RWBY


 * For other uses of "RWBY", see RWBY (disambiguation)

The future-fantasy world of Remnant is filled with ravenous monsters, treacherous terrain, and more villains than you can shake a sniper-scythe at. Fortunately, Beacon Academy is training Huntsmen and Huntresses to battle the evils of the world, and Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang are ready for their first day of class.

RWBY (pronounced Ruby) is an American anime web series created by Monty Oum and produced by Rooster Teeth Productions.

Plot


The plot is centered around the four members of Team RWBY – Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long. The series follows their meeting and training at Beacon Academy, a prestigious school for training Huntsmen and Huntresses, warriors who defend the world from evil.

Along the way, they make many friends and allies, including fellow students Team JNPR, Sun Wukong and Penny Polendina, and foil the plots of villains, such as Roman Torchwick, Cinder Fall and the terrorist group the White Fang.

However, as the series continues, Team RWBY must confront their own demons: Ruby is faced with moral dilemmas that challenge her heroic intent, Weiss must reconcile her legacy as heiress of the Schnee Dust Company with her own personal convictions, Blake remains haunted by her past as a member of the White Fang, and Yang searches tirelessly for her mother, who mysteriously disappeared when she was a child.

Setting


RWBY is set in the world of Remnant, a future-fantasy world with airships, high-tech weaponry and a form of natural energy called Dust, existing side by side. According to narration in the series, the early history of Remnant has been long forgotten, with recollections being passed down in the form of myths and legends.

In the world of Remnant, all living creatures possess a soul, the physical manifestation of which is known as Aura: a form of innate energy that bestows its user with certain abilities and powers. Semblances are unique expressions of this power, and are akin to a personal superpower unique to each character. Remnant is populated by two intelligent species - humanity and the Faunus, a race of human-animal hybrids.

All of the inhabitants of Remnant are beset by the Grimm, which are described as "creatures of destruction" and lack a soul. Huntsmen and Huntresses fight the Grimm and protect the peace of Remnant and its people.

Characters

 * Main articles: Characters, Minor Characters

{| width="100%"
 * style="vertical-align:top"|
 * style="vertical-align:top"|

Protagonists

 * Team RWBY
 * Ruby Rose
 * Weiss Schnee
 * Blake Belladonna
 * Yang Xiao Long
 * Team JNPR
 * Jaune Arc
 * Nora Valkyrie
 * Pyrrha Nikos †
 * Lie Ren

Huntsmen

 * Beacon Academy Staff
 * Ozpin
 * Glynda Goodwitch
 * Peter Port
 * Bartholomew Oobleck
 * Atlesian Military
 * James Ironwood
 * Winter Schnee
 * Penny Polendina †
 * Team STRQ
 * Summer Rose †
 * Taiyang Xiao Long
 * Raven Branwen
 * Qrow Branwen
 * style="vertical-align:top" |

Antagonists

 * Salem's Faction
 * Salem
 * Arthur Watts
 * Hazel Rainart
 * Tyrian Callows
 * Cinder's Faction
 * Cinder Fall
 * Roman Torchwick †
 * Emerald Sustrai
 * Mercury Black
 * Neopolitan
 * White Fang
 * Adam Taurus
 * White Fang Lieutenant

Supporting Characters

 * Team CRDL
 * Cardin Winchester
 * Russel Thrush
 * Dove Bronzewing
 * Sky Lark
 * Team CFVY
 * Coco Adel
 * Fox Alistair
 * Velvet Scarlatina
 * Yatsuhashi Daichi
 * Team SSSN
 * Sun Wukong
 * Scarlet David
 * Sage Ayana
 * Neptune Vasilias
 * }

Trailers


Four trailers were released leading up to the premiere of RWBY. Unlike regular previews, the trailers for RWBY were not cut using animation from the series, instead being original self-contained animated short films that told their own unique stories. In this sense, they acted more like prequels for the series proper than actual trailers.

Each trailer is referred to by a certain color and letter and features a character corresponding to those themes, revealing a little about the central characters' backstory. For example, the "Red", or "R", Trailer featured the character Ruby Rose.


 * The "Red" Trailer was released on November 7th, 2012, showing Ruby Rose fighting against a large pack of Beowolves, shown after the finale to Red vs. Blue Season 10.
 * The "White" Trailer was released on February 14th, 2013, showing Weiss Schnee singing in front of a crowd and having a flashback to a fight with a giant suit of armor.
 * The "Black" Trailer was released on March 22nd, 2013, showing Blake Belladonna and her partner, Adam Taurus, raiding a cargo train and fighting Atlesian Knight-130's and a large security droid.
 * The "Yellow" Trailer was released on June 1st, 2013, showing Yang Xiao Long searching for information about someone at a club, then fighting Junior Xiong and his henchmen.

These trailers led directly into the first Volume of the show.

Episodes
Episodes of the series are watchable in their entirety on Rooster Teeth's website and YouTube. The series is also simulcast concurrent with the public release of the show on anime streaming website Crunchyroll. Previous seasons were available on the internet streaming service Netflix.

In 2016, theatrical screenings of RWBY Volume 1 in Australia, the United Kingdom and United States were announced, with the help of screening and events coordinator Tugg. The theatrical screenings took place from April 27th, 2016. Screenings for Volumes 2 and 3 were also announced for 2016 in the lead-up to Volume 4. Screenings for Volume 2 took place on July 27th.

Volume 1


The first episode of the series premiered live to audiences at RTX 2013 (July 5–7th, 2013 in Austin, Texas), with the online public premiere taking place on July 18th, 2013. All subsequent episodes were released every Thursday at 7pm EST for the general public on the Rooster Teeth website. Rooster Teeth also uploaded each episode to YouTube one week following its premiere.

There are sixteen episodes in Volume 1. However, the episodes vary greatly in length, with episodes 1, 8 and 16 being around eleven minutes long, with all the other episodes running approximately six minutes. Volume 1 ran from July 18th to November 7th, 2013. The DVDs and Blu-rays of the first volume were released on November 12th, 2013.

Volume 2


It was revealed by Gray G. Haddock on January 30th, 2014 that production on RWBY Volume 2 was underway and that the first episode would premiere at RTX 2014 (July 4–6th, Austin, Texas). It was also revealed that only 12 episodes would be released in the volume rather than the 16 that were released for Volume 1, but each episode will be at least 12 minutes long due to feedback that the episodes were too short.

Episodes were not released every week, with supplemental series RWBY: World of Remnant airing in lieu of an episode on the series' off-weeks.

Volume 3


Monty confirmed at PAX Prime 2014 that there would be a RWBY Volume 3. The third volume also featured 12 episodes of around 16 minutes in length. The first episode of the third volume premiered on October 24th, 2015.

The third volume featured a slightly different release schedule to previous volumes, with Rooster Teeth FIRST members (formerly Sponsors) being able to watch the episode a full day earlier than the public. The weekly release time was also moved from Thursday evening to Saturday morning for FIRST members (Sunday morning for the public). As before, episodes are uploaded to YouTube one week following the public release of the episode on the Rooster Teeth website. Short 30 second previews for each episode, entitled "Coming Up Next on RWBY Vol. 3" were also uploaded on the preceding Wednesday of the week of an episode's release.

Every third episode was followed by an episode of RWBY: World of Remnant, along with other week-long breaks, including the Rooster Teeth Extra Life Stream for charity on November 8th, 2015 and the RWBY Livestream on December 9th, 2015. A RWBY Volume 3 Hype Stream was also streamed on the Rooster Teeth website on February 12th, 2016, in which the cast and crew watched and commentated on the released episodes of Volume 3 in the lead-up to the finale.

The DVD/Blu-Ray release of RWBY Volume 3 were released on May 3rd, 2016.

Volume 4


Volume 4 premiered on October 22nd, 2016. It followed a similar release schedule to Volume 3, being released on Saturday for Rooster Teeth FIRST members followed by the release for registered users of the Rooster Teeth site on Sunday, 24 hours later. It was then released to the public and uploaded to YouTube the week following the FIRST members' release.

The Volume 4 premiere was preceded by the "Volume 4 Character Short" on October 3rd, 2016. The character short features an original story and animation and does not cut from upcoming scenes, making it the first non-editorial trailer since the four character trailers for Volume 1.

On the week of October 17th, Rooster Teeth began airing RWBY: World of Remnant episodes, narrated by Qrow Branwen, that go into detail about each of the kingdoms.

The RWBY Volume 4 Finale was first released at RTX Sydney, several hours before it was released for FIRST-members.

Volume 5


Volume 5 premiered on October 14th, 2017. There were three new character shorts leading up to Volume 5.

On June 20th, 2017, it was announced an exclusive sneak peek of Volume 5 would premiere at Anime Expo 2017, including an exclusive screening of the Japanese dub of Volume 3.

On July 17th, 2017, the "Volume 5 Weiss Character Short" was released to the public, with a work-in-progress version shown at the RTX 2017 RWBY Panel on July 7th, 2017, exclusively for attendees. Just like the Volume 4 Character Short, it features an original story and animation.

On September 4th, the "Volume 5 Blake Character Short" was released to the public.

On September 26th, 2017, it was announced that the first chapter of Volume 5 would premiere in selected theaters on October 12th, 2017 before the official release on October 14th.

On October 14th, the "Volume 5 Yang Character Short" was released to the public together with the first episode of Volume 5, with a work-in-progress version shown at the NYCC 2017 RWBY Screening on October 6th, 2017, exclusively for attendees.

Volume 6
On January 17th, 2018, it was announced that Volume 6 will premiere in the Fall.

Soundtrack

 * Main article: RWBY: Volume 1 Soundtrack, RWBY: Volume 2 Soundtrack, RWBY: Volume 3 Soundtrack, RWBY: Volume 4 Soundtrack



RWBY features an original soundtrack composed by Jeff Williams, with songs written for the show spanning a variety of genres. The songs are written and recorded by Jeff Williams and feature vocals from Jeff Williams' daughter, Casey Lee Williams, with other vocalists including Sandy Lee Casey and rapper Lamar Hall.

Additional music and full scores for the episodes are composed by Jeff Williams, Alex Abraham, and Steve Goldshein and feature performances from musicians including Roselie Samter.

Original soundtrack albums were released for Volumes 1, 2, 3 and 4. Singles, including songs from the first soundtrack album, were also released concurrent with the run of Volume 1.

RWBY: World of Remnant


RWBY: World of Remnant is a supplemental mini-series, documenting various areas, beings, and objects in Remnant, the world in which RWBY is set.

Episodes of the series provide information on specific subjects within the RWBY universe, with narrative exposition accompanied by illustrative visuals. The art style of World of Remnant is heavily stylized, and mostly rendered in 2D as compared to the 3D look of the main series.

World of Remnant episodes air on an irregular release schedule, concurrent with the main show. World of Remnant episodes air during the main series' "off-weeks", in lieu of a full episode. These were irregularly spaced in Volume 2, but Volume 3 features a World of Remnant after every third episode of the series.

RWBY Chibi


RWBY Chibi is an animated spin-off of RWBY. The show features stylised "chibi" versions of RWBY characters, with an emphasis on lighthearted comedy rather than plot and drama.

It was first announced as part of Rooster Teeth's 13th Anniversary celebrations on April 1st, 2016. The first episode premiered on May 7th, 2016. Subsequent episodes aired on Saturday mornings at 10am CST, the same time slot as RWBY. The first season of RWBY Chibi was released weekly up until the start of RWBY Volume 4 in Fall 2016. The show returned for its second season during the hiatus between Volume 4 and 5.

On January 16th, 2018, it was confirmed that a third season of RWBY Chibi will start airing on January 27th, 2018.

RWBY: Grimm Eclipse


RWBY: Grimm Eclipse is an official RWBY video game developed by Rooster Teeth, originally created by independent developer Jordan Scott.

Grimm Eclipse is a co-operative survival-based action role-playing game. Scott cites the games Kingdom Hearts, Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy, and Mystic Heroes as inspirations for the gameplay mechanics of Grimm Eclipse. The official website also names Dynasty Warriors and Left 4 Dead as influences.

A demo version was independently released on April 1st, 2014 and quickly received widespread recognition from other fans. Less than 24 hours after the public release of the game, Scott was contacted by Monty Oum and brought into discussions to develop the game for Rooster Teeth.

The game was released for PC on July 5th, 2016 while the Mac version was released on October 13, 2016. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions were simultaneously released on January 17, 2017.

RWBY: Combat Ready
RWBY: Combat Ready is an upcoming board game developed by Rooster Teeth and game designer Arcane Wonders. The board game was announced on September 15th, 2017. A Kickstarter campaign for the game began on September 27th, 2017 and will end on October 30th, 2017.

Mobile Game


The officially licensed mobile game of RWBY features an original story set around the events of Volume 3. It will be released for iOS, Android and PC with its release date unknown as of yet.

RWBY: Amity Arena
RWBY: Amity Arena is an upcoming strategic duel mobile game developed by Rooster Teeth and game designer, NHN Entertainment. The mobile game was announced on April 25th, 2018. The game is currently in process.

Manga


The Japanese manga adaptation of RWBY is being released in Volumes with Volume 1 having been completed as of February 18th 2017. It was written by manga artist Shirow Miwa and tells an original story. It was published in Shueisha's Ultra Jump magazine with supervision by Rooster Teeth.

The first chapter was released as part of the Ultra Jump December issue, on November 19th, 2015. It had colored center and back pages, along with additional art from the manga. Subsequent chapters are published on the 19th of each month in the Ultra Jump magazine.



On December 23rd 2016, Japanese entertainment company Home-sha announced Vol. 1: Red Like Roses, the first volume of the RWBY: Official Manga Anthology and stated it was coming in Spring 2017. It was later announced on March 25th 2017 that it would be released on May 19th 2017. The second volume, Vol. 2: "Mirror Mirror", was released on June 19th 2017. The third volume, Vol. 3: From Shadows, was released on September 19th, 2017. The fourth volume, Vol. 4: I Burn, was released in October 19th, 2017.

Light Novel


On May 17th 2017 Gagaga Bunko's Twitter account announced a light novel called RWBY the Session that would be released on July 19th 2017. The name of the artist in charge of the novel is Suzuhito Yasuda. RWBY the Session features original side stories set during Volumes 1 and 2 not present in the main show.

RWBY: Volume 1-3: The Beginning


It was announced on March 25th 2017 at the AnimeJapan 2017 convention and the official RWBY Japanese website that RWBY will be aired on TV in Japan in July 2017 and broadcast on Tokyo MX. The show is called RWBY: Volume 1-3: The Beginning. It has been confirmed on the RWBY Japanese Twitter that the air date for the show is July 7th 2017. It began airing on July 3rd, 2017 on the AbemaTV channel, broadcasting every Monday in Japan and finished on September 25th, 2017. RWBY Volume 1-3: The Beginning simulcasted in Japan on the Crunchyroll website every Friday at 10:05am PDT, with its final episode airing on September 29th, 2017. The running time for each episode was 23 minutes long and had a total of 13 episodes.

RWBY Rewind


RWBY Rewind is a show where Rooster Teeth members talk about the latest RWBY episode and interview the cast and crew. It is only be available to FIRST-members, and each episode contains a sneak peek of the upcoming episodes of Volume 5.

CRWBY: Behind the Episode


CRWBY: Behind the Episode introduces viewers to the animators, engineers, producers and artists who bring the world of Remnant to life. It uses assets from Volume 5 to show each production stage of the show.

Merchandise
RWBY merchandise is distributed by Rooster Teeth through their online store. Merchandise includes shirts, posters, action figures, plushies and more. Some RWBY merchandise is also sold at the alternative clothing retailer Hot Topic.

RT Recap


On December 1st, 2013, RWBY characters appeared in "The Animated Recap", an episode of RT Recap, a (now discontinued) show that reviews the preceding week's Rooster Teeth and Achievement Hunter videos.

Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang appeared alongside other animated characters from Rooster Teeth, such as Sarge from Red vs. Blue and the Let's Play Minecraft personas of Geoff Ramsey and Gavin Free. They also interacted with fictionalized versions of Burnie Burns, Joel Heyman and Gus Sorola from Rooster Teeth Animated Adventures.

ScrewAttack's Death Battle


On October 21st, 2015, three days before the premiere of RWBY Volume 3, Yang appeared in an episode of ScrewAttack's Death Battle web series, which pits fictional characters from different franchises against each other in a hypothetical battle to the death. Yang fought and won against Tifa Lockhart from the video game Final Fantasy VII. The episode featured new dialogue from Yang's voice actor Barbara Dunkelman as well as original animation by ScrewAttack's animator Torrian Crawford.

Screw Attack had included a tribute to series creator Monty Oum in a previous episode of Death Battle, with whom the inclusion of a RWBY character on the show was also discussed before his passing. On November 4th, 2015, ScrewAttack announced that they were joining Rooster Teeth, which is also a partner of the Fullscreen network.

RTX Australia 2016 Panel


At the inaugural RTX Australia in Sydney on January 24th, 2016, the second RWBY panel hosted a Q&A session with Lindsay Jones and Barbara Dunkelman in-character as Ruby Rose and Yang Xiao Long. The pair answered questions and interacted live with fans as their characters under the premise of a video chat conversation from Beacon Academy.

The faces of Lindsay and Barbara were captured using a GoPro, with a Kinect to capture their motion performance. The characters were then rendered in real-time in Unreal Engine 4. The technical side was set up with the help of Opaque Media using Faceware Tech software.

Rooster Teeth Animated Adventures
RWBY characters have made cameos in some episodes of Rooster Teeth Animated Adventures. Yang Xiao Long made a cameo in "Racial Super Texas" sitting at a bar. A doll of Yang Xiao Long also appeared in "Spooky Scary Ghost Stories", in which her arm was broken by a ghost.

Crusaders Quest x RWBY collaboration


On May 9th, 2017, a limited event collaboration between RWBY and Crusaders Quest was announced. The available playable characters to be obtained are Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, Yang Xiao Long, Nora Valkyrie and Pyrrha Nikos. In the event, Roman Torchwick and Neopolitan appear as event bosses while the Grimm as regular enemies. The limited event of Crusaders Quest lasted from May 11th, 2017 until May 25th, 2017.

Battle Sloths
In Rooster Teeth's game "Battle Sloths", Team RWBY are playble characters.

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle


During Evolution Championship Series, it was announced that Ruby Rose is going to be in a crossover fighting game created by Arc Systems Works and will include characters from BlazBlue, Persona 4 Arena and Under Night In Birth. The game is set to be released in 2018. A demo of Ruby in the game was tweeted by Gray Haddock on October 3rd, 2017. On October 6th, 2017, Arc Systems Works released an early demo gameplay trailer of the crossover fighting game featuring the seven confirmed playable characters.

On October 15th, 2017, Weiss Schnee was confirmed to be in the fighting game on the second character introduction trailer of BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle. The game will be available on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and Steam platforms.

On January 13th, 2018, Blake Belladonna was confirmed to be in the fighting game as one of 20 confirmed DLC characters on the Arc System Works Fighting Game Award 2017 show for BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle.

On February 7th, 2018, Blake along with Yang were confirmed to be free DLC characters on the EVO 2018 Special Promotion Trailer for BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle.

On February 21st, 2018, it was announced that the game will feature an original story of all four franchise's perspectives of RWBY, BlazBlue, Persona 4 Arena, and Under Night In Birth called "Episode Mode".

On April 19th, 2018, a first look of Yang's gameplay was featured on the Arc Nama Stream.

Puzzle of Empires


On September 15th, 2017, a limited event collaboration between RWBY and Puzzle of Empires was announced. The available playable characters to be obtained are Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long. The limited event collaboration was scheduled in October. A limited event collaboration was available on October 13th, 2017 until October 30th, 2017.

Original Concept


At some point Monty Oum had a dream of four different colored girls and told Kerry about it.

Monty Oum had the idea for RWBY for several years, but never got around to acting on it due to the amount of his time dedicated to his work on Red vs. Blue. During the production of Season 10 of Red vs. Blue, Monty decided to develop his idea further and present it to Burnie Burns. After describing the premise of the show as well as giving a description of the character that would become Ruby Rose, Monty received approval for the show.

Some of the animations and concepts Monty used in the series were in development for more than 10 years. For example, the idea for the shotgun nunchucks used by Sun Wukong can be seen in some of Monty's very early animation work. Certain characters and their fighting style, such as Qrow Branwen, also pre-date the show entirely.

Monty pitched the idea for Ruby's character to Burnie as "a badass Red Riding Hood". Fairy tales, literature, mythology and historical figures would later become a source of inspiration for other characters, who are developed with a certain existing basis in mind. However, Monty was careful to note that they are not adaptations, but rather original characters which allude to other works.

The theme of four colors, Red, White, Black and Yellow, each corresponding to four girls, came to Monty in a dream. This color theming would become a core part of the character development process and a key theme in the series itself.

Many characters were designed by Eileen Chang, who followed rough sketches provided by Monty and further developed them into fully-fleshed out character designs.

Team Expansion


After receiving approval from Burnie, Monty then enlisted the services of Shane Newville to assist him in animating the show. The show was animated in the software Smith Micro's Poser, which Monty had years of experience and expertise in. The assets were modelled in Autodesk Maya. Motion capture footage was also widely used for animations in the show alongside manual animation.

Kerry Shawcross and Miles Luna were brought on by Monty to be the main writers. Monty assigned the two writers anime homework so that they could have a better idea of what Monty was aiming for. The pair developed characters based on the basic outlines given by Monty, for example, the personalities of Nora Valkyrie and Lie Ren were devised based only on the direction that they were "powerful" and "honorable", respectively. On finding the correct tone and inspiration for the series, Kerry Shawcross cited Grimms' Fairy Tales as well as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as influences.

The four team members spent many working and off hours, in and out of the office, developing the show. One of the most frequented locations was the local IHOP, where the map of Remnant, the show's setting, was developed by squirting ketchup on a napkin, with blots forming landmasses, in order to create a truly organic and emergent design. Over many such discussions, the long-term plot, world-building and characters of the series were planned out.

The first released videos for RWBY were the four trailers, which were developed mostly by Monty and Shane alone. A larger team of animators, modellers and other artists later joined the RWBY team for the production of Volume 1.

Casting


After some development, Monty decided to begin casting the roles for the leads, with each lead character reflecting certain personality traits of her voice actor:


 * Lindsay Jones was cast as Ruby Rose, with her silliness, but also honesty, being reflected in Ruby.
 * Kara Eberle was chosen to play Weiss Schnee, as both can be nice, but at the same time "bitchy".
 * Arryn Zech plays Blake Belladonna because Monty did not know much about Arryn, he had the impression that she was mysterious, just as Blake is in the series.
 * Barbara Dunkelman voice acts Yang Xiao Long as both do not care what other people think about them.

Many other Rooster Teeth employees landed voice roles in RWBY, with Jack Pattillo cast as Junior Xiong and Michael Jones taking on the role of Sun Wukong. Series creator Monty played Lie Ren until his death after Volume 2 aired, and writer Miles plays Jaune Arc. Other crew working on the show also had a chance to play characters, with Volume 1 Art Director Taylor McNee cast as Penny Polendina and Producer Gray G. Haddock playing Roman Torchwick.

Other actors who have previously worked with Rooster Teeth landed roles, including Shannon McCormick, who had previously voiced Agent Washington in Red vs. Blue, playing Ozpin; and Samantha Ireland, previously the voice of C.T. in Red vs. Blue, being cast as Nora Valkyrie. Kathleen Zuelch, voice of Agent Texas in Red vs. Blue, voices Glynda Goodwitch, and was also a Producer on Volume 1 of RWBY. Voice actress Jen Taylor, voice of Cortana from Halo, was also contacted for Volume 1 and played the mysterious narrator. Jessica Nigri, a famous cosplayer, was approached by Monty and cast as Cinder Fall.

The first episode of RWBY Volume 1 premiered at RTX 2013 at the first RWBY Panel in July 2013. Development on later episodes continued during the show's run, with some episodes completed mere weeks before they were aired.

RWBY Volume 1 received several accolades, including the International Academy of Web Television (IAWTV) 2014 Award for Best Animated Series and the 4th Streamy Awards for Best Animated Series and Best Original Score for Jeff Williams.

Volume 3 marked a point where along with Rooster Teeth staffers and collaborators, the cast also got the addition of well-known anime voice actors, such as Vic Mignogna as Qrow Branwen, Elizabeth Maxwell as Winter Schnee, and Yuri Lowenthal as the new voice of Mercury Black.

Volume 2 Production
Development on the second Volume of RWBY was documented by official production diaries, which were released during the hiatus between Volume 1 and 2. The four production diaries covered different sections of the second Volume's development.


 * Production Diary 1 outlined the pre-production phase of the show, including the writing process and initial table reads.
 * Production Diary 2 focused on artwork, and followed the design process of Velvet from original concept to final character model.
 * Production Diary 3 followed the voice acting for RWBY Volume 2. The diary also included interviews with the voice actors and covered how they get into character. For example, Lindsay takes off her shoes to get into a more childlike mindset, while Barbara basically plays herself, due to her similarity with Yang.
 * Production Diary 4 focused on final rendering, compositing, sound design and post-production.



A contest was opened for the design of the character Velvet Scarlatina's outfit, in order to recognize the community's contributions and include them to the show. More than 1,300 designs were submitted to the contest, with the winning one selected by Velvet's voice actress Caiti Ward and Monty Oum. A fan art contest was also opened, where some of the submitted fan art was featured in the ending credits of episodes of Volume 2.

During development of the second Volume, the show adopted more subtle, balanced lighting in contrast to the brighter and flatter lighting of the first Volume, and the character models underwent an overhaul. The black silhouette background characters that were present in the first Volume were replaced with fully-rendered procedurally generated models in the second, in order to add more vibrance to the world. Kristina Nguyen, who worked on environmental designs during Volume 1, was the Art Director for Volume 2, and worked closely with the modellers on the environment models and textures.

Returning voice actors included the voice cast of Volume 1, including cosplayer Jessica Nigri, who had a widely expanded role as primary antagonist Cinder, for whom she also performed the motion capture.

Notable additions to the voice cast for Volume 2 included J.J. Castillo as Mercury Black, Katie Newville (animator Shane Newville's wife) as Emerald Sustrai and Ashley Jenkins as Coco Adel. Series writer and co-director Kerry Shawcross was cast as Neptune Vasilias. Jason Rose, a Los Angeles-based filmmaker who had always wanted to work with Monty on a project, also joined the cast as James Ironwood.

Volume 2 again premiered at RTX 2014, which took place from July 4th–6th, 2014.

Japanese Release


In 2014, it was announced that Warner Bros. Japan had received distribution rights for a Japanese release of RWBY – the first time an American-made anime would be marketed and released in Japan, the birthplace of anime.

The Japanese dub, released in 2015 on Blu-Ray and DVD, included several highly notable names in the Japanese anime voice acting scene, such as Saori Hayami, Yū Shimamura and Ami Koshimizu. The Japanese dub of RWBY Volume 1 was also screened in 6 theaters in Japan on November 14th, 2015. The Blu-Ray disc release was ranked #2 in any category in Japan for the week of December 7th-13th. Some of the Japanese merchandise, including the dubbed DVD and Blu-Ray discs and the Japanese soundtrack release, was also made available through the Rooster Teeth store in the United States following the conclusion of Volume 3.

A manga adaptation of RWBY, drawn by Japanese manga artist and writer Shirow Miwa with oversight from Rooster Teeth, was also announced in 2015, with serialization beginning in the Ultra Jump magazine in November 2015. Also released and distributed by Warner Bros. Japan was an official RWBY Fanbook, including art drawn by numerous professional Japanese manga illustrators.

It was announced in July 2016 that Japanese dubs of RWBY Volumes 2 and 3 would be released in 2016. They were also accompanied by theatrical releases in Japan. Volume 2 was released in theaters from October 1st-14th, 2016 and Volume 3 from December 3rd-16th, 2016.

It was announced on June 13th, 2017 on Comic Toranoana's Twitter account, that RWBY Volume 1-3 Blu-ray was set to be released on September 27th, 2017. The RWBY Volume 1-3 Best Vocal Album was released on August 30th, 2017 in Japan.

It was announced on July 3rd, 2017 on Warner Bros' YouTube channel that the Japanese dub of RWBY Volume 4 was released on October 7th-20th, 2017.

Volume 3 Production
On January 22nd, 2015, series creator Monty Oum was hospitalized following a severe allergic reaction during a routine medical procedure, rendering him comatose. Monty was unable to awaken from the coma and passed away on February 1st, 2015, at the age of 33.

While the future of the series was briefly in question, it was announced that RWBY would continue, with Volume 3 of the series to premiere in 2015.



In the lead-up to Volume 3, new crew members were brought on board. Dillon Gu, an animator known for creating Project MONTY, a series of fan animations in tribute to Monty, was hired by Rooster Teeth. New production artist Erin Winn designed many of the characters that appeared in Volume 3, including Team ABRN and Team BRNZ. Some fans of the show also received the chance to design their own original characters, Team NDGO, for backing the Indiegogo campaign for Rooster Teeth's new feature film Lazer Team.

As the series gained popularity, it garnered the attention of famous professional voice actor Vic Mignogna, who approached Rooster Teeth to play a role on the show. Vic would be cast as Qrow Branwen in Volume 3. Other famous professional voice actors involved with the show starting with Volume 3 include Elizabeth Maxwell, voice of Winter Schnee, and Yuri Lowenthal, the new voice of Mercury Black. Rapper Flynt Flossy of Turquoise Jeep Records also voiced the character Flynt Coal. Laura Bailey and Travis Willingham also had cameo roles as minor characters. Notably, Jen Taylor reprised her role from the first Volume.

Rooster Teeth would continue to draw from internal talent to voice characters, with Meg Turney, an established Rooster Teeth personality and host of The Know playing Neon Katt, and animator Yssa Badiola as Ciel Soleil, amongst others. Also joining the cast is Monty's brother Neath Oum, who took over the role of Lie Ren. Some voice actors also provided motion capture performances for other characters, with Barbara performing Winter Schnee's motion capture and Miles doing mocap for Qrow Branwen.

The first episode of Volume 3 premiered on October 24th, 2015. As with previous seasons, production continued during the original run, with animation wrapping on January 22nd, 2016. February 12th, 2016 was the last day of production on RWBY Volume 3.

The third volume of RWBY, especially the sixth episode, entitled "Fall", has been widely noted as being a turning point in the series, adopting a darker tone and more mature subject matter. In response, producer Gray G. Haddock released a statement that viewer discretion was advised for future installments of the series, especially for younger audiences. Gray compared RWBY to Harry Potter, Avatar: The Last Airbender and Star Wars as being a multi-year spanning series that would mature as it continues.

In January 2016, midway through the original run of Volume 3, lead animator and long-time member of the RWBY crew, Shane Newville, left Rooster Teeth.

Volume 4 & RWBY Chibi


Volume 4 was announced by Gray G. Haddock on April 1st, 2016, the 13th anniversary of Rooster Teeth's founding. At RTX 2016, the release date was announced as October 22nd, 2016. The shot list and initial storyboarding for the first episode of Volume 4 were underway by May 2016. Voice acting recording sessions for key characters also began by May to June 2016.

Also announced as part of the 13th anniversary celebrations was a lighthearted spin-off show, RWBY Chibi, which began airing on May 7th, 2016. As part of Rooster Teeth's 2016 "Summer of Animation", RWBY Chibi continued to air weekly on Saturday mornings until the start of Volume 4 in the Fall. Completely different animation teams worked on RWBY Volume 4 and RWBY Chibi.

RWBY Volume 4 and RWBY Chibi were animated in Autodesk Maya, unlike previous volumes of RWBY, which were animated in Smith Micro's Poser. Kerry Shawcross cites scalability as one of the advantages of the switch, expanding the number of people capable of working on the team. The new software also made real-time lighting, shadows and other effects feasible.

In addition to the improvements in animation, the visual style of the show was also overhauled, with all character models remade and many of the Grimm redesigned by Erin Winn and remodeled. Concept artist Eileen Chang, who worked on the original concepts for the 4 main characters, was also brought back to create their new timeskip outfits and designs.

Volume 5
The Volume 5 online premiere date, October 14th, 2017 was announced at RTX Austin 2017. In addition, theatrical screenings of the premiere were held through Fathom Events across the United States on October 12th.

Also teased at RTX Austin was a first look at the "Volume 5 Weiss Character Short", which premiered on July 17th, 2017. Character shorts for Blake and Yang premiered on September 4th and October 14th, respectively. Each short gives a flashback while also connecting it to the main timeline.

Volume 5 continued to use Autodesk Maya software, but some visual elements were added. Most notably, a third lighting layer is sometimes in use on characters.

Trivia

 * On April 29th, 2012, Monty posted a cryptic RWBY-related tweet - the first time the show was alluded to online.
 * All character and team names, excluding Ozpin, follow Monty's color naming rule. This means that each character's and team's name is either a color; means a color; sounds like a color; or makes people think of a color.
 * Promotional material at NYCC 2012 has indicated that Rooster Teeth has been teasing RWBY since October 10th, 2012.
 * On October 10th, 2013 Monty stated on Twitter that "The first RWBY anything to ever go public was handed out exactly one year ago at NYCC". Following this statement, the Rooster Teeth Twitter account posted a short message "RWBY Day". October 10th was thus dubbed "RWBY Day".

Links

 * Rooster Teeth RWBY Page
 * RWBY Theatrical Release Site
 * RWBY Japanese Official Site
 * RWBY Official Facebook Page