RWBY VOLUME 6 REVIEW - MECHBLADESTUDIOS
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- Опубліковано 16 вер 2024
- Today, we're returning to the world of transforming weapons and colorful names with a look at RWBY Volume 6! Does this Volume fix the issues plaguing its predecessors, or does it let them get worse?
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Remarks from the Future: It's concerning that a show only has great seasons every three years. I can't even chalk it up to the writers thinking in trilogies, because this Volume technically ends in a cliffhanger. It's just an odd coincidence.
As good as the Volume turned out to be, though, I have to actually dock a point, the more I think about it, giving the Volume a still respectable 8/10, tied with Volume 3. It's one thing to have the villains not do much, or go on a side quest to set up their next plan, but in Volume 6, they do NOTHING. The worst villain continues to exist because reasons, because we can't just have Salem be a decent villain after her backstory was spilled, we need to have merchandise and fan-art worthy characters pretend to do something.
Adam was never a character I particularly cared about (his overcompensating edgelord design bugs me), but I can tell when something is inconsistent. He was clearly meant to be either a major threat or, at least from earlier on, a morally ambiguous character, but now he's just a caricature of a creepy abusive boyfriend. His short did little to add any sympathy to him, so he was just an overall waste of time and animation.
The backstory reveal was probably handled as well as it could have been, going the route of just having an episode dedicated to it, rather than either a wall of exposition or a knockoff World of Remnant section dedicated to it. The idea that Salem can't be killed seems to telegraph that she'll probably be brought down through diplomacy, but we'll see how that goes.
With how little they utilize Weiss in general, I wonder if she should just get a gaiden miniseries. She's the best, well-rounded character with a great power set and no character tics, yet she's almost always relegated to being a utility for fight scenes. If an Atlas-themed Volume doesn't use her, then the writers never will.
I have no opinion on the Vic Mignona situation. I haven't followed it very closely, and will likely continue to ignore it unless it causes serious issues in the series' future beyond Qrow getting a new VA. I review media, not people.
One thing that had just occurred to me is that Blake is in fact a Cat Faunus. What i mean is that I decided to do some research on cats, and this was the information i had gathered:
“ Most dogs and cats, when threatened or afraid, prefer to run away from danger. This dash away may be the first response or may follow a fight threat. If the fight threat (barking and lunging from a dog or hissing and swatting from a cat) doesn’t make the danger go away, then the pet might try to escape danger by running away. Whether the animal chooses to flee or fight depends on the individual animal’s circumstances and previous experiences.”
From this information i have gathered, it could be argued that Blake’s own cat like instincts had gotten the better of her during her argument with Weiss. The argument itself could be interpreted as her trying fight the threat off, or in this case arguing with Weiss about her views on the White Fang. She’s essentially hissing at Weiss as a threat display. However, once it stopped working and Blake ultimately revealed she was a Faunus, she runs away. This, as well as her running away during the fall of Beacon, could in fact be interpreted as the circumstances my research was referring to. And her history in the White Fang, plus her running away the first time, would also be interpreted as the previous experiences.
All I’m getting at here is that, at the end of the day, Blake is also still a cat and not just a teenage girl. We cant pin the blame on just the person, but also the animal as well.
One more I promise. It just donned on me that, while Blake is meant to be based on Beauty and the Beast, her story feels more like Simba's story from the Lion King. In fact I think the conversation Simba has with Rafiki perfectly encapsulates the dilemma Blake is going through. All thats missing is someone whacking her on the head with a stick and the scene is perfect.
Simba: I know what I have to do. But going back means I'll have to face my past. I've been running from it for so long.
(Rafiki whacks Simba on the head)
Simba: Ow! Jeez! What was that for?
Rafiki: It doesn't matter, it's in the past.
Simba: Yeah but it still hurts.
Rafiki: Yes the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either RUN from it, or, LEARN from it.
(swings the stick at Simba but Simba doges it)
Rafiki: Aha! You See!?
Don't ever feel like you comment too much. I can see Blake means a lot to you, and I give you major props for laying out why without resorting to "YOUR WAIFU IS SHIT".
MechBladeStudios I’m just glad you actually don’t like being hard on her, unlike others like Adel Aka who just flat out hate her guts. Seriously, that guys hate for Blake can be very uncomfortable at times.
7:38 no 😥
My best girl is in fact Blake. In my opinion I felt she was the most compelling of team. I see her as someone who’s trying to fit in with people without being treated differently which some people can relate to. Not to mention trying to atone for her actions. What I see in her is a type of character who’s trying to redeem herself while setting things right for everyone, to have a sense of righteousness is what made her who she is throughout the series. As for her moping and her constantly running away, while I can see that as irritating to deal with, it honestly doesn’t bother me. There have been tons and tons of other characters from other shows who run away from their problems, but that has never really been a reason to hate those characters so I don’t know why it should effect Blake. Really the only things I hate about Blake are her V6 and V7 designs. More so her V7 design. I have softened up to it over the year, but I’m still not that big a fan of it. Mainly because of her shorter hair and the stupid zippers on her outfit which make her look like a rejected Kingdom Hearts character. Other then that though, yeah I like Blake despite the flaws she has with her character. Oh and if you’re wondering how I feel about the Bumblebee ship, I do defend it, but I don’t ship it. Also her being a cat girl has nothing to with anything, I’m actually allergic to cats.
Blake learning to stop running away and face her problems is a perfectly fine arc, the Lion King comparison in your most recent comment is quite appropriate. I admit, most of why she did this arc twice bothers me comes from something unrelated, namely the Arkos stuff from the first two volumes. At that point, as soon as I saw any sort of repetition, that became a strike against the show for me. If she had only run away in V3, I'd have understood her motivations better. Her friends have been wounded or killed by the man she once loved, and she can't handle it, so she runs. Not the most heroic response, but it's a reasonable one. Because she already ran away in V1 for getting into an argument with Weiss, she is painted as a coward that bugs out as soon as things get rough, even if that isn't really the case. Her problems are optics and execution, rather than the intent for the character.
Also, I think that Volume 4's complicated pacing also betrayed her arc. RT tried their best to balance the screentime of the split-up team RWBY, but as a result, you have four different stories that could be told in varying amounts of time on their own, shoved all together. Because I watched V4 as it came out, I perceived Blake sitting around looking sad until Ilia shows up toward the end as padding. In other words, because Blake's arc is mainly expanded upon in the next two volumes, they put any advancement or development for her towards the end, to lead into V5.
Having not actually seen V7 yet (a whole ton of IRL chaos has prevented me from doing that), the only thing that really bothers me about Blake's design is the color. She has more white in her outfit than Weiss (whose outfit I DO have a bone to pick with). While I think her hair's fine, I do wish that they'd give her something wholly unique to her, rather than either being sort of like Yang or Ruby's hair.
Because it was a blink and you'll miss it moment in the video, I'll reiterate. I personally don't care about shipping unless it makes no sense for the characters involved, or the romance takes up too much time in a genre that isn't...well...romance. I mostly go along with what happens in canon.
Also, I happen to be allergic to cats as well, and the "neko" thing never even occurred to me until around V5.
MechBladeStudios minor spoiler for V7, but she doesn’t has much of a presence in V7. Her entire character in V7 is just her being Yang’s partner, or girlfriend I don’t really care either way, and sometimes commenting on certain things. There is a scene between her and Weiss, and it’s serviceable. Though I find it weird how when Blake holds hands with Yang in V6, everyone looses their minds in a big shipping war, yet when something similar happens V7, no one makes a fuss about it.
MechBladeStudios as for her running away when her and Weiss argued, I think it makes sense because, at that point, no one knew she was a Faunus and considering how the Faunus are treated in this world, the plot line itself is a whole messy can of worms that I don’t really wanna get into, the reaction is understandable, and she was afraid people would judge her since she’s a Faunus, as well as once being a member of the White Fang. Hence why she kept it from everyone in the first place. The way I see it, because Blake runs away from things so much, it became her first and only instinct. Sure, it can be seen as her being cowardly, but I’d argue that, that’s entirely the point. She wants to fit in with people, but upon team RWBY learning that not only was she a Faunus, but also originally a member of White Fang, she’s scared that they’ll immediately reject her. I also feel that her running away was more Weiss’s fault, since she was the one who kept pushing her discriminatory beliefs onto Blake. My only real problem with Blake at the end of the V1 finale is that it felt like she was the one giving the apology to Weiss, when really, Weiss was the one who started the conflict in the first place. Shinta, of Shinta reviews, explains this problem more in his review of Volume 1, so I recommend you go watch his video to understand more of what I mean. Don’t take this a way of me hating on Weiss or anything, I’m just saying that, the blame for Blake running away the first time in V1 shouldn’t souley be on her, since Weiss does share some of the blame as well for starting the conflict in the first place.
You’ve also got to admit that, her character could’ve been ALLOT worse if her arc had the same results Simba’s did in the Lion King, where, after Simba goes back to face his past, his fears started winning, and everything he had been taught before had been used against him, with no one taking his side, as if he deserved to die for accidentally killing Mufasa, only for him to take action when he learned he actually didn’t commit the crime he thought he committed. If THAT had been the resolution to Blake’s story arc, then yeah I probably wouldn’t have had as much of a high opinion of her as I do now.
Also, as for Adam seeming like he was gonna be a major threat as well as being more of a morally ambiguous character, only for him to be relegated to being a crazy ex boyfriend. You’re not entirely wrong. I’m guessing Monty had other plans with him, but after he died Miles and Kerry rewrote him the way he is now. They didn’t exactly have a high opinion of Adam, so many people accused M&K of letting their opinion of the character get in the way of the writing. Which isn’t entirely hard to see. Though, it does make a bit more sense when you learn that he’s based on both Gaston and the Rose from Beauty and the Beast. Does that change the fact that his character wasn’t really good later? Not really, but it does make a bit more sense with that context.
@@MechBladeStudios once again though, like with Blake, Adam’s story feels more like Scar from the Lion King, then it does Beauty and the Beast. Granted, there is allot of Gaston and the Rose in him, however, there are moments like the scar of his left eye, as well as him killing the previous White Fang leader to gain power, which straight up feels like Scar killing Mufasa in the Lion King. WIth the only difference being that the person gewrtting killed in the scenario, definitely is no Mufasa.
This is where I honestly have to roll my eyes allot of the time whenever people says that Adam’s potential was wasted, yet no one ever turns to Sienna Kahn, who in my opinion, was the REAL character with wasted potential.
Oh, boy... Unlike quite of few people who stopped after vol 5, I honestly stopped in the middle of vol 6, particularly after the backstory of Salem was revealed. Why? Well, I felt the backstory (while good as its own story) didn't necessarily jive well with everything I knew before (I mean, the minute Salem was revealed to be immortal, I honestly thought of using Ruby's silver eyes to strip her of her Grimmification powers so it didn't make sense to me why everyone got so livid at Ozpin). Not to mention, it and other things-like the Bumblebee shipping-reminded me too much of the "storytelling" patterns I saw and didn't like in Legend of Korra, so I got out of there ASAP. And BOY did I dodge a bullet there (especially with the drama around Qrow's voice actor and the fanbase)!
If you like the show, more power to you. I hope I didn't dump on your enjoyment. I'm just wanted to explain my thoughts on vol 6 (very lengthy, I admin, so sorry about that).
My current thoughts on V6 are buried in the description, but I'll briefly recap them here.
I enjoyed most of V6 because it reunited the team and had one focused plotline, and took plenty of opportunities to flesh out the characters. The more I thought about it though, the villains did jack shit, and as neutral as I am about shipping in general, I can't help but feel Bumblebee was done solely to satisfy a niche part of the fanbase, to the extent where it somewhat compromises Yang as a character. I went along with the latter in hopes that it means the characters that aren't named Blake can get more time in the spotlight more than for the ship itself, though I haven't seen V7 yet to see if that's the case. It is not perfect, and while I still believe it is one of the better seasons, I've since docked a point from it, something I'll emphasize if I ever get around to watching and reviewing V7. V3 is still the best, and I think I gave V6 a bit too much credit after the mess that was V5.
I think what I like about the Salem stuff is that it has me beyond curious as to how she'll be dealt with. Your theory makes enough sense.
Yeah about the whole “silver eyes killing Salem” things there are two problems with this theory.
1. Ozpin knew about Silver Eyes and has somehow never tried this. Best guess is he didn't think of Salem as a Grimm due to her unique circumstances, or he has had limited access to silver eyed warriors through the years and couldn't even try.
2. Salem clearly knows about silver eyed warriors and even has had them killed or "declawed" as it were. While Salem's mind certainly could have changed in the last millennia, she used to have such a strong desire to die that it would follow through that if she had heard of something that could kill any Grimm, would she not have tried it on herself by now?
I asked some people if the silver eyes could kill Salem. And they all said no. Hurt her, maybe. But not enough to permanently put her down. And stripping her of her grimmification, allot of the people I’ve talked to couldn’t think of any conclusive answers for that. Most of them said it COULD happen but not for very long. As for everyone being mad at Ozpin, it mainly stands at “you never really had a plan to defeat that immortal being and basically trained us so we could die.” At most Ozpin’s plan was “my entire plan is riding on putting you in front of Salem and hoping you don't die." So I don’t think it’s so much that he kept the information from them, but more so that he never had an actual plan to beat Salem and she can’t die. Sure him keeping this shit from them was A reason but I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was THE reason.
3:15 me too
He is my second favorite
7:30 no plese 😭😢😰😭
I love neo
Also btw Coco is gay. I bring this up because The After the Fall book will make sure you never forget that detail let me tell you