RWBY: Hyousetsu Teikoku

3/10 solely for how "decently" the first three episodes are adapted. It'd be a 1 otherwise.

RWBY is a series that conceptually has a really interesting world and characters, but unfortunately the "writers" have no idea what to do with any of it. Even more unfortunate is the fact that these same writers are the ones who wrote this story and handed it off to a high end studio hoping they could make a miracle out of garbage.

While the first three episodes to have a pacing problem and mostly require that you've watched the first couple Volumes of the original series to fully grasp what's happening, ... for the most part the adaptation of it is excellently done. Scenes that looked pretty bad in the original volume and were only saved by the amazing choreography of Monty Oum look stunning in those episodes. Again the pacing is a bit fast to cram as much information as possible, but it's forgivable for the most part.

Where everything falls apart is the atrocious original story created for this adaptation. What happened in nine episodes honestly could've been done in the span of three and without the needless plot convenience of an OC that is Shion. Animation quality takes a sharp decline until the second to last episode as well, and even then it tries to take the Demon Slayer approach of big explosions and lots of colors and effects but fails at it. Dialogue genuinely feels like it was written by someone who has never spoken with another human before and only has an idea of how they talk from watching other cheesy anime. Some scenes are completely out of place, characters are awful, the plot goes nowhere the entire time...basically just the problems that modern day RWBY has. Somehow above all else, an anime that was marketed as primarily being about Weiss, spends almost no time exploring her character in a meaningful way that hasn't already been done to death in the original series. Even then, they barely explore her character at all other than being a petty, cold, rich girl tsundere who is actually just really lonely. It's an absolute joke.

I had hopes for the project, but much like everything RoosterTeeth handles in this day and age, it just fell flat on it's face. Unless you're the most hardcore of RWBY fans this is an easy skip imo. It's a shame that something better couldn't be created with the legacy that Monty Oum left behind.

Though I am a big fan of the original RWBY series, I found Ice Queendom to be really unsatisfying. It chooses to focus its plot around Weiss' view on the White Fang, something that was already a pretty low point in the original show. I really don't understand why they would choose this as a main plot point out of all the other possible unexplored ideas related to RWBY... I also found the pacing to be pretty bad, after the recap episodes, things slowed way down. The art style and animation were mostly fine, I know many people would prefer this type of animation over ... RWBY's 3D style, but I found it to be inconsistent and poorly done at points. When it became clear the series would revolve around the White Fang and Weiss' prejudice again, I dropped it. I really cannot recommend it for RWBY fans or for new fans to the series.

TLDR.: If you haven't seen the original, watch that instead. If you have seen the original and you're curious about this, don't bother. If you're REALLY curious, there'll probably be a few compilations on youtube you can watch about this, I'd recommend that over actually watching the show.

The new content dragged, wasn't that great and adds almost nothing to the original show.
And the content that WAS also in the original felt... flat? Like, the original was VERY rough around the edges, don't get me wrong; but it had a charm to it. With this, it feels like they are trying to recreate the same charm, ... but it mostly fails despite some of the scenes being almost the same. You also miss out on the consistently good (3D) fight coreography of the original for some occasionally decent looking (2D) animation in this one.

The worst part is, that if someone watches this FIRST, and like it and wanna see more and go on to watch the original, then they would've probably been better off watching that in the first place, despite it's roughness. Since this glosses over a lot of stuff, and doesn't add much, if anything, and even kinda spoils some (relatively small) stuff.

I had really high expectation about this, but they disappointed me.
It could have been a great adaptation, the first episodes were good because they followed the original plot.

The design is also really cute and i love the choice of voices they made.

Everything went down when the new original part started to develop. It was the most boring and long arc ever. It started before episode 5 and lasted the remaining episodes. That was so disappointing.
It would have been better if they tried to adapt the original plot fully.

I don't recommend this to anyone, especially to the ones who intend to watch ... rwby, it doesn't tell the original story plus the characters aren't (obviously) fully developed but stereotiped instead.

What always made RWBY so special to me was its heart. Even if it didn’t have great production, writing, or pacing, it made up for that with raw passion. The choreography in the original RWBY is honestly unmatched to this day, which helped make up for its sometimes questionable animations. While the writing might not have always been the best, the performances from the seemingly amateurish voice actors made up for it by being able to feel how much fun they had recording their lines. And then we had the music. Jeff and Casey Lee William’s songs always hit, be it pure hype, or feelings ... of loneliness and loss. They always set the mood and we were able to see them grow as artists along with the voice actors. Why am I mentioning all this? The original RWBY run felt like a truly special experience because of all I mentioned above, a feeling I never expected Ice Queendom to recapture. Sadly, Ice Queendom is missing the heart and the passion that made RWBY so memorable despite all it’s flaws.

After watching episodes one through three, all I could think of was “is this what it feels like to be a manga fan watching an anime adaptation?” because they truly did rush and butcher the beginning of the show. Skipping tons of character interactions and some of my favorite fights, most notably being Blake and Sun vs Roman, which I still rewatch randomly on YouTube all these years later. To me at least, all this did was make the characters feel like cardboard cutouts of their original selves. I’d also imagine that it would do nothing but detract from the experience of someone new trying to get into RWBY as this condensed version either assumes you already know everything about these characters or just doesn’t care. The disappointment was already seeping in, but I wasn’t going to give up on RWBY just yet.

Episodes four through eleven are all anime original and, well, they just don’t feel like RWBY at all to me. Strangely enough, all I could think about was how this felt more like a bad version of a Madoka Magica plot line than it did a story in the RWBY universe. Long story short, I flat out did not enjoy these episodes at all either. I found myself rolling my eyes, wanting to check my phone, and genuinely bored. Outside of the plot feeling like a fan fic, the art was downright pathetic most of the time as well (episode eleven being the big exception here). I didn’t find the OST memorable either. In fact, the only part of the OST I do remember are the two times the voice actors tried to sing songs from the original show and butchered them. I appreciate the effort at least.

I know it’s mostly been doom and gloom in this review, but it isn’t all bad! Episode twelve was incredible and the shows saving grace. The food fight scene was perfection. Not only was it beautifully animated, but it was fun. Fun is something this show was desperately missing. Not only that, but the characters also felt like their normal selves. The way the bickered back and forth and made silly or snappy comments towards each other felt very natural. Since they were clearly setting up for a second season, this closing episode gave me hope that it could potentially live up to the original RWBY one day and hopefully even elevate it.

In conclusion, I’m not quite sure who Ice Queendom is for. Like I mentioned before, the beginning being a rushed mess would push new fans away, at least I’d imagine. As a longtime fan, myself, it certainly didn’t grab me with how much it disrespected the original story and then went to fan fic territory. That being said, I’m not against anime original material. In my opinion having half a season or maybe even a full season to retell the original story and build up the characters would have been good for new and old fans alike. New fans would get a better understanding of the world and characters and old fans could relive some of their favorite scenes. After a more solid foundation, I think some anime original content could have been very interesting if done correctly. A part of me is still glad this was made. I do hope more people get into RWBY because of this adaptation, although I’ll obviously be recommending the original instead. It still did put a smile on my face knowing that RWBY did get an anime adaptation and I truly wish Monty could have seen it. “I believe the human spirit is indomitable. If you endeavor to achieve, it will happen given enough resolve.” -Monty Oum