RWBY


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

RWBY brings four very different girls together for one legendary purpose. These four fighters will come face-to-face with menacing creatures, devious villains, and an incredible cast of characters.

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: 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 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.

Characters

 * Main articles: Characters, Minor Characters

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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
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Antagonists

 * 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 Volume 1. Each trailer is referred to by a certain color and letter and features a character corresponding to these themes. For example, the "Red", or "R", Trailer featured the character "Red" Ruby Rose.

Unlike regular previews, the trailers for RWBY did not contain footage seen in the series, instead opting for self-contained short films that told their own unique stories, acting more like prequels for the series proper than actual trailers. Each trailer revealed a little about the central characters' backstory.


 * 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-130s and a large security droid.
 * The "Yellow" Trailer was released on June 1st, 2013, showing "Yellow" Yang 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 are also available on internet streaming service Netflix.

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 being split into approximately six minute halves. 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 12 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 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 sponsors (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.

Soundtrack

 * Main article: RWBY: Volume 1 Soundtrack, RWBY: Volume 2 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, Steve Goldshein and feature performances from musicians including Roselie Samter.

Original soundtrack albums were released for Volume 1 and Volume 2. 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 stylised, 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: Grimm Eclipse


RWBY: Grimm Eclipse is an official RWBY video game under development 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 to the public on Steam Early Access on December 1st, 2015. The game is targeting release on multiple platforms, but is currently only available on PC.

Manga


The manga adaptation of RWBY is currently being released. It is written by manga artist Shirow Miwa and tells an original story. It is being 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.

Merchandise
RWBY merchandise is distributed by Rooster Teeth through their online store. Merchandise includes shirts, posters, action figures, plushies and more.

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.

Original Concept


Monty Oum had 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. In the final stretch, 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 Poser. Motion capture footage was also used for some of the animations in the show.

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 may 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.

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 the personality of her voice actor:


 * Lindsay Jones was cast as Ruby Rose, with her silliness, but also honesty and innocence, being reflected on 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 didn't 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 are flirty and have habits of making puns.

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 plays Lie Ren, with writer Miles playing Jaune Arc. Other crew working on the show also had a chance to play characters, with Volume 1 Art Director Taylor Pelto 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.

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 child-like 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 Lei 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 home place 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 discs will also be made available in a limited quality in the United States.

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.

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 onboard. 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, voice of Mercury Black. Rapper Flynt Flossy of Turquoise Jeep Records also voiced the character Flynt Coal.

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.

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 for undisclosed reasons.

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 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 Japanese Official Site