Okay guys, I'm gonna be honest about RWBY

I think its pretty mediocre...
Character wise (with some) and design wise its great.
But so far the story really seems cliched IMO, and I understand that the animation is not made with the best money but honestly....Its not that great either, voice actors are great....with most characters, I find some characters are not even trying to act.
If you like it I can see why, I'll watch it if I'm bored out of my mind, the action is great.
But really, its about a 6/10 for me, you know what, I'll be nice and say its a 6.5/10.

 

Llave, that is beautiful.

On RWBY though, I haven't been watching it since the first episode since I haven't had much time to, so I can't give much in the way of an opinion. But you do have to consider that this is, iirc, Oum's first time in a directorial position and that the episodes are all rather short (5 min on average). The VAs are also not professionals in the business either (not to say some professionals aren't lackluster either).

If anything, it probably needs some more time to get rolling and let the team & Oum find out what they really want it to be & how to make the cliches/tropes work for the characters rather than define them, if they are idek. If anything I think criticims like these'll help that process along, so long as no one is tearing down their doorstep to tell them they suck and should be tortured for "ruining" a show they majorly overhyped in their heads. :v

 

Agreed.

 

It's cute, very over hyped show though.

 

Not aure if it was over hyped exactly, I think it's just the general trend of people over exciting themselves without a lot of evidence. Good for the show, lots of attention and such.
Only thing I would wish for would be longer episodes, or more consistent length ones. Some that last less than 10 minutes just feel useless to watch when not much has happened.
Apart from that, i'm happy to watch it, it's an easy watch, nothing to complicated and the action is gripping. I would love to be an animator to just do crazy action choreography.

 

My thoughts exactly. I was super excited for the series when I first heard of it, since I'm a big fan of Monty's pure-action tributes. They didn't try to be deep or have arcs, they were meant to simply show cool battles, and they excelled at that.

But having watched 9 episodes so far, the hardest thing to do is be interested in these characters, with lackluster writing and cliches-bonanza (a few are ok, this much is just annoying.)

I've said plenty more in the thread for RWBY at the Movies and Media section.

 

Another thing just came to my mind as well, if they had longer episodes with more character backstory, maybe I could get past all of the cliches.
Honestly the only character's who has at least have a little backstory are Rwby and her sister (I guess). It felt like by episode 2 they just started throwing stuff at us at a fast pace.
I'd prefer longer episodes and a more slow pace if you know what I mean.
I remember watching the 4th episode and it was like, 5 minutes long and it just...ended leaving me saying "that's it?" sure you may think it may make me think "I wanna see the next episode" but it was the opposite, I thought "it was too short leaving it too unattractive, I'm not really hyped for whats coming next"

 

What's the problem with cliches?

 

Immediate fail when you spell Ruby's name with a 'w'.

Besides that, I agree. Not much in terms in character development, which when given the episode lengths. Not particularly happy with the runtimes of most of the episodes but I suppose there might be a reason why they are such a length. Animation is hard and anything longer might reduce the release time of each episodes, restrictions placed on the show's development to match those of other Rooster Teeth productions, etc. Who knows. As the show goes on it will likely improve. I'm probably being more forgiving then I should but eh.

Sounds like you went into this expecting heavy action. Which Monty said wouldn't be the focus. I'm sure there's more to it then that but that is what it sounds like to me.

None.

 

As I've said before in the RWBY thread, I went into this expecting things like decent writing, an intriguing story, and a low amount of cliches (which I only hate when they're overused in a work of fiction) compared to genuine surprises.

 

Oh right. Forgot. Sorry.

 

The writing is decent, it's not amazing or great, but it's decent enough to convey all that it needs to about the plot and the characters. It would be terrible if it wasn't cohesive, made sense or showed relationships between characters. Does the job.

Every cliché was unique at some point. Doesn't make it bad if people reuse proven formulas. Most every popular and successful series of any genre bases itself around clichés or purposefully subverting them, and in essence every writer is focused around clichés. At least, according to some literary theories.

 

"Decent" writing that "does the job" doesn't do it for me when it trying to give a damn about the plot or characters.

I don't have to be reminded how cliches aren't instantly a sign of bad writing lol. They exist for a reason. As I've said, I don't mind cliches, so long as writers don't almost solely rely on them, but unfortunately, the latter is how I feel about RWBY.

 

I'm only on like episode 6 or so, and I feel like it's getting better as it goes? Like, I thought the first one was pretty meh in terms of writing, and the second slightly better, and so on.
Honestly, I really like the humor and the fight scenes. The in between stuff isn't that bad (but could stand a little work, yes).
And, it's really just getting started. We'll probably get more about the characters as we go. No one complained that Dumbledore didn't get a full backstory until the seventh book.

Also, for those complaining about the episode length, go try to do 3D animation. I dare you. It is the most pain in the ass process I have ever gone through. It legit took me two days to model a door and animate it opening. I think Monty and his team are doing a pretty damn good job considering their budget and tools. Sure, it's no Pixar film, but it's definitely good.

 

I can agree that RWBY is definitely over-hyped. I caught up with it a few days ago.

The fight scenes are neat though. It's enjoyable.​

 

This is a complaint I just cannot understand people having. It's like they can either A) have longer periods of waiting between episodes so that they can cram together more stuff for a single, longer episode or B) go about it the way they are now with shorter episodes that air every week.

And yeah, animation's a ***** indeed. Even just working with WORDS can be so time-taking.

 

In professional writing, clichés are looked down upon, actually, ha. My Creative Writing lecturers always say to avoid clichés so you're more original as a writer. I don't mind them in the right quantity and if they're character traits that are explored, in more complex narratives. The problem with RWBY is that it's trying to emulate anime styles, which is a continuous cliché in itself. I almost hate to watch any anime anymore because the characters come in the same varieties these days, yet I like the way RWBY is. I think I know that RWBY is trying to follow clichés of the magical girl genre and not trying to be something it's not. Like I said, I respect a show being honest with me instead of trying to put on airs of intense serious drama, a witty comedy piece or some complex character development. It is what it is, a simple, easy to watch kind of thing.

Oh don't get me wrong, I know none of this is easy work, doing some abridged parody episodes showed me it's not easy to do anything with animation, let alone create it from scratch. I think mot all the animations are good. But I want episodes to be more rounded and complete. The problem is they're trying to releases this on an annual basis, which would be alright if they could meet the quality and length consistently each episode, it kinda compromises the series right now. I mean, when all of these are released, it won't feel as such a flowing complete package because of the disjointed episode flow which they're compromising so they can steadily release episodes. I'm the kinda person who would rather wait for each episode so they feel more complete, but that's up to Rooster Teeth, obviously.

 

I'm actually going to have to say this is the wrong way to be thinking about a purportedly professional and finished product.

First, I don't care how hard it is. It's their job. When a nuclear reactor melts down, you don't say, "cut the designer some slack, it's real hard to make a working nuclear reactor." When your computer doesn't work, you don't say, "Gee, I feel like Micrapple has it so hard, programming these incredibly complex interfaces and functions that I couldn't dream to ever reproduce." No, what most people, justifiably, do is expect a good product and get indignant about it when people don't deliver. They want something that is up to par, because that's the implied agreement between producer and consumer. If I'm going to give my time/money to someone, they had better make it worth my while. So difficulty isn't something you can legitimately bring up as an excuse. It's a reason, an understandable one, but it doesn't help their case in any way, shape, or form. So you can't use that as an argument in their favor.

Second, they're actually animating it as such BECAUSE it is easier. Traditional, hand drawn animation is so time consuming, difficult and costly in comparison to 3D animation that even Disney, one of the companies that made hand drawn big, stopped doing it for five years to reassess the viability of the format at all and has in the following four years made no indication that it did well enough to warrant another attempt. So even if I were to admit your, "it's pretty hard", argument, it falls flat because it's actually much easier than the alternative. They're taking the easiest way out and still failing is the way to look at this.

So, it's their fault for planning this whole thing badly and allowing it to be what it is. We have no obligation to forgive them for their lack of foresight which led to this trainwreck of a series.

In conclusion, you don't have to defend them and have no good reason to, why are you bothering?