RWBY

Premise

The story takes place in the world of Remnant, which is filled with forces and creatures known as the "Creatures of Grimm". Prior to the events of the series, mankind waged a battle of survival against the Grimm before discovering the power of a mysterious element called Dust, which allowed them to fight back against the monsters. In the present day, Dust is used to power abilities and weapons. Those who use these abilities to battle the Grimm are known as Huntsmen or Huntresses. The series focuses on four girls, each with her own unique weapon and powers. Together, they form team RWBY (/ˈruːbi/, "ruby") at Beacon Academy in the city of Vale, where they are trained to become Huntresses alongside team JNPR (/ˈdʒunəpər/, "juniper"), team SSSN (/sʌn/, "sun"), team CRDL (/ˈkɑːrdnl/, "cardinal") team CFVY (/ˈkɔːfi/, "coffee"), and various other named and unnamed student teams.

Volume 1 focuses on the introduction of the characters of the story, marking the events that lead to their team formations. All the while, mysterious thefts of Dust are occurring around the city of Vale, notably organized by the show's antagonist, Roman Torchwick. Volume 2 follows up from these events of Volume 1, and team RWBY sets out in order to investigate the meaning behind these thefts. They aim to discover the villain's plans for the city of Vale before the Vytal Festival—a festival between the four kingdoms of Remnant where they have their best students demonstrate their skills and abilities in celebration of the peace between all four kingdoms. Volume 3 starts with the beginning of the Vytal Festival; however, a sinister plot lurks behind the celebratory events, and the heroes can only do so much to prepare for the evil that is coming. Volume 4 takes place six to eight months following the events of Volume 3, with the members of Team RWBY separated and in different parts of the globe, and each of the girls will have to take on personal journeys of their own if they are to move forward in life.

Cast and characters

Development

RWBY had been a long-standing concept of Oum's for years before it began development. Towards the end of his work on the 10th season of Rooster Teeth's Red vs. Blue, he developed the color-coding approach to character names and design as a hook for the series. During production on Red vs. Blue season 10, Oum asked series creator Burnie Burns if they could produce RWBY following the conclusion of that season. Burns, worried for the production schedule, told Oum "If you finish Season 10, then you can do whatever you want." Production on RWBY began as intended, with the first trailer being finished within two weeks and premiering after the credits of the Red vs. Blue season 10 finale on November 5, 2012.

Oum designed the characters with assistance from artist Ein Lee. The characters utilize designs inspired by classic fairy tale characters. Each character has an associated color, and it is the first letters of these colors, red, white, black, and yellow, that give the series its name. The series is written by Oum, along with fellow Rooster Teeth employees Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross. Oum was initially concerned about a story focusing on female characters being developed by a primarily male crew, but said they managed to do well developing the female characters. Seasons 1 to 3 were animated by Rooster Teeth's internal animation team using Smith Micro's Poser software. Starting in Season 4, episodes are now being animated in Autodesk Maya. The series' music is composed by Jeff Williams, who previously composed the soundtracks for Seasons 8–10 of Red vs. Blue, and features vocals by Williams' daughter, Casey Lee Williams.

Promotion

A series of four promotional trailers, one for each lead character, were released in the lead-up to the series premiere. They were primarily produced by Oum and assistant animator Shane Newville. Each trailer begins by unveiling one of the four primary characters and then showing a detailed action sequence. The "Red" trailer was shown after the credits for Red vs. Blue's season 10 finale in November 2012. It was followed by the "White" trailer in February 2013. The "Black" trailer was unveiled at a PAX East panel at the end of March and was the first to include voice-acted dialogue. Following the premiere of the "Black" trailer, Oum noted with regret that the first two trailers were shorter and had less character development. The "Yellow" trailer was shown at Rooster Teeth's A-Kon panel on June 1, 2013. Music from the trailers is being sold for digital download on several online retailers.

The first episode premiered on July 5, 2013, at a panel at RTX 2013. It premiered online two weeks later on July 18, 2013.

Release

Volume 1 consists of sixteen episodes, with episodes being around 12 minutes long. However, all episodes except the first episode, eighth episode, and finale were released in two six-minute parts, comprising sixteen parts in total. Volume 1 concluded in November 2013, and was released on DVD and Blu-ray in the same month. Episodes premiere to the public Thursdays at 7 pm Central Standard Time (UTC-6) on the Rooster Teeth website and are released two hours early for sponsors. They are uploaded to YouTube a week later. Crunchyroll announced on August 16, 2013, that RWBY would be simulcast on the video streaming site.

Volume 2 premiered on July 24, 2014, following its exclusive screening at RTX on July 4, 2014. Volume 2 featured twelve episodes, each at around 12 minutes long; the episodes were no longer released in parts. The twelfth and final episode of Volume 2 aired on October 30, 2014, after which it was released on DVD and Blu-ray.

Volume 3 was confirmed at the Rooster Teeth panel at PAX Prime 2014, where Oum stated that he planned to go straight into development of the next season as he was nearly completed with Volume 2. It premiered on October 24, 2015 with an episode of the backstory series World of Remnant.

Volume 4 was confirmed during an interview with AfterBuzz TV, in which producer/co-director Gray G. Haddock mentioned that Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross had begun writing for the new Volume. Volume 4 was officially announced by Haddock on April 1, 2016 and was set to premiere in fall 2016. At RTX 2016, Rooster Teeth announced that Volume 4 would debut on October 22, 2016.

Volume 5 was confirmed in January 2017, though no plot details were provided at the time.

Critical response

Commentators discussing the promotional trailers lauded the show's animation style and its musical soundtrack. The trailers prompted enthusiastic anticipation for the series premiere. When the first episode premiered at RTX, it was popular with attendees to the point that seating was full at all three screenings. Amanda Rush, writing for Crunchyroll, noted the anime and Western influences of the series, and praised it as "quick-witted, exciting, lovely to look at" saying fans of anime would enjoy it. The Yakima Herald-Republic called it "thrilling" and "captivating" and praised its "beautiful" 3D character animation. The Austin Chronicle described the premiere as making Oum the "rock star" of Rooster Teeth. The series has reportedly contributed to a 9% increase in views for Rooster Teeth's official YouTube channel. Kotaku's Richard Eisenbeis praised the series for its clever use of fairytale elements, fun and enjoyable dialogue, and the fighting choreography, but was critical about the short nature of the episodes, stating that, "The biggest drawback in doing a micro-series... is that there is precious little time for good characterization". He was also critical of the technical issues of the animation, mentioning that the animation is good when the audience is unable to see the character's feet. He ends by saying that "RWBY is a good first step into a world of possibilities."

Awards

At the 2014 International Academy of Web Television Awards, RWBY won the award for Best Animated Series.

At the 2014 Streamy Awards, RWBY won for Best Animated Series and Jeff Williams won for Best Original Score.

Distribution

The Blu-ray and DVD releases in Australia are handled by Hanabee Entertainment. A local Japanese dub is being developed by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Japan, with plans for release on Blu-ray and DVD in 2015, marking the first time an American-produced anime-inspired series has been marketed in Japan. Warner Bros. has also acquired local merchandising rights as well. On February 1, 2015, Rooster Teeth announced that both volumes of RWBY so far were available for streaming on Netflix. The first volume was released in the UK by Animatsu Entertainment on May 4, 2015, on DVD.

Music

The music for all volumes of RWBY has been composed primarily by Jeff Williams, with additional composition by Steve Goldshein and Alex Abraham. Most of the vocals are provided by Jeff Williams and his daughter Casey Lee Williams, with some additional vocals by Lamar Hall and Sandy Casey.

RWBY's soundtrack features a variety of genres, most notably intense, fast-paced rock music.

Volume 1 Soundtrack

The official soundtrack for RWBY: Volume 1 was released by Jeff Williams on November 12, 2013, hitting #1 on iTunes and beating out the movie soundtrack to The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. It includes all the songs used in the trailers, the intro to the series' episodes, and also the score music to each episode. The soundtrack also contains previously unreleased songs such as "I May Fall" and "Wings". These songs were, however, briefly played at the end of various episodes.

Volume 2 Soundtrack

The official soundtrack for RWBY: Volume 2 was released on December 2, 2014.

Volume 3 Soundtrack

The official soundtrack for RWBY: Volume 3 was released on May 3, 2016.

Video game

For Rooster Teeth's anniversary in 2014, fan Jordan Scott created a video game based on RWBY, titled RWBY: Grimm Eclipse, using the Unity engine. It was in development for a total of five months.

Based on the events in the first trailer, the demo was a "hack 'n slash survival" featuring Ruby facing escalating waves of Grimm attacks. Richard Eisenbeis of Kotaku praised its combo system, which "excellently mirror[ed] its animated counterpart," and its unlockable skills, saying, "you'll feel like an unstoppable badass akin to Ruby in the series."

At RTX 2014, Rooster Teeth announced that they had hired Scott, and officially picked up the game. An early demo of the game was available for consumers to play at the event, and the game's title was changed from "Grim Eclipse" to "Grimm Eclipse" to match the spelling of the creatures in the show. Rooster Teeth CEO Matt Hullum stated, "RWBY is a natural choice for us to focus on for our first in-house produced video game. Fans can expect that we will bring the same level of originality in action, comedy and design to the video game that has made the RWBY animated series such a hit." On December 1, 2015 the game was released as an Early Access title on Steam, with the full PC release on July 5, 2016. The game was released for Mac OS X on October 13, 2016, and was later released for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on January 17, 2017.

The game allows one to four of the main characters in any combination(s) to battle through waves of Grimm. They are also on the trail of a mysterious company and its founder. The action takes place in the Emerald Forest, Mountain Glenn, Forever Fall and ultimately to an island named after the antagonist, Doctor Merlot.

Manga

The November 2015 issue of Shueisha's Ultra Jump magazine announced that Dogs manga author Shirow Miwa would be illustrating a manga adaptation of RWBY, which debuted in the December 2015 issue on November 19, 2015.

The manga will "reveal mysteries of the four trailers."

The manga concluded in February 2017.

RWBY Chibi

RWBY Chibi is a comedic animated spin-off of RWBY compromising 24 3–6 minute long episodes. It was first announced as part of Rooster Teeth's 13th Anniversary celebration on April 1, 2016, and Episode 1 premiered on May 7, 2016. Its first season concluded on October 15, 2016. Each episode consists of several scenes where aspects of RWBY's characters are usually exaggerated for comic effect. The episodes follow no strict chronological order, nor do they follow strict canon of the main show. In January 2017, Rooster Teeth confirmed that a second season would launch that May.

Death Battle

Yang appeared as a combatant in the popular online series Death Battle by ScrewAttack! (a sister company to Rooster Teeth under Fullscreen), where she fought Tifa Lockhart from Final Fantasy VII (who was a character in Oum's Dead Fantasy series). Barbara Dunkelman reprised her role for the episode. The series creator, Ben Singer, talked with Oum about including a RWBY character on Death Battle before Oum's passing.