18, Ruby finds herself increasingly exasperated with Weiss being Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense. When Weiss stupidly fiddles with the knobs on the oven, burns the cake Ruby was trying to cook and sets the kitchen on fire, and displays ignorance to the very concept of helping her clean up, Ruby snaps and sprays Weiss with a fire extinguisher.
• Rage Quit: In one episode, Ruby, Weiss, and Blake all participate in an ice sculpture contest; Ruby tosses her tools down and storms off when Weiss and Blake outdo her using their ice-creating powers.
  Ruby: [mocking] Look at me. I use Dust. I have a cool Semblance. Life is so easy, weh weh weh.
• Read the Fine Print: Played for Laughs in "Steals and Wheels". First, Torchquick earns that usual medicine disclaimer (that eventually devolves into Roman gloating on how "no one reads the fine print" and taking a while to notice Neo is still typing). Then the “Torchwick & Neopolitan Attorneys at law” ad has the disclaimer "Not licensed in Atlas, or the other 3 Kingdoms of Remnant."
• Rearrange the Song: Chibi often remixes the main show's music to enhance or emphasise the scenes and/or jokes, such as a "muzak" version of "From Shadows" when Yang is trying to catch Blake during a game of Tag, "I Burn" being remixed with "Eye of the Tiger" when Yang is doing a weight-loss training regime, or "Mirror, Mirror" receiving a classical make-over when Weiss traps everyone in iced water so that she can ice-skate.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Zwei, even more so than in the main series.
• Real After All: Episode 22's last skit, "Floor is Lava", has Ruby claiming to everyone who enters her room that the floor is lava. Weiss, Yang, and Blake all just decide to humor her without actually believing her, while Roman just gets annoyed and decides to kill her first; much to the surprise of Ruby's teammates, the floor really was lava, and Roman promptly melts away, leaving only his hat behind.
  Ruby: I tried to warn him.
• Reclusive Artist: In-universe: "Meet the Author" has Blake go to a book-signing for "Howling at the Moon", whose author's appearance and real name are unknown. It turns out to be Zwei.
• Rescue Romance: Nora tries to invoke one in episode 17 by faking being attacked by a Beowulf so Ren can save her. However, both Sun and Yang end up "saving" Nora instead to her frustration, and by the time she tries again the Grimm is trying to flee and Ren happens to see how Nora has the situation completely under control. There is a silver lining for Nora when Ren says she never ceases to amaze him, which she interprets as Ren calling her amazing.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: Nora spends Episode 17 trying to set up scenarios whereby Ren will have to rescue her from the Grimm, but keeps getting rescued by anyone other than Grimm. When Yang saves her from one such set up, Nora finally loses her temper, demanding to know if Yang has any idea how hard it was to find Beowulf around the school. It's meant to be a reflection on how much effort Nora has put in to setting up Ren, and the fact the Beowolves are starting to get frightened of her, but Yang takes her literally, deflating Nora's indignation by pointing out that there are Grimm everywhere.
  Nora: Do you know how hard it was to find a Beowolf around here?!
  Yang: Pretty easy? I mean, they're, like, around every corner!
• Rhymes on a Dime: As soon as Ozpin wears a long, red and white hat in "Don't Pet the Grimm", the segment has everyone indulging in this. Including the Grimm!
• Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: Weiss is depicted as such in Episode 18. Not only does she have no idea how to cook (having depended on a "cake butler" to do such things for her), but when Ruby leaves her to watch a cake in the oven for five minutes, Weiss stupidly fiddles with the oven's knobs, not only burning the cake, but setting the kitchen on fire. And despite having clearly been shown vacuuming and mopping in previous episodes, she has no idea what Ruby means by "clean up."
• Right Behind Me: A variation at the end of Episode 7; Jaune tries out all the Team RWBY weapons... only to see the team right behind him with varying expressions.
  • "Cinder Puppet" has Mercury using a Cinder hand doll to reveal what he thinks about the rest of Cinder's faction... while one by one, they enter the place and hear him.
• Rule of Cute: Pretty much half the justification for everything that happens (for the other half, see Rule of Funny). For one thing, Zwei and Neo get a lot more face time on Chibi than they have in the main show, and Penny and Pyrrha have returned with minimal in-universe explanation. Most of the show's Grimm have been defanged as well.
• Rule of Funny: The show has little to no justification for half the stuff that happens, it only does what's funny. For example, Ruby somehow not being able to crack an egg or move a spoon, Ruby hitting Blake over the head with an (implied) erotic book, Weiss using Myrtenaster as a dart and throwing herself; and this is just the first episode.
• Running Gag:
  • Ruby has a lot of problems with preparing food for consumption without something going wrong. This ranges from her struggling to make ingredients co-operate when baking cookies to being unable to open pickle jars and then something going violently wrong when she tries to find a solution. When she gets a cake mixture into the oven, she makes the mistake of leaving Weiss in charge of keeping an eye on it. In the space of five minutes, Weiss almost burns down the entire kitchen and the cake is ruined.
  • Blake has one early skit of the measures she'll take to avoid Zwei. This becomes a long-running skit where she sometimes succeeds in hiding from Zwei, and where he sometimes finds her and starts treating her like a play toy. Eventually, Blake learns to tolerate cuddle-time with the dog, but only if he doesn't tell on her.
  • In the first episode, Ruby discovers Blake's "Ninjas of Love" book, and exclaims "Now that's a katana!" at something in the book. Future episodes have Ruby finding different reasons to repeat that same phrase. When Jaune gets a chance to play with Gambol Shroud, he repeats the phrase, too. In the second season, everyone is fed up of hearing the joke.
  • Ruby gets irked whenever people fail to see her artistic vision, whether it involves her drawing a dog's butthole or writing a terrible play that makes the main character a self-insert.
  Ruby: YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND MY VISION!!!
  • Ruby's obsession with making Weiss her BFF. Sleep-learning, handcuffs, there's nothing she wouldn't do.
  • Qrow in a Speedo. It started with him jumping into a pool, but some episodes will have him show up like that just for laughs.

Tropes S

• Sarcasm Failure: In "Blake's Beauty VLOG", Sun sees Blake about to use some tweezers and assumes she's going to pull out her eyeball. Blake sarcastically confirms Sun's suspicions, only Sun doesn't catch on and believes her.
• School Idol: Coco. To the point where Qrow recruits Winter, Cinder, Ren and Neptune to try and stop her awesomeness. Winter, Ren and Neptune are drawn in to her coolness and bail and Qrow is put into a Heroic BSoD by a "Too Slow".
• Scooby-Dooby Doors: Done in "The Mystery Bunch" as part of the affectionate parody to Scooby-Doo where Team JNPR take up the roles of Mystery Inc. and chase after a Grimm.
• Scooby Stack: A weird example in Episode 19. Ren, Sun, and Neptune look on at Team RWBY's pillow fight with Ren and Sun sideways in one direction, and Neptune sideways in the opposite direction.◊
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • The titular skit of "Dad Jokes" and the "Punished" one in "Grimm Passengers" see this reaction when Yang and Tai start trading bad jokes with each other with Ren, Neptune, and Sun in the former and Blake in the latter deciding to get the hell out of dodge, leaving a catatonic Nora in the former and a resigned Weiss in the latter behind.
  • Sun attempted this is the "Stand Up Yang" skit of "Bike Race", only for Ren to stop him.
• Sexophone: The remix of Qrow's Image Song "Bad Luck Charm" that plays as he's sliding in a Speedo asking "Did someone say 'ladies'?" is heavy on this.
• Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: Roman's first transition screen on the show ends with him firing Melodic Cudgel at the camera.
• Selective Obliviousness:
  • In Episode 18, Ruby and Nora fail to notice all the obvious signs that Cinder and Emerald are villains engaged in an Evil Plan, to the point of easily falling for Cinder's half-assed cover story about making a cake recipe for a kitten charity; they even think nothing of Mercury entering the room and talking about using a bazooka to kill kittens, which he aptly calls the "Kitten Killer 9000." Emerald even lampshades it:
  Emerald: They're messing with us, right?
  • In "Director Ozpin", Ozpin dismisses team RWBY's concerns that sabotage is occuring during the title sequence. As they talk, Mercury hits Ruby in the head with a boom mic; Ozpin notices the apology, but not that it's fake. Emerald pushes a spotlight that Blake has to save Yang from and which just barely misses Ozpin, but he doesn't notice. As he walks off screen, Cinder visibly pushes the giant Chibi logo on top of him and cannot believe he thinks it fell by accident.
  Ozpin: (muffled) Hello? Can I get some assistance? This giant rose seems to have fallen on me, completely by accident!
• Self-Deprecation: During "Play With Penny", Team RWBY and Jaune are struggling against a Grimm. Everyone tries to remind Ruby that now would be a good time to use the Silver Eyes ability. All Ruby can do is cough the phrase "Seasonfinalecantdoityet". The Silver Eyes ability was introduced in the parent show during the Volume 3 finale and not used again until the final episodes of Volume 5; however, Ruby has displayed no apparent interest in the ability throughout Volumes 4-5 and it's only been discussed once in-universe during an info-dump towards the end of Volume 4. This lack of information and exploration has led to strong criticism from the fandom that the creators have acknowledged during interviews and RTX panels.
• Serial Escalation: One of Blake's books is titled "The Man with Two Souls II: The Man with Four Souls".
• Sequelitis: In-Universe example where Ruby likes the video game Kung Fu Ninja Slayer Ultimate Death Battle 2 enough to make it part of the care package she puts together to cheer up a sick Weiss. However, she does deflate a little when she confesses to Weiss that the first game was much better than its sequel.
• Serious Business:
  • Ren takes tag very seriously, enough so that he has a Training Montage while wearing a Martial Arts Headband.
  • Ruby takes everything seriously, seeing as she flips out about Weiss not liking her painting and the rest of Team RWBY messing up her play.
  • For Yang, a jar of pickles failing to open for her little sis is a matter serious enough to come in guns blazing.
  • In Episode 19, Team RWBY takes a pillow fight just as seriously as the food fight was taken in the main show, turning it into all-out war, completely with Semblance use and weapons' fire. Ruby also fakes a death scene with Yang mourning her, just as Ruby and Weiss did in the original food fight. Sun, Neptune and Ren, spying on the fight, are disgusted and feel as though the very concept of pillow fights has been sullied. Ruby later passes the room and spots the trio engaging in a very mundane, ordinary pillow fight, completely with tripping over each other and getting feathers in the eye. She shakes her head and dismisses them as amateurs.
  • Episode 23 reveals that Ren is a slave driver when it comes to dance, chewing out Pyrrha for screwing up a dance move, snapping at Jaune for sneaking snacks and bringing Nora to tears.
  • Blake goes on full-"Teenage Faunus Ninja Catgirl" only to push Ruby into returning her book.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story:
  • When Team JNPR plays tag, Nora tags Ren. Ren spends the rest of the scene training hard in esoteric and meditative ways to be worthy enough to make his move. When Ruby tells him he is ready, he sets up an ambush into which Nora falls. He successfully tags her... only for her to immediately tag him back.
  • In Episode 8, Ruby struggles to open a jar of pickles, eventually resorting to cutting it open using Crescent Rose. They're dill pickles, much to her disgust.
  • In Season 2 Episode 12, Roman comes up with countless evil inventions to defeat Ruby, while all end up backfiring. Neo then suggest they get some Froyo ice cream. However Rowan's ice cream drops on the ground to his dismay, where he then upon reflects how nothing ever goes his way. As he and Neo walk off, Ruby comes skipping past and slips on the spilled ice cream, falling over and hurting her back, where she explains she's been completely defeated.
• Sherlock Homage: Towards the end of "Neptune Noir", Zwei shows up in Neptune's office with a deerstalker hat and pipe.
• Sherlock Scan: In Season 2, Episode 18 when Nora and Pyrrha want to be junior detectives, Pyrrha pulls this off with her usual aplomb, and while it is impressive, Nora then finds an actual skeleton in the boys' closet. The boys are stunned to find they have a closet.
• Ship Tease: One of the main components of the show is tailoring a moment towards a certain pair.
  • In "Ren Plays Tag", Pyrrha's method of tagging Jaune is to rub his hair and poke him on the nose. The nose-poke is famous in the main show for being how Nora "boops" Ren, her Image Song making it clear that this is Nora's way of telling Ren she's in love with him.
  • In "Love Triangle", Ren sees Jaune getting rejected by Weiss, who then rejects Pyrrha, who then rejects Weiss. He laments that they all fail to see what's right in front of them...while Nora is angrily waving a sign that says "Notice me!" behind him. Nora's affection for Ren also appears in "JNPR Dreams", where she dreams of him cooking pancakes for her while leaving the complimenting note "Ren and Nora: Butter Together".
  • In "Pillow Fight", as Blake is vanishing to avoid Yang's pillows, one of her poses is winking while patting the bed.
  • "Mortal Frenemies" is all about the "Snowbirds" ship: every time they encounter each other, Qrow eggs Winter into lose her temper, she then attacks first, and they disappear into a cloud of cartoon comedy brawling. Eventually, they get dragged into Ozpin's office, where he tries to force them to apologise to each other. They end up brawling again right in front of him. A very frustrated Ozpin makes it clear to the audience that he believes they are engaged in very destructive flirting.
  Ozpin: You know, flirting was a lot less destructive in my day.
  • Even the villains have started getting in on it as there's recently been a lot between Roman and Neo. It started with Roman complaining during Nondescript Winter Holiday about how no-one cares about him and Neo held up a sign saying "I think you're alright" and then later accompanying him to the hospital after he suffered a heart attack from his heart growing 3 sizes that day. In Episode 6 of Season 3, Neo was clearly jealous of Cardin trying to talk up Roman into becoming his new protege and told Roman to ditch him. And in the very next episode, when Roman falls (literally) for an obvious trap, Neo exasperatedly holds up a sign saying that "Roman is a dum-dum" before smiling fondly and turning the sign over so it says "But he's my dum-dum", and then jumps in after him.
  • "Kids vs Adults vs Pups" (Season 3 Episode 8) had Ruby and Penny's nighttime walk in the woods, both happily frolicking and Ruby eventually giving a "You light up my life" compliment.
  • Taking advantage of Pyrrha still alive, she has some Arkos moments: her idea of "Movie Night" is a film where Jaune saves her from a monster; "In The Clutches of Evil" have Pyrrha's Red Huntress getting ecstatic at learning she now has the full attention of Jaune's Huntsman; and "JNPR Dreams" has her dreaming of fighting Grimm with Jaune and then kissing him.
• Shoot Him, He Has a Wallet!: In Episode 12, the Junior Detectives attack Jaune when he reaches for his library card.
• Shout-Out: See here
• The Show Must Go Wrong: The entire play in episode 12. Blake obviously doesn't want to be in this, Yang wants a bigger part and keeps interrupting the entire play with her jokes, and Weiss feels that her part isn't needed as Ruby's character still carrying Crescent Rose makes her redundant. The play is abandoned completely when their long-suffering narrator (Ozpin) suddenly realizes the kids were supposed to be in class all along.
• Silent Snarker: In the main show, Neo never speaks. In Chibi, she communicates via large signposts that she pulls from seemingly nowhere as needed. Many of her signposts complement her frustrated facial expressions to act as sarcastic responses to Roman. When Roman declares that things will be different on this show, compared to the main show where Team RWBY kept foiling his plans, Neo shakes her head at the camera and shows the audience a signpost saying "They won't". After Zwei leaves Roman and Neo black and smoking, Roman asks Neo how he looks. She rolls her eyes in frustration and holds up a sign saying "Fetching".
• Simple, yet Awesome: Neptune's trident, Tri-Hard, can electrocute opponents. When Professor Port suffers a heart attack in front of everyone, Neptune is the only one who doesn't panic; he promptly uses his trident to defibrillate Port and stabilize him.
• The Singing Mute: Parodied when the villains form a band, Neo is the vocalist and is about to sing into her mic before being interrupted.
• Smoke Out: When Blake becomes a "Teenage Faunus Ninja Catgirl", she does a "Ninja vanish!" thrice (in the third, Velvet apologizes for interrupting with her laughter). A fourth attempt goes wrong because she ran out of smoke bombs.
• Sneeze of Doom: In the "UFO" skit in the Season 2 premiere, Pyrrha is using her Semblance to levitate Akoúo̱ like a UFO over some toy cows to entertain Nora. She then sneezes and accidentally causes Akoúo̱ to slam down onto the table, crushing the cows. Nora is brought to loud tears by this.
• Spared by the Adaptation: The events of the main show don't occur in this one. The main cast is present, they're fully healthy and there are no damaged buildings. Nora makes it absolutely clear, while facing the camera directly, that nothing bad ever happened, and Ren suggests that the Chibi show will stick to comedy.
• Spider-Sense: Neptune has a "crime sense". Which has him dancing around in order to find crime. It doesn't really work, as it ignores a robbery committed by Roman and Neo in favor of a trash can that's out of code.
• Spin the Bottle: Episode 13 starts with Team JNPR, Weiss, and Neptune playing Spin the Bottle. When Jaune spins it, it goes past a disappointed Pyrrha and just edges past a relieved Weiss to land on Ren. After several moments of Ren staring at the bottle with no reaction and everyone staring at Ren to see what his reaction will be, he...whips out some breath freshener, sprays it into his mouth, and turns expectantly towards Jaune.
• Spoofy-Doo: There is a segment called "The Mystery Bunch" with Team JNPR and Zwei standing in for the gang. Ren is Fred, Pyrrha is Daphne, Nora is Velma , Jaune is Shaggy, and Zwei is Scooby.
• Story Arc: Three episodes in Season 2 focus on the characters preparing for an upcoming battle of the bands, with the contest itself serving as the season finale.
• Strong as They Need to Be: Ruby can go from effortlessly swinging around Crescent Rose to being completely incapable of cracking open eggshells or opening pickle jars depending on what's necessary for the joke.
• Stunned Silence: When Team RWBY are forced to address in-universe the magnitude of the differences between the Chibi show and the main show, they're reduced to stunned silence. Nora emphatically declares to both them and the watching audience that nothing bad ever happened. When Ren asks if everyone wants to stick with comedy, Team RWBY are still too shocked to speak, so his question is answered by someone else.
  • Ren asks the question and Pyrrha answers it. While team RWBY is shocked, the rest of team JNPR seems to just have the attitude, "Yep, Nora's being Nora again."
• Stylistic Suck: Episode 24 plays out like a generic sitcom, complete with predictable jokes, cliche plots, and laugh tracks.
• Super-Deformed: The character designs are chibi versions of their RWBY counterparts, with smaller body proportions, oversized heads and huge eyes.
• Super-Senses: Apparently the extra set of ears some Faunus have improves their hearing considerably. A dog whistle is painful for Blake and Velvet, and the latter is also able to hear Jaune falling from off-screen.
• Surprisingly Creepy Moment: Despite being a lighthearted, comedic Spin-Off of the darker main series, there are still some rather disturbing skits. Special mention goes to "Super Besties", where Ruby enters unexpectedly dark territory by brainwashing Weiss in her sleep to be her "bestie", and "Nurse Nora", where the skit references Misery of all things when Nora attempts to nurse Ren's broken leg by smashing his other leg with Magnhild to "test his reflexes", and when Ren pretends to be all better to get Nora to quit, she turns back to the audience with a very creepy Nightmare Face:
  Nora: I knew my love would cure him!
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: As revenge for the Bucket Booby-Trap done to her, Weiss freezes a bucket of water that gets dropped onto Ruby. Not only is Ruby knocked out cold, Yang and Blake also are concerned with her being concussed. Played for Laughs of course.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  • Common with the villains. The elaborate scheme written on Cinder's whiteboard in Season 1 Episode 18? It may be elaborate, but it certainly isn't evil. The ad for Torchwicks Neopolitan Ice Cream also states it's "definitely not poison!"
  • In Season 2 Episode 1, Ruby states that Penny, who is clearly a Ridiculously Human Robot, is completely normal. Penny then states that she's "a normal meat person, just like you!", causing the others to exchange suspicious glances.
• Swiss-Cheese Security: The secret method of getting into Ozpin's secret vault? A button in the elevator saying "Super Secret Vault (Do Not Enter)".

Tropes T

• Talking with Signs: In the main show, Neo never speaks and the fanbase generally assumed her to be mute even before it was confirmed in Season 6. In Chibi, she communicates with signs that she pulls out of hammerspace. In the disclaimer of "Steals And Wheels", Roman states he's impressed at how Neo "can type and still hold up these little signs".
• Take That!: Season 2 Episode 8 has Jaune, in his bid to join the boy band formed by Sun, Neptune, and Ren, state that Lunatic Jester Brigade is only cool "if you like terrible music".
• Tap on the Head:
  • Averted when Weiss drops a bucket of frozen water on Ruby's head. Yang and Blake immediately worry that Ruby might be concussed.
  • In Episode 22, Nora's so bored that she bashes Ren over the head with Magnhilde repeatedly. He seems none the worse for the wear, except for this line:
  Ren: I was fine before all the head trauma. Does anyone else hear bells ringing?
• Tempting Fate:
  • In Season 1 Episode 16, as Yang, Ruby, and Weiss prepare to race (with Blake as the referee), Yang and Ruby can't resist laughing at Weiss' pink tricycle (which is competing against Yang's motorcycle and Ruby's even-less-appealing wagon). When Blake starts the race, Weiss immediately freezes the two's vehicles in place with Myrtenaster and rides off to victory (very slowly, to boot).
  • Roman and Neo try to defeat their enemies with a Geist in Season 2 Episode 2. The Geist collapses a bed on Blake, Weiss and Yang, before pinning Ruby and Ren to the ground by possessing pancakes. Roman gloats that no-one can stop him now, only for Nora to appear and swallow all the pancakes, including the Geist. When Ruby thanks Nora for saving them, Nora is confused: she was just hungry and had no idea there was a Grimm attack in progress.
  • In "Fearless Hero" (Season 2 Episode 5), Jaune takes on a superhero identity called The Huntsman, with Zwei as his sidekick, and saves Velvet from the series' villains. When Velvet asks him if he was scared, he proceeds to tell her that "[he and Zwei] fear nobody". He then hears Ruby, Yang, and Nora angrily shout that their cape, gauntlets and hammer, all of which Jaune has taken for his superhero persona, are missing, causing him to panic and make himself scarce.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Pretty much sums up Cinder's reaction when she realizes the booby-trapped cake she made is going to explode in her face in "Evil Class".
• Title Scream: At the end of the opening credits, Team RWBY appears around the assembled letters of "RWBY Chibi" and loudly calls out the show's name. As a cute, slice-of-life show, the shout is done rhythmically in time with the end of the credits song, making it sound sing-song and cute.
• Tomboy: Neptune unwisely calls Yang this in Episode 19 of Season 2, after she lets out a huge belch while slouched in an armchair. She reacts as expected.
• Took a Level in Badass: In Volume 1, Jaune can barely lift Crescent Rose and the recoil from Ember Celica throws him against a wall. In Volume 2, he is very poorly disguised as a superhero called The Huntsman as he easily uses Ember Celica and Magnhild to quickly defeat Emerald and Mercury.
• Trademark Favorite Food:
  • Ruby is a huge fan of chocolate chip cookies. She struggles to make them before falling apart when they're too big for her milk glass, she munches them while reading, and is devastated when Nora bans her from eating any more during a training regime.
  • Ruby also has a thing for pickles it seems. Two skits revolve around her attempts to open a pickle jar. The first time she's disgusted because the pickles turn out to be dill and the second time the jar is clearly marked as sweet pickles.
  • Pancakes are not safe around Nora. If Ren is making them, she will steal them. When the Junior Detectives investigate the pancake thefts, the prime suspect is Nora.
  • Blake has an obsession with fish. When everyone gatecrashes Weiss's beach holiday, Blake's only luggage is a knife and fork, her intention being to eat all the fish. In Episode 20, Weiss attempts to buy her silence about something with a lifetime supply of tuna.
• Training Montage:
  • When Yang catches sight of herself in the mirror, she doesn't like what she sees. She begins a tough training montage consisting of press-ups, running and other exercise to a new version of "I Burn" that has been remixed in the style of "Eye of the Tiger".
  • When Team JNPR plays tag, Ren takes being tagged so seriously that he begins an intensive training regime consisting of zen meditations in weird places and positions, and a series of push-up exercises consisting of two-arms, then one arm, and then no arms.
  • Nora inflicts an insane training regime on Ruby, Blake and Yang to toughen them up. The regime consists of hundreds of press-ups, sit-ups and other cardio-vascular exercises until the three girls collapse, unable to keep up with her. That's when they discover this is just the warm-up routine... and that the rest of Team JNPR has suffered even worse regimes because they're unfortunate enough to be living with her.
• Tsundere: After avoiding Zwei like the plague for the past several episodes, Blake pulls him in for a cuddle... before threatening to shave his butt if he lets anyone know about it.
• Troubled Fetal Position: Blake is reduced to rocking in a fetal position after the club team RWBY visited is reduced to flames, seemingly by Yang and Ruby's hands.
• Troll: In "Neptune's Game", Neptune plays against a player who beats him every single time no matter what he does and sinks into depression when his new tactic fails. He doesn't realise his nemesis is Sun, who can hide he's playing the game by manipulating the console with his tail. He admits to Ren that he finds messing with Neptune more fun than the game itself.
• Twitchy Eye:
  • In Episode 1, Ruby attempts to make cookies but struggles with making the dough. When the spoon gets stuck in the dough so fast she can't move it at all, her eye begins to twitch.
  • In Episode 11, someone keeps stealing Ren's pancakes whenever his back is turn. The second time it happens, his eye begins to twitch.
  • In "Super Besties" Yang is hypnotised into giving Ruby the keys to her motorbike and spare cash. Even though she's hypnotised, her eye starts twitching and her hand starts shaking as she hands over the keys, clearly indicating that giving up her precious Bumblebee is something she's fighting against. She doesn't seem to fight handing over the spare cash.

Tropes U-Z

• Unflinching Walk: Parodied in "Movie Night" where Neptune asks Sun why they're walking so slowly, before an explosion happens behind them to answer his question.
• The Unintelligible: When the Shopkeep talks, it's often incoherent gibberish (an exception is "The Mystery Bunch", where he delivers a mumbled version of You Meddling Kids).
• Unwanted Assistance: Season 2 Episode 15 shows Nora attempting to check up on Ren, whose leg is broken. Unfortunately, her methods turn out to be misguided, unsafe and, in the case of checking for reflexes, outright dangerous, forcing Ren to feign recovery and make a hasty escape.
• Vehicle-Based Characterization: In a sketch where the girls are street racing, Tough rebel girl Yang uses her motorcycle Bumblebee, childish Ruby has a wagon pulled by her dog Zweii, and sheltered rich girl Weiss has an old family heirloom tricycle. Weiss wins the race by using her powers to freeze her opponents at the starting line.
• Villain Decay: As expected from the Lighter and Softer transition: Cinder is a hammy but not exactly active Card-Carrying Villain who is constantly discussing and gloating about "EEEEVIL PLANS!"; Roman is an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain; Neo is a cutesy sidekick who snarks through signs; and the Grimm are now Adorable Evil Minions, highlighted by a pair of Beowolves, Mike and Marty, who behave like characters from an office sitcom. The only one who doesn't get downgraded is Cardin, who for being only a bully when paired with the actual bad guys is either outclassed (by Cinder in his job interview) or downright used (Roman gives Cardin a money bag and asks him to stay still... so the Shopkeep can beat him silly).
• Visual Pun:
  • When Pyrrha picks up a penny that is lying on the pavement, she cites the English saying that finding and picking up a penny brings good luck for the entire day. Ruby agrees and walks on-screen carrying Penny over her shoulder.
  • Season 2 Episode 8 shows Tai showing off a tie-dye shirt to his daughters... or rather, a "Tai-Dye" shirt. When Ruby dismisses it, an irritated Tai responds that the girls don't appreciate comedy.
• Vocal Evolution: While characters have gone through this over time in the main show, Cardin deserves special mention, having his voice significantly deepened since his last appearance back in Volume 3.
• Waving Signs Around: In Season 2 Episode 9, Neo attends a protest where everyone is holding up signs. The signs indicate everyone's there to protest different things, including the teachers (and Weiss) who are campaigning for more homework for students, and the students who are campaigning for less homework. Neo herself holds up a megaphone as if she's going to announce something to the crowd before simply putting it away and also holding a sign. This one says "THIS IS JUST HOW I TALK!".
• Weight Woe: A skit in Season 1 Episode 8 involves Yang trying to lose weight. After an intensive Training Montage, she promptly sees Nora eat a whole cake in one bite and get rid of her Balloon Belly with just one belch, which upsets her greatly.
• Who Writes This Crap?!: In Episode 12, Weiss outright asks who wrote the play Ruby's making them perform. As it turns out, Ruby wrote it herself. Cue complaints from the other characters that Ruby's part has been designed to be a Mary Sue.
• Wimp Fight: Ruby and Weiss' duel in Episode 5 devolves into a slapping contest, to the point the segment title is "Sissy Fight".
• Wire Dilemma: In episode 19, Ren in inexplicably trying to determine which wire to cut to defuse a live bomb. Fortunately Zwei was there to save the day.
• World of Ham: RWBY is already theatrical and bombastic. Well, the comedic turn Chibi adds makes everyone so cartoonish that the cast and animators get really loose with being over the top.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: In "Neptune's Game", Neptune has been practicing a new strategy for weeks to finally overcome the opponent who always kills his video-game character, only to discover that his opponent can counter the strategy as if they knew it before hand. What Neptune doesn't know is that his nemesis is Sun, who is enjoying Neptune's frustration more than he enjoys the actual game.
• You Mean "Xmas": For the second RWBY Chibi Christmas special, we get "Nondescript Winter Holiday", which is basically Christmas by a different name and with all the religious symbolism excised. The characters even turn down the idea to parody Charlie Brown, presumably because Linus' monologue would get awkward.
• You Won't Feel a Thing!: Before attempting to take Magnhild to Ren's legs in the "Nurse Nora" skit, Nora says, "This is gonna sting a bit."

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"This is the way you wanna spend everyday
Laughing with your friends and keeping sadness away
Join us and see we can be happy and free
Life is full of fun because we're all chi-bi!"