User blog:SomeoneYouUsedToKnow/SYUTK's V5E10 - The Hottest RWBY Episode Ever(?) - Impressions/Recap

Read while listening to appropiate music.

I've been downloading a few games lately. Namely, 3: Need For Speed: Most Wanted 2005 (for nostalgia's sake; it's part of my childhood), Umineko No Naku Koro Ni's fighting game which was released on Steam recently IIRC, and Kingdom Hearts 1 Final Mix.

The former......it's much worse than I remember. The cars are super-slidey and easily do a 360º if I so much as click Right 2 times and not a single more. It isn't even as well optimized as one would expect from a game from 2005. Customization is also less free than I believed.

BUT, it is still very fun to play, especially since I used a mod to replace the songs in-game with some of my own. Racing through the streets with some nice Eurobeat pumping me up is a breath-taking feeling, and Life Will Change from Persona 5 is quite fitting for police chases.

As for Umineko's fighting game, Golden Fantasia....it's not bad, though it's also pretty disappointing. You can't configure the buttons in any way whatsoever outside using 3rd-party programs, which sucks because you need to press all 3 attack buttons at the same time to activate the Meta-World, and you can't do it at all because the keyboard doesn't register pressing Z, X and C at the same time.

Aside from that, it is still fun even if it's not the most thrilling Anime Fighter ever done, it's no Guilty Gear or BlazBlue at all. That said, it has tons of spoilers for Umineko, from minor to major, while at the same time it makes no effort to explain Umineko, so if you're not a fan or at least have quite-good knowledge of the (very long) story, you'll be lost in that regard.

As for KH1FM...it's fun as expected, and Magic is more fun than in KH2...but it is seriously bullshit how you need to defeat the 2nd boss to learn the ability to EVADE, while you need to reach Lv15 (if you picked Shield), 24 (if you picked Rod) or 33 (if you picked Sword) to learn the more-basic ability to BLOCK.

For comparison, on Proud at least, by the time you complete Destiny Island, Traverse Town, and 1 other world (and that's quite the number of hours), you'll probably be at Lv13.

In other news, this thing.

For newcomers to this thing, this is basically me, making an informal recap of what happened in the episode, while giving my thoughts about what happens. It also includes fancy color speak, the Language of Truth, ripped straight from the aforementioned Umineko no Naku Koro Ni. 2 are particularly notable:

Red means truth, fact  in the eyes of the user, le me.

Blue means a guess, an hypothesis, a theory.

This was made before/during Wednesday, posted after the episode because when I post it, the Recent Activity page gets filled with all the images I use, which would spell Spoilers-Galore.

Also, just in case (and since apparently it wasn't clear enough before): This is written as I watch the ep, starting from before watching it.

And no, this time there aren't any real excuses for why this was finished on Wednesday instead of Tuesday, even less for why it was posted on Friday. I just decided to watch the ep late. Given how next ep is gonna be on Dec.30, I thought it was fine to take my sweet time here and enjoy my extremely-short vacation.

Anyway, onto the episode. We start our day with:

Triumph (or Triumph!)
I've been watching Houseki no Kuni/Land of the Lustrous, for quite some time now. And I have to say that the quality of it's 3D Animation blew away my expectations. It doesn't just look beautiful, it moves beautiful. And for Japan, whose anime industry is generally Meh when it comes to Full-CGI anime, this is mindblowing.

But the Apex, for me, is in Ep10 with the fight against Shiro. Just look at those 4 minutes, and compare them with.....basically everything after Vol.3. RWBY pales in comparison.

I cry everytime I imagine a fight in RWBY's Vol.4 or 5, like the Nuck fight, looking like that. And the worst part is, RWBY is perfectly capable of giving us something like that.

Graphics-wise, likely not, especially in the special-effect department. And the motions would likely not be as...artistic as in HnK. But still, in terms of animation and scale and style, RWBY perfectly can, it just needs to recover the speed and flash it once had.

The most egregious part here is, Houseki no Kuni is miles more mundane. Aside from the Gems's nature, the amount of "fantastical" things in fights are minimal. With just about 3 exceptions, all the Gems can really do is run, jump and make perfectly-normal slashes with their Obsidian swords.

RWBY, meanwhile, is the show with a girl, carrying a huge gunscythe, that has the ability of Super Speed and Zenbonsakura, among other things.  So everything the Gems do, most people in RWBY have the ability to do that and much, much more.

So why don't they do it? Even if we got even less action than we're getting in this Volume so far compared to previous ones, it'd at least be worth it if the average fight had that level of exciting, stunning flash.

RT has the budget, has the tech, and has the skill, to give us something of at least similar quality. Yet looking at the fights in recent Volumes we'll only get something like that in Volume 9.

And now, if your inmediate response to the above was something along the lines of "RT doesn't have that budget at all, they are a small/poor company, there is no way they could do it", then you're a sad little ignorant man who needs to get slapped in the face by the cold, hard facts.

RT is far from poor or even small nowadays, it moved on from that stage years ago. They get tons of money not just from merchandise, but from all their multiple divisions like ScrewAttack (Death Battle), Funhaus and Achievement Hunter.

Not to mention their sheep-minded fans are more than happy to pay thousands of dollars just to get a pair of cards added to a Children's Tabletop Game.

They are most definitely not small nor poor. At worst, they manage their budgets terribly, but I'd like to believe RWBY gets quite the amount of the money, given it's one of RT's most popular shows undeniably.

Now onto the episode:

1) Let's Think Positive!
Jokes aside, Oz and Qrow both are suspicious of Leo, and that's good...but they do it for the wrong reasons.

As you can see in the actual transcript, Oz says that what Leo told Qrow was very very different from what he told him back in V5E1, and that's apparently the cause of suspicion. But......he didn't.

Back in V5E1, he told Qrow and co. that it could take weeks to even convince the Council of going to fight bandits amidst the apparent current situation in Mistral. And Leo's reasoning, even if it was a lie, is very sound when you consider the lack of available Huntsmen, which Qrow himself saw and even pointed out.

So, how is telling Qrow that he finally convinced the Council, weeks later, contradictory with what he said earlier? It's completely reasonable, believable, and actually expected based on what he himself told Qrow.

If anything, the real cause of suspicion should be the raiding party. In Qrow's words, "everyone bited the dust", yet apparently they have enough men to form a raiding party to take on a renowned Bandit Tribe led by a Beacon Graduate whose skill Ozpin Himself recognized, who also has a Maiden on top of it.

I mean, if it was just the bandits, alright, even RNJR alone could take them. But we're including Vernal and Raven here, and from the way they're described by others you'd think they would need at least half a dozen more pros to take them on with reasonable chances of winning.

But based on what Qrow has seen, they don't even have that many pros available. So where the hell did Lionheart/Da Council suddenly pull a raiding party from?

THAT would be a much more reasonable cause of suspicion than, apparently, convincing the Council way too late like Leo himself said would most likely happen.

Are you sure Ilia's really a Chameleon and not a Howler Monkey?
Wait, so the fire in the thumbnail wasn't caused by Ilia, Corsac or Fennec? It was caused by Blake herself?!

That's....pretty unexpected. I thought the Albains would've burned it down sooner, given that, you know, one of them has a flamethrower and both want to kill the Belladonnas and take Blake to Adam, and a good chunk of the house is flammable.

There's probably some symbolic message here. That she has to abandon/sacrifice her home if she wants to stop Adam? Best I can think of.

2nd Hottest Battle in all of RWBY
.....................Please don't tell me they left the entire fight against Corsac and Fennec OFFSCREEN. This Volume seriously needs action, they can't cut out fights like this!

At least 2 minutes of asskicking, like in all of Ghira's previous scenes in the last few episodes.

Otherwise the Albains will fail to prove us their badassery. In their last and only fight, they each got KO'd by Ghira once, and they didn't do anything beyond some standing up and shooting Fire and Wind.

On the bright side, if Corsac isn't KO'd, then we probably can still get him to show off some fancy Kung Fu moves. It'd be something.

Also, another inconsistency with the Dust Rapiers: First, Corsac had Wind and Fennec had Fire. Next ep, Fennec has Wind and Corsac had Fire. Now, both are Fire.

Why can't they keep even their basic color consistent?

CHIEFTAIN GHIRA, DEFENDER OF FAUNUS
..........Well, at least the melodrama is in-character for her.

Seriously though, Ilia and Fennec scream too much. They're like Birds of a Feather in that sense.

.......Wait a minute. Half the room was on fire, no?

.......Where was all the smoke, then? You'd think there would be quite the amount of smoke there making everyone cough and stuff.

4) 3 Hours of Insesant Crying Later...
And there, the episode is done. In the last 20 seconds we get a good pair of info dropped: The ship captain and a date-reference. I'll leave my thoughts for the conclusions since the ep is already over.

Conclusions
Narratively-speaking, this episode is kind of a letdown from the previous one.

It's not the worst episode in the Volume, narratively, that's for sure ; the plot is moving, we don't get scenes that just waste our time, Blake's plot finally got somewhere, and we even got a date-reference at the end.

However, Ruby's scene with Ozpin and Oscar feels kind of shoe-horned in, and serves little purpose other than just answering a few questions that could've been answered in earlier episodes. And not even great answers.

>Does Salem have the Beacon Relic? No, because Ozpin "made it harder to find",  in the most vague way possible, apparently so good that Salem hasn't found it in more than half a year.

>Is Ozpin's cane the/a Relic? No. It has fancy tricks but it's not a Relic.

<font style="color:#DC143C">The worst part about this entire scene isn't that though, it's the fact that Ruby asks nothing about the Silver Eyes. She doesn't even show any interest in them, nor does Ozpin say anything like "Really? I thought you'd ask about your eyes".

I mean, at the very very least, Salem has a Maiden, and they were planning on getting the Spring Maiden from Raven. And the Silver Eyes are seemingly effective against at least Cinder.

You'd think Ozpin would want Ruby to know more about them so they are less likely to be fucked over if Cinder shows up. Or that Ruby would want to know more about them to save the others if the need arised.

But no, none of that. <font style="color:#DC143C"> No one gives a damn about the Silver Eyes. To the extent that the Silver Eyes don't even serve a decent purpose to the plot, they're not even there unless the writers remember they exist, and if they weren't there to begin with <font style="color:#DC143C"> either nothing changes or the show actually would be better.

If they're going to throw a Deus Ex Machina by introducing something out of nowhere, at least exploit that something afterwards. <font style="color:#DC143C">Red means truth, fact It was bullshit that came out of nowhere in Vol.3 and saved Vale, the least they could do is make people show more interest in them.

Overall, the otherwise-fine scene turns into yet another total waste.

That aside, there's also the problem that the scene by the end acts like if Leo's actions were "suspicious": Telling Qrow he finally convinced the Council to help them take on Raven's bandits and get the Maiden. Because apparently that's radically different from what he told Qrow in V5E1

Even though if one even glances at the transcript of V5E1 you can see that <font style="color:#DC143C"> it's pretty much like Leo told Qrow : It would be very hard to convince the Council, at the time, to go hunt Bandits, and at best they could go look for Spring in a few weeks. And guess what? It took Leo weeks to do convince the Council to help them fight the bandits. "So radically different from what he said originally", right?

So <font style="color:#DC143C"> not only did the writers forget about the Silver Eyes again, they forgot about what they themselves wrote in the first episode, even though they should be the 1st people in the world to have access to the scripts they use.

The only good part of this scene is the subtle bomb regarding the Relic of Choice. But it’s just not enough.

Now, the BellaHouse. That's the real meat of this episode. Narratively-speaking, it isn't exactly flawless either, though for the most part it isn't as bad as the previous scene at those points.

>Ilia's fight with Blake has it's questionable moments, like turning off the lights despite Blake having Night-Vision and Ilia's Whip revealing her location every single time she uses it, or Blake waiting until the very last moment to freeze Ilia's whip with Ice Dust to make it harmless, seemingly as if just to build drama.

>There's also the problem I mentioned earlier with Blake's Sheathsword apparently disappearing, or her using her Gunkatana alone instead of Dual-Wielding like she used to, which ties into a problem some people have mentioned before: That the characters don't feel like they're fighting with their characteristic fighting styles like before (and that only makes sense in Yang's case).

>When Ghira and Corsac enter, Sun is nowhere to be seen or heard for multiple minutes, and Ghira has to deal with the Albains alone. Even though it makes no sense since he was with Ghira in the last episode, and there's nothing said nor implied to explain why Sun was no longer with Ghira and took so long to get there.

>Blake instantly forgiving Ilia and ignoring everything she did, and everyone else doing the same, while Ilia herself gets away with only a simple pinch as consequence for her actions, effectively making her a Karma Houdini. And then trying to present this as the best thing to do, which is a very bad aesop.

Of course, these problems are less of an issue because they are mostly part of the aspect where this episode truly shines: The Action.

The episode is nearly 20mins long and a good chunk of it is dedicated to fights. And the fights themselves, are very well done. They got speed, and they got flash, without sacrificing the fluidity present in the Volume.

Sure, <font style="color:#DC143C"> they still aren't to Monty's level in terms of style or excitement. They're still slower and less stunning to watch. However, they reach a similar level, especially compared to any fight after Vol.3.

The best part of both fights, though, <font style="color:#DC143C">is the burning room in the background. Even if the fire is too far away to be dangerous, and it makes 720p look like 240p, it still gives the fights a beautiful, marvelous-to-watch background that makes them look even better.

The Gunchakus, of course, <font style="color:#DC143C"> are the single best part of the entire episode's fights, and nothing else really needs to be said, that fact alone is all there needs to be.

....That said, 1 factor is still missing, a crucial factor, to make the fights as amazing as Monty's. It's simple: Songs.

The fights both used music that is part of the episode's score, and while not exactly bad or boring, <font style="color:#DC143C"> it fails to make the fight more exciting, they just don't amplify the excitement in the audience.

Meanwhile, before, a good number of the cool fights did use actual songs from the soundtrack, separate from the ep's score, <font style="color:#DC143C"> that were awesome, and exciting.

>Vol.1: Red Like Roses pt.2 with the Nevermore and Deathstalker, the best fight in that entire Volume.

>Vol.2: Die, with the Paladin, as well as Caffeine during the Breach.

>Vol.3: Neon, with Neon Katt and Flynt Coal. I'm the One, with Coco and Yatsuhashi.

>Vol.4: Bad Luck Charm, for Qrow vs Tyrian, probably the best fight in the Volume even if it's absolutely retarded if you think about it for just 3 seconds.

And I'm probably missing a bunch. Do note that in each Volume, when they used songs like that during fights, they were new songs never heard before.

Now, in Volume 5? So far, only This Life Is Mine, during Weiss vs Lancers. Not only is it just 1 example, it's not even a new song.

What makes this most egregious is that the 3 character shorts each introduced a new song, that could've been used in the fights Weiss, Yang and Blake have had so far.

>Weiss vs Lancers could've used Path To Isolation, from her Short. And also <font style="color:#DC143C"> it would've been rather funny since her path did end up making her end up isolated from anyone who could help her, until luck rolled around.

>Yang vs Bandits could've used Ignite, from her Short. Even if the fight sucked anyway, the music at least <font style="color:#DC143C"> would've helped us enjoy the fight more, just like Caffeine did during Breach.

>And in this episode, Blake vs Ilia, especially after Blake sets the house on fire, could've used Smile, from Ilia's short, <font style="color:#DC143C"> and literally THE most appropiate song that could've been used in that fight.

But they didn't. <font style="color:#DC143C"> They do have the songs, at least enough for 1 and a half minutes. Yet they don't use them to make the fights cooler, even when they would be perfect for it.

They need to rectify that in the last 4 eps there are left. It's already bad enough that it took until the near-end of the Volume for the action to get good like before.

They start using songs to make fights awesome again, and this Volume's action could well be redeemed.

Now, the last info-drops by the end.

First, the Date: As of this episode, Blake is about 2 weeks before Adam's attack IOW 2 weeks before Fall semester. While on RNJR's end, they are about 2 days away from Fall semester.

Now, let's try to analyze the order of events.

1>Hazel and Oscar were on the same train. Adam killed Sienna 1 month before Fall semester. This all in V5E1 and 2.

2>Some amount of time later, at most 2 weeks since then, the Albains found out, and carried out their plan to kill the Belladonnas. This was in V5E5, the same episode where Oscar told Ruby that "it's been weeks", meaning that in this episode they are mostly in synch.

3>Raven met with Team CAME who told her they had 2 days until the attack. And later the same day she portaled to Qrow, to talk with Lionheart. Meanwhile, the Albains failed their attack on the BellaHouse 2 weeks before Fall semester. So as of this episode they're no longer in-synch anymore.

I wish it didn't need that much thinking to know the order of events....hopefully they won't do this shit again in next Volumes.

Second: The Ship Captain.

Assuming he didn't replace his ship for a bigger one, I'm not sure his ship could easily transport all that many people, plus whoever and whatever else they're taking.

<font style="color:#DC143C">That's not the real problem however. The real problem is the Grimm.

We don't know how long Blake was on that ship, where it sailed from, or how long it took to get to Menagerie, but we do know that despite there being no more than about 6 people, and with only Blake showing noticeable negativity, they were attacked by a giant sea dragon that shoots lightning.

...Transporting 50+ people means everyone must stay calm, which would be hard because <font style="color:#DC143C">they're effectively marching away to risk their lives and likely die, and they know it. Not to mention all the sadness of abandoning one’s home and family, maybe forever.

If Grimm attack again, <font style="color:#DC143C">keeping people safe will be much harder, there will be less room to move around, and the fear from people who literally didn't want to fight to begin with will bring them freaking Scylla instead of a mere Flying Eel.

I feel, and hope, that things don't go as smoothly as this episode implies. Wishing for everyone to get eaten or scared to the point they want out, might be harsh since it makes Blake's speech entirely moot, <font style="color:#DC143C">but it's the most believable result.

Overall: This episode, narratively-speaking, it's not the best-written episode of the season, though it's also far from the worst.

However, action-wise it is the king so far, and we all hope the following fights retain, or surpass, the bar set by this episode.

FUNNY V5E10 PICS!!! :D
Well, to be honest there were quite a lot if you know where to look. These are just my favorite.

And so, in total I used around 367 pics this time. I'm 99.8% sure I broke a new record.