User blog:Kyvos/Volume 2 Episode 1 Review

Looks like Volume 2 is finally here, after months of waiting, and I figure now is as good a time as any to share my thoughts.

When Volume 2's release date was first announced, I was pretty worried it would suffer from the same problems as Volume 1. While it showed what kind of potential this show could have, it also showed that there was a long way to go to reach that potential. But I'm happy to say that the animations seem to be much smoother, clipping is incredibly reduced, acting seems to be improving, and the pacing seems to be pretty good.

So, to start, we get our introduction to Emerald and Mercury. Both seem interesting enough, animation was smooth, and acting is nice! No complaints. I'm happy to say the same about Neptune. Our first look at Team RWBY was pretty good, despite my worries from the clip we saw earlier. I still think that Yang's pun was terrible in an unfunny way, and hope that isn't a recurring thing, but any worries I had about Lindsay overacting the scene turned out to be just Ruby being excited.

And then the food fight. I want to say this was the best part of the episode, but I also want to say it was the worst, unfortunately. Ruby and Nora seemed horribly overpowered, and Ren seemed horribly underpowered. The guy took down a King Taijitu on his own, but couldn't land a single hit on Yang. Pyrrha also seemed a little weak for somebody with her resume, but maybe that's just me being anal about this. Weiss, Blake, Yang (outside her fight with Ren), and Jaune seemed spot-on for how powerful they should be, as far as I'm concerned. I do think I spotted a few inconsistencies in there, and Ruby's overreaction was kinda weird. But overall, I loved the fight. Classic Monty Oum choreography with Jeff Williams music.

The last stretch of the episode was great. It was pretty cool to see what the villains are up to, and their interaction was good. A nice bit of character development, too. I'd say the humour was also at its strongest here, managing to be funny without trying too hard and coming off cringeworthy. And again, no complaints about animation or acting.

The episode as a whole was very good. A strong opening to a volume that seems like it will be much stronger than the first, and I can't wait to see more. I just hope we continue to improve from here, because there's still some clear room for that.