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

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

The irony that Faunus are racism allegories.

In their defense it makes sense that a home invader would be black.

 

[Mega Black]

.say what you will about Celtic Phoenix, at least he knows how to structure a stream.

He's at least able to string a sentence or two together, with his mouth that is, not his pen.

I'll give SYTO the benefit of the doubt and assume he actually meant to call the faunus daimons, which IIRC is the original Greek spelling for demons and would fit with the stronger ties between the faunus and the grimm. Even though his accent made it sound like diamonds.

But that Q&A did not inspire a lot of confidence at all and it seems that he too fell into the beginners trap of being fixed way too much on worldbuilding and way too much style over substance.

SYTO is clearly just another unoriginal leech 'idea's guy' who enjoys the feeling of putting together a coherent piece of storytelling but can't, so he gravitates towards worldbuilding, like every loser with no talent/skill winds up doing. It's even worse here because he's not even creating his own stupid world, he's perverting someone else's into some retarded homunculus of his own ridiculous wants and desires.

He came across as genuinely autistic in that video. Which isn't much of a surprise, but still.

Writing? Prose? Storytelling? Dialogue? My worldbuilding channels didn't tell me about those, so they must not be important!

Hey listen! Brandon Sanderson sells billions of books because his worlds are cool, dude. No, I don't actually read or write, but I sure do have lots of good ideas! Like, the faunus being demon people instead of animal people! That's never been done before! I'll, uh, write a script later... I need to talk about the plate tectonics of my setting some more.

I know that when Illia tried to hide in that dark room RT showed that they don't know how the concept of "camouflage" works. I think that was V5 though so it looks like they forgot about faunus night vision all the way back then.

They fucked that plotline up as early as Volume 2. Blake and Sun infiltrate the WF rally and the way they escape is by turning off the lights and running away. So much for nightvision. At this point it's just another thing they nebulously threw into the worldbuilding and summarily retconned the second it became inconvenient.

In their defense it makes sense that a home invader would be black.

She breaks into homes, perpetrates minory on minority violence, sexually assaults Blake, and then shirks all responsibility at the last second when it's time to face the consequences of her abhorrent actions. You know, maybe RT nailed the racism allegory after all...

 

[SheerHeartAttack]

It's not like he's enormously popular for actually writing stories or anything.

You know, if I were to rewrite RWBY I'd probably hash out a vague plot first and reduce the cast to like 5 main characters or something. Though the thing that mystifies me the most is the fascination with this whole racism plot line, that thing has always been an albatross around the neck of the franchise and yet it's always carried into these rewrites.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

It's not like he's enormously popular for actually writing stories or anything.

You know, if I were to rewrite RWBY I'd probably hash out a vague plot first and reduce the cast to like 5 main characters or something. Though the thing that mystifies me the most is the fascination with this whole racism plot line, that thing has always been an albatross around the neck of the franchise and yet it's always carried into these rewrites.

Nix Team Coffee, nix Cardin, set up JNPR as Team RWBY's rivals, nix the other school's students. Bam, done. You've got a multi season school years arc with a tight cast.

EDIT: an apostrophe

 

[Decepticon Spy]

Though the thing that mystifies me the most is the fascination with this whole racism plot line, that thing has always been an albatross around the neck of the franchise and yet it's always carried into these rewrites.

My hunch is that they project their autism-induced social isolation into the faunus struggle because of the "ostracized cuz' we're different" thing, considering people like SYTO, Raymond, Jerry, etc. all seem to fit the bill for the comic/anime obsessed social rejects you'll encounter in middle-school.

 

[Mega Black]

Though the thing that mystifies me the most is the fascination with this whole racism plot line, that thing has always been an albatross around the neck of the franchise and yet it's always carried into these rewrites.

The reason is twofold. One, that like it or not the racism subplot is deeply interwoven into the franchise's identity. It pretty much was the plot for the first five seasons, getting arguably more focus than any of the grimm or Salem shenanigans. If you slice that out of the show you remove like sixty percent of the plot and worldbuilding.

The second reason these stupid faggots insist on keeping it is because they've all got delusions of grandeur and think they're inherently better than the people working on the show. What better way to prove that than by doing the plotline that people universally agree is the worst and doing it better?

 

[Chilson]

If you slice that out of the show you remove like sixty percent of the plot and worldbuilding.

You say that like its a bad thing?

 

[LordBaron]

The reason is twofold. One, that like it or not the racism subplot is deeply interwoven into the franchise's identity. It pretty much was the plot for the first five seasons, getting arguably more focus than any of the grimm or Salem shenanigans. If you slice that out of the show you remove like sixty percent of the plot and worldbuilding.

And interwoven into the character arcs of two of the main characters.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

And interwoven into the character arcs of two of the main characters.

Ironically enough only one of those characters would actually be made less interesting by the racism subplot's removal though.

 

[Mega Black]

You say that like its a bad thing?

I mean no, but that's why it's always there. The only way to really fix rwby would be to rip it out by the roots so I don't disagree on principle that it's worth removing.

And interwoven into the character arcs of two of the main characters.

Yeah, Blake would also need an entirely different backstory and primary motivation. Again, not a bad idea, but one that requires more work and a radical change of direction.

 

[I Love Beef]

It really is a near jihad-level fanatacism, and you're probably right that it's rooted in a lot of jealousy. Every dedicated RWBY critic I know of is some sort of failed artist, the type who believes success should just come to them because they say so, regardless of skill, effort, or willingness to learn. Celtic, CJ, and Media are all over 26, all wishing to be professional writers, but have yet to make any sort of real impact in their lives, or even want to leave their parents' homes. They all have their RWBY rewrites where they get to lord over the one thing bad enough for them to have some kind of power over, whether that's true or not. It's like an autistic kid bullying a more autistic kid then getting furious when his victim remains happy and successful, furious to the point where he hates all his victim's associates, too, even down to the teachers who like him.

But when those "aspiring writers" are faced with the actual challenges involved with honing an artistic craft, they fold. They don't read more than manga and fanfiction, so they don't even have a basis to aspire to. They think they can just know, because they're special and uneducated like Monty was, so they can be just like him. They claim to want critique, but can't comprehend why anything they did could be fundamentally bad. So they hide behind the usual excuses when asked where their writing is: it's such a long series, there's so much lore, I'm still outlining, etc etc. Even non-writer Floof has a similar issue. Though he goes to school for animation, the homework projects he's uploaded are lackluster, and the advice he gives is uneducated. The arrogant simply can't be forced to learn.

Side note: Holy shit, I did not realize CJ accused Arryn of lying about her own abuse when there's "no evidence," as though abuse can always be empirically proven. Big talk from a man who broke up with his girlfriend because he couldn't help but m'lady cosplayers.

Makes me glad I am far from their level. If I am jealous, it's out of my own direct acknowledgement of my own inadequacies and in marvel of what RWBY has done as a plus. As much as RWBY is shit upon, the fact that it got picked up by official Japanese anime studios should make the detractors and jealous idiots seethe with rage. They should be mad because RWBY, as much as its being flogged by legitimate criticisms and being helmed by shitty writers, is a hands on actual series that is doing something in this life.

Now, I've been very critical of RWBY myself. My thing is though I didn't waste my time buying a camera, a microphone, editing software, and a Youtube account for extended playtimes along with trying to find which log of shit would be best to cook up for hot takes. I have studied character design and clothing dynamics and functionality, I have studied and analyzed a lot of the games and stories I've digested in my lifetime to know why they have been so damn great, and have studied other things than to spend the entirety of my life online simply bitching about shit. It also helps me to make these long ass bombastic raving posts, and to have real interests like working on actual stories than to hatedick RWBY All day everyday like a loser.

If you haven't seen before, I come from the 2000s boom of anime in the west. This was when we got both anime by video games and animation at this time, and it fucking tombstone piledrive'd the entertainment world and its censors out here with a contusion causing slam to the crowns of their skulls by what it lacked and paled to offer. RWBY, as flawed and as fucky as it is, it captured this kind of inspiration and time and scene. The so called re-writers are wannabes who are miserable squibs who never ask questions or realize this inspiration to bother even doing anything with it of their own, and all they can do is provide hackjob donut steel mimicries that make DeviantArt look original by comparison. tl;dr What new things are you fuckers offering the anime world, losers? As what @Fougaro said, it better not be mere shounenshit, because everyone back in the day wanted to try and ape DBZ and Yu Yu Hakusho. I've come across old websites of anime fans hosting up self made series who have more clout than you fags. And even then, you have all of Japan to compete against too. At this rate, you ain't shit.

My hunch is that they project their autism-induced social isolation into the faunus struggle because of the "ostracized cuz' we're different" thing, considering people like SYTO, Raymond, Jerry, etc. all seem to fit the bill for the comic/anime obsessed social rejects you'll encounter in middle-school.

My angle says that racism in RWBY has no driving impetus to exist. In real life, racism tends to have major reasons to expand and become national rhetoric, namely the ideas of divine providence, political power over the populace through fear and exploitation, competition over resources and territory, and hubris through ignorance and complacency, among other things.

If you ask me, the Faunus should be discriminated against because in ancient times, they once evoked familiarity to the Grimm by man's paranoia and fear, and if the series wasn't made by fucking pussies, there would be extremist long lasting rhetoric believing that Faunus was created by fucking animals or Grimm, or should have creation myths and lore twisted to this end or something. There should also be the existence of Faunus based nations or independent tribal states to show how independently Faunus have lived, and historically there should be statements and facts about how these tribes were once seen as monsters not unlike Grimm. It is also hard to believe that there is no racial and national animosity amongst men or faunus themselves in RWBY, from differences in skin color to what separate distinguished species faunus come from amongst each other.

Anime is nothing without the human element, and especially all of the fucked up parts of the human experience. Anyone who says otherwise are a bunch of wannabes and pussies who should go watch watered down Amerime shit like Teen Titans or Avatar or stick to RWBY. From the 2000s boom of anime to this. What a time to be alive. Kill me.

 

[Gar For Archer]

@I Love Beef

As what @Fougaro said, it better not be mere shounenshit

...and this is the fundamental problem with any possible RWBY rewrite: The concept just isn't that fucking deep.

At best, you get a tightly-plotted and well-put-together shonen anime that maybe delves a bit into mature themes e.g. racism with the faunus, but at its core RWBY isn't about that shit, it's about anime girls having flashy fight scenes strung together with a simple, barebones plot. Conceptually, I think RWBY is closest to something like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, where the focus is very much on the characters and the fights, rather than on the themes, setting and overarching plot. Very style-over-substance, but there's nothing inherently wrong with this kind of story.

Where RWBY fucks up is that the writers tried to make it deeper than the concept naturally lends itself to, without having the writing ability to actually pull it off. The solution to this isn't to try and untangle all the threads of an overcomplicated story and arrange them in a sensible way, it's to cut off that whole tangled knot and go back to the basics. Problem is, you can't make dozens of hours of shitty fanfics based on the concept of "RWBY, but it's a competently-executed shonen anime".

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

Well the WarnerMedia-Discovery merger is final as of two (going on three) days ago at the time of this post, And there has already been a bloodletting at the executive level on Warner's side before the deal was even completed:

Zaslav is freaking ruthless, and is wasting no time at all installing his new regime. He's already promised to find $3 billion in savings. Big changes are already expected in the DC comics film slate:

Any one want to place bets on how long Rooster Teeth lasts in any form:

 

[Random Internet Person]

@I Love Beef

...and this is the fundamental problem with any possible RWBY rewrite: The concept just isn't that fucking deep.

At best, you get a tightly-plotted and well-put-together shonen anime that maybe delves a bit into mature themes e.g. racism with the faunus, but at its core RWBY isn't about that shit, it's about anime girls having flashy fight scenes strung together with a simple, barebones plot. Conceptually, I think RWBY is closest to something like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, where the focus is very much on the characters and the fights, rather than on the themes, setting and overarching plot. Very style-over-substance, but there's nothing inherently wrong with this kind of story.

Where RWBY fucks up is that the writers tried to make it deeper than the concept naturally lends itself to, without having the writing ability to actually pull it off. The solution to this isn't to try and untangle all the threads of an overcomplicated story and arrange them in a sensible way, it's to cut off that whole tangled knot and go back to the basics. Problem is, you can't make dozens of hours of shitty fanfics based on the concept of "RWBY, but it's a competently-executed shonen anime".

You know, I’ve tried to write my own stuff, and honestly, I had an easier time just writing the story and action, and the minute I try serious things like themes and big backgrounds and maybe rules in the story itself, I hit a wall and one time I even found myself backing away from that to try something else.

Not sure if that’s what you’re advocating, but the notion of “don’t worry about deep things as you’re making, leave it for others to analyze and contemplate” is something I can get behind.

 

[I Love Beef]

...and this is the fundamental problem with any possible RWBY rewrite: The concept just isn't that fucking deep.

At best, you get a tightly-plotted and well-put-together shonen anime that maybe delves a bit into mature themes e.g. racism with the faunus, but at its core RWBY isn't about that shit, it's about anime girls having flashy fight scenes strung together with a simple, barebones plot. Conceptually, I think RWBY is closest to something like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, where the focus is very much on the characters and the fights, rather than on the themes, setting and overarching plot. Very style-over-substance, but there's nothing inherently wrong with this kind of story.

Where RWBY fucks up is that the writers tried to make it deeper than the concept naturally lends itself to, without having the writing ability to actually pull it off. The solution to this isn't to try and untangle all the threads of an overcomplicated story and arrange them in a sensible way, it's to cut off that whole tangled knot and go back to the basics. Problem is, you can't make dozens of hours of shitty fanfics based on the concept of "RWBY, but it's a competently-executed shonen anime".

There is also the problem that there are greater alternatives. An anime story about adventurers in their own world using magic, unique weapons, and protecting civilization? Gee, there's Phantasy Star Online & Universe, God Eater, Monster Hunter, Final Fantasy (Crystal Chronicles, Explorers, IX, XI, XIV), the Tales series, Wild Arms.... And those are just video game series, for an iceberg example. Their main stories and settings are developed as well as focused, with their in world magic systems/lore relevant to not just how people make the magic happen, but to how this builds up and is important to all of the story and the world's wider scope. If there are extraneous elements that seem to exist outside of the series's workings, this shows how more mysterious the world's own systems are and compliments them as extra material than to shoehorn them in to the actual story at hand.

RWBY is the equivalent of a fruit salad that is poor in composition, really. It doesn't just add the fruit flesh, it also incorporates everything inedible like the rinds, the cores, the seeds, and the stems and dumps in sugar, salt, and pepper and milk. RWBY's magic system tries to give characters magical materials (dust, which is admittedly materia from FFVII), aura (ki/spirit/mana), and sembalances (stands) without making them coherent and relevant to each other and the world they all exist in. If that foundation does not exist, there is absolutely no room for depth. Like, how are Grimm relevant to Dust, and if they don't have Aura, what do they emanate if they have souls? Sembalances are absolutely poorly implemented and so is magic as a whole. Don't even get into those four artefacts or whatever, that shit is broken beyond belief.

I've always been insulted to hear that anime "just runs on rule of cool." Any anime/game I've watched/played has always been assed to make powers systems even on the most minuscule scale to explain shit and build off of that. RWBY is like the blackface/minstrel version of anime. It's only lucky that people give a shit about its concepts and appeal, despite being only far from top tier, and with many series before it that has done its "pretty anime girl fighting with a simple plot" stories far, far better.

Miles Luna and Kerry Shaw are dumber than Beavis and Butthead. Even I could grasp how a powers/magic system works overall as a basic story element. Shit anime homework guys, great job there.

 

[Gar For Archer]

You know, I’ve tried to write my own stuff, and honestly, I had an easier time just writing the story and action, and the minute I try serious things like themes and big backgrounds and maybe rules in the story itself, I hit a wall and one time I even found myself backing away from that to try something else.

Not sure if that’s what you’re advocating, but the notion of “don’t worry about deep things as you’re making, leave it for others to analyze and contemplate” is something I can get behind.

What I'm advocating is more that like, not every fucking story needs to be "deep". This doesn't mean that your plot can be a total mess and your work can be thematically inconsistent as long as there's pretty pictures - it just means that a simple, serviceable plot and hints of themes that pass a basic sniff-test are totally fine if your goal is to focus primarily on (for example) the character interactions and fight scenes.

Anime/manga very much get this, their writers aren't ashamed of writing stories that are just pure style-over-substance, but with American media there seems to be this notion that a story must be "serious" and "mature", or - worst of all - "ironically self-aware", to be of value.

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

There is also the problem that there are greater alternatives. An anime story about adventurers in their own world using magic, unique weapons, and protecting civilization? Gee, there's Phantasy Star Online & Universe, God Eater, Monster Hunter, Final Fantasy (Crystal Chronicles, Explorers, IX, XI, XIV), the Tales series, Wild Arms.... And those are just video game series, for an iceberg example. Their main stories and settings are developed as well as focused, with their in world magic systems/lore relevant to not just how people make the magic happen, but to how this builds up and is important to all of the story and the world's wider scope. If there are extraneous elements that seem to exist outside of the series's workings, this shows how more mysterious the world's own systems are and compliments them as extra material than to shoehorn them in to the actual story at hand.

RWBY is the equivalent of a fruit salad that is poor in composition, really. It doesn't just add the fruit flesh, it also incorporates everything inedible like the rinds, the cores, the seeds, and the stems and dumps in sugar, salt, and pepper and milk. RWBY's magic system tries to give characters magical materials (dust, which is admittedly materia from FFVII), aura (ki/spirit/mana), and sembalances (stands) without making them coherent and relevant to each other and the world they all exist in. If that foundation does not exist, there is absolutely no room for depth. Like, how are Grimm relevant to Dust, and if they don't have Aura, what do they emanate if they have souls? Sembalances are absolutely poorly implemented and so is magic as a whole. Don't even get into those four artefacts or whatever, that shit is broken beyond belief.

I've always been insulted to hear that anime "just runs on rule of cool." Any anime/game I've watched/played has always been assed to make powers systems even on the most minuscule scale to explain shit and build off of that. RWBY is like the blackface/minstrel version of anime. It's only lucky that people give a shit about its concepts and appeal, despite being only far from top tier, and with many series before it that has done its "pretty anime girl fighting with a simple plot" stories far, far better.

Miles Luna and Kerry Shaw are dumber than Beavis and Butthead. Even I could grasp how a powers/magic system works overall as a basic story element. Shit anime homework guys, great job there.

RWBY, at the end of the day, is just a shittier version of HunterxHunter (a team of four main characters, main hero is younger and more naïve than anyone else, the main heroic class are literally call hunters/huntsmen, both series feature characters using something called aura to power their abilities (Nen for HunterxHunter and semblances for RWBY) and is specifically life energy, etc).

 

[Gar For Archer]

There is also the problem that there are greater alternatives.

But that's the thing though, RWBY didn't get popular because people wanted to watch an anime with XYZ traits - it got popular because people saw some weeb's cool fight animations and wanted to see more of said weeb's project. I think its initial popularity was very much tied to its status as a one-man passion project, in which case people are going to be a lot more forgiving because it's, ya know, one guy with no professional experience. Very much a right-place-at-the-right-time thing which sorta gave it an inbuilt fanbase before it was even properly a thing.

I think its lasting popularity to this day is based SOLELY on that initial boost, which was big enough to make its popularity self-sustaining - it's still popular today because it's always been popular, though the fanbase is constantly dwindling and you'd be hard-pressed to convince new viewers to watch it, precisely for the reasons you stated. If it were ACTUALLY an anime that had to exist purely on its own artistic merits, nobody would give a shit about it.

 

[Gar For Archer]

So, um, what you're saying is....

...that it got popular because it was pure style over substance with a very basic plot, and turned to shit when the new guys in charge tried to make it "serious" and "mature".

Like, I don't think Seasons 1-3 of RWBY (the only ones I watched, FWIW) are very good, but this is mostly on the execution (e.g. garbage dialogue and character writing) rather than the concept (plot, setting, character ideas).

It would be easy enough to "fix" them with only minor tweaks and streamlining, which can't be said for everything that comes after.

 

[Random Internet Person]

But that's the thing though, RWBY didn't get popular because people wanted to watch an anime with XYZ traits - it got popular because people saw some weeb's cool fight animations and wanted to see more of said weeb's project. I think its initial popularity was very much tied to its status as a one-man passion project, in which case people are going to be a lot more forgiving because it's, ya know, one guy with no professional experience. Very much a right-place-at-the-right-time thing which sorta gave it an inbuilt fanbase before it was even properly a thing.

I think its lasting popularity to this day is based SOLELY on that initial boost, which was big enough to make its popularity self-sustaining - it's still popular today because it's always been popular, though the fanbase is constantly dwindling and you'd be hard-pressed to convince new viewers to watch it, precisely for the reasons you stated. If it were ACTUALLY an anime that had to exist purely on its own artistic merits, nobody would give a shit about it.

How the fuck did Monty get the train rolling as far as he did furled just by his passion?

...that it got popular because it was pure style over substance with a very basic plot, and turned to shit when the new guys in charge tried to make it "serious" and "mature".

Like, I don't think Seasons 1-3 of RWBY (the only ones I watched, FWIW) are very good, but this is mostly just the result of Monty not being a skilled and experienced writer, rather than any major conceptual flaws. It would be easy enough to "fix" them with only minor tweaks and streamlining, which can't be said for everything that comes after.

Been a while since I looked at those volumes, but I think they were always building to bigger things even in the early days.

What I'm advocating is more that like, not every fucking story needs to be "deep". This doesn't mean that your plot can be a total mess and your work can be thematically inconsistent as long as there's pretty pictures - it just means that a simple, serviceable plot and hints of themes that pass a basic sniff-test are totally fine if your goal is to focus primarily on (for example) the character interactions and fight scenes.

I guess that’s one way to describe what I want to write when I try to do it.

Anime/manga very much get this, their writers aren't ashamed of writing stories that are just pure style-over-substance, but with American media there seems to be this notion that a story must be "serious" and "mature", or - worst of all - "ironically self-aware", to be of value.

Wonder how America got that way.