RWBY: Volume 8 - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

RWBY: Volume 8



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
For those of you who haven’t kept up with the long running series, RWBY (pronounced Ruby) is a weird sort of “half video game, half American Anime” series produced by the oddball animation studio Rooster’s Teeth. You know, the guys who gave us the crazy show Red vs. Blue (a bit of a parody of video games and Halo in general). It is very VERY reminiscent of Japanese animation, with visual aesthetics and motion of 2010 era video games. The show is a strange amalgamation of dystopian future story lines from Anime, with sci-fi and plenty of action. I originally started watching the show back in 2013 when it first aired, but after a while sort of fell away after the creator’s death in 2015 when the show took a hiatus due to the complexity of many of the character arcs. Fast forward several years and I have to do a binge watch to catch up and see what’s happening in season 8.

As with most seasons of RWBY the series spends the first episode or so pulling an information dump on the viewer to get them caught up. The series clues newcomers into the fact that this is a dystopian future and is in chaos due to the insanity that happened back in Volume 7, and in what is pretty much a running joke for the series, introduces an entire long list of characters and motivations to get the viewer caught up.

Anyways, the show starts out with Cinder (Jessica Nigri) delivers a “present” to Salem (Jen Taylor) which turns out to not be enough for the megalomaniac, which in turn leads to the abduction of Oscar (Aaron Dismuke) from her Grimm hounds, which naturally leads to a need to go and rescue him. Simultaneously the rest of the characters are dealing with Ironwood and whether or not he’s really the fascist he appears to be. Anymore of the plot and I tend to start revealing plot points a bit much, but needless to say the short season is filled with all sorts of chaos and interconnecting plot points wit hover a dozen main characters. Nuts? Yes. Crazy? Yes? Fun? Most definitely.

The show sort of thrives off of the chaos and insanity of the post apocalyptic world, but for me personally I find that the series could use some fat trimming. There are simply too many characters to keep track of, and a lot of “for the rest of the story” type of moments. That being said, watching them all back to back to get caught up for this review does help a good bit in keeping the narration of the show flowing smoothly. This season is really very typical of the previous releases in terms of tone and feel, and long time fans of the show should be more than pleased with how it turns out.

The series has had a bit of a rocky existence though, as it’s creator died back in 2015, it had a hiatus to deal with that. Then it changed distribution hands at the end of Volume 6 from Cinedigm to Warner Brothers, and rumors are that it’s having some upheaval in the creative team right now. However, the chaos and changeups seems to work for the show, as the dystopian sci-fi adventure seems to thrive off of such internal chaos and still keeping ticking.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

RWBY Volume 8 is the first time I’ve seen the series on Blu-ray, and it looks REALLY nice. The American anime style show is encoded across 2 BD-50s with more content than Rick and Morty’s full season on ONE disc. The bitrate remains hefty and impressively high, and I noticed VERY little negative on the discs. There’s some mild banding here and there, but overall this is a bright and ridiculously cheery looking disc with well saturated colors and intricate detailing along the character animation. The show has a very unique look that almost is a hybrid of video game CGI and Anime, so it’s very fluid and smooth looking, with TONS of colors to enjoy. This disc is near spot on perfect, and a great representation of the art.






Audio:

The DTS-HD MA 5.1 track found on the disc is robust and powerful, with a nice hefty score that adds a lot of power to the mix. Dialog is well placed up in the front of the room and never imbalanced with the rest of the mix, and the action oriented show can get really spicy a lot of the time. The series is not all explosions and action, so when it’s time to settle down and get quiet the mix is still perfect as can be. Little flutters of activity in the back of the room fill out the surrounds when the chaos dies down and overall this is a well done track that simply does everything just about perfectly (although I would have preferred a LITTLE more bass)








Extras:

• "5 Years RWBY - is a behind-the-scenes retrospective that explores how the production of RWBY has changed over the years. This exclusive content includes never before seen interviews.
• Weiss Character Short - All her life, Weiss Schnee has lived a privileged and pampered life... but it did not come without its own hardships.
• Blake Character Short - The White Fang was once a peaceful organization fighting for true equality for the Faunus. Over the years, however, many members began to favor violent and extreme tactics in order to demand respect from the humans of Remnant. Though Blake Belladonna eventually decided to leave the White Fang and its growing acts of terror, not all of her friends made the same decision.
• Yang Character Short - You know that Ruby is unstoppable with her scythe, but Yang knows the true power of hand-to-hand combat. In the midst of a weapon-free training session, can Yang convince her sister of the importance of fighting without a weapon?
• CRWBY: Behind The Episode - Have you ever wondered how RWBY is made? Each week, CRWBY: Behind the Episode gives you a peek at the magic, highlights the animation process, and introduces you to the animators, engineers, producers, and artists who work tirelessly to bring the World of Remnant to life.

Final Score:
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I actually quit watching RWBY back a couple of volumes ago (as I mentioned before) due to the intertwining characters and story points just felt like it was a bit too much. However, after binge watching the entire show to get caught up for this volume’s review, I find that they go together a lot better when watching all at once. I still think the show needs to trim some of the fat, but not having huge chunks of time between each release makes for the viewer to forget certain character interactions or plot points makes it a lot easier to keep track of. Still a fun show, RWBY continues to be one of Rooster Teeth’s best productions. Fun Watch.




Technical Specifications:

Starring: Lindsay Jones, Kara Eberle, Barbara Dunkelman
Created by: Monty Oum
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Warner
Rated: TV-MA
Runtime: 231 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: November 23rd, 2021

Recommendation: Fun Watch

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I have seen here and there over the years.. I may have to binge watch like you did to really appreciate this series.