User blog:Baylaust/RWBY Episode 11 Review

Video review:



Written review:

   Episode 11, Jaunedice, takes place a few weeks after the events of episode 10. Everyone’s more settled into school life, a regional fighting tournament is coming up, and the girls are getting along and getting excited. However, all of this is overshadowed by a terrible problem: Jaune is being bullied.

   Okay, so there’s not really a whole lot to talk about in this episode. And by that, I mean I really don’t know what to talk about, because nothing happened in this episode. The animation was fine, the voice acting was fine, the little action scene was fine, there was a nice touch of humour, but… okay, let me explain.

   Both teams RWBY and JNPR are featured in this episode, but if you haven’t figured out by the incredibly subtle title, this is mostly Jaune’s story. In particular, it reveals that he’s been tormented for the last few weeks by none other than Cardin Winchester, leader of team CRDL. This is something that’s been going on for a while, teams RWBY and JNPR are worried, but Jaune is refusing to accept help from his friends. And… that’s it. That’s the episode. You see why I’m having trouble thinking of things to talk about here?

   Okay, so I guess I’ll start with Jaune, who this episode is based around. Now, I think I have a good idea of where this whole plotline is going to go, judging from what I’ve seen here. Jaune is having trouble with using his aura properly, he’s failing at fights, and being tormented by Cardin, so naturally, this is going to be a shot arc that will see Jaune begin to discover his inner strength and learn how to be less of a pushover. Alright, fine, I can get behind that. The story and ideas here aren’t my issue. My problem is how it’s presented. Through this whole episode, I just felt like “Okay, Jaune is weak and he needs to find his inner strength, but I KNEW this already.” I’m worried that this is going to be something solved in a two episode arc. And while that worked for Weiss’s attitude problem, because a speech from an authorative outsider’s perspective, especially someone she looked up to, would realistically fix her attitude problem, Jaune growing into a leader and a stronger person is something I feel should be more demonstrated through the whole series, not just a two episode arc. I could be wrong, I have been before, but if that’s the route they go for, I don’t think I’m gonna be a fan of that.

   Next, we finally get to see some stuff from team CRDL. They’re not voiced by the AH guys, much to my eternal sadness, but whatever. And hey, surprise, they’re dicks. And I don’t just mean that they’re assholes, I’m talking they’re resorting to public school levels of bullying. These guys are completely unlikeable, and I’m assuming that’s what the writers were going for, so hey, they succeeded at that. Mostly, however, we see Cardin, and to me, he just feels like an archetype: the bully. Now don’t get me wrong, pretty much every character in the show is an archetype of some kind, but you could at least get the sense that there’s more to them than that. With CRDL, I don’t get that feeling. It just seems like he’s there to provide motivation for Jaune to complete his story arc. However, there is one thing I noticed. At the very end of the episode, we see Cardin looking at Jaune. And this look is downright sinister, beyond just an “I can’t wait to pick on that guy,” look. This is leading me to think that Cardin will have a potentially larger antagonistic role than it seems. And if they do go with that, I’m very interested to see what they do with it.

   And finally, we get to see a brand new character, who is a fauna, or “fauness,” I guess it’s pronounced. And according to the credits, her name is Velvet Scarlitina. I think. All we see of her is her being tormented by Team CRDL for being a fauness (so now we can add racism to these guys), but given my rule of “If they have a character model, they must be important,” it’s safe to say that she’s gonna reappear soon.

   I mean, there’s all that, there’s the girls fangirling over the fighting festival coming up, there’s Nora reaffirming the idea that she may literally be insane, but that’s it. And that’s the biggest problem with this episode: it feels like nothing happened. Now, I’m not talking about the length, the length is a moot point, which is why I never mention it in my reviews anymore. A lot of people are complaining about the length, but you know what? That’s not the problem here. There’ve been short episodes, yeah, and I know they can’t all be exciting and thrilling, but at least it felt like something was happening in those episodes. This is the definition of a filler episode. And I have no problem with filler every now and then, but here’s the thing: there’s only five episodes left of RWBY Volume 1. Once they hit 18, they’re going on break, and it feels like there are more important things they could be covering. For example, what’s Roman planning? Who’s that mysterious woman in the opening? Just who exactly IS Blake? These are questions I’m asking, and I know I’m not the only one, but time is running out to answer these before the team goes on break, and I’d rather be learning more about those things than an episode about Jaune getting bullied.

   So overall, this episode was… okay, I guess? There were a few funny scenes, a very short action scene, and I suppose it will be nice to finally see Jaune grow into more of a leader, but at the end of the day, I felt like absolutely nothing was accomplished, which I’ve never had an issue with in this series. I know I’ve given episode 9 some flak because I disliked how they handled Weiss (and her and RWBY are still getting along, so it’s good to know that plotline is definitely over), but at least it felt like there were things happening in that episode. So yeah, if you couldn’t tell, this is easily the weakest episode. But hey, episode 10 surprised me after my disappointment in episode 9, so who knows, maybe episode 12 will surprise me, too.

   So that was my review, hope you enjoyed it. Tune in next week for my review of episode 12. Baylaust out.