The year is 2013. You’ve just finished Highschool and you’re attending your favorite local convention, RTX, in line for the world premier of their new show. For the past 6 months you’ve binged their trailers. You’re hyped. You recently got into this “anime” thing, and you trust Monty Oum implicitly. How can you not? His passion is infectious. The doors open, you take your seat, the lights go down and the screen plays… RWBY. Fast forward almost a decade later. RWBY is on it’s 9th season and Monty Oum has tragically passed away. For one reason or another you’re just not in love with the series anymore, watching each season in a vain hope for the magic of years gone by. And then you see it. Studio Shaft, Directed by Toshimasa Suzuki, planned by Gen Urobuchi with designs by Steins;Gate’s Huke… RWBY: Ice Queendom. Hope. It doesn’t last long.
P.S. I decided to just skip a post for the final episode since it’s really just going over everything we already know and reintroducing us t the canon timeline of the show. The food fight was kinda nice, wish that effort had been put elsewhere though. On with the review!
Be warned, this review contains minor unmarked spoilers for RWBY: Ice Queendom as well as Rooster Teeth’s original RWBY.
How We Got Here
First up, what exactly is RWBY? Made by Rooster Teeth, an American company, and directed by Monty Oum, an American director, RWBY stands in this really weird place between anime and cartoon. Neither just a simple passion project nor a fully-fledged production, RWBY exists at the interstice of the two. It has a budget, yes, and has since grown into a large IP. But it’s world map was also created by squirting ketchup onto a napkin at the local IHOP. And both of these sides show in the series. Animated in Poser, and modeled in Maya, RWBY had the visual fidelity of a PS2-era cutscene, complete with blacked-out models for background characters. Yet in spite of this, the team’s passion showed through in just how far they took it with those limitations. From a completely original score by Jeff Williams to Monty’s signature fight choreography, RWBY had heart.
Now after that I’m sure you’re wondering, where does Queendom fit into all of this? If RWBY is this big IP now, with 8 seasons and a 9th on the way, do you have to watch all of that to understand this? The short answer is no. Queendom is a canon-adjacent story, meaning it slots into the existing canon and tells a side story that doesn’t conflict with the main narrative. Queendom even goes so far as to redo, in a concentrated form at least, the first half of RWBY Volume 1 just so you understand who and what everyone is. So if you have never seen RWBY before, Queendom will, theoretically, be fine. The long answer though? Well that’s where we run into problems. Because Queendom was clearly made for existing fans rather than to bring new ones into the fandom. And it’s obvious from the start.
Visuals
With that said, it’s time to start the review proper. And what better place to begin than the visual design and animation? Queendom actually has a decent amount going for it here. Huke’s character designs are, in a word, gorgeous. It was true for Black Rock Shooter and Steins;Gate and it remains true for Queendom. I absolutely adore the eyes and, outside of Blake’s cat outfit, the new RWBY designs look good. On top of that, the premise, which we will get to, lends itself to some rather creative backgrounds and settings. Simply put, when it’s not moving I think Queendom can often look pretty decent. Sometimes the filters get in the way, and there are a fair bit of compositing issues, sure. But most still screenshots should like fine. But what about when it’s not moving? What about when its doing that “animation” thing? How’s it look then?
Well that’s the problem: It doesn’t. Look animated, I mean. Oh Queendom tries, it tries so very hard. And whenever Hiroto Nagata, Kazuki Kawata and a few others are given room to shine, I dare say it succeeds. At it’s best, Queendom is what RWBY fans have always imagined RWBY to look like. Just look at the clip above from the first episode! RWBY runs entirely on the “Rule of Cool” and Nagata embraced that. The only problem is that these sorts of clips only make up a miniscule portion of the show. Of course it’s unreasonable to expect an entire season to be animated like this. No one is asking the impossible. However I bring it up because of just how bad the rest of the show is. More often than not, Queendom looks like it was thrown together hours before it aired. Don’t believe me? Let’s talk details.
Some of the issues are pretty normal as I understand it. It’s not uncommon for storyboards or pre-vis to be simplified or cut outright if there isn’t time to fully animate them. Happens all the time I would wager, and isn’t unique to Queendom. But that’s more a symptom of the anime industry’s issue at large regarding production schedules and timing than it is “acceptable practice”. And Queendom especially suffers from this problem. From janky CGI to panning still shots to downright single-digit frame rates, Queendom is filled with moments where the production clearly got away from them. And while these do get worse as the show goes on, they are present from the very beginning! A few can be forgiven, making a show is hard, but there comes a point where you have to wonder how just tight their schedule was. And it only snowballs from there.
From uninspired still shots and uninteresting or downright confusing angles to me questioning whether or not a compositing team even exists on the production. Characters sliding across the screen, feeling like they don’t even belong in the world as they walk “above” the backgrounds rather than on them. It’s a shame because RWBY as an IP has an established visual identity, and Queendom knows it. The meaningful looks, the wild action, cool for the sake of cool. Queendom knows what RWBY is supposed to look and feel like. The production just wasn’t able to support that. Really what I’m saying is this: If you were to look up the word “Inconsistency” in the dictionary, you would find Queendom’s picture. It looks absolutely great when it has the time to do so. Sadly it very rarely does.
Luckily for us all however, Queendom’s visuals are the worst part about it. So we can only go up from here. And what better place to start than the narrative!
Narrative
To start this bit off, I need to just come out and say it: Queendom’s plot really doesn’t have much going on. By it’s very nature as canon-adjacent, Queendom is a B-plot in a much larger story. As such, nothing is allowed to truly happen in Queendom. Think of it like a filler arc in a way. Every character who shows up in the arc has to leave it as close as they can to how they entered it. You couldn’t have some major event like say… Luffy losing an arm in a filler arc could you? Not without magically fixing it at the end with some Deus Ex Machina. It would mess to much with the established manga story line! While RWBY isn’t a manga, it is a long running existing IP and Queendom takes place between volumes 1 and 2 of the original story. It’s the same problem.
Luckily, Queendom recognizes this and decides to take a different approach. Like so many good filler arcs before it, Queendom is basically one big bottle episode/series. It takes the cast and throws them into a wholly new location where they can smash and explore it to their hearts content, all without affecting the main series. And it does this through an admittedly silly contrivance: Dreams. That’s right, Queendom goes full Inception. I’d say that’s a spoiler, but it’s literally in the PV and promotional work for the series, so don’t get your panties in a twist. Anyways, the point is that this dream setting is something Queendom leans into a lot. Thing’s don’t have to make logical sense in a dream, either locationally or narratively. Instead it relies primarily on the emotions of the characters to drive scenes and the larger story forward. This has its pros and cons.
On the pros side, this sort of emotional story telling leans into RWBY’s core “Rule of Cool” philosophy. You’re going to get a lot of things that just don’t make sense, but are cool and cool things happen in dreams. I’m talking people driving up walls, doors to nowhere, that sort of thing. For the con’s however, you have one big, glaring issue: Queendom’s entire narrative arc is built around you already caring for, and being interested in, these characters. The best way to think of Queendom is as a single giant character piece about Weiss, with Ruby, Blake and Yang along for the ride. To some, that probably sounds great! But if you don’t already know who they are? If those names mean nothing to you? Then Queendom has probably already lost you. Because it has no other way to hook you in than the characters and their relationships.
Simply put, Queendom is a story made for existing RWBY fans, not to draw new fans in. There’s no exploration of the setting or overarching goals of the characters. Queendom doesn’t really try to establish who Ozpin and Teams RWBY and JNPR are or what Beacon is, what Grimm or Aura are, or why everything is like this. It just speed runs through the first volume to establish Weiss, her relationship with each member of Team RWBY, and her general internal issues. This is good enough for a fun dream-sequence through her head sure, if you’ve decided to engage with her. But for anyone looking for an introduction to RWBY at large, they are going to be sorely disappointed. However for those that are already fans of RWBY, there’s a lot here to love. And most of it can be found in the characters.
Characters
The big thing to know about Queendom’s characters before I dive into spoiler territory is that they are the meat of the show. I don’t just mean that they are fun, or the action or whatever. I mean they personal journeys, their arcs and relationships, are more important than Queendom’s actual plot. Like I said above, Queendom is mostly a character piece about Weiss Schnee. It dives in and examines every facet of her character. From her deteriorating relationship with her family and her abusive household to her desire for personal freedom and how it conflicts with wanting to take over and remake the family business. Queendom spends its entire runtime exploring these issues. And it does so largely through the other 3 members of team RWBY, allowing Queendom to simultaneously explore both at once.
With Blake for instance, it explores their mutual experiences with racism. And don’t worry, all of what I’m about to say is obvious from like… episode 2 onwards. On Blake’s side its all about overcoming and moving forward despite her violent past, secure in the knowledge that she can be a better person. That her past does not define her. Meanwhile for Weiss it’s about learning to see the individual, and not attributing the actions of a violent few to all. And by having the Nightmare show them their mutual worst extremes, Queendom allows them to safely experience and explore each. Similar threads exists for Ruby and her desire to be accepted and acknowledged as a leader vs Weiss envying her freedom, as well as Yang’s overprotectiveness and older-sister relationship within the team. For those that care about the characters, it’s all really good stuff! There’s only one problem. JNPR.
Unlike team RWBY, team JNPR might as well not exist. In fact, let’s extend that to the rest of the show as well. Oh they show up and get a few lines, Pyrrha gets a nice dress and Weiss projects onto her a bit. Jaune even gets to take part in the big rescue, though mostly as a support. But that’s it really. Pyrrha speaks maybe one line every 2 episodes at most, Ren and Nora even less. Ozpin, Glynda and the school at large are mostly just window dressing. This probably doesn’t surprise you judging by the title, but Queendom is really just the team RWBY show. At its core this is fine. They are the titular characters, and it does really really well by them. It’s just that the size of the cast is a bit to large for how irrelevant most of them actually are.
All in all, I would say that while the characters are Queendom’s strongest part, it heavily relies on you having prior knowledge, and interest, in them. New fans to the IP can’t be expected to know everything that’s needed to fully appreciate some of these scenes and interactions. And Queendom doesn’t spend the proper time required to educate them. I suspect you’ll still get some enjoyment, again the characterization is nice. But much like the narrative, this was made for an existing fanbase, and no one else.
OST/Sound Design
Finally we come to the last real section of this review, and one I’m very excited by. Much like it’s established “Rule of Cool” visual identity, RWBY also has an existing auditory identity. But where the visuals were born of what I would call passion, rather than technical expertise, and could thus be iterated on and changed while still retaining that RWBY feel, the music is much more refined and iconic. Created primarily by Jeff Williams, with guest vocals from various artists, his daughter Casey among them, RWBY’s musical style is centered around it’s characters. Each one has their own instruments and genre of music associated with them, done so that you can instantly recognize who the primary focus of the scene is about. On top of that, a vast majority of the music has lyrics, telling the story just as much as the visuals.
To me, that’s what truly defines RWBY’s musical identity. You could follow a characters journey in RWBY as much through their music as you could the show itself. Take Weiss’s tracks for instance, all starting in a subdued, almost classical form before evolving and changing into more freeform and modern instruments. Here you have “The Path to Isolation” followed by “Mirror Mirror” parts 1 and 2, “It’s My Turn” and “This Life is Mine“, the same leitmotif present throughout. Or maybe you prefer Yang’s more self-empowerment, guitar and drum heavy music with “I Burn“, “Armed and Ready” and “Ignite“. Heck, even the parents get music with stuff like “All Our Days” and “Home”. The point is, RWBY’s music is probably the most iconic thing about it. And this is what Queendom had to live up to. So… did it?
The answer is… Sort-of? I want to be really clear about Void_Chords, Nobuko Toda and Kazuma Jinnouchi’s struggle here, they had a hard job. They had to match, but not copy, RWBY’s original sound. To reflect the philosophy behind how Jeff writes music while still doing their own thing. And they tried, they really did! They pulled out the bagpipes in some places, the classical instruments in others, and went all out with some of the pop tracks. (Fair warning, some of the following tracks are not officially released and I could only find clips from the show, so spoilers if you watch them). Take a listen to “Relight Emotions” for instance, the jazzy “Any Moment” or the ominous and unnerving “The Reflection“. Anyways, the point is: They tried really hard. And their only downfall is that Jeff is just to iconic to the series, making it an impossible task.
So yeah, Queendom tried to overcome the wall that is the original music, and it fell short. But they gave it the old college try. They tried to match the music to the characters, they tried to do a primarily vocal OST, and they even tried to bring back some of the OG music by having the VA’s sing parts of “Mirror Mirror”. It was an admirable attempt at something I never expected them to succeed at, and it is one I must respect. Now with that done… I can’t help but think I’m forgetting something… Oh right! The sound design. It’s fine. That’s it. The sound design is ultimately pretty bland. For all that it takes place in a dreamscape, there really wasn’t anything that stood out to me here. This is both good and bad, since it neither heightened nor hindered the series. But it was ultimately forgettable.
Conclusion
So the question becomes, how was RWBY: Ice Queendom? And the problem is that I have two different answers. For people who know, and already like, RWBY? This is a good time. Nothing incredible, the production is an absolute mess and the only thing you are really getting out of it is a well executed character piece about Weiss. Say… ~60/100. But for everyone else? For the people who don’t already know RWBY, who aren’t already invested in these characters and their story? You don’t even have that. All you get is a mess of a production where the only valuable parts of the show can be found on Sakugabooru. For you… Probably around a 30/100. So for the sake of argument, lets split the difference right down the middle. Not like the score really matters all things considered, not if you’ve actually read what I wrote.
At the very least we got some absolutely balling end cards out of it though.
