*This blog is dedicated to the life, memory and work of Monty Oum. May your work and life never be forgotten. RIP. *
Hello ad welcome Project Nitsuj. Welcome to a special blog of Project Nitsuj where today I’m taking look at one if not the greatest Amerime shows out there. I am of course talking about RWBY. After the success of the first season and taking a one year break the crew of RWBY came back ready to continue the story in 2014. While there wasn’t much promotion into this season as the first season all Rooster Teeth had to do was just show us a trailer of the second and we were already hyped. And to be fair the trailer was pretty awesome it showed action, talks of war, and a school dance what’s not to get excited about? Let’s see how the second season holds up and take a look at RWBY season 2.
Opening and Ending Themes
The opening for this season is “Time To Say Goodbye” by Jeff and Casey Lee Williams. This song is a little darker as opposed to season one’s opening. The song is talking about how the enemies of the series are gathering and growing stronger and are heroes are reaching that breaking point where they can no longer sit by and let the adults handle them so instead they’ll take it upon themselves to fight the enemies themselves and put what they’ve learned to the test. While the song is good I still like the season one’s opening better because that song gets you energetic from the get go. This song takes its time to build up and when it really reaches its highest point it ends too soon. Also, I will comment and say that the animation for this opening is visually amazing to look at. The ending for this season is a different song for each episode. Much like how the first season had a different ending song each episode to show off the soundtrack for the show the second season also uses this tactic allow with amazing artwork as the background for the credits. Which soundtrack do I think is the best? You’ll get my answer at the end of the review.
Episodes 1-4
So the show starts off in town where it’s said 2 weeks have passed since the end of the first season (felt like a year to me) as the girls are about to start their second semester (ohh~ we missed the vacation hijinks. I was really looking forward to a beach episode). We meet two new characters named Emerald voiced by Katie Newville and Mercury voiced by J.J. Castillo (who have a bit of sexual tension going on between them). These two are associates of Cider who are taking care of a little problem at a book store. We then go back to our four heroines relaxing in the cafeteria where one thing leads to another and we get. . .the best food fight ever (scene here: //youtu.be/3yhmrFN6A-g. BY GOD WAS THAT AWESOME! That’s how you start the new season off! That was amazing it had everything). After that epicness we go to Emerald and Mercury who have returned to Roman and tell him that Tuskon has been taken care of which upsets him because he was keeping an eye on him. A fight is about to break out between them but it gets interrupted by Cider voiced by Jessica Nigri who is the big baddy and leader of this group (you got some operation going on her Cider). Now some people have complained about Jessica’s voice acting saying it’s wooden at times and yeah at times she can be a little wooden but here I think she does a good job voicing Cider. Emotionless, sexy, and dangerous that’s the kind of vibe I get from Cider. Cider tells Roman to pack up everything because they’re moving phase 2 to end the episode.
Episode 2 starts off with the military arriving at the footsteps of the academy (if you’ve come for peace you surrender if you’ve come to attack us we surrender). This military force is being led by Ironwood (is that some kind of innuendo?) an old friend of Ozpin who is the headmaster of an academy in Atlas as well as a military leader (and apparently likes to show off his military force. You compensating for something Ironwood?). They talk about a dangerous threat on the horizon where Ironwood thinks they should be cautious and prepare for the worst (understandable but still when you send an entire military force across the world you’re sending a very bad message to everyone) while Ozpin thinks things should be handled tactfully and with discrete (agreed). After their talk we cut to the library where our 4 heroines are playing a game that’s a cross between Risk and Yu-Gi-Oh (congratulations RWBY, you guys have managed to make both games even more complicated than they needed to be). Sun comes in and introduces us to his good friend and teammate Neptune voiced by Kerry Shawcross who I can only describe as cool (that or flirt as he seems to hit on just about every girl in this show. I guess he’s our Brock). Blake leaves the game because she feels that she’s the only one who’s taking what happened at the end of last season seriously while everyone else isn’t (don’t be a Weiss Blake). We also see that Blake is still hiding the fact that she’s a Faunus from the academy because according to her the world still hasn’t accepted her species and doesn’t want to attract unnecessary attention (too late for that my little black kitten). They meet up back in their dorm where Weiss confronts Blake about her behavior which she finds unacceptable (//youtu.be/07So_lJQyqw) and Blake comes clean and tells them all she’s still worried about the White Fang, what they’re planning, and why no one is taking this seriously (because the plot hasn’t demanded it yet). They calm Blake down and decide they’re gonna take down whatever plans the White Fang and Roman are up to together (I do hope the city has insurance because they’re gonna destroy half the city). Also, Cider, Emerald, and Mercury have entered the academy posing as transfer students (which I find hard to believe. I mean Emerald and Mercury pull it off but Cider? No offence but she looks like she’s in her early or mid-20s).
In episode 3 Team RWBY heads out into the city to gather information on the White Fang and Roman and their conversation gets overheard by Sun and Neptune who were eavesdropping on them out the window (you do know this is a crime and something tells me Sun has done this multiple times before in the past). They split into three teams, Ruby and Weiss will try to get information from the Schnee company, Blake and Sun will see if they can track down the White Fang in the city, and Yang and Neptune will see what they can find on Roman by using one of Yang’s sources (also, everyone’s wearing street clothes. It’s a nice change of pace). They all go out where to a great credit to this episode we actually learn a little more about the world of RWBY such as how they have these transit towers which allow communication between the kingdoms and how the technology is pretty advance as they have android soldiers (who aren’t annoying like some other androids I know) and holograms that allow people to make speeches in public and monitor buildings. As Ruby and Weiss are walking through town they run into Penny who pretends not to know them and runs away. Ruby chases after her while Weiss makes a call to her family company in a public phone area and everything (why didn’t she use her cellphone we see later they have them? Also, when she tells the assistant she wants to make a call to the Schnee Company the assistant doesn’t bat an eye or anything. Yeah she’s a hologram but still is this like a common day occurrence or something? I mean last season they established Schnee is a big and power corporation so you would think talking to them would be next to impossible. Are they allowed to make calls to these big corporations any time they want? What an open world). We do find out that Weiss has an older sister named Winter who Weiss doesn’t wanna talk to hinting that they’re relationship isn’t all that great (now I’m even more curious to meet her). Back with Ruby she catches up to Penny who explains that she was under strict orders not to talk or interact with anyone within the city (and you thought your parents were strict). A few military men spot Penny and chase after her and Ruby where Ruby falls into the streets and is about to get hit by a truck but Penny pushes her out of the way and stops the truck with her bare hands (she’s Supergirl. It all makes sense now). Normal citizens are shocked by this (not me I’ve learned to accept this) and it finally gets revealed that Penny is what everyone has been calling her this whole time a robot.
Episode 4 opens up where episode 3 left off with Penny explaining that she’s the world’s first robot who can produce an aura. She begins to feel sad because she’s not a real girl and afraid Ruby will hate her now but Ruby assures her that they’re still friends no matter what. The military men catch up to them and Penny throws Ruby in a dumpster for safety and gets taken away by them to end the scene. We then cut to Yang and Neptune who have just arrived outside of Junior’s club (a nice call back to Yang’s trailer) where they break into the club and interrogate Junior where he says he knows nothing and they leave. While that route turned out to be a bust Blake and Sun have luck by infiltrating a White Fang meeting where they find Roman and discover they have moved their operation down south (because nothing ever happens in the dirty south) and have acquired some military battle suits (IT’S A GUNDAM). After Roman’s somewhat inspirational speech he notices Blake and Sun in the audience and more epicness happens (scene here: //youtu.be/na5xyUzJE5w, best fight this season).
Episodes 5-8
Episode 5 starts off with some good sparring matches featuring the red-hair warrior badass goddess herself Pyrrha (scene here: //youtu.be/NQUys48E0KE, well I’m in love and Mercury’s fighting style reminds me of Sanji from One Piece. I guess Monty was a fan. Can’t say I blame him). After that it gets announced that there’s going to be a dance that Sunday with Weiss and Yang planning the event and they all want Blake to attend because she’s become obsessed with finding Roman and the White Fang and I mean really obsessed. She doesn’t sleep, barely eats, and is constantly in thr library doing research (man Blake’s a workaholic. Aren’t cats usually lazy?). While the group is worrying about Blake, Weiss receives a visit from Jaune who wants to go to the dance with her and she says no (and she wonders why people call her ice queen). Jaune talks to Pyrrha about this (nooooo~) and she says to try for someone else (yes like the beautiful badass goddess who’s standing right next to you and for some reason sleeps in the same room as you. Yeah like I said in my last review the school is placing a lot of trust on their students not to do something stupid). Jaune begins talking how good she’s got it and that she’ll have guys storming to be her date at the dance (*bangs head on wall* can you honestly not see that the girl wants to be with you) and bets that if Pyrrha doesn’t get a date he’ll wear a dress to the dance in front of everyone.
The dance arc continues in episode 6 as Yang takes it upon herself to talk to Blake and get her to come to the dance and relax (scenes her: //youtu.be/n2FGaCn-WSI, not gonna lie that might be seen as a little racist, //youtu.be/zyu2jAD6sdo. //youtu.be/yZkN-53h5Os, this was a great scene, and the hand-drawn flashback was lovely. This scene was huge development on Yang’s part. It shows us that Yang isn’t just Ruby’s big sister she’s the big sister of the whole group. She really does care about her friends and watches out for them like a sister would. This scene also shows us that despite Yang’s overconfident and in control personality this is a person who knows and understands her mistakes in the past and doesn’t wanna see herself or her friends make the same mistake she did. Finally, this scene confirms to us that Ruby and Yang are half-sisters. For those saying they’re stepsisters here’s the difference. Step siblings are people who have entirely different moms and dads. Half siblings are siblings who share half of the genes from their parents. In this case Ruby and Yang have different moms but half of their genes come from the same dad). In plot B of this episode Jaune goes to Ren for advice on how to win Weiss’ hearts (because he’s clearly shown to be the ladies’ man hasn’t he?). Actually Jaune goes to him for advice because he believes Ren and Nora are dating (not yet) with Nora outright denying this (you think he would know this considering that they all live in the same room). Pyrrha comes in and tells Jaune to just be himself and just tell Weiss how he really feels (*bangs head on wall again* practice what you preach Pyrrha). Jaune takes her advice and decides to go meet Weiss but before he can talk he sees her talking to Neptune and asking him to the dance since she seems to like him (he’s too cool). Heartbroken by this Jaune walks away confessing nothing. The episode ends with Blake going to the dance with Sun and giving her first dance to Yang (let the fan fiction begin).
Episode 7 is the final episode of the dance arc and focuses primarily on everyone’s favorite comic relief character Jaune with Daft Punk as the DJs (I’m not kidding Daft Punk are the DJs at this dance). After not finding a date he joins Ruby at the punch bowl and makes a toast to the socially awkward (Seras: I’ll drink to that. (Nitsuj): You’re not socially awkward you’re just socially scary. (Seras): Really? (Yin-Yang): Yeah we’re used to you but you’re scary. And when put in a public setting you- (Nitsuj): I think what Yin-Yang is trying to say is you don’t make the best first impressions in public. Remember that time you got into a fight with a bunch of bronies at the mall because you insulted Applejack. (Yin-Yang): She did what!? (Nitsuj): Yeah. It was worse than the time she went into the Apple store and tried to choke out Siri. (Yin-Yang): Why? (Seras): I hate that bitch). Ruby spills the beans and says that Neptune turned down Weiss (son of a bitch) and Jaune decides to have a few words with him but before he can reach him he gets distracted by Pyrrha (wearing a stunning red dress) who is alone (don’t screw it up this time). He follows Pyrrha to a balcony outside where he finds out that Pyrrha doesn’t have a date for the dance (//youtu.be/TH6Acpzurb0). It turns out all the boys were too afraid to ask her out. Everyone places her on this big pedestal and believes she’s too good for them and thus keeps their distance away from her. This is why she likes Jaune so much. He was the first person to willingly approach her like a normal person and treated her like one allowing her to make friends and everything (in other words Jaune, she wanted to go to the dance with you and no one else). After saying her piece she leaves and Neptune comes in where Jaune berates him for turning down Weiss getting him to confess that the reason he turned her down was because he can’t dance and didn’t wanna make a fool of himself in front of her (okay, you, douchebag, end of story). Jaune tells Neptune to just be himself and nothing more (yeah that seems to be the popular thing these days) showing that he’s giving up on Weiss (he’s has finally opened his eyes). Following Jaune’s advice Neptune goes to speak to Weiss and Janue keeps to his promise and wears a dress to the dance (mad respect right there bro) and ask Pyrrha to dance where he and the rest of team JNPR dance the night away (scene here: //youtu.be/uySNeBBBgVI). While everyone dances the night away Cider, Emerald, and Mercury have plans of their own (and unfortunately this is where we get the worst animation in the series to this day. Scene here: //youtu.be/RkJK57OGvFg, the one thing that saves this scene from being total crap is the awesome choreography in the fights, and Cider’s move set to show us she’s not just some one-note villain).
Episode 8 starts off with Ruby being interrogated by Ozpin and Ironwood (again is that an innuendo for something?) about last night (//youtu.be/6nSKkwzwdW4?t=3s). She drops the hint to Ozpin that the White Fang has a hideout located south and takes her leave. Ironwood wants to send an army down there to tear the place apart but Ozpin decides to handle this tactfully and instead puts his trust in his students. Back at the dorm the group is preparing for their first school mission where they’ll be working with an actual Huntsman/Huntress. Before leaving Ruby and Yang receive a letter from home (scene here: //youtu.be/VFLJ8-j_1AY). After that the group tries to take a mission in the south but missions in the south are unavailable for first year students according to the rules (screw the rules we are main characters). Ozpin comes in and decides that instead of waiting for them to break the rules he’ll do it for them and gives them permission to take that mission in the south (what a cool ass headmaster). Before they take off they meet Velvet another Faunus character who somehow has become quite popular in the RWBY universe (I think it’s the accent) and is a part of Team CFVY. The episode ends with the group shocked to see that the Huntsman they’ll be shadowing is Oobleck a history teacher at the academy who is always drinking coffee (addict).
Episodes 9-12 and specials
In episode 9 the group arrives at Mount Glenn. Originally it was a city that served as an expansion of Beacon but it became overrun with Grimms and was abandoned serving as a reminder of the kingdom’s failure (//youtu.be/Ek1ktZO3lLw). They get dropped off and are quickly attacked by Grimm. After that they continue to search the surrounding area where Oobleck asks all the girls why they became huntresses. Yang is because she’s a thrill seeker, she enjoys adventures and if she saves people while having an adventure it’s all the better. Weiss is because she feels it’s her duty and Blake because she wants to change the corruption of the world. While these are all good reasons to be huntresses Oobleck feels these aren’t the real answers they’re looking for. To be honest their reasons for being huntresses aren’t bad. The only one I think you could make the argument for being bad is Yang’s reason but even then she says she wants to help people. He doesn’t ask this question to Ruby because we already know why she wants to be a huntress she wants to help people. She doesn’t want anything in return nor does she expect anything in return. She just wants to help other people and that’s it. They setup camp in a building where they take turns on watch duty to call it an episode.
Nothing much to say about episode 10. Yang, Weiss, and Blake realize that being a huntress is a job and responsibility that requires them put the needs of others before their own needs and that was what Oobleck wanted them to say. Ruby and Zwei see members of the White Fang during their watch and Ruby being the fearless girl that she is follows them where she falls down a hole which leads to an underground city (hey its New Mole City), loses her weapon, gets captured by the White Fang, and is taken to Roman (who considers this a bad thing).
Episode 11 opens up with Roman toying with Ruby (you think after everything she’s put him through he would kill her right away) but he gets interrupted with the arrival of the others. Roman tells everyone to get on train and they ride out via rail tracks with RWBY and Oobleck catching a ride. Roman begins blowing up carts on the tracks which creates holes and allows Grimms to enter the tunnels (White Fang in the front and creatures of Grimm in the back. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place). Oobleck figures out that Roman is leading the Grimm to Beacon so now the race is on to stop the train before they arrive at Beacon and the girls get charged with another destruction of public property. Ruby, Oobleck and Zwei fight on top of the carts while Yang, Weiss, and Blake infiltrate the carts and each have their own one on one fight (this was not the best person for Yang to fight against). Back up top Oobleck guards the rear with Zwei while Ruby reaches the front and is reunited with the others where it’s too late. The train has finally reached Beacon and crashes directly into the city square where Grimms start pouring out into the streets and attack people (scene here: //youtu.be/xoX3HgCTebc, well this will a good story for the 10 o’clock news).
In the final episode of the season we just get action from beginning to end. Grimm have overrun the city and now all the hunters, huntresses, and army must combine their forces to stop them. Everyone shows up to lend a hand even Team CFVY comes in to help out (Everybody pick a Grimm, and kill it. Scenes here: //youtu.be/7T00_xUfBPI the girl with the gattling gun needs to be seen more). After all the fighting Roman gets taken in by the army, the councilmen of Beacon appoints Ironwood head of security for the festival, Adam returns to fill in Roman’s part in Cider’s faction (you can’t replace Roman that’s guys too great), and Yang meets that mysterious woman who saved her on the train who bears a striking resemblance to Ruby. Now a lot of people have complained this ending was anti-climactic because of no big boss fight but I think it fits well with the season. This whole season has shown us how the forces of evil are gathering and are slowly building up surrounding the heroes and gaining the upper hand. Even when the heroes have won the fight they’re still in the dark on what they’re enemies are planning and still have a huge hill to climb. The big boss fight isn’t needed yet because the stakes aren’t high enough yet, only when the stakes are high enough can a boss fight appear. Another complaint people have is team CFVY (pronounced Caffeine) being overpowered in the fight. According to Monty CFVY is a second year team which means they have more field experience and training meaning they know how to handle themselves on the field better than the other teams we’ve seen so far so it makes sense why they’re overpowered.
This season of RWBY gave us a few specials known as World of Remnant. There are three of these specials and their purpose is to give us more info about the world of RWBY that the main series didn’t have a chance to dive into. Each of them is under 5 minutes long and are all narrated by Jen Taylor (Cortana from the Halo video games). The first one talks about Dust (//youtu.be/9BJc7nrMnc4), the second about the kingdoms of Remnant (//youtu.be/AvUT2rHKJDs), the third which is my favorite talks about the Grimm (//youtu.be/-PE66fmjZ0I). The only downside to these is that I wish there were more of them such as going into what happened to the moon or going into more depth about aura and semblance. But despite this the World of Remnant is a good supplementary series into the world of RWBY explaining the various parts of the story the show doesn’t have time to go into and allows the show to focus on the main story while developing it’s characters. Hopefully in the future we get to see more of these.
Final Thoughts
So that was the second RWBY and it’s still an epic show. Once again the characters, story, and world of RWBY is amazing. This season did a good job at taking it’s time to develop its current characters as well as introduce new characters to the show who are interesting and a welcomed addition. The only downside is out of all the characters RWBY is the one character who doesn’t go through any development this season. The rest of team RWBY develops in some way throughout the season but Ruby kind of just stays the same. We don’t learn anything new about her. I’ve also heard a few people complain about the love subplots going between a few of the characters. Personally I rather like them. I like how each one is being handled and played out realistically and maturely but at the same time they’re all different and the characters work well off each other. Action scenes are still great this season. That food fight in the first episode was great and the rest of the fights are all great as well with each well-choreographed and exciting to watch. I could honestly watch these fight scenes all day and never get tired of them. Animation seems to have improved quite well this year as the characters seem to be moving more naturally and don’t seem stiff as much as the first season. However, I will admit that the animation in episode 7 was bad. Hopefully in the future they study this scene and make the necessary changes so that it doesn’t happen again. As far as music goes I thought it was okay this season. I like the music from the first season more than the second season. The second season had a few notable that I like such as Die and Shine but other than those songs I wasn’t really all that into the music this season. Also, it appears that the show took my advice and made each episode 15 minutes long allowing them to get more story out this year. Thank you. Now for the next season let’s try and make each episode 22-24 minutes long. That’s about the average anime episode and I think they can pull it off.
Is it better than the first season
I’m gonna have to say yes. This season had much longer episodes, build the story up well while introducing new characters and developing them along with current characters, great fight scenes and improvements to the animation. Also, it’s still a pretty funny show with each character getting a laugh out of you and being enjoyable to watch.
Final Score
The final score for RWBY season 2 is an 8/10 with a must watch stamp of approval. This season did a good developing both its characters and story, giving us great actions scenes, and providing us more information about the World of RWBY hopefully when the third season comes around they continue to build on the success of the show and show us some more dark elements that will bring tears to our eyes as well as add more depth to the characters. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
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