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Up and Downs: RWBY volume 7
When I last posted here about RWBY, my slow compilation of thoughts about a guidebook to that computer-animated series had had to mention the sudden appearance of the seventh “volume” of episodes where I could watch them without a new subscription to another streaming service. At the close of the sixth series, I suppose I’d imagined the characters “winning through to a redoubt” where things would go better for them for at least a little while. Instead, they managed to get into trouble at once, as “somewhere this nice has to have a dark side too” got something of a new twist with a less prosperous city showing up below the levitated kingdom of Atlas.
Before that first episode had ended, though, a character I hadn’t thought would appear again had showed up. Part of the “anything goes so long as it seems cool” mix of the series had been a “robot girl” named Penny, who’d been broken to pieces as the third “volume” made the sudden escalation in seriousness that had got my own attention seemingly just in time to keep me following RWBY. Showing up again as a surprise after so long did take a few moments to really accept, for all that I’ve long known “robots” make for both safely disposable opponents and easily resurrectable characters. Before the end of this volume, though, there had been something of an explanation things weren’t as simple as just putting her together again and again.
Once the first complications had been worked out, the “V7” designs I’d noticed at the back of the guidebook did show up, the characters who’d begun as “students” and spent a while as “survivors” now becoming “seasoned,” perhaps. The shorter haircuts some of now had didn’t seem quite flattering in computer animation, though. As I spent most of the volume trying to get used to that, the characters faced a complication in the form of a rigged election only to seem to get things sorted out. That second bounce-back in one group of episodes, however, didn’t last long before things got worse again and there was a genuine cliffhanger ending. I don’t know if that’s the lead-in to the final battle of the whole story or will just have the main characters on the run again, but it’ll probably be a while before the next “volume” shows up for all that my interest in this series has been keeping up.
Before that first episode had ended, though, a character I hadn’t thought would appear again had showed up. Part of the “anything goes so long as it seems cool” mix of the series had been a “robot girl” named Penny, who’d been broken to pieces as the third “volume” made the sudden escalation in seriousness that had got my own attention seemingly just in time to keep me following RWBY. Showing up again as a surprise after so long did take a few moments to really accept, for all that I’ve long known “robots” make for both safely disposable opponents and easily resurrectable characters. Before the end of this volume, though, there had been something of an explanation things weren’t as simple as just putting her together again and again.
Once the first complications had been worked out, the “V7” designs I’d noticed at the back of the guidebook did show up, the characters who’d begun as “students” and spent a while as “survivors” now becoming “seasoned,” perhaps. The shorter haircuts some of now had didn’t seem quite flattering in computer animation, though. As I spent most of the volume trying to get used to that, the characters faced a complication in the form of a rigged election only to seem to get things sorted out. That second bounce-back in one group of episodes, however, didn’t last long before things got worse again and there was a genuine cliffhanger ending. I don’t know if that’s the lead-in to the final battle of the whole story or will just have the main characters on the run again, but it’ll probably be a while before the next “volume” shows up for all that my interest in this series has been keeping up.