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Fairy Tail: Non In-Universe Questions

Was Anna?Was Zervis planned? Was Zeref always planned to be completely evil?So @ac-fairytail posted some Fairy Tail non in-universe questions (all credit goes to her) and I figured: “Maybe I could attempt to honestly answer these questions and reverse-engineer Mashima’s thought process!” Of course, no sane person would ever attempt this, but here I am, so...

WARNING: Spoilers for the entire Fairy Tail manga.

Did Mashima base Stardresses off of Bravely Default’s Conjurerclass? Or was it Dresspheres? Or both?

Never played Bravely Default or Final Fantasy X-2 (even though they’re on my list of games to play), but if I had to guess after a quick wiki search, it would be Dresspheres. Problem is that the Stardresses are far less interesting, balanced, or explained. Oh well; Mashima trying to replicate a franchise with the writing quality of Final Fantasy is like an ant poking a dinosaur with a stick.

Was he always planning the time travel plot? If so, why did Erik refer to second gen dragon slayers as a “new” generation? There haven’t been dragons for centuries.

Considering that the “dragons vanished seven years ago” plot-point was established at the beginning of the series and further cemented by Natsu meeting Gajeel, I’m guessing he was planning to include time travel once he decided to continue the series past Tower of Heaven. 

As for Erik, I’m guessing that he just declared himself as second-gen because a) he heard about Natsu and Gajeel as traditional dragon slayers from the Fairy Tail-Phantom Lord war (which caused ripples across Fiore) and assumed himself to be superior because dragon lacrima were invented after the age of dragons, and b) he never heard of Sting or Rogue.

If Irene was always planned to be Queen of the Dragons, why did he barely integrate Dragnof Kingdom into anything? And why didn’t Acno realize?

I think that once Mashima created Irene’s concept, he tried to integrate her into the stories of the Dragon King Festival, but failed to create anything even remotely interesting or new, so he just quickly scrapped together a kingdom and called it a day. Yes, it’s infuriating.

As for Acno, well...he’s Acno. He don’t give two flying fucks about anything.

Was Natsu always planned to be END? Why is there no foreshadowing for it prior to the Tartaros arc?

When Zeref mentioned that Natsu specifically couldn’t kill him back in Tenrou, he was alluding to an ability that Natsu would gain in the future to beat Zeref. However, when Mashima realized that nakama bullshit wasn’t a valid ability (yeah, he went back on that in Alvarez, whatever), he solidified this ability in the form of END around Tartaros. So yeah, I would refer to Zeref’s line in Tenrou as “shot-in-the-dark” foreshadowing.

Was Zeref always planned to be completely evil? If so, why was he established as sympathetic in his introductory arc? Was this bad writing on Mashima’s end?

See, this is what really intrigued me about Zeref in Tenrou. He was established as sympathetic, but he couldn’t remain passive because that would kill people. He was FORCED to be malicious and completely evil if he ever came into contact with people until he could find someone that could kill him because that is the nature of his curse. For him, it was better to intentionally than unintentionally kill if the person or life were to die anyway. It’s why I really fell in love with him as an antagonist.

However, what is bad writing on Mashima’s end is how completely Zeref flipped to Ruthless Big Bad in Alvarez. Him being “excited” about his battle with Natsu is inexcusably inconsistent writing, and him gaining Fairy Heart just to rewrite time for his own selfish reasons should’ve activated his Death Magic on the spot because of his optimism towards a life where he won’t kill. Plus, his loss due to nakama bullshit.

Was Zervis planned?

As much as I hate to admit it, probably. The light and dark love relationship is about as cliche as you can get, and Mashima is certainly not one to dodge cliches or subvert tropes in his writing.

Was Anna?

Hell no. However, I did think that Layla was planned. When Hades was ranting about primordial magic to Team Natsu during Tenrou, Lucy, in thought, said, “I think I’ve heard of this primordial magic somewhere. Mom?” Even though Zeref had no interest in primordial magic (as proven in him killing Hades in anger), Eclipse and the Heartfilias did. Hence, I assumed that Layla would play a huge role in the final arc of the series. Boy, was I naive and optimistic.

Was Clear Heart made so OP because Mashima knew he’d fucked up managing Requip?

No. Because fanservice. Duh. Although, I did think that Clear Heart was perfectly balanced in her fight against Azuma, with her magic power bring directly converted to her Crimson Sakura blade. Any other use just feels unnecessary.

Why did Erza never use Nakagami Armour again? Too OP?

Mashima’s reason: huge audience backlash from its magic-breaking abilities and pulled-out-of-its-ass reveal. Erza’s reason: she..doesn’t want to use it because of its magic draining properties???

Why introduce the bunny armour?

The bunny armor isn’t the armor Mashima introduced that made me mad. The Seduction Armor is. Seriously, isn’t the whole point of seducing a man to take off clothes? Does that even make it armor? At least the bunny armor is cute and cosplay-ish, which fits with Erza’s happier, more playful side we see of her outside of fights; the Seduction Armor is just flat-out nonsensical.

Why did Mashima specifically want 12 Spriggans? There was apparently a reason for this, but Mashima never revealed what it was.

Originally, he wanted six and Zeref to be the seventh member, since Mashima is obsessed with the number seven. However, I think that he wanted to get a few character concepts out before he copped out of the series, and he had too many to just have six. Thus, he probably got up to nine or ten, but then he remembered that Tartaros and Avatar had the same amount of members, so he just said “fuck it” and moved the number to twelve. This would explain why Invel and Bloodman were shoehorned in with no original magic whatsoever; Mashima just threw them in to get the number to twelve.

Were Lisanna and Loke sidelined because they were threats to NaLu, or because Mashima couldn’t be bothered writing them?

Both. The first goes without explaining. However, I have theories on why Mashima didn’t bother to write either of them.

Lisanna: Mashima’s absurd obsession with redemption arcs, nakama bullshit, and fake-out deaths prove to me that he follows by the “heroes can’t die” code of writing, something which I hope no mature, aspiring writer follows. Thus, he brought Lisanna back into the story to follow this code and thought, “Maybe I could do something with her later.” Turns out he couldn’t think of anything when he was developing each new arc. The closest we ever came to Lisanna getting in the spotlight (besides that god-awful scene from Tartaros) was when Azuma “killed” Mira. Originally, as much as I like Mira, I would’ve loved to Lisanna fill in Mira’s shoes and dedicate herself to become a stronger person because of the death of her sister. But no, Mashima didn’t have the balls to really kill Mira and the Nalu shippers were clawing at his door, so she ended up as a void of nothingness.

Loke: Once his arc was done, Mashima wanted to develop the rest of the Zodiac Spirits. Not that he really did, but he didn’t want to single out Loke too much, as much as I like Lolu. However, Loke being the key that Lucy sacrificed rather than Aquarius would have worked a lot better in the grand sense of the narrative, and would’ve really hammered in a new dimension to Lucy’s potential character arc in Alvarez. So much failed potential, Mashima. So much.

Why did Mashima skip to having Mira being fine using her Satan Souls all of a sudden in the Tenrou arc?

Because since the cause of Mira’s initial stress and reluctance has been completely retconned by the narrative, she’s perfectly able to go all out again, guys! I mean, it’s not like real-life victims of PTSD still suffer for years and years on end even with achieving social and financial success, getting married, and having children, right? RIGHT!?

Seriously, fuck Mashima.

If Key of the Starry Skies and Eclipse Celestial Spirits are canon, why weren’t they just written into the manga?

Because Mashima didn’t care enough about these arcs; A-1 just pitched the filler arcs to him and said, “this is what we’re gonna do, kay?” and he was like, “Oh, these are cool. Canon.” He couldn’t be bothered to write them because he was ready to launch into GMG and Tartaros, respectively. Also, while Eclipse Celestial Spirits works well into the show’s canon, Key of the Starry Skies doesn’t. GMG was effective in setting up the future of the series after the timeskip and NEEDED to happen right after it (doesn’t make the arc necessarily good, though). Plus, the Neo Oracion Seis feels unnecessary since they canonically are released from prison in Tartaros.

Why completely change what Wendy’s capable of in the last arc? Possession? Really?

Problem is, though, her arc was finished the moment Doranbolt saved her and Carla from Face. Her facing Sherria proved that she is willing to fight for her guild regardless of her moral issues with fighting, her going Dragon Force proved that she has gained the experience to become a tactical and efficient fighter, and her resolve to be with Carla and protect the people she loves by choosing to die when Face is about to self-destruct solidifies her developing outgoingness with the new people that she loves. As a character, her arc was concluded before Alvarez began. In my opinion, she wasn’t capable of anything more in Alvarez.

As for the possession, it’s infuriating because of the pedophilia implications, not ruining Wendy as a character. I see possession as a tool for character growth only if the possessed person is able to grow in strength and become a stronger person to overcome the weakness that allowed them to become possessed. Take Aoi Zaizen from Yu-Gi-Oh VRAINS. I really hope that her upcoming character arc will be based around the possession that corrupted her in her very first on-screen duel and how she can overcome the weakness that the Knights of Hanoi exposed from her. Wendy’s possession...did not have that potential. Once Irene left her body, Wendy went right back to her fighting as usual and didn’t seem bothered by the possession. Why? Because her arc was finished and the show was nearing its end anyway. You can be mad about that, and I won’t blame you, but any further growth from Wendy would feel redundant in my opinion.

Was he planning on doing an arc about gods?

Yep. I have a theory that Avatar was supposed to be his “god” arc, but I’ll talk more about that later.

Was it really Ankhseram that cursed Zeref?

I...guess? Mashima never introduced him as a character, but I guess he can still exist. Makes Mashima a bad writer, but it doesn’t make Ankhseram invalid.

Why bring Rogue’s shadow back as a minor plot point in Avatar? He had no intention of addressing it in Alvarez.

Okay, in Mashima’s hardly-deserved defense, Alvarez would not have been the best time to discuss Rogue’s shadow; to me, Avatar was a good point to address it because it was our first full arc with Devil Slayer Gray. To me, it makes sense that Rogue’s shadow would possess him after the dragons emerge through the Eclipse Gate and Gray would become easily corrupted by Devil Slayer Magic without his friends for support (since they’re dead in the alternate timeline, though that raises the question of does Tartaros still exist there). There was really no better time to address it.

Did he give up after Tartaros?

Well, the anime gave up after GMG, that’s for sure. For Mashima, I’d say it was in the middle of writing Avatar. I think that he was planning on fleshing out Avatar as a cult, since their existence was the whole reason that Hades formed Grimoire Heart and “awakened” Zeref’s malicious heart. In addition, since they had enough influence to convince countless wizards that Zeref could be revived with keys and/or Towers of Heaven, they would have the influence to interact with gods and God Slayers. As a writer, Mashima could’ve killed two birds with one stone and be ready to tackle Zeref’s big final arc. What probably actually happened was him waking up after a drunken tirade and realizing that his series was being more and more ridiculed for its poor writing decisions, his fanbase was becoming one of the most toxic in all of anime, and he was just running out of ideas. He questioned every life choice he ever made, decided to trash the remainder of Fairy Tail just to start over with a new work, burned through the rest of Avatar, and threw Alvarez together haphazardly just to prevent himself thinking about potential endgames any longer.

Thank you again to @ac-fairytail for these questions. The channel’s all about Fairy Tail critique, analysis, and salt; go there if you’re interested in that stuff. It really pains me to see Fairy Tail crashing and burning towards the end, but for what it was worth, I enjoyed it. It’ll be harder for me to go back and enjoy it because of my investment in much better shonen manga, such as HxH, JoJo, and YYH, but it holds a lot of memories for teenage me, and I’ll certainly treasure them. 

Also thanks to Mashima for teaching me what NOT to do as a screenwriter. Helps a lot.

[lightdark18-blog]

Fairy Tail 530

Jellal/Audience: Inconceivable! To think that they were these Ravines of Time and no one knew about them. Anna: I hid their existence. Mashima: To justify making them up at the last second to make the ending more like Rave Master.

[lightdark18-blog]

How to Fix RWBY Volume 4

I can’t bring myself to say I hate this volume. But I can’t bring myself to say it was fantastic either. After the drama of V3, it felt good to relax a little bit on the plot and attempt to balance world-building and character development to set up for later, bigger events in the story. However, as it much as it seems like I’m playing a broken record by saying this, the idea of segmenting all of Team RWBY’s individual subplots in a relatively short show like RWBY may work on paper, but it requires very fast pacing and extremely powerful scenes, something which this volume seemed to lack. Thus, I will talk about how V4 could have been improved to give it much better character development and an overall more exciting narrative.

Disclaimers: I will be structuring my arguments into individual sections in the following order: Team RNJR, Weiss, Blake, Yang, Oscar, Team WTCH, and Other Improvements. You can scroll down to whichever one you’d like, or you could read the whole thing. I will be talking about everything, including the finale, so if you haven’t finished the volume, you might want to do that. Spoilers will be flying. I won’t be touching World of Remnant, because that isn’t really part of the story as it is exposition (personally, I think it’s stupid that Miles and Kerry need to resort to exposition episodes rather than working the exposition directly into the plot, but whatever). Also, I won’t be addressing ship concerns. I mean, Renora is canon this volume, what more do you want?

Thus, without further ado, let’s begin this shitpost!

Team RNJR:

Explain why the team walked rather than taking trains. It’s great that all of Team RWBY will reunite at Mistral, and I will praise the volume for its pacing in this regard. However, the fact remains that RNJR could have gotten there much faster had they taken a train like Oscar did. Would it cut out a lot of RNJR’s tension this volume? Yes, unless you have Tyrian hijack the train, forcing RNJR to flee (maybe jump off the train, I don’t know) and walk the rest of the way. This would not account for 6 to 8 months’ worth of travel, but that flaw hurts the entire volume more than RNJR itself.

Ren talks too much. I’m a writer. It is very hard to write character development for a silent character, but it can be done. It just takes skill and delicate dialogue crafting. I don’t think Miles and Kerry understand this, and I have a few reasons why In Volume 3, Ren was relevant in the first couple episodes, where he would make constant remarks about Nora’s vomit comment in Episode 1, take an active part in JNPR’s strategies before their Episode 2 fight, and make sarcastic remarks when Jaune was strategizing (Jaune: “Ren, take out the sniper!”, Ren: “Sure, why not?”) All of this feels out of character. Fast forward to V4, where Ren becomes relevant, and they constantly have him give commentary on fights, argues with Nora about the team name, talks to a dying villager, etc. I’m not saying that silent characters don’t interact with people (I’m an introvert, so I know this for a fact), but Ren’s place in the story felt extremely deviant from the first to volumes. At the end of the day, once Kuroyuri comes, the sudden care and outbursts that Ren has towards the Nuckelavee and his home village should have been a drastic character change that the audience would have noticed and praised, but Ren’s overbearing role in the volume just ruins the impact of the character change.

Making Jaune the strategist is fine. Stealing time away from Ruby is not. Many people have already commented on this, so I’ll be brief. Jaune is on a good path to becoming the paladin of this show: the Lawful Good character that starts off shit-tier, but grows through his many experiences to become one of the show’s greatest characters. Think Donnel from Fire Emblem: Awakening. I’m excited for this change, and I’m even fine with his skepticism towards Qrow and how Pyrrha had to choose her role as a maiden. However, Ruby takes a back seat to all this development. Miles and Kerry keep her optimistic, naïve attitude for the sake of consistency, but at the expense of giving her development. Had she not read aloud her letter to Yang, I think Jaune would have had more lines than Ruby. And if there is anything that any story should NEVER do, it is keep attention away from the hero of the story. If Ruby is the main character, make her act like it. Have her learn new battle strategies. Make her use her new electricity and fire bullets more. Rewrite the fights to force Ruby to fight alone at times. Have her give feedback on what she thought of Tyrian, or Salem. Have her give feedback on Kuroyuri. ANYTHING to give Ruby more relevance this volume than just dragging her along for the ride. I hope that V5 goes better for giving Ruby screen time, because this volume did not.

Don’t drop Pyrrha’s attempt at communicating. Episode 2 felt strong in the regard that Pyrrha was attempting to communicate with Ruby (somehow), and I felt that this would come in handy in the finale fight. Guess what? It didn’t. Not once was it ever relevant again. And all it did was wake Ruby up to see Jaune training, which felt like a much better way to put Pyrrha in the volume. I like to think that Pyrrha turning into dust reflects how Ul in Fairy Tail became water, and communicated with Ultear on Tenrou Island by showing her memories (sorry to all who haven’t watched Fairy Tail because you won’t get this at all). Pyrrha’s soul is still alive somewhere in a dust form, and is attempting to tell Ruby something. If you want to use this, save it for a later volume. I guarantee that because RWBY has such a large gap between seasons, only hardcore fans will remember any of Pyrrha’s communication come V5.

Give the Bandits a role. I never saw one bandit this entire volume (no, I don’t count Raven). This would have been a PERFECT time to introduce them, especially since they were mentioned in Episode 2 after they attacked Shion Village. Nope. However, I do have a good way on how to introduce them in a later point (see Yang).

Give us Jaune’s semblance. Seriously. The new sword felt extremely underwhelming. I would rather see his semblance than a sword sheath that gives his sword a little extra cutting power (which never even proved that relevant in the Nuckelavee fight).

Explain why Tyrian is interested in Jaune. Is it because of Pyrrha? Is it because of his character? Is it because he could be the paladin that kills Salem at the end of the show, only for Raven to be revealed as the show’s final antagonist (look, that’s just my theory)? Beats me, because Jaune nor Tyrian (when he’s crying like a bitch to Salem) never bring it up again.

Shame how a stupid reaction shot allowed Qrow to be poisoned. When I was watching the Qrow vs. Tyrian fight, I had very little problems with it. Right up until Qrow cut the wooden board that was going to crush Ruby (a clever instance of his bad luck semblance). Let me explain my reaction:

Qrow: *cuts board*

Me: K.

Ruby: *smiles at Qrow*

Me: You realize that there’s a psychotic scorpion Faunus that could literally poison any of you since you’re both low on aura, right? Maybe you ought to turn back to hi-

Qrow: *smiles at Ruby*

Me: DUDE WTF YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE FIGHTI-

Qrow: Aaah! *gets stung*

Me: *insert Michael Rage Quit dialogue here*

Explain how Ruby was able to cut off Tyrian’s stinger. So, Tyrian’s stinger could block Nora’s fully-charged hammer, Ruby’s scope bullets (even without him seeing their trajectory), and various other attacks, but all Ruby has to do is shoot him while his guard is down? Is this that “don’t let your guard down” BS that Goku suffered from in Resurrection F? Is Aura like Nen in Hunter x Hunter, and you have to force it to a specific point to block, else your limb is coming off? It makes no sense, even if Tyrian screaming “You BITCH!” is hilarious.

Tyrian should have been captured. I’ll talk later about how Monty warned against team fighting, and how RT refuses to follow his advice by choreographing bad teamwork fights, but why didn’t Ren and Nora, maybe even Ruby, go after him? He was low on aura. He could have been captured and questioned. Hell, some RWDE critics preferred that the Tyrian fight occur in a forest so Tyrian could have legitimately gotten away. Why not that?

The Relics are DUMB. D. U. M. B. Welp, Miles and Kerry just retconned Torchwick stealing all the dust again in V2, didn’t they? I was 100% sure at the end of V3 that Salem’s plan was to amount enough dust to infuse it into her body and become some sort of Dust God (which falls in line with the dust exposition in Volumes 1 and 2), and terror through attacking the schools was the only way to eliminate any threats in her way. Nope. Now we have out-of-place Relic bullshit that I’m certain Miles and Kerry just pulled out of their asses after Monty died and the holes in the story he planned began to surface. Shane’s letter suggested to me that RT wanted to take RWBY in their own direction, and retconning even the basic exposition of the OPENING EPISODE of the series just feels desperate. Stop taking our attention away from Dust, Aura, Semblance, and any of the other unique elements that make up the story. If you want to make a mythology, put in in place either at the beginning of the story, or in line with the past exposition. Miles and Kerry did neither. What’s next? By the end of the summer, a comet will arrive and give the Maidens unbelievable strength, and Salem plans to manipulate them to finish the war once and for all?

Explain why Qrow is a teacher. Qrow’s semblance is fine…except for the fact that V1, E1 stated that Qrow was a teacher. Why would Qrow be a teacher if he instigates bad luck onto his students? Wouldn’t he get like a 1.0 on RateMyProfessor? Or is this just another retcon?

“Don’t you know, you never split the party?” I don’t have too much of an argument for this, for RNJR splitting up to both Kuroyuri and Mistral sounds okay, but doesn’t that make both parties extremely vulnerable to large-scale Grimm attacks? Thank the two gods the Nuckelavee needed to wait for the plot to bring RNJR back together before it attacked, else we could be having one or two more Pyrrha’s on our hands.

Everything about Kuroyuri is fine, but it’s in the wrong volume. I like the Kuroyuri mini-arc, as well as Ren and Nora’s development, but let’s be honest. This volume is supposed about Team RWBY’s development. Cut Kuroyuri from this volume and give more screen time to Weiss, Yang, Blake, or literally anyone else. Kuroyuri isn’t far from Mistral, so it might’ve worked better as a mid-season finale for V5. Maybe. Eh.

Mistral airships giving RNJR a lift is just plot-convenient BS. “Lol bro we saw da smoke n we thot someone wus smoking weed and we wnted to buy a few grams”. At least that would have been kind of funny. But no. Mistral helicopters should not have been able to see the Grimm smoke, and immediately drop everything to show up at Kuroyuri, where they rescue COMPLETE STRANGERS to invite them to the kingdom. BS.

 Weiss:

Explain Whitley and Weiss’ mother. Contrary to popular opinion, I like Jacques. He is certainly the “Rich Asshole Type A: the Overprotective/Abusive Father” character, but at least his devotion to maintain his rich and comfortable lifestyle falls in line with the absolute power dynamic that Atlas was established to have (I could even talk about how this reflects real-world politics right now, but I won’t). Whitley never felt necessary to introduce to the plot: all he did was go down on Jacques or criticize Weiss. I have a good way on how to make him relevant on a later point. Also, Weiss’ mother was mentioned once, “drinking in the garden”. You know what the powerful girl vs. refrained mother conflict reminds me of? Kallen from Code Geass. Did that show handle the conflict well? Yes. Could RWBY handle it well? Probably. Did it even try? No.

Explain Klein. Not a big issue, but what is up with Klein’s different personalities? Is this a reference to Launch from Dragon Ball with his sneezing, or does he have legitimate dissociative identity disorder? Considering that Klein probably won’t ever be relevant again, I don’t think we’ll get the answer, even though I wish we could. If J. Michael Tatum was hired to play a butler, his most famous role in his career (Sebastian from Black Butler), make him interesting.

Weiss’ song was beautiful, but I still have a couple issues. First, Casey Lee singing as Weiss just looks and sounds off. I know they didn’t have much choice, but maybe they could have had Kara Eberle sing it and heavily edit her vocals. Or maybe she has a naturally beautiful singing voice, I don’t know. Also, this song tends to have even less subtle lyrics than most of the RWBY songs so far. This is entirely a “daddy issue” song. Make it a bit more powerful by showing some of Weiss’ positive personality traits in the lyrics.

Henry Marigold’s role in the story is just too unclear. When you give a character a first and last name, HE/SHE SHOULD BE RELEVANT. Miles and Kerry did not follow through on this with the minor characters of Volume 3, and I doubt they will ever mention Henry again. Then again, that’s fine, even though he could’ve represented the youthful perception of Atlas’ place in the world that reflects the ego of Atlas’ parental and corporate figures which Weiss is precisely trying to fight in her character arc. But hey, what do I know?

This whole “rich people are snobs” shtick is just cliché. It makes logical sense for Atlas to have this mindset (absolute power corrupts absolutely), but it’s too cliché to consider interesting. Give it a twist. Maybe they want to gain control of the kingdom defenses in the rest of Remnant by using Veil and the Fall of Beacon as an excuse to supply better defenses.

Weiss’ rebellion feels weak, as well as her anticlimactic Summoning. Weiss summons a boar about to murder Rich Asshole Type B: the Complete Bitch? Ironwood ex machina, and Weiss never mentions her feelings about her uncontrollable summoning. Jacques locks her in her room and strips her of her heiress title? Cry for 5 seconds, and rebel by messing up the room. Weiss training to regain her skills as a Huntress and protect the friends she holds dear? Master her summoning by creating the knight in the White Trailer on a much smaller scale, and have it accomplish absolutely nothing except break a window (which was a result of the summoning, not the knight breaking the window itself). Some of my friends wanted her to summon a Nevermore, which would’ve been cool. But no.

Jacques should have noticed, or heard about, Weiss breaking the window. Surely someone from the garden must have seen or heard the window breaking, and informed Jacques about it. Wouldn’t that have actually given Jacques a role in preventing Weiss’ escape? Wouldn’t Klein be one of the last people to see or hear the window breaking?

Weiss fleeing Atlas should have been completely rewritten. Weiss should have just ridden the Knight, smash through the garden, grab her mother (yes, more Code Geass references), and hop on a ship to Mistral, while using her rapier to summon and prevent any attacks by the Atlas military. But if this isn’t plausible, this is another option. Flee with Klein as usual, but after she locks Ironwood and Jacques in, Ironwood should break the door down (he’s a freaking metal man, he should be able to do it), and Jacques should alert the entire estate to find the sabotager. He should find Weiss’s room empty, and alert Whitley. Then, in the library, reveal that Whitley is a Hunter. Have him incapacitate Klein and fight Weiss, with her fleeing on the airship. Let me explain why this is good in the next point.

Give us foreshadowing into whether Jacques or Whitley will be relevant in V5, for they’re on a time limit. Ironwood has basically given Atlas an ultimatum: Atlas borders will be closing at the start of next week. This means that if any character from Atlas in V4 is to be relevant in a later volume, they need to leave. NOW. Jacques probably won’t so he can run the company, but Whitley, who could now be revealed to be a Hunter, can legitimately go after and stop Weiss at Mistral. Or have Whitley inherit the company immediately and have Jacques go after Weiss. Make someone important.

 Blake:

Explain what Blake was doing for the last 6-8 months. So, six to eight months after the Fall of Beacon, Blake just NOW decides to go to Menagerie? What was she doing throughout all that time? Hiding? Contemplating? Getting her new outfit? Explain.

Sun following Blake is really OOC. Alright, let me get this out of the way right now. The FNDM is blowing this way out of proportion, especially once you factor in Black Sun and Bumblebee shippers. It is certainly out of character for Sun to follow Blake silently, and he should have just been open about it to find out why she fled Ruby and Yang in the first place, but it isn’t THAT big of a deal. End of story.

COMPLETELY change Blake’s family arc. Volume 2 convinced me that Blake was born into the White Fang, grew up in the streets, and had little actual freedom until she ran away from Adam in the Black Trailer. Therefore, giving Blake a family who is practically royalty in Menagerie is retconning at its finest. Plus, what does it prove? That Blake regrets her time in the White Fang after leaving her family like a child? Says more about her than it does the morality, or immorality, of the White Fang, which is exactly what Blake wants to challenge in V5. Have her find that her family is dead. Find some old friends of hers that left the White Fang. Put the good side of the White Fang front and center to make me care more about her fighting Adam. She has two grudges against Adam now: ruining the White Fang’s moral high ground, and disARMing Yang. Give me a better reason to see her fighting these grudges instead of “it sounds okay to the audience”. Blake proving that the Faunus are equal citizens is one of the show’s strongest potential plot points, so capitalize on it.

This Sun comic relief isn’t comical. Not much else you can do except avoid the cringy writing. Sun’s “just hanging around” pun and breaking in to Blake’s conversation with her dad are two good examples.

I get that Adam is too far away from Menagerie to be relevant in this volume, but Ilia is pointless. Who is Ilia? Why do I care? Why can’t we give Adam some screen time to see him going to Menagerie or Mistral? Is Ilia even that important? Was she an old friend of Blake that used to support the morally good White Fang? If so, why did she stop? If not, why is she relevant? Miles and Kerry, please make us care if you are introducing her so late in the volume.

Sun’s heart wound was dropped too quickly. Seriously, is Aura like Nen in Hunter x Hunter? Sun should not have run out of Aura, unless his multiple copies consumed all of it, which didn’t seem clear. Besides, even if I accepted the wound, Blake’s reaction to Sun’s potential death was honestly too good to waste on a wound that doesn’t even seem that bad in the long run. Unless Sun’s wound hurts his fighting in V5, it seems pointless.

Yang:

Yang’s PTSD is very underdeveloped. I was fine with Yang’s broken glass and nightmare-induced PTSD right up until the show dropped it entirely once she put the arm on. That is not how PTSD works. It should continue to haunt her for years, maybe even until she dies (hopefully not during the show, I love Yang too much). Keep her having PTSD symptoms with the arm on. Hell, especially with the arm constantly reminding her of Adam.

If Port and Oobleck are in this volume, we should learn more about the other teams. Do…none of the other characters in V3 matter? If Port and Oobleck matter to Taiyang, and Glenda is shown to be constantly working, then what about Team CFVY? Or the rest of Team SSSN? Or Team CRDL? Or, literally anyone else? Show us what they are doing, albeit briefly. The more they continue to not be relevant in the show, the more I believe that the tournament was a waste of time.

Yang gets used to the robot arm too quickly. Qrow is voiced by this random guy named Vic Mignogna, who, I don’t know, just happened to voice this character called Edward Elric in Fullmetal Alchemist and Brotherhood, one of the greatest anime franchises of all time. And, not that this is related or anything, Edward just happened to have his arm lost and got a mechanical arm that took him a year to master, which was far shorter than the expected length for a normal person. It involves sensitive nerve connections to allow alchemy to be performed. So, how can Yang master it in a matter of weeks, if that? I know that they are two different universes, and I am not educated on robotic arms in the real world, but it should take more than a few weeks to master.

Stop beating around the bush with Raven. So, Raven leads the bandits. Cool. She has family issues. Fine. So, why doesn’t the show capitalize on this? If Yang finds Raven, then what? What does that mean for both if they interact? I feel like the only reason that Yang chose Ruby over Raven was because she realized that her immediate family matters more, which invalidates Raven’s role in the show completely. And before you say “but she is against Salem”, there is nothing that she has physically done to perform this goal, besides forcing Neo to flee. If you want to give Raven a role, give her a more concrete role independent of her mommy issues with Yang.

The show needs to earn “Armed and Ready” with a climactic Yang fight with some Grimm or bandits or rogue White Fang members. “Armed and Ready” is easily the best song that the Williams family has ever done (that opening guitar is downright orgasmic), but Yang has done nothing to fight her PTSD besides training with Taiyang. That does not convince me that she is ready to kick Adam’s ass. Give her a fight towards the end of the volume and have it be the finale fight rather than RNJR vs. the Nuckelavee. Fight some Grimm as a metaphor for overcoming her negative emotions while simultaneously still harboring her PTSD. Have her fight some bandits to introduce them to the story. Have her fight some White Fang members to prove her change in strength since Volume 2. Bonus points if you have her drive on her motorcycle while fighting (just so I can make an AMV with some Initial D themes, probably Running in the 90s).

 Oscar:

Cut out his scene in Episode 1. That scene communicates to the audience that Oscar is related to Salem’s antics (by waking up from a nightmare after the opening scene) and he works on a farm. You want to know what does that? The very next scene he is in a few episodes later. Save some money and cut his first scene.

Give us some of Oscar’s own backstory, or individual character. If you introduce a character only for the sake of keeping a previous character relevant, it doesn’t make me sympathize with the new character. The ending scene with Oscar receiving Ozpin’s cane from Qrow sounds promising to give Oscar some development, but not giving him a backstory or why he works on a farm, or even why he just leaves so easily to head to Mistral. He is obviously the Dorothy character in the show (to keep the Wizard of Oz character metaphors going), and Dorothy had a backstory, however brief it was. Give Oscar one.

Ozpin/Oscar is driving the plot now. None of that. When Qrow is asked what Team RNJR should do now that they know about the relics, he literally responds with “I don’t know”. If that doesn’t sum up how irrelevant Ruby is, I don’t know what will. To put icing on the cake, Qrow says that they should put their faith in Ozpin to make up a plan. That means that even if Ruby dies, the only disadvantage that the characters have is that they lose the silver-eyed Super Saiyan (sorry Yang, but Ruby fits that bill better). I’ll talk about the Silver Eyes later, but my point is that Ozpin, regardless if he is the elder, should not drive the plot now. Otherwise, Oscar should be the main character. If he is the Dorothy of this show, that possibility is not too far off, unfortunately.

 Team WTCH:

Give Mercury and Emerald more screentime. They were the ENTIRE REASON that Cinder could execute the Fall of Beacon. Now, Miles and Kerry have introduced new villains so fast that there is no time to give Emerald and Mercury any relevance. Emerald is merely a translator, and Mercury does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Have them go out and fight Team RWBY or RNJR. Hell, maybe even have them fight Yang in that hypothetical finale I talked about earlier. After all, Yang does have a grudge against both, even if she doesn’t know it yet.

Flesh out the other villains beside Tyrian and Cinder. They’re obviously being saved for later volumes, which is fine, by introducing them in Episode 1 only for each to have one or two more appearances in the rest of the volume feels out of place.

Make Tyrian cold rather than crazy. He’s a scorpion. Not a monkey (that’s Sun’s specialty). People pointed out that he sits like L from Death Note in his opening scene in the dining room (I think that’s what it is), and L was extremely cold and calculating. Make him like that. I’ll take intimidating cold villain over batshit crazy villain any day.

Explain about what happened at Beacon when Ruby unleashed the Silver Eyes. I have many questions. First, how did Cinder get out of there? Did Salem rescue her after she was frozen, or was she never frozen at all and just lost her eye? If not, why did the Grimm Dragon freeze (or is this just some sort of Portal talk in Fullmetal Alchemist where he takes something precious from each person, Cinder her eye that sees her future, and the dragon its ability to fly)? Why has Ruby never mentioned her silver eyes in the ENTIRE volume? Can she induce it under extreme pressure like the Avatar State, but it comes with a horrible cost? Or are Miles and Kerry just retconning all of it until a later volume, when whatever is relevant will just show up? I was looking forward to finding out exactly what happened to Cinder and Beacon, as well as Ruby wrestling with her new abilities. The former was only half developed, and the latter was never mentioned.

Explain why Team WTCH is only now acting 6-8 months after the Fall of Beacon. Tyrian has been looking for the Spring Maiden, and Cinder is undergoing treatment, but what has everyone else been doing? Reading Ninjas in Love alone in their rooms?

Is Cinder…afraid of Tyrian? If so, go into it more. Seeing Tyrian going insane against the Beowulf just felt satisfying to watch (albeit terrifying and stupid since the Beowulf should have disintegrated into dust after the first few stabs). However, Cinder being terrified by Tyrian’s reaction felt even more interesting to see. Maybe Cinder should have had a short PTSD-like flashback to an event from her past.

 General Improvements:

Stop hiring so many professional voice actors. Look, I love Funimation. I love Team Four Star. But hiring so many professional voice actors to voice both one-shot and major characters just comes across as corporate money-hogging. RT should have more confidence in its own voice cast, not to mention that the voice acting feels wildly inconsistent, putting professionals on the same level as amateurs. I was fine when they nabbed Vic for Qrow, but this is just pandering.

Improve the fight scenes with Monty’s advice. Remember when Monty said that “you should utilize motion in a way that doesn’t waste movement?” Tell that to the animators that love to swing Crescent Rose around pointlessly during Ruby’s fight scenes. Don’t believe me? Check Episode 7 when she climbs to the rooftop to set up her scope against Tyrian. Also, remember when Monty said that “in team fights, get rid of as many people as quickly as possible?” RT should’ve taken his advice, for Team RNJR vs. Tyrian in Episode 6 was complete garbage, where everyone was standing around too much while Tyrian was fighting 1v1 or 1v2 instead of 1v4. Don’t believe me? Nora got hit with Ruby’s bullet, and stood there for 20 SECONDS while no one did anything else to distract Tyrian from Nora’s charging. I’m not saying that the fight scenes were overall bad in this volume (Qrow vs. Tyrian is my favorite fight in Volume 4 just how Qrow vs. Winter was in Volume 3), but they still need work. No one will be able to animate like Monty, but flash animation can always improve, and “keep moving forward”.

Give the Williams family more songs. The RWBY V4 soundtrack will be good. I guarantee it. I just wish we could have a couple more songs.

Keeping Pyrrha and Glynda in Poser but the rest of the show in Maya just looks awkward. I know it would cost more money to convert both Pyrrha’s recording and Glynda fixing the building on Yang’s TV from Poser Pro to Maya, but it would just look better. Plus, I really want to see Pyrrha’s new model in Maya. Maybe they’re just keeping it once Pyrrha comes back in a later volume (a man can dream, right?).

The show needs to make up its mind about religion. Qrow in V3: “Not many people are super religious these days.”

Captain in V4 E3: “By the gods!” (nice foreshadowing btw)

Qrow: *proceeds to talk about an entire religious mythology that will take the forefront of RWBY’s main conflict*

Me: wut

The sexual references are starting. And I hate them. Blake’s dad calling her clothing too revealing, and Nora telling Ren not to look up her skirt. Unless you’re Evangelion and subverting common fan-service tropes, you don’t have the right to being them into RWBY, especially since Monty was very avid in Volume 1 interviews about shying away from showing the girls in upskirt/sexual scenarios.

Talk about the moon. Qrow looked up at the moon during his talk with RNJR about the relics. Might want to explain why after four volumes of complete silence about it.

Where’s Neo? Is she alive? Dead? Relevant? Irrelevant? Why didn’t she fight Yang in my hypothetical finale? Has she been looking for Torchwick, not knowing that he’s dead? A mute character like her just has too many interesting scenarios for her to be completely dropped.

And that’s it. Thank you to all those who have sat through this 5,400-word post. In the end, there were many things I liked about Volume 4, like how the Nuckelavee was terrifying, and how Qrow’s poisoning was handled, with everyone on the edge of their seats on whether Qrow would die. I just wish it lived up to all the hype that we gave it. Oh well. Cheers to a good Volume 5 in Mistral, the most Omashu-looking city I’ve ever seen (when will this show stop ripping off of Avatar).