Character designer Ein Lee draws anthology's cover

The official Twitter account of Home-sha's Garaku no Mori online manga site announced on December 23 that the RWBY web animated series will get a manga anthology titled "Red Like Roses" in spring. The anthology is labeled "Volume 1." Original character designer Ein Lee will draw the anthology's cover.

The original RWBY web animated series by the late creator Monty Oum follows four girls with unique weapons and powers who are training to hunt supernatural "Creatures of Grimm." The manga is a prequel about these four girls who would eventually make up Team RWBY upon enrolling in Beacon Academy.

Shirow Miwa debuted a manga adaptation in Shueisha's Ultra Jump magazine in November 2015. The manga's story, supervised by Rooster Teeth, reveals "the mystery hidden in four trailers" presented in Japan. Viz Media had announced in July that it would release books based on RWBY. The company later announced at New York Comic Con in October that it will publish the manga, and then began publishing the manga in the English edition of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine on October 31. The manga will enter its "climax" in the February issue of Ultra Jump on January 19.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Japan licensed the original web animated series for distribution and merchandising in Japan. Theaters in Japan have been screening episodes — dubbed with an all-star Japanese cast — in batches since November 2015, followed by Blu-ray Disc and DVD releases. The third set of episodes played in Japanese theaters in December, and Rooster Teeth is working on a fourth season in English.