Volume 8 is the eighth season of RWBY. It premiered on November 7th, 2020, and ran for 14 episodes. The volume was preceded by Volume 7 and will be followed by Volume 9.
Overview
Salem and her forces arrive in Atlas and battle against General Ironwood's army. Meanwhile, Ruby's group and the Happy Huntresses all struggle to aid the people of Atlas and Mantle from the Grimm and get the Amity Communications Tower operational while avoiding arrest by Ironwood's forces. With chaos spiraling throughout the Kingdom, the heroes struggle between fighting Salem's machinations and Ironwood's ruthless actions. All the while, Penny Polendina begins going through an existential crisis after becoming the Winter Maiden while Qrow Branwen and Robyn Hill bond over their similarities after being framed for Clover Ebi's death.
During the conflict, people from all sides like Yang's Group start to distrust the people they work for and pursue their own goals in the process. Meanwhile, Salem's most recent Grimm begins to put everything known about the Grimm until now into question.
Characters
Major Characters
Other Characters
Minor Characters
Episodes
- Main article: Episodes
| Chapter | Episode | Title | Original Air Date | Run Time | External Link(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teaser Trailer | Volume 8 Teaser | September 16, 2020 | 0:44 |  Volume 8 Teaser
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| Trailer | Volume 8 Trailer | October 14, 2020 | 1:07 |  Volume 8 Trailer Volume 8 Trailer
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| Midseason Trailer | Volume 8 Midseason Trailer | January 23, 2021 | 1:01 | Volume 8 Midseason Trailer Volume 8 Midseason Trailer
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| 1 | "Divide" | November 7th, 2020 | 18:58 | Divide
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| 2 | "Refuge" | November 14th, 2020 | 17:37 | Refuge
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| 3 | "Strings" | November 21st, 2020 | 17:50 | Strings
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| 4 | "Fault" | November 28th, 2020 | 19:31 | Fault
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| 5 | "Amity" | December 5th, 2020 | 19:10 | Amity
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| 6 | "Midnight" | December 12th, 2020 | 19:38 | Midnight
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| 7 | "War" | December 19th, 2020 | 18:50 | War
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| 8 | "Dark" | February 6th, 2021 | 17:49 | Dark
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| 9 | "Witch" | February 13th, 2021 | 18:29 | Witch
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| 10 | "Ultimatum" | February 27th, 2021 | 18:50 | Ultimatum
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| 11 | "Risk" | March 6th, 2021 | 19:28 | Risk
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| 12 | "Creation" | March 13th, 2021 | 18:15 | Creation
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| 13 | "Worthy" | March 20th, 2021 | 18:58 | Worthy
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| 14 | "The Final Word" | March 27th, 2021 | 23:16 | The Final Word
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Development
- Main article: RWBY Development
On October 3rd, 2019, a month before Volume 7 began airing, the crew announced that writing for Volume 8 had already begun.[2]
During the "Live from Remnant" Volume 7 Hype stream on November 1st, 2019, Miles announced that they had completed the first scripts for Volume 8 and were about to start the storyboards.[3]
Concept art and development was well underway by the end of November, 2019.[4]
Voice recording sessions for key characters began on February 4th, 2020.[5]
Animation for Volume 8 had started by March 2020.[6]
The writing process of Volume 8 was completed on April 8th, 2020.[7]
On May 21st, 2020, Rooster Teeth Productions and Full Sail University announced a collaboration for the production of Volume 8. Full Sail University students and graduates are given exclusive opportunities to design a Grimm that will be featured in Volume 8. The RWBY animation team will select the top five submissions for Rooster Teeth fans to vote on, with the contest ending on June 21st, and voting starting on July 7th and ending on July 12th, 2020.[8] On July 13th, a community announcement was made by Rooster Teeth, in which it was felt that the voting and response to contestants online violated the Code of Conduct upheld for the community and staff. For this reason, they closed voting and instead will select a winner via a panel of judges from the show.[9]
On July 18th, it was announced[10] that the Sulfur Fish Grimm design by Landon Ellis was the winner of the contest, with the Grimm set to appear in Volume 8. The Grimm would later make a cameo debut in "War".
A clip from the volume was revealed during the Comic-Con@Home Rooster Teeth Panel on July 25th, 2020. According to Barbara Dunkelman, the theme of the volume's story is distrust.[11]
On September 7th, 2020, more sneak peak clips were released through the Mark AR app at a Pre-RTX event in Dallas, Texas.[12]
The teaser trailer for the volume was released on September 16th, 2020 as a part of the RTX @ Home RWBY Panel. It was also revealed that the volume will premiere on November 7th, 2020, and will run for 14 episodes.
Volumes 8 and 9 are being created together and are unofficially even called a single volume production-wise with how things flow together.[13]
As of the production of Volumes 8 and 9, this Volume proved to be the most challenging season to write in the series.[14]
A full trailer was released on October 14th, 2020.[15]
On December 4th, 2020, it was announced that, due to remote production issues resulting from Covid-19, the season would have a longer than average mid-break, returning February 6th instead of January 3rd, 2021.[16]
Following the airing of the first half of Volume 8, a sneak peek of the second half was released on December 25, 2020, as part of a partnership with Rooster Teeth and HBO Max.[17]
An official mid-season trailer was released on January 23, 2021.[18]
On February 17, 2021, Kerry Shawcross announced that, due to the severe winter storm wreaking havoc in Texas at the time, the release of the tenth episode of the volume would be delayed by a week to February 27 to focus on the production team's safety.[19]
According to Eddy Rivas, Volume 8 as a whole was completed on March 26th, 2021.
Trivia
- The main theme of Volume 8 is Distrust.
- The title of every episode of Volume 8 was a single word, save for the final episode.
- This is the first volume to include content warnings before an episode, specifically before "Ultimatum," "Worthy," and "The Final Word."
- This is the longest volume in terms of runtime, with a runtime of 4 hours, 26 minutes and 39 seconds.
Image Gallery
Official Graphics
Full Sail University Competition
References
- ↑ Entertainment Earth
- ↑ Eddy Rivas' Twitter
- ↑ Live From Remnant Volume 7 Hype Stream
- ↑ Erin Winn on Twitter
- ↑ Arryn Zech on instagram
- ↑ I Have Notes: "Staying Creative in Quarantine!"
- ↑ Eddy Rivas' Twitter
- ↑ Full Sail University website
- ↑ Rooster Teeth Community Update
- ↑ Rooster Teeth Animation YouTube
- ↑ Rooster Teeth | Comic-Con@Home 2020
- ↑ Mark AR App on Twitter
- ↑ RWBY Panel | RTX 2020
- ↑ RWBY Volume 7 Crew Commentary – Chapter 13
- ↑ RWBY Official Twitter
- ↑ RWBY Volume 8 mid-season break
- ↑ RWBY Volume 8 Pt. 2 Sneak Peek
- ↑ RWBY Volume 8 Mid-Season Trailer
- ↑ Kerry Shawcross' Twitter
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