RWBY Episode One Review: Cortana is My Navigator

[Note: Updated to have the video in the article.]

Okay seeing as I have been the person following the trailers for now I might be becoming the guy for this series on this site. Whether that means I should expand to talking about a certain other show from the same people is also something I've wondered but for now let us ignore that and focus on this the first episode of RWBY.

First things first the opening exposition for this episode I do like. For one thing it is voiced by Cortana herself by� what my research shows and that helps make me feel better about voice work right off the bat. Anyways it is a somewhat understandable exposition about how once humanity was under threat from the monsters in the darkness and when we discovered a magic power called Dust, no blue furry swordsmen in sight though, humanity pushed them back and expanded. Also I would like to say that the art style reminded me a lot of the exposition pieces from Dragon Age 2 that talk about the time skips. I did like it a bit so points for that. Then our opening closes out with�the basic ominous line of the darkness is returning comes up and we cut to Ruby prevent some thugs, apparently their leader might be a key villain, from robbing a store of it's Dust. Which obviously violates the non-aggression towards NPC's act of '92 so our hero had to get involved.

Now I would like to say that the voice acting for Ruby Rose, that is her name I'm not joking, has definitely improved. It isn't high caliber Mark Hamill as Joker stuff but one of the greatest steps up from the Yellow Trailer. In fact there was not anyone I've seen yet that I can surely say is awful but in a ten minute episode there isn't as much time to really learn what the quality over all is going to be.

Anyways our heroic young lass tries to stop the robbers before he gets his backup in the form of an airship. Yet then our hero gets support in the form of Glasses McWitchanimetits leading to a fight scene that is more a trading of projectiles. Not anything that really hits the level of the trailers but they probably don't want to play all the cards right now.

On that subject the dialogue in this is kind of basic and so is the plot we are set up for. Basically it is about Ruby and Sir going to a magic academy together to fight monsters. Apparently Ruby wants to be some special class of warrior magical girl that McWitchanimetits is and is getting moved ahead in grades to get trained early for her�skills with the gunscythe. For some reason she�has some thing about not being singled out or something but it�kind of confused me. Also apparently if characters aren't important to the plot they are just black Silhouettes which is really weird and distracts from the scenes they are in a bit.

�So far it is really seems more�stock than what I was hoping for from the trailers and I hope it has a Puella Magica Madoka deconstruction twist, preferably with heads being devoured, up its sleeve because I'm not sure how I will feel with this premise. The dialogue also doesn't feel as witty as the other work from Rooster Teeth. Now this isn't because there is little dirty jokes or profanity right now more that I don't think some of the attempts at wit really worked well.

Anyways it is a basic start that I'm going to wait on more episodes of before passing final judgment of the whole thing so it can be summarized as an okay pilot but not anything really new or mind blowing.

---

LOOK WHO CAME:

Johnel Lance