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Sep. 14th, 2013 05:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spottoOn the subject of RWBY's quality...
Yes, I have been posting A LOT of this show, but it's either this or Dangan Ronpa and...yeah, so I'll continue with my seemingly one-track-mind now. Now episode nine just happened a few days back and I gotta be totally honest with you...it actually made me cringe. I put my hands in front of my face and could not watch some of it. I wouldn't say so much because of the writing itself in particular or voice-acting, both of which do have flaws and can sometimes be heavily criticized. It just seems that if the show is not doing its mindblowingly awesome action scenes, the animation falls down a few pegs and ends up looking really awkward and forced. Due to this, what jokes or character development they're trying to do fall a bit short. I keep trying to explain this by assuming they're attempting well-known 2D anime techniques in 3D animation, which usually doesn't work...but sometimes it goes a little farther than that. The thing is though, with how amazing the action looks, it's extremely jarring to go from something that looks even better than professional studio quality to something that looks like a typical fan-animation on Youtube. There are more animators than just the creator who is definitely well known for his action sequences, so again my guess is that the other animators are amateurs they hired as opposed to someone who actually once worked inside the gaming industry.
But otherwise...the episode was great! I don't mind episodes like these. It'd be much better if they fixed up the awkwardness in the DVD release perhaps, but we don't know if that'll happen. Now again, a lot of people don't like these more down-to-earth sort of slice-of-life episodes of RWBY. Even I agree, another school setting is pretty damn cliché, but I am still a fangirl at heart and if you couldn't tell from these past few posts, love every single character. That's pretty much the part that causes me to fall in love with shows. So long as the characters are entertaining, the plot could be as horrible and stupid as hell....well, maybe not. I've ranted quite a bit about terrible storytelling here, so who knows. The biggest part though is that the trailers and other pieces of foreshadowing excite me of what's to come in the series. Sure right now not much has happened, but they are planning for more than one season and such, so while it may take a few years the more juicy dramatic, quite possibly angsty parts of RWBY will gradually appear and give the characters their chances to shine.
If you think about it this way, the creator, Monty, took several months to release say...a Dead Fantasy video. Why? Well because it takes months to make such videos. So for people to suddenly expect him to make such a video every single week for three months seems extremely unrealistic, especially when something like episode eight might be released once a year. In that case, the fact that we do have these weekly releases, even if it is a bunch of slice-of-life or two characters screaming at each other, is actually much more than they need to give us. In these types of episodes they can still advance plot or start/continue/end character arcs. Whether or not people care about that well, that's all in preferences. Even so, the one thing I didn't like about DF was that I could not care less about the characters. I'm not much of a Final Fantasy or Dead or Alive fan. The only characters I remotely knew about were the ones from FFX. Even then, the videos are basically fanservice for all these girls and a story only really started to surface after like four episodes. A story we still can't even make sense of because he's no longer making these videos. People essentially want a plotless action flick of their fan-favourite characters....which is pretty sad.
I mean I suppose since they are existing characters they've already been developed and we don't really need to see more or anything, especially since the creator's speciality is in action. RWBY's characters however aren't already-existing ones, so we do need some way to develop them and give them personality. The best masterpiece is when character, story, and action mesh together in beautiful harmony, so we can watch our favourite character overcome their flaws and defeat their adversaries, or perhaps fall deep down a hole, toiling in despair with our seats on edge. The rush of watching them return to their glory or perhaps achieve only a bittersweet result...or even never manage to succeed at all, makes a story or show far more fulfilling. While it may be another month or so for a badass awesome fight scene, at least by the time we get there it will have far more meaning and be all the more enjoyable. The only uncertainty however, is how well they'll do this. The action of course is bound to be amazing, but whether or not the story and characters will integrate perfectly with it is what we'll have to see. That's the part that is going to improve as time goes by and I want to be along for the ride.
I guess the one thing the trailers perhaps hinted that the show may not deliver on is that...at least with the first two trailers, they have some sort of mysterious, mystical atmosphere with the scenes. In a way I kind of wished RWBY was kind of deep and artsy, giving us small subtle hints of what's to come and such, as opposed to a cliché anime storm. But I suppose with the type of media Roosterteeth provides, that genre is kind of out-of-nowhere for them. No seriously, Ruby turned out as immature as their more well-known pieces of media. Achievement Hunter is a bunch of idiots being bad at video games (except Ray) and it's highly amusing, but not some sort of high-brow humour that only sophisticated top-hat people can enjoy or what-have-you. Also there's Slo-Mo Guys, where they blow up rubbish and risk their safety for the entertainment of the internet masses. Red vs. Blue began as a bunch of eccentric and ridiculous characters stuck in a random canyon in the middle of nowhere, doing nothing but talking. Yeah, OF COURSE RUBY acts like a five-year-old from that kind of studio! I didn't really expect her to be so unbelievably immature though. Enough to say, run into battle recklessly yes, but you'd think from the lyrics of her songs and how many issues she has from losing someone dear to her would at the very least make her serious enough for school. (Maybe she only cares about the cool actiony parts, but still!)
And then Blake. I had a very large rant about Blake here but it kind of went out of hand. Let's just say Blake is now the most hilarious character in the entire show for me, and what first impressions I've had of her are utterly annihilated. Just...when the trailers were first out some people, including myself, did not think much of her. She just seemed too unknown and mysterious to really judge, and Adam took all the badass parts in the video anyway. Now I can no longer take her seriously whatsoever, which would've been okay if it was only the fandom treating her like so, but then she ended up a lot more social/outgoing than I had realized in episode nine...and they even made canon that she enjoys that type of literature. I CAN'T EVEN TAKE CANON!BLAKE SERIOUSLY ANYMORE. So yes, Blake is sufficiently amusing. Thank you for making her so unbelievably amusing everyone.
But the main, main, main main reason I got into RWBY is because of Weiss...mainly her character design. I looooooooooove white-haired pretty girls if you haven't noticed by now. Her trailer also intrigued me the most and Mirror Mirror is still my favourite song in the series. White-haired pretty girl with possibly angsty past!? THEY PUSHED ALL THE BUTTONS! Then I found out Weiss' personality and...EVEN BETTER! I laugh at all those disappointed by how she turned out. Laugh! It is so beautiful! Now the show is basically hilarious Blake and a countdown of when Weiss will die of high-blood pressure. It's a perfect show to not take seriously until the real serious parts. There's also rampant shipping. I am not against the shipping in anyway. We all know how much I like girl-girl friendships and maybe even the beyond. ;) It treads the line of guilty pleasure and a truly badass, quality show, if those action scenes mean anything.
So yeah that's why I can't shut up about this series even if on average we get five minutes of footage every week. The soundtrack is great too!
This has been a sleep-deprived Spotto.
Yes, I have been posting A LOT of this show, but it's either this or Dangan Ronpa and...yeah, so I'll continue with my seemingly one-track-mind now. Now episode nine just happened a few days back and I gotta be totally honest with you...it actually made me cringe. I put my hands in front of my face and could not watch some of it. I wouldn't say so much because of the writing itself in particular or voice-acting, both of which do have flaws and can sometimes be heavily criticized. It just seems that if the show is not doing its mindblowingly awesome action scenes, the animation falls down a few pegs and ends up looking really awkward and forced. Due to this, what jokes or character development they're trying to do fall a bit short. I keep trying to explain this by assuming they're attempting well-known 2D anime techniques in 3D animation, which usually doesn't work...but sometimes it goes a little farther than that. The thing is though, with how amazing the action looks, it's extremely jarring to go from something that looks even better than professional studio quality to something that looks like a typical fan-animation on Youtube. There are more animators than just the creator who is definitely well known for his action sequences, so again my guess is that the other animators are amateurs they hired as opposed to someone who actually once worked inside the gaming industry.
But otherwise...the episode was great! I don't mind episodes like these. It'd be much better if they fixed up the awkwardness in the DVD release perhaps, but we don't know if that'll happen. Now again, a lot of people don't like these more down-to-earth sort of slice-of-life episodes of RWBY. Even I agree, another school setting is pretty damn cliché, but I am still a fangirl at heart and if you couldn't tell from these past few posts, love every single character. That's pretty much the part that causes me to fall in love with shows. So long as the characters are entertaining, the plot could be as horrible and stupid as hell....well, maybe not. I've ranted quite a bit about terrible storytelling here, so who knows. The biggest part though is that the trailers and other pieces of foreshadowing excite me of what's to come in the series. Sure right now not much has happened, but they are planning for more than one season and such, so while it may take a few years the more juicy dramatic, quite possibly angsty parts of RWBY will gradually appear and give the characters their chances to shine.
If you think about it this way, the creator, Monty, took several months to release say...a Dead Fantasy video. Why? Well because it takes months to make such videos. So for people to suddenly expect him to make such a video every single week for three months seems extremely unrealistic, especially when something like episode eight might be released once a year. In that case, the fact that we do have these weekly releases, even if it is a bunch of slice-of-life or two characters screaming at each other, is actually much more than they need to give us. In these types of episodes they can still advance plot or start/continue/end character arcs. Whether or not people care about that well, that's all in preferences. Even so, the one thing I didn't like about DF was that I could not care less about the characters. I'm not much of a Final Fantasy or Dead or Alive fan. The only characters I remotely knew about were the ones from FFX. Even then, the videos are basically fanservice for all these girls and a story only really started to surface after like four episodes. A story we still can't even make sense of because he's no longer making these videos. People essentially want a plotless action flick of their fan-favourite characters....which is pretty sad.
I mean I suppose since they are existing characters they've already been developed and we don't really need to see more or anything, especially since the creator's speciality is in action. RWBY's characters however aren't already-existing ones, so we do need some way to develop them and give them personality. The best masterpiece is when character, story, and action mesh together in beautiful harmony, so we can watch our favourite character overcome their flaws and defeat their adversaries, or perhaps fall deep down a hole, toiling in despair with our seats on edge. The rush of watching them return to their glory or perhaps achieve only a bittersweet result...or even never manage to succeed at all, makes a story or show far more fulfilling. While it may be another month or so for a badass awesome fight scene, at least by the time we get there it will have far more meaning and be all the more enjoyable. The only uncertainty however, is how well they'll do this. The action of course is bound to be amazing, but whether or not the story and characters will integrate perfectly with it is what we'll have to see. That's the part that is going to improve as time goes by and I want to be along for the ride.
I guess the one thing the trailers perhaps hinted that the show may not deliver on is that...at least with the first two trailers, they have some sort of mysterious, mystical atmosphere with the scenes. In a way I kind of wished RWBY was kind of deep and artsy, giving us small subtle hints of what's to come and such, as opposed to a cliché anime storm. But I suppose with the type of media Roosterteeth provides, that genre is kind of out-of-nowhere for them. No seriously, Ruby turned out as immature as their more well-known pieces of media. Achievement Hunter is a bunch of idiots being bad at video games (except Ray) and it's highly amusing, but not some sort of high-brow humour that only sophisticated top-hat people can enjoy or what-have-you. Also there's Slo-Mo Guys, where they blow up rubbish and risk their safety for the entertainment of the internet masses. Red vs. Blue began as a bunch of eccentric and ridiculous characters stuck in a random canyon in the middle of nowhere, doing nothing but talking. Yeah, OF COURSE RUBY acts like a five-year-old from that kind of studio! I didn't really expect her to be so unbelievably immature though. Enough to say, run into battle recklessly yes, but you'd think from the lyrics of her songs and how many issues she has from losing someone dear to her would at the very least make her serious enough for school. (Maybe she only cares about the cool actiony parts, but still!)
And then Blake. I had a very large rant about Blake here but it kind of went out of hand. Let's just say Blake is now the most hilarious character in the entire show for me, and what first impressions I've had of her are utterly annihilated. Just...when the trailers were first out some people, including myself, did not think much of her. She just seemed too unknown and mysterious to really judge, and Adam took all the badass parts in the video anyway. Now I can no longer take her seriously whatsoever, which would've been okay if it was only the fandom treating her like so, but then she ended up a lot more social/outgoing than I had realized in episode nine...and they even made canon that she enjoys that type of literature. I CAN'T EVEN TAKE CANON!BLAKE SERIOUSLY ANYMORE. So yes, Blake is sufficiently amusing. Thank you for making her so unbelievably amusing everyone.
But the main, main, main main reason I got into RWBY is because of Weiss...mainly her character design. I looooooooooove white-haired pretty girls if you haven't noticed by now. Her trailer also intrigued me the most and Mirror Mirror is still my favourite song in the series. White-haired pretty girl with possibly angsty past!? THEY PUSHED ALL THE BUTTONS! Then I found out Weiss' personality and...EVEN BETTER! I laugh at all those disappointed by how she turned out. Laugh! It is so beautiful! Now the show is basically hilarious Blake and a countdown of when Weiss will die of high-blood pressure. It's a perfect show to not take seriously until the real serious parts. There's also rampant shipping. I am not against the shipping in anyway. We all know how much I like girl-girl friendships and maybe even the beyond. ;) It treads the line of guilty pleasure and a truly badass, quality show, if those action scenes mean anything.
So yeah that's why I can't shut up about this series even if on average we get five minutes of footage every week. The soundtrack is great too!
This has been a sleep-deprived Spotto.
