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The Possibility of No Conclusion
Warnings about the impending disintegration of the Warner Brothers studio under uncaring management have been cropping up for a while. I suppose I’ve noticed them with bemused detachment, but also with the thought that fulminating about big companies is both quite noticeable these days yet something that might only depress other people who run into it. The news that Warner Brothers was shutting down the computer animation studio Rooster Teeth, who make RWBY, did jolt me all the same. I’d been willing to hope the series was moving towards its conclusion even after having pretty much dodged it for its latest block of episodes, but now there seems the possibility there might never be a conclusion.
On one level the series did seem to have avoided that unfortunate fate once more after the early death of Monty Oum, the name most associated with its beginning. There have been complaints ever since that the series isn’t what it would have been had he still been alive. Whether it’s possible even all of that will happen again, with or without “a new beginning,” might be too much to hope for.
Conscious it was the “anime-esque” air of the series that’s kept me watching it intent on not finding reasons to complain, I did get to thinking that where once upon a time “this has continuity!” was invoked to promote anime, these days I’m just as ready to think the relative brevity of a three-month-long or even six-month-long anime series can be refreshing, or at least easier to shrug off should things deflate over that span of time, compared to something more domestic that runs for years only to risk having worn out its welcome in a year or two so far as fan discourse goes.
At the same time, I have been thinking a bit about the ultimate recourse of “fan-fictional conclusions” to RWBY. I suppose I hadn’t been speculating too much about “what might happen” myself, ready to suppose that to set non-negotiable demands that way only causes trouble. There had been thoughts, too, that all the warnings in the story itself about how invincible its ultimate antagonist seemed amounted to working into a corner.
On one level the series did seem to have avoided that unfortunate fate once more after the early death of Monty Oum, the name most associated with its beginning. There have been complaints ever since that the series isn’t what it would have been had he still been alive. Whether it’s possible even all of that will happen again, with or without “a new beginning,” might be too much to hope for.
Conscious it was the “anime-esque” air of the series that’s kept me watching it intent on not finding reasons to complain, I did get to thinking that where once upon a time “this has continuity!” was invoked to promote anime, these days I’m just as ready to think the relative brevity of a three-month-long or even six-month-long anime series can be refreshing, or at least easier to shrug off should things deflate over that span of time, compared to something more domestic that runs for years only to risk having worn out its welcome in a year or two so far as fan discourse goes.
At the same time, I have been thinking a bit about the ultimate recourse of “fan-fictional conclusions” to RWBY. I suppose I hadn’t been speculating too much about “what might happen” myself, ready to suppose that to set non-negotiable demands that way only causes trouble. There had been thoughts, too, that all the warnings in the story itself about how invincible its ultimate antagonist seemed amounted to working into a corner.