#and start comparing/contrasting with other conflicts with reckless abandon

[age-of-moonknight]

“For Now,” Phases of the Moon Knight (Vol. 1/2024), #4.

Writer: Fabian Nicieza; Penciler and Inker: Moisés Hidalgo; Colorist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo; Letterer: Cory Petit

[calliecat93]

It’s been a long year everyone, but at last we have arrived. RWBY Volume Eight. This is the fourth volume I’ll be doing text reviews of, which feels crazy. I’ve been watching this show more or less form the start, and I can safely say that this is the most scared I’ve ever been. Not because of the quality, I have high hopes for that. But we know how the last volume ended. We knew that it was going to carry over into this one. And it was even MORE tense than we expected. It’s gonna be one heck of a Chapter 1 review, I can say that.

Before that, we have a new opening! Sadly, to my knowledge, the song title hasn’t been announced yet. But other than that... oh man. There is a LOT to unpack here. SO much to analyze. So much to speculate. Once more Jeff and Casey gave us a banger, and Casey was NOT kidding when she said it was dark. But before we proceed any further, let’s get the disclaimer out of the way

(Warning: This post WILL contain spoilers for RWBY V8 Chapter 1. If you have yet to see the episode and do NOT wish to be spoiled, PLEASE scroll past this post. You have been warned.)

We begin seeing Mantle int he state we’re used to, but it glitches. The blues and whites shift into reds, fires and chaos are widespread, and the Grimm are wreaking havoc. This is going to be what Mantle looks like the moment that Salem strikes the city. The one watching this all unfold? Ruby. She failed to stop Ironwood and the division between our heroes, Atlas, and Mantle is greater than before. The poor girl can only watch in horror as Mantle burns, Atlas continuing to hover above... for now at least.

The theme oft the volume, contrast to last volume’s themes of trust and fear, is mistrust and division. The first chapter demonstrated this, but I’ll save that for then. But here? We have the logo causing a divide between Ruby herself, and all of her allies. I could be reading into this too much, but I do have to wonder... si something going to happen that causes Ruby to strike out on her own? Do things go badly and she’s the only one who doesn’t quit? Does the pressure get to her and she does something that causes everyone, ever her own teammates and sister, to turn their backs on her? It’s hard to say, but I don’t think that Ruby is coming out of this 100% the same.

Ah, isn’t this nostalgic? Our girls really have come far. Ruby went from a naive, innocent girl with an overly idealistic dream to a true Huntress who wants to make lives better after witnessing how bad it can really be. Weiss when from a spoiled rich girl suffering form neglect and a controlling father, to a defiant young woman determined to reclaim her family name her way. Blake has gone from a frightened girl to a woman broke free of her abuser’s control and is fighting for both equality and for her loved ones. Yang was a confident, yet reckless girl with abandonment issues and while she went through great loss, she came back even stronger and shining even brighter.

The girls have changed. They have grown. They’ve lost their innocence along the way, but they survived and kept moving forward. But while they could, another failed to do the same...

The general has completed his descent into villainy. He is now a cold, heartless tin soldier who is willing to take any step he deems necessary to protect Atlas. Even if it means cold-blooded murder. Even here, there is nothing but coldness in his eyes and as the shadows engulf him, we see the image of Atlas fall into ruin. We also see Clover’s badge, and the images of his remaining teammates and Qrow. Marrow in particular just looks uncertain about everything, a major contrast to how upbeat he was last volume. Harriet... just looks like she has been consumed by hate and rage. And if I had to guess, it’s going to be aimed at Qrow. She may claim to not be friends with her teammates, but losing Clover is going to have some very, VERY bad affects on her and the others. Especially under Ironwood’s influence.

We see Qrow downcast before Robyn offers him a hand in support. Yeah, think it’s safe to say that these two are gonna launch some kind of prison break. Looking forward to it~! Then we cut to Oscar, clutching his head and looking like he is in pain. He’s surrounded by Grimm and it looks like he’s int he Grimm Whale. We know that Salem is after him, so... yeah, my concern is VERY high. Also we see Salem in a new form and... umm... the apparition of her in V5 has now been topped in... help us world.

Returning to the theme of division, that seems to be central especially for Ren and Nora. Last volume, they were in conflict with Nora unable to get Ren to open up, even after they finally kissed. Here? It seems the drift is only going to grow. Ren glances at Nora, before facing away. Nora had been facing away, but then she glances back at Ren before turning around. She just looks so upset and pained as she stares at the man she loves. Along with Nora willingly splitting from Ren in Chapter 1... it’s gonna be a ROUGH volume for Renora shippers everywhere.

We come to the Schnee Family. Weiss and Winter walk past each other. At first, Winter looks like her usual, composed self. But as she passes her sister, her attire changes to have her new cybernetic features. her composed expression shifts into one of sadness and maybe even guilt. Weiss seems to notice, looking up with wide eyes before the scene shifts. We know that the two will be in conflict now due to their opposing sides, even though neither clearly wants to be. Chances are they’ll meet face-to-face again, and it is NOT going to go well as they must decide whether or nit to fight each other on their respective sides.

Then we see Whitley and Willow. No Jaques, though we know he will be appearing. Willow continues to look tired and depressed, and I can only hope that somehow SOMETHING goes better for her here. But then we have Whitley. Despite his role being minor, Whitley got hit a heavy blow with Jaques arrest curtesy of Weiss. But here he looks like he’s trying to look calculative... but his fear is shining through. The kid is in a bad place and I doubt that he’s broken form his father’s control. Will Weiss help him out of it? or is it too late?

Then we shift to a chess board. We have Salem, her pawns all ready and charging ahead with their attack. Now I knwo nothing about Chess, but clearly the Queen is winning. Ironwood is on the opposite side, all of his chess pieces fading into dust as the board breaks away. He stands alone, completely open to checkmate. The King is about to be overthrown. Ironwood has driven off hsi allies, and the remaining are likely either going to soon follow or fall to Salem’s forces. For all his efforts to save Atlas, all that he is done is secure it’s downfall, as well as his own. Yeah, even if by some miracle he realizes his mistakes, I don’t think that James is coming out of this alive, and it will all be by his own doing.

We see Watts being Watts, typing away. I have to wonder... does he somehow escape form custody? Or does ironwood willingly let him free for his side? The guy is desperate, he’ll do anything to win, even strike up a bargain. Which Watts would absolutely take and use the access for his own means. Maybe even some hacking...

Then we have Pietro, himself hard at work. Behind him is a mirror, and his reflection turns to look at Penny. Compared to the bright smile she had int he last opening, Penny looks scared and dishearted. She is looking at her hands, closing her eyes as though in resignation. We see her reflection glance at her. To just increase my fears of a potential ‘Watts hacking Penny’ theory, here are some images from later in the opening.

The first has Penny up above the heroes. At first I thought it was just her flying up to get into a battle stance. I didn’t realize how she was facing the gang face first. Right in front of Amity, and in between Atlas and Salem. Then from the tail-end, we have this 2D effect showing her eye. It goes from the usual green color, to a bright red, which soon engulfs the rest of the lines. Yeah... I know I panicked about Penny getting hacked last volume... but I am even moreso now! 

A snowflake falls into Ren’s palm before promptly meting. Due to the color fo his glove, it looks like a flower petal. He looks down at it forlorn. Jaune puts a hand on his shoulder and he, Yang, and Oscar are there. Btu the support doesn’t do anything to change Ren’s expression. We then see a flower petal fly by Nora, who tries to catch it. She fails, but Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Penny appear at her side. This perks her up as she gets into a battle stance. Once more, emphasizing the divide between Renora and showing us our current team dynamics. They have separate goals, but they aren’t divided... at least, not right now.

Then we have this shot of Ruby and Yang. I’ve bene predicting for a while that there was going to be a conflict between this two. They have VERY different ways of handling things, and last volume made it clear that while she stood by her, Yang was having doubts about Ruby’s decisions. I’ll go more into that when I review Chapter 1, but I am hoping that this shot shows that no matter what issues they have between them and even if they end up arguing, they WILL work past it. They’re still sisters. They still love each other. They still ultimately have the same goal. No matter what happens, they will be there for each other.

After a really cool battle sequence (I’d post the pics but this si already a MASSIVE post), it freezes. When it does, we see Cinder walk past it. At first, she is displaying the demeanor that we expect from her. Confident, egotistical,a nd wearing that sick smirk on her face. You know the one. She also walks past neo and Emerald. Neo looks exactly what we expect, annoyed. Emerald looks more optimistic though, also expected. I think it’s safe to say that Neo’s gonna turn on Cinder fairly soon, especially after Chapter 1. But will Emerald? We’’ve been hoping, but will this be the moment she finally realizes that Cinder doesn’t care about her and get out? Only time will tell.

But Cinder’s usual smugness stops when she grabs her arm in pain and screams. Her Grimm Arm. As many have noted, the arm has slowly been consuming her body. It went form just up to her elbow, to now engulfing up to her shoulder. Not to mention Winter managed to slice it off, and it grew back in a pretty violent manner. Given what we saw in the start of the episode, it looks like we may FINALLY be getting the Cinder backstory and truly understanding her motives. I think that Cinder will reach a breaking point in this volume. One that is NOT gonna be pretty or do our heroes any good.

We get the usual villain lineup which ends at Salem, We get a close-up of her eyes, and in them are the Relics. No shock that those are what she’s aiming for. Then we see both the Lamp and the Staff, and they both glow and let loose the blue smoke. It brings up a question... we all know that the Gods will be summoned if all four are brought together. But what would happen if two are brought together? If the two are used together, what will it cause? Either way, both of them are gonna be vital in whatever happens.

The image glitches again, going form the  Grimm devastation to Ruby looking out at Atlas. She is with the others, her scythe being use to cause a division line between the two current groups (as seen in the top image). Then, the ice cracks beneath her feet. She and the rest of Team RWBY fall into the depths below. Remember that scene in the V6 opening when Qrow got dragged down by Grimm arms? And how that symbolized his conflict int he season as he endured a downward spiral? Well... it might be Team RWBY’s turn.

The girls fall into the water, sinking into the abyss. But there are light particles surrounding them, and Ruby opens her eyes to see the light above. The source? The Staf fof Creation? She reaches up for it, only for a group to Grimm arms to grab her and keeping her from going upward. The lyric accompanying this is “Sometimes it’s worth it all to risk the fall and fight for every life.” Could this hint to Ruby deciding to use the Staff to stop Salem? If she does, then this will guarantee Atlas’ Fall f she makes even a minor mistake. Is that a risk that she is willing to take? What will happen if she does so? How will her team react? Will this cause a greater divide? Like I said, Ruby ain’t gonna have a good time in this volume...

Then we have the following words appear.

Happy Ever After. The same words we see at the end of every fairy tale. But life isn’t a fairy tale now, is it? The words get crossed out and twisted. Until at the end, we are left with...

Yeah... if you needed more proof that this volume was going to be dark... here you go.

We end with the girls weapons landing at the bottom of the abyss. The last to do so is Crescent Rose, and we cut to it emended in the ice with the moon behind it. It’s a shot that reminds me GREATLY of Ruby’s first ever appearance in the Red Trailer all those years ago. And aas the petals scatter, we have the credit to Monty Oum. Your show has come so far Monty, hope you’re proud right now.

This opening was fantastic! The song sounds like a VERY twisted version of Lets Just Live, being about the heroes realizing the true horrors of their world but there’s no real motivation to keep living this time. Now it’s all about how bad things have gotten, and ends with wondering if sometimes, it’s best to take a risk to save everyone. As far as where I rank this, song-wise it hasn’t topped Let’s Just Live, Rising, and Trust Love, but I think it’s beaten the other four. That can always change though. Animation wise... I’m still trying to decide if it’s topped Opening 7 or not. But it is very, VERY good. The fact that they managed to make it look this good despite the work-at-home environment is commendable.

And... that’s it! I hope you all enjoyed this! The review for Chapter One will be coming soon. But for now, thank you all for reading, and let’s get ready for one Hell of a volume~

[leeran]

About Natsu's (lack of) character arc

So, there are a lot of posts criticizing Fairy Tail thanks to this recent arc. I'm sure there's someone out there talking about this exact same issue, but I admit I haven't found that person yet… And in any case, I want to say my own piece about this subject. It's been awhile since I wrote some sort of analysis here, but this is probably going to be long anyway.

I want to clarify something: I'm trying to be objective here. While my opinions and tastes will show up, what I'm going to focus here is on writing and structure. I want to talk about why Mashima's writing is so ineffective lately, and why so many people call Natsu a Mary Sue or plainly dislike him. I'm not here to defend Natsu; I love him, sure, but he's been a victim of terrible, awful writing. I 100% understand why people dislike him or even hate him. They have VERY good reasons to do so. What I want to do is explain why this happens.

Alright, now let's start.

→ Inability to change.

At the start of the latest time skip I saw the first sign that I should drop any tiny bit of hope that I had for Natsu's character. I was stupid and I kept that hope alive, sadly, but I really should've seen it coming.

Remember when he came back of the one-year-trip he took after Igneel's death? How he had his long hair, and many people wanted him to keep it that way, but in the next chapter he came back to his usual look? 

It may seem silly, but to me this was a sign of a bigger problem. Usually, when there's a time skip it's expected that character designs change. Not only because it keeps things interesting, but also because people change with time. A change in design tends to reflect this. And I know it sounds stupid to worry about something so “insignificant”, but remember: manga is a visual medium just as much as it is a written one. Visual elements are as important here to tell the story as any other. For example: Lucy, the character who's allowed to change the most throughout the story, gets a slight change in her design after this time skip. By contrast, Natsu doesn't.

Following that small sign, we discover that Natsu's personality hasn't changed. Like, at all. A year has passed, and he hasn't changed. Worse than that: He lost Igneel. And. He. Hasn’t. Changed. At. All.

Natsu's motivation was established in the beginning of the manga: He wanted to find his adoptive father, Igneel, after he disappeared 7 years prior to the start of the story. That motivation was fulfilled in the Tartaros' arc, followed by Igneel’s death. In one day, Natsu fulfilled a dream he spent seven years (or fourteen, I guess) pursuing… and then he had to see one of his worst fears come true. This is a pretty big thing for any person, but it's also the culmination for a character arc. The character is at his lowest point, so he's forced to grow in some way (whether it's positive or negative).

But… we don't see Natsu grow. Sure, we see him grieve for… a couple of panels, but that's all. The chapter before the time skip, we see Natsu smiling and barely reacting to what happened, besides deciding that he has to become stronger. 

We don't get much insight into him. And after that? A year passes and we don't get to see Natsu's struggles or his process of growth. What's worse: when he comes back, he's acting like he always acted. And there's no insight that shows us that no, he changed, he's just ACTING. We have nothing like that, he just… got better. And we don't get to see it.

Look, this isn't about his coping mechanisms or anything. It's not about whether a person, in real life, can go through a situation like that and appear unchanged by all that happened. No, this is about the writing choices made for a character being utterly ineffective and incompetent. It's not like we need much, honestly. We don't need to have Natsu ranting in his thoughts about all the suffering he went through and how he changed. Small changes would've been enough. Maybe having Natsu smiling less, or showing sad smiles. Or maybe have him lose some of his will for fighting, at least when it comes to the reckless fights he does for fun. Those things are small, but they are effective.

But, what is Natsu's character arc anyway? What did Mashima intend for him at the beginning of the story (or what he seemed to intend)? In my opinion, there are two major themes to what should've been Natsu's character arc: Choosing between Igneel and Fairy Tail, and learning to deal with loss. Both of these themes should've culminated at the end of the Tartaros arc, but Mashima accidentally destroyed all the moments that lead to this.

→ Igneel vs Fairy Tail.

So, the most basic character arc you see in stories usually is about what a character wants vs what a character needs. As I said, Natsu's motivation was established in the first chapter of the manga: He's looking for his adoptive father. However, as the story advances we start to understand how important Fairy Tail is for Natsu. It is his new family, and he can't abandon them. But what happens when Natsu finds Igneel? Will he leave with him and quit the guild? Or will he stay in Fairy Tail and say goodbye to his father? These questions are never properly addressed in the manga at any point, which I think was the first problem when it comes to establishing Natsu's character arc.

However, we do get at least one moment when we see a glimpse of what should've been his arc. This happens at the beginning of Edolas: Natsu and Wendy need to go to another world to save their friends, but there's a very strong chance of them being unable to return to Earthland once this is all over. Natsu says that he doesn't have anything tying him to Earthland if his friends aren't there… besides Igneel. However, he still makes the choice to go to Edolas. He basically chose the guild over Igneel, knowing fully well that he might have to give up his search for him.

While he makes this choice with a smile, his attitude during this arc seems a bit off comparing to previous arcs, at least until they reunite with Lucy. He smiles all the time, but not in a defying or devilish manner, like he usually does. It might be just my interpretation, but it did seem like he was swallowing up his feelings on the matter (not only when it came to giving up his search for Igneel, but also about what happened to his entire guild). Showing a bit more about him, about his feelings and thoughts at this time could've helped to build a real arc for him. Especially when we had a brilliant set up only a couple of chapters before, with him speaking to Gildarts about Igneel and Lisanna, which showed us that Natsu couldn’t just give up his search for Igneel. Except he did! Only a couple of chapters after that! And he barely shows any conflicting feelings about it! See why I say the writing is really incompetent?

The ideal progression would've been to see Natsu grow to understand that he already chose Fairy Tail over his search for Igneel. The manga deals a lot with themes of family and friendship. Having Natsu grow closer to the guild (more than ever before) thanks to Lucy joining in was the perfect set up for a character arc about about something REALLY difficult: choosing between your past and your present. That is, choosing to move on.

This leads us to the second theme of Natsu's (hypothetical) character arc:

→ Learning to deal with loss and moving on.

Natsu is established very early in the story as someone who can't deal with loss at all. He can't accept the possible death of his friends. We see his reactions to Gray's attempt to sacrifice himself. We see how he would've reacted to Erza's death, and how he even tells her that he can't deal with the thought of losing her.

And, more importantly, we see it when Lisanna's death is mentioned:

When it comes to death and loss, Natsu can't move on. He can't accept Igneel disappearance, and he can't accept Lisanna's death. And here's the thing: Lisanna's death was a perfect parallel to his loss of Igneel. It was a minor arc that could’ve help him learn to move on after losing someone.

But then Mashima decided to revive Lisanna and he screw it up.

Am I saying that Lisanna should've stayed dead? YES. Look, I don't like the idea of more female characters getting fridged. She was dead just to give her brothers (and Natsu) Pain and Suffering (™), honestly. However, after she was brought back, Mashima never did anything for her. She has literally no character arc. She barely appears, and is usually there to make either Elfman or Mirajane suffer. And her relationship with Natsu is completely dropped after Edolas. She serves no purpose in the story at all. And I want to like her! I think the concept for her is really interesting! But Mashima did nothing for her as character. (And this is a failing of him as writer, NOT a question of whether Lisanna is an interesting character or not. I don’t hate her, I want to make that clear).

In a better written story, Lisanna's death would've served to start a character arc about accepting loss and moving on. We had three different characters dealing with this death, and all of them were unable to move on. But instead of forcing the characters to confront this loss and finally accept it, we have the author rewarding their lack of growth by bringing back the character from the death. That right there is bad writing.

And this ties to a bigger arc, which comes back to the whole Igneel vs Fairy Tail thing. Natsu choosing Fairy Tail over Igneel would've been him finally moving on. Yes, Igneel disappeared, I can tell you how much different is having someone disappear instead of simply just die: It eats you up your whole life, even if you assume they're dead. But even so, accepting the loss of Igneel and moving on with the new family he found would've been the growth Natsu needed. It would've meant that he learned how to deal with death. It would've meant that he became an adult, in some senses. Again: Want vs Need. What Natsu wanted was to find Igneel, but what he needed was to move on.

As you see, Natsu's character arc was established in the beginning of the story. We had several arcs prior to Edolas showing us his inability to deal with grief and loss, as well as the importance Fairy Tail had gained in his life. We even had a chapter just at the beginning of Edolas reminding us of both Igneel and Lisanna, and how Natsu was unable to move on after both of these losses.

We had all the elements set-up in the story… But then it went nowhere.

Had these element been well established, Igneel's death in Tartaros would've been so much more powerful than it ended up being. And more importantly: Natsu would've been forced to change. As it is, we leave Tartaros, the culmination point for Natsu's character arc, without being able to see him truly grow.

What's worse is that Mashima tries to establish another character arc (related to E.N.D. and Zeref) at the end of Tartaros, after failing to finish the first character arc. So when we arrive to the recent chapters and we have Natsu face the choice between becoming a demon and becoming a dragon, that scene falls so tremendously flat that most of the fandom was pissed off.

That arc, the arc about Natsu questioning his own identity after finding out the truth about his past, was so poorly established that I can barely say it was established at all. I mean, sure, some of the scenes are there. Natsu finds out about all of this, but he barely seems to react to it. He barely seems to struggle with all this. HAPPY is struggling more than Natsu is. And the thing is: when you failed to execute the bigger and most important arc for the character, how can you hope to follow it up with something else? Natsu never learned the things he should've learned. He never grew, he only became physically stronger. That's all.

When you have a character with a sad backstory, who has flaws but neither the story nor the characters around him force him to recognize and confront them, and who only grows stronger and stronger physically speaking, how can you not expect people to call him a Mary Sue? I've said time and time again that I HATE that term, but people have every right to use it in this particular case, although I prefer to talk about bad writing, since it places the responsibility where it belongs: in the author.

Natsu keeps fighting the battles of other characters, and it serves no purpose to the story or his character arc. He just does it because he's the main character, but the story gains nothing from it. OF COURSE people are going to be pissed off. What else could you expect? That’s poor writing.

So there it is. This is one of the many, many flaws Fairy Tail has, but I think it’s an important one. When you can't get invested in one of the main characters it's very difficult to keep reading a story. And when the plot also shows the same sort of poor writing in the latest arcs, what else do you have to care for in the manga?