RWBY: Hyousetsu Teikoku

Watch it for yourself, don't let the negative reviews deter you.

It assumes you have watched at least the first volume of the original show, and even if you haven't that's still okay imo. Most of the people negativity reviewing this only watched the first 3 episodes, and dropped it after that or didn't change their reviews. Claming it was doing a disservice or disjustice to the original, and generally just coming across as snobby. I get the impression they assumed this was going to be a remake, which it is not, and were dissatisfied with the "rushed introduction" in the first 3 episodes. (A side ... note which bothers me, the same people say they rushed through the first volume like it was nothing. And while it was sped up a bit for the sake of lack of redundancy, those episodes are only 4-7 Minutes in length including the intro and an albiet short ed. So if you see those types of criticisms, keep this in mind.) With that all out of the way, this is more of a side story focused on character building (specifically Weiss, and mildly Blake). Something which, while I thought dragged on at some moments, was done very well. If you're coming into this from a binging perspective this might be alleviated some. The story will diverge around episode 4 to 5ish. The animation is great through and through, I legitimately cannot understand how people are criticizing it. It's one of the best looking shows this season, and visually leagues above the original. The choreography is nice too, on par at times (but maybe not better than) with the original though. They were moments of CG here and there, and while I could criticize that, I honestly just thought of it as a laughabley enjoyable homage to the original.

I'm dragging on here, I inteded for this to be quicker than it ended up being.

Tldr: Don't let the people who only watched the first three episodes and negatively criticed this deter you from watching it. ITS NOT A REMAKE. If you're a new or old fan, you're sure to enjoy this. Here's to hoping for a season 2 of sorts (how ever that would play out)!

Ice Queendom offers something that RWBY proper has little time to deal with anymore. Character studies. To start, I watch the original RWBY so these characters are already engraved into my brain so I can't speak for how good of a job it does at introducing them to a new audience because I can't simply get rid of my biases, but as a fan of RWBY I think Ice Queendom handled the characters amazing! One of the things RWBY lacked, in my opinion, was some of the deep dives into what the characters were thinking especially back in Volume 1. Weiss reveals early on that ... the White Fang has harmed her and her family in physical and emotional ways and in the original she just sort of... gets over that. Don't get me wrong, I have such a fondness for Volume 1-3 of RWBY, but getting the chance to dive deeper into the complicated feelings that characters like Weiss and Blake were feeling over the situation was such a treat. Now to break down some of the pieces of the story,

CHARACTERS
Again, I can't get rid of my prior biases so this is coming from someone who has watched these characters for 8+ volumes and I have to say they did a great adaptation here. It's Volume 1 so most of the characters are fairly baseline and perhaps a little trope-y (Ruby = Genki, Weiss = Himedere, Blake = Kuudere, Yang = Onee-san ) but that leaves a lot of area open to expanding their characters. Using "nightmares" to bring out people's fears is such a fun character study that is even more fun with context of many of these characters.

STORY
Probably one of the weaker parts but I still don't think it's bad. There are points in the middle where it drags a bit, but I still found myself engaged. Many, mistakenly, thought this was a re-telling of Volumes 1-3 (prior to the Maya Animation Engine) so they likely found themselves confused and frustrated on the amount of time spent on Anime Original content. However, seeing as it was not advertised as a retelling, to judge it based off that is unfair. The Anime Original Content is unique and makes the team seem even closer for the events of Volume 2.

SETTING
Ice Queendom primarily takes place in The Ice Queendom (hold your gasps). Seeing that this is more of a character study rather than a journey like the original RWBY, this setting works great. Having the team travel all the way around Remnant would have distracted too much from the story that Ice Queendom is trying to tell.

ANIMATION
Shaft is rather notorious for putting out rushed products that are later fixed on the Blu-Ray (Meguca quality as a I call it) and Ice Queendom is no exceptions there were a couple episodes that were just bad with characters floating around and awkward 3D models that make the series original models look like a Pixar Film. But when the animation was good, it was GOOD. Holding out hope for a Blu-Ray fix, but that doesn't excuse the laziness of a few of the episodes especially with fight scenes something that RWBY is known for. On that note...

ACTION
If you've watched the original RWBY, you are probably expecting some amazing fight animation and unfortunately Ice Queendom rarely delivers on that front. Much like the animation, when it delivers on a fight scene it is a spectacle to behold. However, having a few really amazing fight scenes sprinkled throughout a collection of mid to bad fight scenes is not a good look. Given that I believe Ice Queendom to be a character study and therefore more focused on in depth view of the characters, the action is far from a deal breaker for me. However, if you don't care greatly for the characters (in particular team RWBY) and primarily watch/enjoy RWBY for the fight choreography then you would be better off watching clips of the good fights on Youtube and calling it a day.

OVERALL
This series was a treat for fans of the show, like myself, and hopefully an enjoyable series for new fans as well. It wasn't the best series in the world but it wasn't the worst. It told the story I felt like it was trying to tell and it made me smile so I can't ask for much more than that out of a series. I recommend everyone to give it a try if you like character study series and especially if you're a fan of the designs.

If you're a fan of RWBY and those negative reviews are deterring you, don't let them. It's a fun watch for what it is and while it lasts.

Story does take a while to get going, it more or less recaps Volume 1 in the first three episodes, albeit some scenes have been altered. For some I can understand, as it would take way too much time to animate in 2D. Whereas sometimes, it alters some of the dialogue for no reason. Like that one scene, where Ruby and Weiss have a little exchange during a fight. In the anime, it sends off a different message. ... But once you get past the first 3 episodes, then Ice Queendom's story actually starts and puts a nice spin to the story. It's canonicity may be questionable, but if you pass it off as not-canon to the Rooster Teeth series, it's definitely worth it.

Animation looks good, Though for obvious reasons, it doesn't top the original series, since it's in 2D, isn't as smooth and lacks energy compared to it. So I wouldn't want you to get your hopes too high there.

As for music, aside from the intro, there's not really much to right home about, unfortunately. That's not to say it's bad, just that it's typical of fantasy anime and lacks the unique sound of the main series. It's not Jeff/Casey Lee Williams, that's for sure.

Although I'm aware of Rwby's origins as a popular anime-inspired web series, I know very little else about it and approached this anime version with a clean slate. Though Rwby: Ice Queendom feels rather uneven, it's turned out to be a pleasant surprise overall.

The premise of Rwby feels incredibly generic: the world Remnant is constantly under threat by evil creatures called the Grimm and there are people with superpowers who can fight them. A prestigious school called Beacon Academy trains talented fighters into hunters that go after the Grimm. There also exists magical dirt that everyone seems to want. Be warned that the show is ... quite jargony early on but to its credit Ice Queendom avoids huge info dumps and instead fills in the details piece by piece as the story unfolds.

The series can be considered in three parts: Episodes 1 - 3, 4 - 11, and the final episode.

The first part introduces and brings together the four main characters as part of a new crop of students starting at the Beacon Academy. These are: Ruby and her older sister Yang, Weiss, who is the rich heiress of a mega corp that manufactures magical dirt, and Blake, who seems to be some kind of persecuted furry.

In the early episodes, the characters' personalities are archetypical, and their development feel rudimentary and transparent. The bigger problem though, is that the series is dominated by a long second arc with a story line that requires foundational relationships to be established amongst the main characters. Unfortunately, Ice Queendom rushed into this arc soon after bringing the characters together, so the required foundation wasn't actually built yet and the strength of the characters' feelings for one another just feels unearned. Ironically, the arc does end up driving some pretty good character development later on, but it really should have been done upfront.

If you can suspend your disbelief and pretend the character relationships were more established than what was shown prior to second arc, then that arc can actually be very enjoyable. The action scenes and the special effects are generally nice looking, the plot has plenty of twists and turns and the pacing is excellent. Almost every episode ends on a cliff hanger and it's addictive to watch. As the tension ramps up, the characterisations undergoes considerable refinement, particularly in exploring the psyche of Weiss. It was great to see the characters grow beyond their simplistic moulds and I could even start to feel the chemistry between the characters for real.

Alas, I found Ice Queendom's last few episodes disappointing. I wasn't really sold by the last major plot development or the deus ex moment that resolved one of the final battles. I also found the ending to the second arc a bit too saccharine and cringey. The entire last episode is like an overly long epilogue and it made me realise something: the main characters are kinda annoying. It wasn't as bad when serious business is going on in the foreground, but once all that is stripped away, it's clear that the girls simply cannot carry the show on the merits of their character interactions alone.

Presentation wise, Ice Queendom contains copious amount of CG, possibly in keeping with the original source material. For the most part, this looked fine, particularly the flashy battle sequences full of dazzling lightworks - there's even a gloriously animated food fight! The colour use of Ice Queendom is noteworthy, as the four main girls all have their own colour themes going on and these colours dominate their costumes and special effects. Another nice stylistic touch is the use of split screens which, along with the cliff hanger driven pacing, made me think Ice Queendom's dramatic flourishes took its cues from the TV series 24.

Outside of the action, the layering, colour shading and animation sometimes can appear cheap, and the attempt to reproduce the effects of camera focus and blurring looked strange to me. I watched all the episode on an iPad with the exception of one on a PC, and that one episode didn't look as good, which makes me wonder whether watching this on iPad flattered the visuals.

I must say I'm surprised by the apparent frosty viewer reception for Rwby: Ice Queendom. Not having seen the source material, I don't know whether this was due to the backlash of a hardcore fandom against an unsatisfactory adaptation, but as a standalone series I thought it was good on balance. The anime suffers from some serious flaws for sure, but the stylistic production, nice music and the riveting middle stretch of episodes won me over.

Personal rating: +1.0 (good)

As a first time viewer to this series, in terms of just simply watching it, compared to where it all came from, I do have to say, I am very impressed with what I've saw. Sure, it's not perfect, and does share it's own problems, that will more likely leaving you with questions then answers. But does that completely ruin the experience? No, not at all. But it does hit it a little.

Story and characters: 7
I can't go into the story, without mentioning the characters first and foremost. Mainly because they are the lifeblood of RWBY. Each and every character has an impact on the ... story, but thereis a love around them, that many series wishes it could have. What I am saying is, there is bound to be at least a few characters you are going to really love and stick behind, for their personality, engagement, look, all of the above. It's one big props I can give to RWBY. It's cast is very memorable.

It's story is pretty easy to follow too, it's not puzzling in the slightest, and the different character paths are very interesting to boot. The main issue with all of this though, is te pacing. I'm not sure if it's just going to be the first few episodes that are like this, but it really seemed they wanted to speed run everything, to get where they wanted to be. Which is a massive issue, as it leaves you scratching your head, and wondering why such and such happened. Not that there isn't any good moments within it, there is. It's just damaged from that poor pacing of telling it's story.

Art and sound: 9
This isa very high point for me. While the og's style is very fitting, and is good in its own right.The levelof quality and animation here, it's really top notch. The people who went over this, really know how to handle it with care, and style. From it's flash, to it's more gritty moments. Very well done all round. If you'll remember one major thing aboutthe RWBY anime, you'll remember how great it looked and sounded.

RWBY anime version is quite a delight, despite suffering from major pacing issues here or there. A welcomed product that will excite certain fans, but also potentially bring new fans in, and not only that, that may want to check out the old product as well. A good watch.

I want to try and offset a lot of the negative reviews and that seem to misunderstand RWBY and miss the mark. If you look at it in a vaccuum and judge it by Triple-A anime studio standards, then yes it falls short of being great. But its not bad. You also have to understand it in context. It started out as a clunky experimental anime from a very small studio and long story short, it's was mish-mash of things, animation styles, voice acting, music, writing, comedy, even switching studios, etc. So it's come a very long way and to OG fans its very endearing ... to see an adaption breathe life into it again by a studio with more firepower.

Story:

The new story arc was a welcome change and refreshing compared to the obscure plot we get in the original, the purpose of the first 3 episodes were to recap callback to the original series which was a nice gesture to see and i think justified. The new story is a nice move away from the western style pretend-anime writing and i think fits more in line with authentic Japanese anime style. A lot of the humor in the original RWBY were eye-rollers or one-liners which would be kind of unfair to expect japanese people to recreate if they dont know it. So the comedy taking a hit comes with the territory, but the move to a more dramatic tone is nice. Maybe couldve done with some more japanese humor to match the level of the original.

Char Dev:

The Development was very comfortable over a 12-ep span and slightly more fleshed out than the original which was extremely slow paced and left a lot more to be desired. It definitely satisfied a bit of a craving for a more complex relationship between Weiss and all RWBY squad as well as Ruby's interal conflict.

OST:

This is one of the things i think that the original had over this adaption. Im a sucker for Jeff Williams rock licks/solos and Casey's vocals. The lyrics were cringe but it was charming and fit. The new music is very typical anime music but does the job during fight scenes and softer moments. I think the animation makes up for it.

Art/Animation:

As said before RWBY is a very animation-heavy and character design heavy series but studio shaft really shows that they are qualified for the job. The animation and art is a DEFINITE upgrade to the original, in all volumes. The characters all look beautiful and amazing especially the eye detail and tighter costume art. They were really done justice. Its also nice to see smoother movements in story moments and no clunky CGI 'perspective' walking in the original. The fight scenes were awesome and they finally nailed the lighting. Its nice to see everything consolidated into a single animation style over the hybrid CGI original. The backdrops, scenes and landscape are all treat to look at too.

Voice acting:

The voice acting is superb to say the least. They brought in heavy hitter big name voice actors from other animes and the delivery can be so insane sometimes that it saves the clunky dialogue of the original. It was really a pleasure to hear proper vocals considering the original used average-joe employees with no formal voice acting expereience.

Overall:

It's a very good adaption of what was, in all honesty, a charming mess of a western-made series to begin with and hopefully can continue and maybe provide an alternative experience to the original if they choose to continue (they should) or at the very least an insight to what RWBY could've looked like with a more professional animation studio.

Here is my review of this anime in 2022!

Story (9)
The story is about 4 girls who become a team called RWBY by using their first names. There is a lot of action and fighting in this anime. It's similar to the previous RWBY but has a different art style and animation.


Art (9)
The art in this anime is incredibly good compared to other RWBY. It's more to 2D Animation rather than 2.5D that almost wrecked the animation itself in my opinion. I really love how they make RWBY from 2.5/3D Animation to 2D Animation. The shadow, glow, fighting scene art, etc are very good. But ... sadly I don't like the ending animation since it almost does not match the sound that they used. I didn't get the feeling of the song because they use a lot of static art for the ending.

Sound (9)
All the sounds that they used are suitable and adjusted to the animation.

Character (10)
The main and supporter character is very memorable since they are the same as the previous RWBY.

Enjoyment (9)
It's very enjoyable to watch this movie in 2022.

Overall (9)
It's recommended to those who love 2D Animation for RWBY. If you love action and the fighting scene then you perhaps like this one.

The animation was really great, although the story was abit draggy. The animation was really well done. The story is quite interesting as they explore something different from the rwby main story line. The focus of the character is on Weiss and her family, and their relationship with the Faunas. There was a lot time and effort invested into the animation especially the fight scenes were really good, the animation really did carry the show for me. Looking through the reviews, people were upset with the storyline as they only focus on Weiss story and there wasn't much of world building, everything was really narrowed ... down to those few main characters. I felt they could have explore more but however, overall it is not bad for a side story. Don't let the reviews affect whether you should watch the show, go and watch it and decide it for yourself!

I see so many rom-com series, but i am rarely see some action series like one punch man or like something but this series is a different way of story.

First the narrative :
The narrative of this story is a fantasy and magic fight action scene
Cover up story, it is a super new concept of tag and this show shows some new level friendships. For example they fight with the nightmare for her friend was a long battle wasn't it, I think it is go about 8 eps roughly for that one friend named weiss.
Character development :
I don't care about character development it because ... every unique story needs a different character look and style, so i never gonna talk about it is looking good I think
Animation:
Animation is a same way of looking in all action series like fantastical fights, the lightning works and color development is super.
Overall:
Overall this series is okay for me i am accept it ✌.
A worth watch it.
Total: 8 out of 10.