RWBY: Volume 1 Blu-ray Review

A, E, I, O, U and sometimes why?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, November 15, 2013

What doconsider vowels? A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y, right? Well, not necessarily. Years ago I spent part of a summer with my Aunt and Uncle in Iowa. My Uncle was Dean at a teacher's college and he was shepherding students through their graduate studies. I was the right age for one of his teachers who wanted to go on to work at elementary schools, and he had me come in one beautiful summer morning to engage in a little "lesson" to see how well this woman had learnedteaching lessons. I remember to this day her chirpy little voice asking me what the vowels were, and when I answered with the five (and optional extra one) listed above, she looked at me quizzically and said, "Well, what?" I was frankly confounded, because wherehad gone to school, we had only ever been told that there were five vowels, with that potential extra one. I thought about it for a moment and told her I couldn't figure out what she was talking about. She said, "Well, sometimes, too," as if it were common knowledge. When I told her I had never been taught that, she seemed surprised, but my Uncle later told me evidently "W" is (or at least was back in The Dark Ages when this all occurred) considered an optional vowel in some Midwest states. That may help to explain whyis supposedly pronounced "Ruby", though it also serves as an acronym for color coded main characters of red, white, black and yellow. There may still bequestions lingering the minds of some viewers, however. Chief among those might be, "Isan anime?" Even the show's creators, who contribute a pretty raucous commentary track on this new Blu-ray, seem to hedge their bets, indicating that the show isanime rather than firmly ensconced in that genre.comes courtesy of Rooster Teeth Productions, the aggregation of tech savvy folks who have been responsible for the long running Red vs. Blue: RVBX (and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the guys may be trying to cash in, however subliminally, on that show's acronym with their new initialed enterprise).of course is comprised of "found footage" in a way, culled from Halo's built in moviemaking capability., while also trafficking in CGI, is entirely originalat least in terms of its animation, if not quite so much in terms of its content.In some ways,does indeed follow established anime tropes. The main plot deals with a world ravaged by horrible mutated beasts, as well as a class of nefarious criminals. There is a school for "gifted" kids called The Beacon Academy, where main heroine Ruby Rose (the "red" one) is excited to be sent after she helps dispatch a bad guy with the help of her trusty high tech scythe. Ruby's older sister Yang (the "yellow" one) is already ensconced at The Beacon Academy, and she kind of vacillates between being there for her younger sibling and letting the girl fend for herself. Soon enough Ruby has teamed up not only with her sister but also with Blake (the "black" one) and Weiss (yep, the "white" one), all of whom possess their own powers and have their own weapons.The first ten episodes collected on this first volume offollow some traditionalformulations, with the girls getting used to their new school life while also learning the ropes of what it means to be a "huntress", a specially trained fighter who helps keep the world safe from the marauding mutant beasts (not to mention the occasional bad guy). The series walks a fine line between decent action elements and some fairly lame comedy. The visual style ofis distinctlytypical anime, and in fact until the firstshows up a little way into the first episode, this much more resembles the "machinima" that typifiedIt's probably best to cuta little slack in its early going, for characters are still being developed and there's the definite feeling that the series' mythology is not yet completely fleshed out. While a lot of the show is rote and predictable, there is some amusing banter between various characters, and the general aesthetic, while perhaps not what longtime anime fans will be used to, is arresting enough to capture the attention (even if there are occasional rendering issues). The showincredibly colorful, as befits its acronymed title, with an especially bright and vivid palette which may help distract some from the failings of the story itself.