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A retrospective look on the second half of Volume 6

Just over a month and a half ago, I did a retrospective on the first half of Volume 6- everything from Adam’s short up to The Grimm Reaper. Now in hindsight if I’d known the season was getting cut down an episode I’d have done the analysis a week earlier so it would be perfectly symmetrical, but life comes at you fast. I adored the first half of Volume 6 and still rank it as the best string of episodes quality wise that the show has ever had. It was very clear even early on that the crew over in Austin were going all out to prove that they knew what they were doing and could still create a stellar season of a show. I was confident at the time that the back half would stick the landing, and while it wasn’t as good as the first half, Volume 6′s second half still retains the quality that makes it one of the best volumes of the entire show and a standout piece of animation by any standards.

As such, this will be a review of every episode from Chapters 8 to 13, spoilers obviously will follow if you haven’t watched those.

Dead End- the stumbling block

So you know how I said in the retrospective for the first half of the volume that if chapter 8 was good than we’d get the longest uncut string of good episodes in all of RWBY? I’m pretty sure someone upstairs heard that and chose deliberately to make Chapter 8 the weakest episode of the season. There is good to be found here, but unfortunately every race has someone end up dead last and chapter 8 drew the short straw.

While the opening scene with Caroline and her minions is funny at first, it quickly drags on for too long and desperately needed another few goes with a weed-whacker to condense the scene. Barring setting up Corvodin as an obvious antagonist little is gained from the scene, especially given how much of the episode it consumes.

Jaune’s scene with Oscar remains... sketchy on a moral level, especially the accusation Jaune makes that Ozpin has been pretending to be Oscar the entire time. Jaune’s still not truly processed his grief over Pyrrha’s death and while I’m glad to see his anger at Ozpin return after it went missing in Volume 5, I think Jaune crossed the line when he decided to start manhandling Oscar. It’s also still really weird how outside of Yang and Weiss saying “Jaune!” with the concern you express when someone stubs their toe, no one actually runs over to pull Jaune off. It’s just a weird moment, I still don’t really like this scene or many of the defenses for it. Fuck’s sake, Oscar’s trembling like a leaf in a hurricane afterwards that stuff ain’t right.

Ruby’s scene with Maria is the real saving grace of the episode, especially since we finally got some solid information on the Silver Eyes, accompanied by some wonderful background music and cinematography. Maria really is one of the best characters in the show and it’s amazing how much audiences grew to love her in just one single year, so kudos to the writers, designers and actors for that. Maria’s Semblance is simple but neat, and you can actually go back and listen to the Maria vs Tock fight for their auditory trigger which is an insane attention to detail touch.

Also something I couldn’t fit in anywhere else; it’s sad but fairly realistic that Qrow falls right back off the wagon after the Corvodin meeting goes south.

Dead End has some quality to it, mostly in the back half with Maria and Ruby bouncing off each other wonderfully to create a great teacher-student dynamic, but the first half drags and is let down by an overly long intro before pouring gasoline on the fires of the anti-Jaune crowd.

Lost- The Refound Footing

Remember what I said in the first half of the volume retrospective, Em and Merc appearing is an instant thumbs up in my book. So an episode where they get half the episode to themselves, and even get to be in the thumbnail for the first time since Volume 3? Hoo boy, that’s a solid contender for episode of the season right there. And it nearly is, in all honesty. In fact, Lost’s only mis-step is how a part of it feels like the third act to a trilogy when we never saw the second part, but we’ll come back to that.

Mercury and Emerald’s scene is nothing short of breathtaking. There’s a lot of great lighting choices in this scene such as Emerald initially sitting in the darkness before rising and coming into the moonlit parts of the room after being confronted with her denial to believe that Cinder’s a monster, that lend the scene a bit of extra weight. Yuri and Katie are their usual amazing selves, especially since this is the first time either of them have been given some really meaty dialogue in a while.

Kerry had already teased content for Mercury was coming in the Reddit AMA, and we already knew the kick boi was sporting one of the darkest backstories of anyone in the show, but the curtain was uncovered here to make it absolutely obvious how much of a bastard Marcus Black was and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that interest in Mercury jumped up after this episode and the average theory on Team Jaded went from “Emerald will defect and Mercury will stay or die giving her a chance” to “Emerald and Mercury will leave as a group.”I also love how the Yang and Mercury foil status only continues to amplify, as now we have both of their fathers giving different advice and training in regards to their Semblances- Tai encouraged Yang to learn to control it and not to use it as a crutch unless she was sure it would finish the fight, while Marcus stole it so Mercury never got reliant in the first place.

Merc’s backstory is also making me salivate for when he finally gets to cut loose in a fight, since his two biggest fights- against Pyrrha and Yang- were him holding back, so Mercury fighting needing to worry about keeping his cover would be an insane fight. And if Cinder and Neo is any sign of the CRWBY’s skills with hand-to-hand fighting... yeah, Merc’s next bout will be something to look forward to. I also love that Merc spends this scene training his punches, showing that he’s covering his bases for the next time he gets to fight Yang or another brawler.

Emerald is still the best girl in this show. I love to hate how the music changes to a soft version of Cinder’s theme when Emerald explains why she’s backing Cinder, as if Emerald is twisting the music itself to make Cinder out to be the hero. Mercury bluntly telling her to stop living in fantasy land was a great moment that I’d been waiting years for, and “I’m sorry you didn’t have a mommy who loved you, but I had a father who hated me,” is just solid gold in writing.

I love how Merc’s smirk as he calls Emerald out on her denial just melts off his face because he cares enough to want Emerald to stop being delusional, but he’s not going to be nice about it.

Also can I just say Mercury, the whole “I think I’m right where I’m supposed to be” crap would work if literally every other one of your scenes this volume didn’t show you scared and clearly rethinking your life choices.

Tyrian’s tail upgrade is fine, but the real treat to his grand return is Tyrian playing psychoanalyist on Mercury and immediately calling bullshit on his above line- Merc’s only here because he’s been in a cycle of violence his whole life and is too afraid to leave it. The way he practically begs them to run because he called dibs on hunting them down is way too gleeful for my liking but given how Merc and Tyrian are two of my favorite villains right now, them finally getting to chat was a delight. I can’t wait until Volume 7 when we get to see Tyrian bounce off Watts without Mama Salem’s watchful eye.

OK I’m done talking about the best scene in the Volume. Now let’s talk about another great scene.

So first off I’d like to give my apprecation to the crew for making new Argus locals every episode we spend in it. It gives the city a lot more weight as a locale to see different streets and environs every week instead of prop recycling like a motherfucker. It gives Argus a lot more weight and makes it feel more lived-in than the few samey environments of Mistral that we got to see, and the streets are beautiful as a consequence. It also lets me play my new favorite spot, Spot The Emerald Clone!!

Jaune’s scene at the statue is a beautifully shot and acted scene, no complaints from me here and Forever Fall has already killed me and claimed my soul. I love how it calls back to the Volume 1 OP as well, and Miles and Jen kill it here. It’s on its own an amazing scene, but the wider problem is what sets it down. This is JN_R’s only scene this volume, and as a consequence it feels like it needs to include most all of their character beats since they won’t get the chance to otherwise- their mutual grief over Pyrrha is brought up, Nora tells Jaune to drop the suicidal tendencies he suddenly gained at Haven and Ren... is there. If JNR had more to do this volume I wouldn’t mind but this scene just gives the vibe of “JNR get one scene to develop and justify them staying to fight Salem and that’s it!” So nothing wrong with the scene itself, more the problem around it.

Finally we have Oscar’s sudden return. I think even if Chapter 8 hadn’t been the episode before the New Years break, fans wouldn’t have liked how this played out. Oscar really needs more character moments, especially after spending much of Volume 5 as just a fleshsack for Ozpin. Him going solo would have been a great way for Oscar to develop on his own and come to terms with his part to play in the war against Salem, maybe even have Ozpin or Ozma manifest and talk to him. Instead, he just goes and buys a new costume.

I still think Oscar lifted Qrow’s wallet for the record. And I still like his new outfit. The bandages give me Bungou Stray Dogs vibes.

So in this retrospective, I’ve been pointing out little moments for Ruby in each episode, moments where the writers pointedly have her take center-stage, even if just for a minute, to remind the audience that she’s the leader. Here, her moment is... fairly weak. Ruby’s inspirational speeches are never her strong suit, but her telling Qrow that they “didn’t need an adult” when he saved her from Tyrian back in V4 and Maria saved her from the Apathy just a few episodes ago is almost darkly comedic. Her quiet exasperation with Qrow when she finds him on the stairs is a much more understated moment that landed for me. Her hero worship for Qrow has been pretty much shattered at this point and now she’s just tired of his crap.

Lost is just an amazing episode. Mercury and Emerald are easily the most interesting characters in the series for me, this episode gives us more sights of Argus, the statue scene is wonderful and now I have the mental image of Oscar lifting Qrow’s wallet to go stress shopping as my favorite headcanon of the volume. Ruby’s speech is a little phoned in but it’s still a decent ending to a fantastic episode, and it’s easily my favorite episode in the entire season as a consequence.

Stealing From The Elderly- Most Apt Name For An Episode 2K19

The Argus Battle episodes all vary in quality- while none of them are outright bad episodes, some flow more smoothly or have more standout moments than the other. There is, however, one constant.

They’re all too fucking short. Half of the episodes are just barely fourteen minutes long, and taking out the Genlock preview and the opening and closing credits, it’s more generous to say they’re ten to twelve minutes on average. While I will take shorter, more concise episodes over something that drags on longer than it needs to (see Dead End and the opening scene again for my thoughts on that), there is a point where I must bemoan the length being too short. Especially when some of these episodes are insanely good.

Jaune’s plan is alright. Not quite as much of a disaster as some make it out to be, it’s a decent plan if lacking in contingencies. I think it’s noteworthy that had Adam not intervened, the plan would have gone off without a hitch.

The first half of the episode is also really funny. Corvodin’s guards are a lot easier to manage in the shorter pace of the episode and Maria is just a goldmine of comedy. Like I said earlier, it’s amazing how fast the fandom fell in love with this salty old grandma. I also love the joke that Maria’s jargon was perfect (which it is in real life btw I checked), but the guards knew something was up because their pilots aren’t old women.

The one real drag to the episode is Qrow having another angst episode and bemoaning how everything is his fault again, which just seems to be in the episode so Ruby can have another Ruby Moment. This is perhaps the weakest of all of her moments in the season, as it feels the most shoved in for the sake of being able to say “We gave Ruby something to do in every episode!” Which is fine, but repetition is a beast best avoided when possible in writing.

The mech is kinda cool, at least. And for the record, Corvodin is the guilty party in this conflict- yes, Ruby and co stole military equipment, but it was Caroline’s call to escalate to the Walking Gen;Lock Ad. They could easily have just dispatched other airships to catch the protagonists.

Adam’s return was a bit of a wet fart, unfortunately. A CRWBY episode released days prior to this episode releasing accidentally had mocap footage of someone fighting with Adam’s style, and storyboards that could be seen in this episode showed he was fighting Blake during it. Had the CRWBY episode not been so blatant in spoiling the surprise the twist of him suddenly arriving may have had more impact, but alas. I will say on an animation level, the fight in the tower is pretty good, if a bit clunky compared to what comes after. It makes good use of the environment and has Adam and Blake constantly crawling up and down the tower, giving the fight a bit of a unique quality to it. I also like the new visual additions to Adam’s Moonslice such as the bolt of lightning that crawls up his back.

Stealing From The Elderly is a decent, if very short, opening act to the Argus Battle episodes. It sets up the major conflicts of this trilogy of episodes, and has some great wit at the beginning, but doesn’t have much to make it stand out on its own.

The Lady In The Shoe-

Pretty. Fucking. Stellar. This episode is almost all fight scene, and works for the most part.

The mech fight is unfortunately the letdown of this part, and I’d probably rank it as the least exciting fight of Volume 6. While it does have some great moments such as Ruby getting to run on goddamn missiles, Ren actually getting to do something and not job for once, Ruby and Weiss’s great moment on the Lancer, everyone getting a moment to themselves where they get to land a blow on the mech (barring Oscar) and a new song in Big Metal Shoe, it’s overall a very slow battle that never really picks up. It doesn’t help that Caroline as a villain is very one-note, an exaggerated caricature who we know won’t stop the heroes, she’s just a stop gap for them.

Honestly though, the fight in this part of the episode just peaks at Ruby zooming up and firing her sniper rifle one handed at Caroline, and landing a no-scope right on the window. Heck, go and look and it’s at head level with Caroline. Ruby went right for the kill shot! God it’s so cool to see Ruby being a badass again.

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But of course the real highlight of this episode and of the entire Argus Battle sequence was Adam’s brawls against Blake and Yang, the latter of which has already earned a spot in most people’s favorite fights of the entire show list. Every time I thought Volume 6 had peaked fight wise, it got one more burst of energy and make a new “best of the season” fight to top the last. Cinder vs Neo was topped by Maria vs Tock, and now that was beaten out by Adam vs Yang. I can look at this fight and find a new favorite moment each time- Blake putting Adam’s sword into her sheath and disarming him for a few seconds while dual wielding for the first time in years, Adam’s almost instant turns whenever Blake uses her Semblance on him and him breaking Gambol Shroud, Yang smashing Adam with the bike, the list goes on. It’s not only great to see the Adam/Yang test footage getting remade to give the fight an extra edge, but as someone who wrote a lot of words on what the Battle of Haven did to Adam’s reputation, it was great to see the CRWBY remedying that mistake and giving him and Yang a fantastic battle, easily their strongest outings. Yang in particular really has evolved since Beacon, with her style having specifically changed to counter Adam and a whole barrage of new tricks- that rapid-fire machine gun punch is beautiful.

If this is how Yang fights now, her rematch against Mercury is going to be a fucking treat.

Adam’s face reveal was also a big shock. Some people had predicted branding but I don’t think anyone specifically called that he would have the SDC logo plastered on his eye socket. It’s a rather haunting sight, and puts his utter hatred for humanity in a startling light. It doesn’t excuse Adam of his actions, especially the abuse he put Blake through, but it puts a lot of Adam’s older actions- his disregard of the people on the train the Black trailer, his sadistic grins in his short whenever he was dominating humans- in a new context. Kudos to CRWBY for finding a way to take what most people thought they’d called already and putting a new spin on it.

While the mech fight isn’t stellar (though Nora’s moment of “You get back here with MY MAN!” was adorable), Adam vs Yang on its own makes this a high-ranking episode of the season with what cannot be stated enough as a good fucking fight. Melanie, you are a goddamn boss and I can’t wait to see you get that team working on more battles.

Seeing Red- The Assassination of Adam Taurus by the Not-So-Cowardly Blake Belladonna

So uh... last episode had Maria’s ship get hit with a missile, then it’s fine in this one? No smoke trails, not even any damage? OK?

Mech fight isn’t as good as it was last time, unfortunately. Ruby’s speeching is still rather annoying but at least she makes up for it by jumping into the cannon to make sure we all realize Volume 5 Ruby is a thing of the past. A really nice touch was her psyching herself up for a second before taking the second shot. It reminded me of Wonder Woman when Steve dies, he takes a second to breathe before firing. I like that she didn’t succeed with the first plan to shoot the missiles, it added a little tension to the fight. I also loved her moment with Qrow when he tried to stop her, it was a really soft and humanizing moment for both of them.

Adam vs Yang and Blake is still great, but last episode has it beat for sheer choreography. I very much enjoyed seeing them tag-team Adam, but part of me finds it funny that after Lady In The Shoe’s declaration of “We’re protecting each other,” Blake gets knocked out 40 seconds into the fight while Yang has to fight Adam for over a minute.

It was great to see the fire hair finally make a return, and having it serve as part of a climax where we see Yang correct her error when she fought Adam at Beacon- literally, they recreate the move where Adam cut her arm off but this time Yang dodges to the side first- was an amazing touch. And the hair looks pretty great too.

Adam’s death was a bit of a shock. It’s karma, no doubt, and ultimately this fight was only going to end with either him or the protagonists dead. But to be honest, I don’t think anyone expected him to win, especially after Weiss and Cinder took a spear to the narrative stakes last year. After the branding reveal I was personally hoping (but I was 90% sure he’d die) that Adam would get knocked off the cliff (I suppose I wasn’t wrong on that front at least) and get picked up by Cinder and Neo, then he’d become a problem in the Atlas arc. In particular I feel it would have been a great way to tie Adam into Weiss’s plot, as a way for her to see first hand that the SDC under Jacques is directly creating the monsters that go on to kill Weiss’s family. I’m fine with the death here, so long as what Jacques has done to the Faunus still appears in the Atlas seasons. But I feel this was a good place to see him off. On a technical level it would have been difficult for the crew to top the fighting scene in Chapters 11 and 12, while on a thematic level unless Adam went full-in on the Faunus cause he would have felt like dead weight. In effect, he’d have become the villain’s version of ReNora in how useful he really was for the plot. Additionally, even with the choreography here, had he run away again or lost I think that would have been a nail in the coffin for Adam’s threat-factor regardless. So ultimately, this was the best place to get rid of him, and at least he went out with a good death. (i really hope none of this paragraph gets twisted by someone trying to say i’m an abuse apologist, been down that road already thanks)

Also Blake breaking down was harsh. Her and Yang are gonna need to have a long conversation or six about trauma because that’s the closest either of those girls are getting to therapists in this death world. But for real, the finale all but confirmed that Blake and Yang are endgame, and whether your own thoughts on that, their arcs next volume should be about addressing that before romantic tension comes in. We’ve got at least six volumes left, the show can afford to take it slow and have them get some therapy before they get a Tinder profile.

... though I will complain about one thing about the fight. Adam’s sheath is a gun, why didn’t he just try and shoot Blake and Yang after he lost Wilt? He just rushes for the broken fragments of the sword when he has a working gun at his belt. Literally, the one thing I don’t like about the fight itself and it’s the epilogue to it.

Seeing Red’s fighting choreography might not be as impressive as Lady In The Shoe for either fight, but both are augmented by instead focusing on the characters and nailing a lot of the symbolism in its key moments. Ruby gets to shine with a hell of an insane move, and the show parts ways with its first real villain.

RIP goatboi, you were trash but at least it was fun to watch you swing your weeb stick. Thanks for sucking in Volume 5 so much I started writing narrative essays about the show as a consequence.

Our Way- And now, the end is near, and so I face, the final curtain

As an episode, Our Way is pretty cool. As a finale, it’s a bit weak, continuing the meta trend of season finales getting shorter every volume since V3. Nothing here is inherently bad, in fact it’s a lot of good material, but it’s not finale material.

Ruby’s arc (well it’s not really an arc but that’s a subject for another post) has been building up to the moment where she finally become a proper leader, and her facing down the Leviathan was that moment. The shots of this thing looming over Ruby are cinematic gold. I love that Ruby uses Jinn’s time stop feature to cheat out a few more seconds to prepare her Silver Eyes, and that Jinn, albeit begrudgingly, admits that she made a good play. When a near omnipotent lamp admits you’ve got some moves, you really have come a long way as a fighter.

The 2D stills of the Beacon season moments were a delight to behold, especially thanks to the added detail they gave moments like Weiss giving Ruby coffee and Penny’s death. The Summer appearance was amazing and made the finale for me, and it fading right as the lyrics to Indomitable kick in is a fantastic rush of emotions. Four lines and that song’s already my most anticipated track on the volume. I’m kind of bitter it wasn’t the credits song if I’m being honest.

Corvodin getting the final blow on the Leviathan was mixed. I appreciated how fucking anime it was that she used her DRILL THAT COULD PIERCE THE HEAVENS to kill Bubbles, but that the Leviathan was just so casually one-shotted made for a bit of an anticlimax to the battle. I’m not exactly also fond of the racist old hag being given a “soft” redemption but whatever.

Really that’s my one big problem with this. I get that there was no real way to have another big Grimm fight, but it makes the Battle of Argus feel like a bit of a cheap fight as a consequence. I’m overall fine with the result, but it does weaken the finale as a direct consequence. If the Ruby Silver Eyes moment didn’t land for you I can imagine this finale being rather weaksauce. Still, at least most of it was onscreen this time, so progress over Haven. It’s overall an OK episode but it needed a bit more time in the oven to make it a great finale. I didn’t hate it, but I can’t deny that outside of the character moments it wasn’t as climactic as I hoped it would be, especially once they cut episode 14 as I assumed that meant a longer than normal finale to compensate for the runtime. If you like Ruby, this is a great conclusion to a season that’s been great for her overall. If you don’t? Well, twelve out of thirteen good episodes.

Really though, Our Way made clear one important fact. Blake will never be allowed to solo her own songs, she will always have to share it with someone else. Honestly after From Shadows, Wings, Like Morning Follows Night, This Time and now Nevermore, it has to be deliberate that Blake only gets duets.

Also you remember how I pointed out that each even-numbered season up to V6 opened with Em and Merc? Well the tradition was kinda kept alive because they closed out Volume 6. Fitting that they be the ones we close out the Mistral seasons with, alongside literal flying monkeys. At least Mercury has his eyebrows back to normal now so... character arc?

... oh yeah and Neo and Cinder were in this I guess

Conclusion

Volume 6 is stellar, superb, at times outright spectacular. As a fan who felt Volume 5 was at best mediocre and at worst just bad, Volume 6 is an immediately counteraction and a redemption arc for RWBY as a show. Almost all of the major criticisms that had been levied at the Maya Era since Volume 4 started- janky animation, poor pacing, underused characters, weak fights, poorly explained backstories and weak villains among countless others- were all addressed and fixed to a certain extent. Ruby finally feels like the protagonist of her own story, Salem and Ozpin’s backstories have been explored, Adam was given a shred of sympathy before his death, the songs were great, the fights were stellar and it managed to, for the most part, stick the landing.

Granted, the first half is far better paced and written, the pacing does take a hit once RWBY reach Argus, but a conscious step was taken to avoid the Mistral House Round 2, we only spend three episodes in the Cotta-Arc house and a large portion of time outside it to boot. Miles said in a post-RTX interview that the plan was for each episode to have at least one new location per episode to avoid repetition and for the most part, they succeeded. As a consequence, the world feels more alive than it ever has before, Argus feels much more intimately known and we see the characters reacting to new environments and stimuli. But regardless, things slow down and hit a roadblock at Argus and while the pacing smooths out, it does break the stellar flow the earlier episodes had managed to keep going.

The Argus Battle episodes, while as a whole better shot and choreographed than last year’s battle at Haven, have far smaller stakes. The mech fight has some entertaining moments but fails to entertain, but the slack is thankfully picked up by Adam vs B&Y which will top a lot of “best fight of the show” lists for a while to come. But still, the episodes feel less wide-reaching than the Beacon or Haven versions, and perhaps because of this, the final episode fails to excite as much as it does due to the Battle for Argus having no real stakes or danger. It leads to a great moment, but it’s not as exciting as it could have been.

While overall the pacing was very good, one plot did drag- Cinder and Neo. This did not need to be in Volume 6 and while I liked their fight, Cinder’s plot is rather blatantly just there to set up Volume 7 and their threat there. While it did give the crew a chance to finally explore Mistral’s criminal underworld that had been teased in the World of Remnant, Mistral still feels woefully underused compared to Vale thanks to a shoddy start. As well, plain and simply, I just don’t like Cinder and Neo as much as I do the other villains, and I’d have rather their screentime be used on the other villains- a segment of Adam stalking Blake in Argus, more of Emerald and Mercury processing Cinder not being around anymore, Hazel and the duality of his want for pacifism and his utter hatred of Ozpin, Tyrian and Watts and the inevitably buddy cop drama that will ensue from them. This is a personal gripe, I’m aware, but Cinder has still failed to grab me as a villain six volumes in- hopefully now that there’s one less villain to juggle, she can finally get something to hook us in next volume. Also I just don’t like Cinder’s new outfit, give Em and Merc new outfits already for Christ’s sake.

Another plot that didn’t so much drag as was just removed was Oscar going missing. I was sure this would lead to an Oscar solo scene where he’d get to confront Ozma and Ozpin and figure out his place in life. As it is, it feels like he just went missing so Jaune, Ren and Nora could have the statue scene. At least his new costume is nice.

But overall, the second half was good, no, great a lot of the time after the awkward stop in Dead End. Volume 6′s second half may not have been as grandiose as it could/should have been, but it still maintained a steady pace, gave us a lot of fantastic standout scenes, great combat and character beats while finally leaving the ghost of Volume 5 behind on Mistral. I am thoroughly onboard for Volume 7, and I am now eager to see where Miles, Connor, Kerry and Melanie steer the ship.

Thank you for reading.

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