RWBY Review: V4E3-Of Runaways and Stowaways

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

Hello and Welcome to another RWBY review. Today, we look at "Of Runaways and Stowaways".

Storywise, this is a Blake story with a bit of Yang in it. Blake's portion seems similar to Ruby's in the first episode in that she fights a monster but Sun actually shows up and helps. Blake and Sun seem to have an odd relation that would probably sink their ship. Blake seems antagonistic and annoyed with Sun and this transfers over to the fight where there are several shots where Sun seems like a complete idiot. Sun does manage to convince Blake to let him tag along but the interactions and a bit of the body language seem to indicate that Blake is annoyed and more focused on her real goal: going home probably to talk to family. One thing that doesn't make sense in this portion of the story is when Blake discards the ribbon; the question i ask at this point is "why didn't she discard it earlier in the timeskip". This seems to be an issue with communicating the passing of time after the fall of Beacon.

Yang's portion of the story is shorter but has one moment that seems counter to her development. Yang is shown to have clear PTSD with losing her arm though this isn't expressed constantly as she doesn't get visibly angry when a news report talks about Adam. Yang is also shown to be a bit detached and removed from Taiyang most likely due to her trauma. An issue lies with what Taiyang brings home, a robotic arm from Atlas. This poses some major issues with Yang's development as it comes in too early in Yang's story to be a symbol of her having overcome trauma to go after Adam. At this point, it feels like they are making the impact of losing the arm nonexistent. It would feel like the writers just trying to retcon the arm loss early if it weren't for the fact that Yang is hesitant to try it on now.
We also have a small part involving Cinder trying to control the Fall Maiden's power. What should be noted is that Salam is looking for something in Beacon and that Ozpin's "death" is very uncertain. I can't really comment on this section as it's short and has no real payoff this episode.

Animation is still a mixed bag. There are some cases of stiff movements, characters being perfectly still and at least one case of the pose shifting between cuts. On the other hand, Sun and Blake's character animation has improved with Sun having very large dramatic motions that fit his cocky personality and Blake having a lot of emotional expression from both her face and her ears. One issue I have is the texture on Sun's tail; it feels like they just copied the texture for Sun's hair without consideration of how it would looks so it seems unnatural.

The fight scene is fairly standard though I do like the use of a Chinese dragon for the basis of the design. It has moments of dramatic slowdown and does do impact multiplication though the use of aftereffects. In addition, there is a level of comedic execution with how Blake interacts with Sun: jumping on him and dropping him after a catch in particular. Finally, the semblances seem to have evolved with sun being able to have the aura clones do complex coordinated actions and Blake's shadow clones interacting with her to propel her. This means that semblance evolution may be possible and we may get some interesting fights later down the line.

In general, this show is competent but, in my personal view, if you are an anime fan, this is standard. Nothing has stood out that would outright make this a watch and the scene with Yang may be an omen for writing issues down the line.

 

[Gizen]

I agree with just about everything you said except this one bit.

An issue lies with what Taiyang brings home, a robotic arm from Atlas. This poses some major issues with Yang's development as it comes in too early in Yang's story to be a symbol of her having overcome trauma to go after Adam. At this point, it feels like they are making the impact of losing the arm nonexistent. It would feel like the writers just trying to retcon the arm loss early if it weren't for the fact that Yang is hesitant to try it on now.

I disagree that this is an issue, and actually feel that it's the right choice for the writers to make. We already know from the latter half of volume 3 that complex prosthetic limbs exist in Remnant, like Mercury's legs and the entire right half of Ironwood's torso, and so right from the moment it was cut off, it became easy to presume that Yang would acquire a replacement arm. Bringing it in so early and quickly though shows that just getting a new arm isn't going to solve Yang's problems, and that she has actual issues to overcome that are greater than just finding a prosthetic.

 

[andrewHayes]

Animation is still a mixed bag. There are some cases of stiff movements, characters being perfectly still and at least one case of the pose shifting between cuts. On the other hand, Sun and Blake's character animation has improved with Sun having very large dramatic motions that fit his cocky personality and Blake having a lot of emotional expression from both her face and her ears. One issue I have is the texture on Sun's tail; it feels like they just copied the texture for Sun's hair without consideration of how it would looks so it seems unnatural.

The fight scene is fairly standard though I do like the use of a Chinese dragon for the basis of the design. It has moments of dramatic slowdown and does do impact multiplication though the use of aftereffects. In addition, there is a level of comedic execution with how Blake interacts with Sun: jumping on him and dropping him after a catch in particular. Finally, the semblances seem to have evolved with sun being able to have the aura clones do complex coordinated actions and Blake's shadow clones interacting with her to propel her. This means that semblance evolution may be possible and we may get some interesting fights later down the line.

In general, this show is competent but, in my personal view, if you are an anime fan, this is standard. Nothing has stood out that would outright make this a watch and the scene with Yang may be an omen for writing issues down the line.

I would argue that the fight scene's editing was absolutely horrid. Absolutely no flow, as it keeps on jerking about not letting the viewer keep track of time and space. Has nobody commented on how RT cut from Blake firing at the Grimm's back to bullets hitting the Grimm's face? Personally that ruined the episode for me, among other things, like Blake somehow getting down to the ground offscreen in a matter of seconds.

The models themselves have weird proportions. I've been hearing complaints about how the hands are too small and the ship captain's legs looked uncannily short. The art style itself suffers ironically from the "visual upgrade." Background models like the house and the ship are very blocky, like first-time animators constructed them. It's amazing how much the facial gradients added to the characters until they removed them. The texturing doesn't help either, and the first scene with Blake has lighting glaring at a million degrees. Thankfully the conversation scene with Blake and Sun proved to be much better with better composition and lighting.

The automated cel shading itself doesn't do the animation any favors, and you can see grey lines glitching on Sun's clavicle from time to time.

The cuts where Blake catches Sun show her hands not gripping Sun at all; instead they hover inches away from him. Also, Sun gets contorted into a weird position when he is being caught.

A shot is ripped straight from Advent Children. Specifically, RT copied Cloud cutting Bahamut's wing, and the overall fight borrows heavily from Cloud vs Bahamut.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

Animation is still a mixed bag. There are some cases of stiff movements, characters being perfectly still and at least one case of the pose shifting between cuts. On the other hand, Sun and Blake's character animation has improved with Sun having very large dramatic motions that fit his cocky personality and Blake having a lot of emotional expression from both her face and her ears. One issue I have is the texture on Sun's tail; it feels like they just copied the texture for Sun's hair without consideration of how it would looks so it seems unnatural.

The fight scene is fairly standard though I do like the use of a Chinese dragon for the basis of the design. It has moments of dramatic slowdown and does do impact multiplication though the use of aftereffects. In addition, there is a level of comedic execution with how Blake interacts with Sun: jumping on him and dropping him after a catch in particular. Finally, the semblances seem to have evolved with sun being able to have the aura clones do complex coordinated actions and Blake's shadow clones interacting with her to propel her. This means that semblance evolution may be possible and we may get some interesting fights later down the line.

In general, this show is competent but, in my personal view, if you are an anime fan, this is standard. Nothing has stood out that would outright make this a watch and the scene with Yang may be an omen for writing issues down the line.

I would argue that the fight scene's editing was absolutely horrid. Absolutely no flow, as it keeps on jerking about not letting the viewer keep track of time and space. Has nobody commented on how RT cut from Blake firing at the Grimm's back to bullets hitting the Grimm's face? Personally that ruined the episode for me, among other things, like Blake somehow getting down to the ground offscreen in a matter of seconds.

The models themselves have weird proportions. I've been hearing complaints about how the hands are too small and the ship captain's legs looked uncannily short. The art style itself suffers ironically from the "visual upgrade." Background models like the house and the ship are very blocky, like first-time animators constructed them. It's amazing how much the facial gradients added to the characters until they removed them. The texturing doesn't help either, and the first scene with Blake has lighting glaring at a million degrees. Thankfully the conversation scene with Blake and Sun proved to be much better with better composition and lighting.

The automated cel shading itself doesn't do the animation any favors, and you can see grey lines glitching on Sun's clavicle from time to time.

The cuts where Blake catches Sun show her hands not gripping Sun at all; instead they hover inches away from him. Also, Sun gets contorted into a weird position when he is being caught.

A shot is ripped straight from Advent Children. Specifically, RT copied Cloud cutting Bahamut's wing, and the overall fight borrows heavily from Cloud vs Bahamut.

Two things:
-One: i'm not an animation expert, typically I have a friend to help with understanding animation
-Two: I suppose that I should have seen the issues with flow of the scene but I also only have a few references for fight scenes: mostly anime and wuxia stuff.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I really don't see an issure that she was presented with the robot arm already. We all know she was going to get one sooner or later and even then she's not going to be wearing it until sometime later in ther series. Also the arm itself look rather bland so obviously she will give it some "flare" or so to speak when she finally does dom it and get past her truma!