RWBY Volume 5 Debut: Nah Fam, Ctrl Z, Start the F Over

Mild spoilers for Chapter 1 of RWBY Volume 5. Look, we all know the drill; you don’t watch RWBY, you earn RWBY. You sit your ass through two seasons filled with 90% teenage drama and the occasional tantalizingly well-choreographed fight scene until you arrive at season 3 aka The Mountain Top, where you may finally ascend into the glory and the Dust and the Vytal Festival forever, Amen. Then season 4 splits up literally the crux of the entire show but you don’t waver, you persevere, you grit your teeth through Weiss’ tantrums and Yang’s moping and Blake doing pretty much nothing except for one dragon battle and Ren and Qrow being the only redeemable part of Team JNNR’s combined obnoxiousness… because season 5 was gonna be worth it. You told yourself that. And yet, Grimm gahdamn, here we are. Here. We. Are. -deep sigh- RWBY why do you hate us? Let’s start by addressing the first problem with Chapter 1 of Volume 5: tone. Up to this point every single season has started out by showing us something brand new and therefore setting the tone for the rest of the volume to follow; Volume 1 opened up with the storybook narration of the backstory, Volume 2 introduced us to a brand new enemy, Volume 3 began with the touching conversation between Ruby and her mother emphasizing the seriousness of Huntsman life, and Volume 4 brought us that bad ass Grimm animation and the expansion of our resident league of evil that put even Cinder to shame. Volume 5? We get the set of Kung Fu Panda 3.

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