The company Rooster Teeth, now known as an Internet giant with several dozen full-time employees, rose rather unexpectedly from humble beginnings. It started in 2003 with the series Red Vs. Blue, a machinima animation based on the Halo video game series. Episodes were made by recording in-game footage with characters moved to act out scripts and given voiceovers to portray dialogue.
Originally, Red Vs. Blue was intended as a one-season, low-cost production for a small group of friends to enjoy amongst themselves. After being posted on the Internet, however, it went viral; the result is that the show, which just aired its Season 12 premiere on Monday, April 28, is now the second longest-running science fiction series (after the BBC’s Doctor Who). Production is done on a professional level, DVD’s are sold along with multitudes of other merchandise for the company that spawned from the show, and it is perhaps one of the most famous running series on YouTube.
But last year, shortly after the company’s 10-year anniversary, Rooster Teeth premiered a new series – RWBY. Debuted at RTX, an annual convention held by Rooster Teeth in early July, RWBY is the studio’s first dive into a series with completely original animation. With the first volume consisting of 16 episodes ranging between six and twelve minutes each, it has already become one of Rooster Teeth’s biggest assets.
RWBY falls into a disappointingly rare genre which blends the extremes of both fantasy and science fiction. The Grimm, a species of violent, soulless creatures based upon regular animals, occupy the unconquered wilds surrounding the hologram- and airship-filled society and are fought by people known as Hunters and Huntresses using both arcane abilities (known as Semblances) and high-tech, custom-forged weapons… all of which are unapologetically over-the-top in every way.
The story primarily follows Ruby Rose, a fifteen-year-old girl who is extremely talented in the use of her signature weapon Crescent Rose, which is one-part sniper rifle and one-part scythe, later revealed to be among the most uncommon and powerful weapon types in the show’s world of Remnant. After foiling a heist by an extremely high-profile criminal known as Roman Torchwick, Ruby, whose dream is to become a Huntress to protect those around her, is advanced by two years and enters early into Beacon Academy to study and live out her goal.
There she is teamed up with Weiss Schnee, an initially hostile heiress to an extremely wealthy company; Blake Belladonna, a quiet but zealous girl who chooses to keep her personal story under lock and key; and her own sister, Yang Xiao Long, who is laid back and confident but goes into a righteous fury when provoked. Together, the four girls’ initials make up the letters of RWBY, and the show quickly delves into them learning to become successful Huntresses while also figuring out how to work together. As Huntresses-in-training, however, they naturally end up involved in handling high-scale criminal activities, and with Roman wreaking havoc around their home city of Vale, school isn’t quite the biggest issue to the group.
One of the most interesting things about RWBY is its animation style. Despite being classified as an “anime,” which tends to imply a mostly two-dimensional format, the show is almost entirely done in three dimensions, using a style which places heavy emphasis on the primary cast while using minimal details to paint vivid, immersive worlds. Pop culture references also play a heavy hand – just about every character in the show represents some sort of fictional or historical character, such as Ruby being based on Little Red Riding Hood or Roman’s style taking after Alex of “A Clockwork Orange.” Despite the shortness of each episode and the focus on action as a driving point for the series, the cast is remarkably accessible to viewers, and many fans admit they don’t even realize they’re becoming attached to the characters until long after it has happened.
Although the style can be a bit off-putting before a viewer warms up to it, the show is for the most part extremely well-done. The soundtrack, which contains everything from heavy rock to orchestral and piano music, is composed entirely by Jeff Williams. Most vocals are done by either him or his teenaged daughter, Casey Williams; both are also involved in the soundtracks for Red Vs. Blue. The action choreography is wonderful, if occasionally slowed a bit for the purpose of letting specific points be expressed, leaving nothing to desire for a show centered on the trope of practically impossible weapons and combatting an ambiguous evil.
Thematically, it even manages to explore concepts of racism and civil war in the form of the White Fang, a peaceful-turned-radical group founded by members of the Faunus. The Faunus, despite holding a biological advancement over humans for the fact that each possesses some sort of animal trait, are discriminated against and treated as though they are a sub-par race by most humans. The White Fang, which began as a peaceful protest group after a civil war between the clashing species failed to change anything, is now known as a ruthless criminal group seemingly bent on conquering humanity. The parallels to pre-Civil Rights America are rather hard to miss.
The show, according to IMDb’s user-based review system, holds a score of 8.2 out of 10. This is reasonable, for the first season could be seen as either a bit slow-paced or a bit fast-paced, depending on the viewer, but it is still overall an excellent series and definitely worth looking into. For fans of Rooster Teeth or any of its previous productions, many voices will be easily recognizable as people already employed by the company.
The show is spearheaded by Monty Oum, with writing and animating done by many of the same people who produced Red Vs. Blue. RWBY is slated to debut its second season in July with another RTX premiere, after which the episodes will be posted on a standard schedule to Rooster Teeth’s website along with its YouTube channel and the well-known anime streaming website, Crunchyroll.