RWBY Volume 5 Chapter 4 Critique and Review

Hey, everyone.

This blog entry is brought to you by my Shakespeare play, The Passion of Gloucester and Sinead, available for free download until Saturday. You can get it here.

So, this past week, RWBY Volume 5 Chapter 4, "Lighting the Fire", was released to the masses which means we can finally talk about it, and there are definitely some things in this episode worth talking about, so let's take a look at it.

Critique

Scene 1: Bandit Ambush

What I Liked: In this scene there's a lot to love about Yang. Firstly, I'm glad her coat can be disassembled. To be honest, Yang, and especially Blake, are two people who can't pull off long coat looks. The long coat requires a character be a bad ass, and neither of them are. Well, Yang is closer to being a bad ass since losing her arm, but I still wouldn't have put her in a duster mock up, so I'm glad it can be taken apart. Not to mention, for a character that uses fisticuffs, it's pretty practical for her so that way her enemies can't grab onto it and use it against her. Another thing I'm glad to see is that Yang has an embedded gun in her arm. I didn't think she had one so I thought her fighting style was going to drastically change because of it. Unfortunately, she no longer has another piece of Ember Celica on her arm which is disappointing, but it's good to know she's got a gun in her arm. Also, it's great to see that Yang's fighting style has changed. She doesn't take on her enemies directly all the time. With the one guy who lost his tooth, she flies right at him, does a flip, and then punches him. So it's nice to see that she did learn something from training with her father.

Not sure this move was necessary,
but it's good to see Yang is learning.

What Could've Been Better: As awesome as it was to see Yang kick a lot of butt, what should have happened is that after she found out which direction the bandit camp was in, she should have just started beating the crap out of the bandits rather than just standing there. We all knew what was going happen, so why did she just stand there? But most of my issues with this scene mostly come from the bandits themselves--they are not smart. For one thing, some of them had guns so why did they get close to Yang and then get closer to her before firing? They should have just gunned her down from a distance. Also, I'm surprised the one bandit believed Yang when she told him that she was Raven's daughter. That seems like something he shouldn't have believed. I also take issue with the fact that his gun misfired or jammed or something. He's using a revolver--they don't jam and if they do misfire, you just fire the next shot. Revolvers are too simple to malfunction like that. And lastly, why did we have a Western-style standoff on an Asian continent? The CRWBY is really playing up this cowboy angle with Yang this time around. She went from a party girl to a cowgirl, and all it took was getting her arm cut off which is surprising because it should've taken more.

Questions/Insights: There are no insights here other than the fact that lackeys and gang thugs really don't know how to fight in a group. I mean, what do they do when they go out on raids? Pick their noses? Because it's obvious they don't know how to fight.

Scene 2: Training

What I Liked: So in this scene we see Ruby and Oscar training, and there were quite a few things I liked about it. For one, Ruby is taking training without her scythe seriously. And when she wins, she has a stereotypical, cute anime girl victory pose.

Toes turned in, butt out, hands held out to the side:
that's totally an anime girl pose.

But what I really enjoyed in this scene was all the talk about aura and Semblance. We found out what Ren's Semblance actually is and how he, Nora, and Ruby got theirs. Who would've guessed Nora's got hers by being struck by lightning. It was also good to hear that Jaune has been working on finding his Semblance. See, back in Vol. 2 when he was working on it with Pyrrha, I just assumed he was being lazy since he hadn't uncovered it yet, but it turns out he's actually trying really hard. It would've been nice if we could've seen more of his training with Pyrrha to see what they were actually working on. And I couldn't help but love the 80's inspired smooth beat that played while they were talking. It reminded me of some of the music I've heard in Project A-ko. I recommend looking it up if you've never seen it.

What Could've Been Better: As good as this scene was, there were some problems with it. For one thing, the fist fight Ruby and Oscar were having was slow, clunky, and awkward. I felt like Jaune commenting on how fast Oscar was picking it up was purposely written to convince the audience that Oscar was picking it up rather than showing it to us which is what should've been done. And it didn't help matters when Ozpin joined the fray, and I really hate seeing that upward-reverse headbutt that seems to be in a lot of anime. That is not a legit fighting move. You do that in a street fight, and you will get your ass owned. I also think that Ruby should've been aware of her openings even if her hand-to-hand combat isn't that good. I mean, she's been training for a long time; she should already know that and be on guard for it. I was also disappointed to see that Ruby wasn't training her silver eyes.

Questions/Insights: The only possible insight we got from this scene is that it is very likely Jaune will finally get his Semblance this volume, and it's possible Oscar will get his, too.

Scene 3: Reunion

What I Liked: Alright, so finally we get to the moment we've all been waiting for: a reunion. Although, it's not exactly under the circumstances we would've hoped for as it was only Weiss and Yang, and it took place in a bandit camp. But besides that, we finally found out how Raven's portals work, we found out that Weiss didn't know Raven is Yang's mother which led to some kidnapping jokes, and we got confirmation that Ruby is the girl mentioned in "Armed and Ready" when it talks about how "nothing will keep me from her side." Two other small things I liked about this scene was the concern over the Grimm showing up which showed just how far out in the boonies they are, and I liked the flames on the torches. They look a lot better than those flames that were in the vault and that almost made the computers at RT crash because it took so long to render them. That's a true story that you all can hear if you watch the director's commentary of Volume 3. And, next time we see Raven and Freezerburn, we are guaranteed more reveals and exposition. Huzzah!

What Could've Been Better: Unfortunately, there were a lot of things that I didn't like about this scene, and none of them are exactly small. For starters, thanks to a lightning bolt, it is confirmed that Vernal is our Spring Maiden. (My hope didn't last long.) But what really got my goat was how bad the line delivery was in this scene. They were probably going for "tense" between Yang and Raven, but it came out like a bad play instead. I didn't believe Raven's delivery of her lines--it felt like Anna Hullum trying to play Raven rather than Raven having an argument with her daughter. And then Yang's "family" line was really unbelievable. I don't think Yang or even Barbara believed that line, that is to say, both the character and the VA thought it was a long shot that Raven would agree to do a favor for Yang just because they're mother and daughter.

I also wasn't happy with the fact that Raven didn't seem to care that her daughter was looking for her and I thought Weiss should've been more relieved to see Yang. I mean, she was relieved, but I wanted to see more desperation and relief in her face, body language, and tone of voice when she said "Yang?!" She was more surprised than anything, which I can believe, but I don't believe her surprise would've usurped her relief. And finally, we come to the hug Weiss and Yang shared. I'm just gonna say it: it was gay. I mean, I expected there to be hugs when a reunion happened, but the way Weiss threw herself at Yang and the fact that Yang tried to be cool about it and like "Whatever," well, Yang acted like a cool boyfriend who hadn't seen his emotionally vulnerable girlfriend in a while. And then the hug went on for an uncomfortably long time. As it went on I thought to myself, "Oh no. The shippers are going to have a field day." Just imagine what's going to happen when Weiss and Ruby reunite.

Questions/Insights: There are two obvious questions that jump into my head in this scene: 1. Why didn't Weiss just bust out the non-subtle way to begin with, and 2. Did Raven really expect Yang to just be taken prisoner without a fight? Raven and her bandits really are not smart. I wouldn't be surprised if the reason why Raven doesn't trust Ozpin is dumb, too. However, we were given one important insight in this scene. Do you all remember last volume when Raven met Qrow in that tavern and Qrow mentioned Raven doing a number on that one village they raided? Qrow mentioned they had something big on their side and it wasn't the Grimm. That is the point when Qrow knew Raven had Vernal. That's what he was referring too which is interesting because that suggests Maidens leave some sort of tell-tale sign they've been somewhere or that they've destroyed something. Perhaps that's how Cinder managed to track Amber.

 

Review:

Overall I liked this episode. I mean, I don't like Raven and her bandits are pretty stupid, but everything else was top. Seeing Yang's combat style evolve, the tease about Jaune's Semblance, the fact that we're one step closer to a full team reunion, and there's the promise of more revelations on the horizon, I'm excited for Chapter 5. But I wonder if we'll get a World of Remnant episode instead. I'm still expecting it to happen. Although this volume is moving pretty fast so maybe we won't have any world building for a while and we can just focus on the show's storyline which would be fantastic.

Keep writing, my friends.

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RWBY Volume 5 Chapter 3 Critique and Review

Hey, everyone.

This blog entry is brought to you by my new novels: Remnants of Chaos: Chaotic Omens and Heroes of Majestia: The Company of Flight. You can buy ROCCO here and HOMCOF here.

Anyway, this past week, Chapter 3 dropped to the masses as did a lot of interesting information that will help to set up the rest of Volume 5. In fact, I can see why no scenes from this episode were used in the trailer. There was some good stuff in this episode, and most of it would've given away better stuff. But, let's stop talking about how good this good stuff was and start talking about what it was and why it was good.

Critique

Scene 1: Ghira's Press Conference

What I Liked: Okay, well, I sort of lied. Not everything about this episode was fantastic, but Ghira's Press Conference was better than all of what is going on with Weiss right now, so... Anyway, so Ghira called this big press conference where he let all the Faunus on Menagerie know about Adam's big plans to overthrow Sienna and take over the White Fang as well as to overthrow Haven Academy. But right before he went out there and told the Faunus, there was this tender family moment between Ghira and Kali and Blake as they showed their support for him. And then I liked everything about Ghira talking mad sh*t about the White Fang and why Adam sucks. Basically, everything he said was what Sienna said, and that's good. Well, except for...

What Could've Been Better: Did Ghira really expect all the Faunus to march toward Haven to protect it "at all costs" like he suggested? How did he not foresee that being a problem? Although, that wasn't the worst part of this scene; Ilia disrupting the conference to say her part was pretty bad because 1. Ghira had already won over the audience, and 2. because screw Ilia and everything she believes. Also, a big screw you to Sun in this scene. Not only does he ruin the tender family moment between the Belladonnas when he could have just added verbal affirmation to Ghira, he then went and ruined his ambush by telling Ilia to shut up before he jumped her. Excuse me, but I thought Sun was supposed to be a trained warrior. Shouldn't he know to be quiet before jumping someone? Another problem I had with this scene was Ilia's suggestion that the White Fang will fight for all Faunus if they can't/won't do it for themselves. This is an issue because most self-righteous terrorist/political groups often denounce those who don't join the fight as traitors. They typically have the "either you're with us or you're against us" type of mentality. And that's the type of mentality I would expect from Adam, so I have a hard time believing the White Fang would fight for and represent those who are fine with sitting on their hands while someone else does all the work.

Questions/Insights: Alright, so this scene raises a few interesting questions besides those faults in logic I've already suggested above. The first and most pertinent question is who is this "swiftest messenger" that is on Ghira's pay roll that he sent to Mistral? I don't recall seeing any other Faunus who were really close to the Belladonnas that he could trust with delivering that information. I'm also quite curious as to what Blake was going to say at the conference, but I have a feeling Kerry and Miles didn't have a clue as to what she would say, so that's why they wrote in Ilia's disruption there--it's too convenient.

Scene 2: Ozpin Explains It All

Okay, so I know there's this scene, and then it cuts to Weiss and cuts back, but I'm going to treat the two scenes as one just because it's easier. Likewise with Weiss in the bandit camp.

What I Liked: Alright, so this scene is where the hypest sh*t happens this episode. Not only is Ozpin back, but Ozpin finally explains how it is that he has "committed more mistakes than any man, woman, or child" on Remnant and his connection to Salem. Although he only says that he and Salem are basically locked in eternal conflict, he doesn't mention why or how it was he failed to stop Salem that led to his curse. But, there's more to love in this episode such as Oz's plan to make real huntsmen and huntresses out of RNJR as well as the fact that we're going to be introduced to some new bad ass huntsmen in the very near future. I also thoroughly enjoyed RNJR's faces when they saw Oz flip through the air back onto his chair and twirl his cane. They all had a different variation of the "what the f*ck" face.

Nora's expression is my favorite.

What Could've Been Better: However, this scene wasn't perfect. I was pretty displeased with Oscar's behavior asking Oz not to do anything embarrassing, not being able to maintain his balance standing on a chair, and not being pleased to learn that he would have to train himself. I mean, does he really not trust Oz to keep the situation under control and can he not keep his balance? And did he really not expect to hear that he would have to do his fair share of fighting as well? I also didn't care for the comedy in this scene with Nora's over exuberant response that Oz can set Lionheart right and I don't understand why the table and mug broke when Qrow put his feet on the table--that was just stupid. And lastly, I liked how Oz pointed out Ruby and Jaune's weaknesses, but I wish he would've critiqued Nora and Ren as well to find out where they're weak. If I had to guess what their weaknesses are, I'd say Nora isn't disciplined well enough and Ren doesn't do enough damage. I mean, I do think he has the weakest and worst designed weapons out of the four of them.

Questions/Insights: So with hearing Oz's explanation that he is the culmination of countless men through the ages, I began to wonder whether Ozpin will take over Oscar or if Oscar will grow into Ozpin. What I mean is, is Ozpin's soul like a parasite that eventually takes over its host, or will Oscar's thoughts and mentality just become the same as Ozpin's? This also raises the questions of whether or not Ozpin had two souls and was one of them was constantly talking to him inside his head? It also seemed to me that Oz was particularly worried with the safety of the Relic of Knowledge, and my question is why? Is there something uniquely special about the Relic of Knowledge, or is it that just because of the unusual situation in Mistral, Lionheart not having anyone guarding it and Spring potentially being a bad guy, that has put Ozpin in a specially guarded mindset?

Scene 3: Snow White Behind Bars

What I Liked: Alright, so for me, this was the low point in the episode. The only thing I liked is that Weiss used her Semblance to summon a tiny Arma Gigas to set herself free. I hope we get to see the carnage she wreaks next week and not a stupid World of Remnant episode--I can feel it coming.

What Could've Been Better: I have two major complaints with this episode the first being Weiss telling the bandits about her sister rather than mentioning she isn't interested in being ransomed off which she then could've used to her advantage to kick their sh*t in, but I guess her Semblance is a decent backup. Even still though, if she could've used her Semblance all the time, why bother telling the bandits about Winter at all? I also don't believe Winter went back to Atlas. If she's expecting Weiss to arrive in Mistral, Winter would've found a way to stay even if it meant disobeying orders. Plus, Ironwood said he was heading to Mistral based on Winter's report; she could use that to her advantage to stay.

The other major issue I have with this scene is with Vernal herself. Everyone's pretty sure she's the Spring Maiden and the fact that she's called "Vernal" is a pretty big f*cking hint. At first, I was excited when I made the connection, but when I realized it doesn't take a genius to make that connection, I got a little pissed at how transparent it is. Now I really hope she isn't the Spring Maiden just to throw everyone for a loop because that would be funny as hell.

Questions/Insights: This scene prompted two questions from me: 1. Where's Raven, and 2. Does Weiss know who Raven is? The reason why I'm so focused on Raven is because I would've expected her to know that Weiss was Yang's teammate or that Weiss would know Raven is Yang's mother, and the fact that the whole issue never came up is really disappointing to me. I also thought that Raven would've wanted to tell Weiss that she was going to be ransomed off rather than leaving it to Vernal. It just seems like it would be up her alley to do so. (Also, what happened to the Atlesian pilot?)

Review:

So, what do I think of this chapter overall? Well, it was half disappointing and half great, but the great parts were great enough that they made up for the lame stuff, so I did like this chapter and it has made me eager to see chapter 4 which wasn't a feeling I had when I saw chapter 2. Unfortunately, I have a feeling RT is going to be a bunch of cock teases and release a World of Remnant episode next week, or they're going to cut back to Yang and we're not going to get very much time at all with RNJR and Weiss which is a real dick move because both of their storylines ended on cliffhangers. But we won't know until we see the next episode.

Keep writing, my friends.

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