Category: Finished Series: Action

Welcome everyone, to the penultimate episode of RWBY: Ice Queendom. This episode is the climax, the big finale, wrapping up the story and leaving us an epilogue for who knows what. Was it any good? Did I get the emotional high I wanted? Did Nagata make a return? To at least one of those, the answer is yes. Let’s dive in.

Starting off, the easy one: Nagata does indeed return. And it looks fantastic. It’s obvious that even he is struggling with the production, you need only look at his scenes to see they aren’t what they could be. But what we did get is still so far above the rest of the show, it’s enough to make you weep for what could have been. It’s like Shaft contracted him for one good scene per girl almost. With this week being Yang’s time to shine. And shine she did, as we got to see her semblance in all its glory. Watching her smash the giant robot was something I’ve been waiting for Queendom to do ever since they introduced it. You probably remember me complaining about the robot fights prior to this. Well we finally got it. And as for the rest of the show? As a RWBY fan, it works.

Continue reading “RWBY Ice Queendom – 11 [Light in Shadows]” →

Welcome back everyone, to another week of RWBY: Ice Queendom! This episode continues the trend of “I like this narrative, dear god it looks like shit”. Sometimes I wonder what’s happened at Shaft that this kind of mismanagement has become their norm, but that’s outside the scope of this post. So without further ado, lets dive into the episode!

Like usual, this episode looked like garbage. And I’m not just talking about the regular jank Queendom has had throughout the season. Oh no, this week was extra bad. If you check the episode credits, you’ll find that they fused the 2nd Key Animation and Douga roles. For those who don’t know what that means, they basically merged the initial creation and cleanup steps for part of the process. On top of that, it’s like the compositing team didn’t even show up for work this week, so badly do the animation fit into their surroundings. All of this on it’s own isn’t anything to new, Queendom has looked like shit before. But what makes it worse is that this week, Hiroto Nagata and others made their return! So spliced between all this shit are moments that look great. And you’re just left wondering… Why can’t the rest look like that?

Continue reading “RWBY Ice Queendom – 10 [Mirrors of Darkness]” →

I’ve tried my best to be positive about RWBY: Ice Queendom up through now. As a character study on Weiss, I still believe it’s not bad! But this week… This was not a good week, for a lot of reasons. Let’s dive in and talk about them.

Starting off, dear god did this episode look bad. I’m not talking about just bad or janky animation, that’s been present since the beginning. Though that does of course exist as well. No, rather what I want to draw attention to is just the half-assed, absurdly lazy direction and storyboarding of the episode. Stuff like Yang just standing in the center of the screen while the camera slowly pans upwards. Or the incredibly static nature of a train and its occupants sliding across the screen. Stuff like that. They even managed to make a train crash boring and unimpactful! And you can find this basically everywhere. From the small Ruby and Weiss fight to Yang’s motorcycle to Smol!Weiss and Pyrrha shooting out of the train cars. It all feels like the most basic, straight forward, lazy way the scenes could have been presented.

Continue reading “RWBY: Ice Queendom – 9 [My Dream, Your Dream]” →

Welcome everyone, to another episode of RWBY: Ice Queendom! Much to my surprise, Queendom continues its trend of actually being kinda good. Not visually, that’s still an absolute dumpster fire. But narratively? I’m… I’m kind of invested. And every time I write that I have to stare at it in shock. Why? Let’s dive in and talk about it.

First up, let’s just completely skip animation. We both know it’s not good at this point. Queendom didn’t even give us a fight with the giant robot statue Nicholas this week, that’s how disappointing it was. So instead lets skip right to the story where Queendom totally surprised me. Remember last week when I said this was the final run and we were going to slowly work our way to Weiss? Well forget that. Because instead we just speed ran our way back to the Grimm, failed, and then got punted to an even lower nadir. A nadir so low in fact that I am actually entertaining the possibility that someone might actually die. It’s a low chance, don’t get me wrong. But the OG RWBY did it, and we’ve already broken from canon, so why can’t Queendom? Suffice to say, I’d be really impressed if it did.

Continue reading “RWBY: Ice Queendom – 8 [Where You Belong]” →

Welcome back everyone, to another episode of RWBY: Ice Queendom! This week is actually a good step up from the last, in basically every respect. It’s not perfect of course. But there’s a lot I liked about it, so lets jump right in and talk about it.

Starting off, the animation. Let’s not beat around the bush, Queendom has been suffering here for a while and this week isn’t any different. The CGI continues to stick out like a sore thumb and there are some scenes I can count the frames on one hand in. To say Queendom looks janky at times would be a compliment. But, and this is a big but, this week actually had some fun stuff as well. From small parts of the train fight, stuff like Jaune’s landing and Yang’s short combination, to all the tiny Weiss’s running around. It’s the most interesting and engaging animation that we’ve had since the opening 3 episodes dropped. Does that make it incredible? No, not really. But a drowning man at sea doesn’t complain when he finds a half-full water bottle floating by.

Continue reading “RWBY Ice Queendom – 7 [Dreams Come Rued]” →

Welcome everyone, to the halfway point for RWBY: Ice Queendom! I’d say we have a lot to talk about, but if I’m being honest we really don’t. This was a pretty straight forward, and dare I say weak, episode for the show. Why is that? Well lets dive in and talk about it.

First up, Queendom looked pretty damn janky this episode. The closeups in the 2nd half were fine, Huke’s designs hold up when they aren’t moving. And a lot of the editing was snappy and creative as well. I loved hearing only one side of Yang’s conversation but cutting to the phone and back, making it clear a conversation was happening beyond just standing still. But the fights? The fights were bad. I’m talking full floaty CGI, bad composite, stiff movement bad. It’s funny that I’m critiquing a RWBY show for having CGI, I get that. However say what you will about the original RWBY , Rooster Teeth’s CGI has come a long way and looks way better than this. Combine that with it swapping between 2D and 3D and it stands out all the more. It’s disappointing to be honest. Where are my Nagata cuts?!

Continue reading “RWBY Ice Queendom – 6 [Do You Have a Plan?]” →

Welcome back everyone, to another week of RWBY: Ice Queendom! The story doesn’t progress much this week, but we do get a good look into how Weiss views a lot more of the characters. It feels like Queendom is really trying to set something up, but only time will tell if its any good. For now, lets jump in and talk about this weeks episode!

Starting off, I have something I need to get off my chest: Queendom’s editing is starting to get on my nerves. Not the rather boring shot composition or shot-reverse-shot dialogue, that’s disappointing but workable. No, I’m talking about the gallery style formatting where they place multiple shots within the same shot with only a thin black line separating them. Queendom occasionally did this in an intelligent way, like the time it used the edge of the fountain to separate the shots rather than a random black line. But most of the time it felt like I was watching a manga panel or something. It feels like an excuse to be lazy rather than storyboard out some interesting camera shots and block scenes properly. Maybe that’s just me being nitpicky, but it really has started to become noticeable.

Continue reading “RWBY Ice Queendom – 5 [Awaken in a Dream]” →

Look everyone, RWBY: Ice Queendom is back! After 3 weeks of no content, a new episode has finally dropped. And while the production leaves something to be desired, I actually liked the world that Queendom is setting up. There’s potential for something interesting there. So without further ado, lets dive in and talk about it!

Starting off, the aforementioned visuals! This week wasn’t anything impressive sadly. No big character or battle sakuga, nothing for the animation people to really whet their teeth on. The end had something akin to that, but the compositing absolutely ruined those shots for me. To be honest, the only thing that stood out to me were the backgrounds. And even then not because they were particularly special or striking. They don’t have the color of Yofukashi no Uta nor the detail of Made in Abyss. But they are also more than your usual stock fantasy town. There was enough effort put in to inform and reinforce the world building done throughout. It wasn’t spectacularly detailed sure, but there was at least an attempt. And that’s something I can appreciate when an episode has so little else going on visually.

Continue reading “RWBY Ice Queendom – 4 [Ice Queendom]” →