Talk:RWBY: The Session/@comment-71.175.63.159-20170703040110/@comment-71.175.63.159-20170703062622

@ChishioKunrin  That's my thinking as well. At the very least, I think it'd be in everybody's best interest to just put down their pitchforks and maybe wait and see what the actual content of the novel is. As I said, RT loves lampshading and inverting known tropes, particularly anime ones with RWBY, so if this is an official endorsed product of theirs, I wouldn't be surprised if that's something they'd try to do.

@SYUTK  Japanese fanwork laws are completely different from the US's. You may be completely right that this is officially published material, however I find the radio silence from RT and the fact that this just showed up out of the blue without any prior talking up (like they did with the manga) a bit odd. Not unprecedented (because they've surprised us with things before) but unusual given their normal transparency. So until we have a source or an announcement or some kind of official word from RT, I don't think being skeptical is out of line.

You're forgetting Grimm Eclipse shed further light on the disaster at Mountain Glenn which was an important setting in V2. Also I believe Merlot was implied to have been associated with and/or involved with Atlas and their scientists I believe? Meaning he may reappear in some capacity whenever the focus is back on   Also, just because it was inevitably going to be "filler" (in the sense that it wasn't going to contribute to the main plot of RWBY) it did still contribute to the continuity as, again, it was set between V2 and V3.

In fact, there's nothing inherently wrong with "filler" that still tells a good canon story. Just because something doesn't contribute to the overall plot of a story doesn't mean there aren't cool trivia things to be gleaned from it nor does it necessarily make it a bad story. If every side story was pertinent to RWBY's main plot, people would have to do what DCU/Marvel fans so often have to do which is sort through a number of separate franchises and stories to completely understand a character or story. There's a trope for this but I forget what the name for it is specifically but it's basically when a canon stretches itself far too thin across too many different mediums to the point where it becomes intimidating or difficult to be easily followed.

You also just re-iterated my point about the manga. They've stated it's canon until it's not. If this is an officially backed RWBY light novel, I would imagine the same rules apply. So if it turns out not as they wanted or full of continuity issues (or otherwise problematic), RT can call it non-canon. Nothing beach ever happened. Everrrrr.

And yes, the manga was fanservice-y. Check out Yang's chapters and take a look at how many panels make a point of angling the "camera" so that her boobs are front and center or appear bigger than they should be. Or numerous instances in which the RWBY girls are purposefully positioned in ways that are the stereotypical T&A poses and/or look more like they're swinging on a stripper pole than fighting. Weiss and Ruby in particular also have a few panels where the skirt is riding awfully high and no, there's no reason for this other than Shirow Miwa wanted to draw it that way. That said, I don't have anything against the manga. I'm just pointing out that a little bit of fanservice isn't unheard of when it comes to RWBY and I think that's to be expected given we have a cast of lovely and incredibly attractive people in it. It's just never been the focus of the show, of course, nor done in a way that's overtly gross.

So I think it's worth considering that this light novel could be more of the same. Girls (and guys) in nice bathing suits? Cute! Girls (and guys) killing monsters while chilling at the beach? Why not? Hell, they've probably trained for that kind of thing. "What do you do if you're relaxing on the beach when suddenly a Grimm bursts out of the water?" "KICK SAND IN ITS FACE AND KILL IT."