RWBY - The Hindenburg on which Rooster Teeth rests its hopes, dreams and future

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I assume at least some of you here enjoyed RWBY at some point - can someone explain to me what exactly the appeal was?

I sat through the first 3 seasons and was thoroughly unimpressed. I could not get past the art style, the characters/dialogue were incredibly cringey, and the story was kind of generic. I’m usually able to get past shortcomings in a few of these areas if at least one of them is REALLY good, but honestly there wasn’t a single aspect of RWBY that I felt was anything beyond mediocre.

What did people see in this series? Was it just the cute anime grills
To repeat what I said many pages ago, it had promise but went to shit. I don't like RWBY for what it is (especially in this day and age, I mean holy shit!), but rather for what it could have been.
 
I assume at least some of you here enjoyed RWBY at some point - can someone explain to me what exactly the appeal was?

I sat through the first 3 seasons and was thoroughly unimpressed. I could not get past the art style, the characters/dialogue were incredibly cringey, and the story was kind of generic. I’m usually able to get past shortcomings in a few of these areas if at least one of them is REALLY good, but honestly there wasn’t a single aspect of RWBY that I felt was anything beyond mediocre.

What did people see in this series? Was it just the cute anime grills
For many people, the thing that hooked them into RWBY was the action. Monty oozed Rule of Cool, and he made his series to match. Many people could forgive problems with story and characters because they served the action and Monty’s passion for his dream project could shine through pretty much anything relating to the show. After about V3, many people were seeing how the characters would drive the series along with the action, but as time when on everything fell apart.

As for me, the characters and their fighting styles were pretty appealing (especially Ruby), but now I find myself looking at the show and then back to my creative works to make sure I don’t make the mistakes I criticize RWBY for making.
 
Thanks for the responses, I guess that clears it up a bit. I imagine it has to be one of those things you had to be into from the start to really “get”. I watched it with the knowledge that season 5 and 6 were widely panned, so I didn’t even have the “maybe it’ll get better in the future” thing driving my interest.
Probably. Most of the original RWBY hype and fanbase in 2013 was RT fans who were already around for Red vs Blue and people who followed Monty’s stuff who got word he was working on Red vs Blue and/or was making his own series.
 
The people I talked with lied to me and said the season 3 finale was so good it blew their mind so I endured through the first two season thinking it was gonna get better.
Spoiler alert, the red hair chick dies and the show jumped the shark even deeper than before.
 
The character of Adam Taurus is probably the second biggest mudslinging behind what Monty's vision was.


 
I assume at least some of you here enjoyed RWBY at some point - can someone explain to me what exactly the appeal was?

I sat through the first 3 seasons and was thoroughly unimpressed. I could not get past the art style, the characters/dialogue were incredibly cringey, and the story was kind of generic. I’m usually able to get past shortcomings in a few of these areas if at least one of them is REALLY good, but honestly there wasn’t a single aspect of RWBY that I felt was anything beyond mediocre.

What did people see in this series? Was it just the cute anime grills

It was cute girls but it was also a good soundtrack, a cool world/concept, and pretty good fight choreography.

Early on, I feel, it was also much more geared towards "fun" for the most part. It was largely focused around the main cast going to what was essentially military school - but focused on the friendships and growth of the characters and wasn't laser focused on the "big bad evil" plot until the end of season 3.

Everything was scaled much better early on. The setting was a lot smaller, the stakes were a lot smaller, and the pace was a lot slower. The main villain (Roman Torchwick) was basically just a guy running a gang and had a personal relationship with the main character as opposed to the current arc where it's all of these godlike characters and the fate of the world hangs in the balance.
 
I assume at least some of you here enjoyed RWBY at some point - can someone explain to me what exactly the appeal was?

I sat through the first 3 seasons and was thoroughly unimpressed. I could not get past the art style, the characters/dialogue were incredibly cringey, and the story was kind of generic. I’m usually able to get past shortcomings in a few of these areas if at least one of them is REALLY good, but honestly there wasn’t a single aspect of RWBY that I felt was anything beyond mediocre.

What did people see in this series? Was it just the cute anime grills
I was a fan of Rooster Teeth’s content at the time, so I watched RWBY as it was coming along. I wanted to see if RT could make a western produced anime. I thought the characters looked cool and it seemed like it was going to have some interesting worldbuilding. The different Grimm beasts and their attraction to negative emotions could have been used in a lot of interesting ways.

After the end of season 3, I thought the show was going dark. Sort of the end of RWBY’s golden age arc, to give a terrible analogy to Berserk.

Instead Miles and Kerry failed to deliver any sense of world building or tension, replacing it with scenes filled with either dialogue or action.
 
After the end of season 3, I thought the show was going dark. Sort of the end of RWBY’s golden age arc, to give a terrible analogy to Berserk.

Instead Miles and Kerry failed to deliver any sense of world building or tension, replacing it with scenes filled with either dialogue or action.
I'd say Volumes 4 and 5 would show that this show was nowhere near developed enough to do the show that RWBY currently is, and I may actually have to lay some blame at Monty for overestimating how far his show could get on action alone. The brain trust either needed to spend a lot more time developing the world before they started writing shit or developed the lore around Beacon Academy, sort of like what Harry Potter did.

Edit: I have seen someone say the Beacon arc is similar to Golden Age Arc since Team RWBY couldn’t really undergo much character development while confined to Beacon (though I’d argue that they probably could have if lore development was developed around the main setting like what Harry Potter did) and Guts’ struggles and character development couldn’t be seen if you only read Golden Age.
 
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I'd say Volumes 4 and 5 would show that this show was nowhere near developed enough to do the show that RWBY currently is, and I may actually have to lay some blame at Monty for overestimating how far his show could get on action alone. The brain trust either needed to spend a lot more time developing the world before they started writing shit or developed the lore around Beacon Academy, sort of like what Harry Potter did.
I should’ve realized that they had no world building when they made those 5 minute world of remnant shorts that barely described how the world works.
 
I assume at least some of you here enjoyed RWBY at some point - can someone explain to me what exactly the appeal was?

I sat through the first 3 seasons and was thoroughly unimpressed. I could not get past the art style, the characters/dialogue were incredibly cringey, and the story was kind of generic. I’m usually able to get past shortcomings in a few of these areas if at least one of them is REALLY good, but honestly there wasn’t a single aspect of RWBY that I felt was anything beyond mediocre.

What did people see in this series? Was it just the cute anime grills
The action and designs alone. If the characters all just shut the fuck up and fought faceless mooks like in the trailers it would've been *chef's kiss* for me. I liked RWBY as a quick, free way to get my entertainment fix for the day like a TF2 skit and I was never invested in it enough to call myself part of it's 'fandom' or ever consider buying merchandise.

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I barely knew what Roosterteeth was and never watched RvB, I first heard about RWBY after catching wind of the Red trailer by chance. I assumed it was another amateur passion project which made its roughness excusable, almost part of the charm and I wanted to see how everything would unfold since I found myself here at its birth. I'm not interested in the waifu bait or, for instance, TF2 at all but it's fun watching people turn jank to gold because they love it so much.
Basically I've been holding on through sheer "will it get better", "I like the fights", but since Monty died and Maya made everyone ugly af I watch RWBY for context to better understand the fandom and RT ripping themselves apart. I'd love to see how the show fares if RT bleeds out enough to require life support, like will they make RWBY out of cardboard and gum once the money dries up? Or will they have the balls to announce cancellation?

It tried to be anime and has the insane fandom, the cameos in Japanese games, several comic spinoffs and tabletop games(?) I've seen sold in my local Forbidden Planet. I want to see if RT collapse and if they would ever scale production back to 'five dudes with Blender and ripped game models' to please the fans.
 
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The action and designs alone. If the characters all just shut the fuck up and fought faceless mooks like in the trailers it would've been *chef's kiss* for me. I liked RWBY as a quick, free way to get my entertainment fix for the day like a TF2 skit and I was never invested in it enough to call myself part of it's 'fandom' or ever consider buying merchandise.
If that method was done, Monty would probably do that on his own instead of pitching it to RT with some semblance of story. I’ll say it again: I feel Monty grossly overestimated just how much of a show he could make that was driven purely by action.
 
The character of Adam Taurus is probably the second biggest mudslinging behind what Monty's vision was.


I've only skimmed superficially the SheRa thread, and I know for a fact Catra did none of those things.

Comparing her to Zuko is such dishonest bullshit. Catra git redeemed like, what, the last half hour of running time? (I don't care to look it up) Meanwhile Adam got turned up to eleven for the same reason: appeasing shippers.

Fuck this shit.
 
I assume at least some of you here enjoyed RWBY at some point - can someone explain to me what exactly the appeal was?

I sat through the first 3 seasons and was thoroughly unimpressed. I could not get past the art style, the characters/dialogue were incredibly cringey, and the story was kind of generic. I’m usually able to get past shortcomings in a few of these areas if at least one of them is REALLY good, but honestly there wasn’t a single aspect of RWBY that I felt was anything beyond mediocre.

What did people see in this series? Was it just the cute anime grills
When you are a teenager, every edgy show is great.
In all seriousness, the main appeal to me was the characters (more specifically Ruby, Weiss, Nora, Torchwick, Neo, Penny and Ren). The interactions were fun and lighthearted. The dialogue at times felt like it was written by people with passion, albeit the dialogue was mostly cringy. Most important of all, it felt like the characters had a drive in this world, goals even. Volume 2 had a brilliant scene with this where the characters try to explain their ill-thoughout goals to their teacher.
The fight scenes were also kinda great at times, which helped.

Volume 4 is where I dropped off because (although Yang was getting some great character development) the main cast were aimless and boringly going through the motions. The new villians were bland unlike torchwick (with that said Cinder was brilliant in this season).
Worst of all, Jaune was a major focus.
In prior volumes, Jaune came off as whiny and annoying at times but he was also lovable with his straightforward attitude. Jaune was also not in like 75% of the episodes so his whining was tolerable.
In volume 4 however, Jaune practically becomes a main character so his bitchiness is on full display. He also loses parts of his loveable nature due to the more "gritty" (generic) tone which makes the show dull.

I skimmed through volume 5, which was even worse. Nothing basically happens for half of it. Yang loses all her charm. Cinder loses all interesting aspects going for her. All the villians become jokes.
There are many more reasons I dislike rwby but the most damning thing about RWBY is that the world outside the 4 main characters and their beliefs stopped mattering. Grimm don't Matter. The White Fang don't matter. Anyone who disagrees with RWBY is evil or doesn't matter.
 
Comparing her to Zuko is such dishonest bullshit. Catra git redeemed like, what, the last half hour of running time? (I don't care to look it up) Meanwhile Adam got turned up to eleven for the same reason: appeasing shippers.
Adam wasn't redeemed because RT didn't allow him to once Monty kicked the bucket. Jacques just became a political allegory the protags wanna put a "Take that" with and Torchwick was killed off because he was too good a villain that it made the female villains look BAD. Meanwhile Ilia was redeemed heavily, and Salem (maybe eventually Cinder) have been written more sympathetic angles to their villainy.
 
I have mixed feelings about Joel Heyman's departure from Rooster Teeth.
He was one of the founding members of the company, yet has been put on the outskirts as of recent (especially the management changes). He voiced Michael J. Caboose, a beloved character in Red vs. Blue (if not in Rooster Teeth's lore) and several other characters in Rooster Teeth's productions like Dr. Oobleck.
I remember the Let's Play series he did with Adam Ellis and I thought it was entertaining.
But, the company is no longer what it was when Joel and the others founded it.
If going to the company offices became insufferable, I can see this being a load off his back in a way.
 
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I have mixed feelings about Joel Heyman's departure from Rooster Teeth.
He was one of the founding members of the company, yet has been put on the outskirts as of recent (especially the management changes). He voiced Michael J. Caboose, a beloved character in Red vs. Blue (if not in Rooster Teeth's lore) and several other characters in Rooster Teeth's productions like Dr. Oobleck.
I remember the Let's Play series he did with Adam Ellis and I thought it was entertaining.
But, the company is no longer what it was when Joel and the others founded it.
If going to the company offices became insufferable, I can see this being a load off his back in away.

Joel left? Do we know the story behind that?
 
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