No Spoiler Review: RWBY

Surprisingly amazing show to connect with your tweens and teens.

If you are a teen or tween RWBY fan and want your parents to let you watch more, help them find this review and they will think watching more RWBY is their idea. For friends, relatives, parents and grandparents of mature tweens and teens, I completely understand if you want to dismiss this review based on the poster of these four anime girls. That’s exactly what I did for years, and may have even thought they were a K-pop band like BTS at some point.

What you should know is RWBY is something you can watch with a tween, teen or young adult you are trying to better connect with, if they are a fan of Action-Adventure, Science Fiction or Fantasy genres. It may even work for some gamer kids, because it is a bit video game style and has a game too.

If they agree to watch it, you will not be bored and they should be entertained, but most importantly you will get to share a lot of deep thoughts and positive connections without saying a word, and there is certainly plenty of material that can help strike up some important “coming of age” conversations. If they have already seen it or think it is not for them, you will still get some coolness points for being an “old person” knowing a young person’s thing, so win-win.

RWBY (surprisingly pronounced Ruby) is an acronym for the team of four young huntresses composed of the enthusiastic prodigy Ruby Rose, the cool heiress Weiss Schnee, the mysteriously old soul Blake Belladona and Ruby’s powerful yet fun-loving big sister Yang Xiao Long.

Personally, I think RWBY is cute, fun, funny, sweet, silly, charming, positive, honest, real, deep, dark and inspiring. If you can’t tell, I think action-packed RWBY totally rocks and hits home spiritually, emotionally and psychologically on so many levels.

Speaking of “totally rocks,” Volume 1’s rockin intro had its doors blown off by a 15 year old Casey Lee Williams who has continued to do great original rock and pop vocals for the show. I can only imagine how excited I would have been as a kid to hear this intro since it gets me excited now.

I am a bit shocked I had not heard anything about this great coming of age, girl-power, action-adventure, sci-fi, fantasy show. Surprisingly, it has produced nine volumes since coming out in 2015, with the latest coming out in 2023. I do remember seeing small adverts here and there but I suppose it never caught my eye because it looked like more Japanese anime. As a kid who grew up loving Saturday morning cartoons like the Super Friends, I have never stopped loving cartoons, but most anime has usually been a bit outside my Americanized comfort zone.

It was only thanks to DC Studios doing a 2023 crossover movie with RWBY and several Super Friends like Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, The Flash, Green Lantern and Cyborg, that I finally found out about these very impressive huntresses and their own super friends.

Ironically, I had no idea who or what RWBY was in the title with the Justice League, nor did I realize that the RWBY was related to those little adverts of those four unknown “anime” girls but regardless, I would never skip a DC movie with my childhood super friends. Interestingly, once the movie started and I saw Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang in action, it somehow felt like I knew them already, but there was no way I could have. Regardless, after the movie I wanted to know more.

Despite my general lack of affinity for anime, I actually have always had a lot of love and respect for Japanese cinema and have some anime favorites like the classic Spirited Away and everything Ghost in the Shell, but RWBY is something special and different. It was created and made in America by Americans which is clearly why it is in my comfort zone, but it is also such a good story and concept that it became the first American anime to be imported to Japan and remade Japanese style.

Some call it anime, some call it American anime and some say it isn’t anime at all. I like “American anime” because for me, RWBY seems like the best of both worlds. However, there apparently is a very passionate fan base that fights over all things RWBY as well, so if you have any favorites or complaints, you will find many videos of fans agreeing and disagreeing with you. As long as you remember this started as a lower budget web series when some of the animation isn’t big budget perfect, you should be fine. In some ways, the animation moves a little herky jerky like in South Park, but that is also partly due to the show not taking itself too seriously.

In other words, if you don’t expect perfection, the quality is pretty darn good. However, since fight scenes were a point of focus for creator Monty Oum, they are surprisingly exceptional and up there with some of the best action scenes with the most unique weapons in any fantasy or Sci-fi action-adventure, ever.   

If you don’t think that Ruby girl is really cool yet, what is also really cool about RWBY is you can find the first five seasons on YouTube. What a nice surprise it has been to find some new and unexpected high quality escapism to love, feels good for the soul and is just a free click away. Once again, my childhood Super Friends at the Justice League came through by introducing me to the enjoyable and inspiring RWBY. Episodes are short so perhaps give a few a try and see if you think, “That Ruby girl” and her friends are “really really cool” like I do.

Season 1

If you would like to see a psychological review of a TV show or movie, please feel free to make suggestions. CNI is always on the look-out for entertaining ways we can educate ourselves and the world about humanity’s darker sides, and all other aspects of life and psychology that could benefit from a greater understanding of Intelligence.