RWBY Vol.5

Salem’s power is growing and her forces are closing in on one of the last relics capable of stopping her.  If the relics of Haven Academy fall into her hands, it’s the end of everything.  But Salem’s followers aren’t the only ones who have been healing up and getting stronger.  After time apart, Team RWBY is slowly finding their separate ways converging once again.  Along the way, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang will have reunions with long lost loved ones, face ghosts from their pasts and show the world that if the end of days is coming, they aren’t going down without a fight.

As much as I enjoy the fun filled times of the first two seasons, ive slowly come to believe that the incredibly dark turn that RWBY took in Season 3 has done it amazing wonders.  Season 4 benefited from splitting the core team up to evaluate what had happened and to learn and grow from those experiences.  It wasn’t as good as Season 3 but was still solid.  And while it does slow things down considerably more for its duration, Season 5 of RWBY manages to come out ahead of Season 4 in a number of ways.

Of course, of all things everyone had wanted out of Season 5, there was one above all others: it was time to get the band back together.  The action may continue to shine along with the animation and music…but no moments were more well done than the reunion of Team RWBY.  At one point, Weiss points out to Yang that the two of them aren’t nearly as close as say Yang and Blake or Ruby and Weiss.  And yet seeing Weiss hug Yang and proclaim how much she’s missed her says all you need to know and the feels are real.  Like I said, this season tends to dial things back a bit and focus more on the characters, sometimes more than the lore building that Season 3 and 4 did pretty well.  All of these characters have come so far from when we first met them years ago and Season 5 delivered a character moment that feels well earned after all that time, especially the final shot of the season (Its an easy guess so I wouldn’t call it a spoiler).

Much like previous seasons, Season 5 continues to slow build momentum towards the greater conflict at large.  Salem, the true big bad of the series, is seldom seen but her presence is felt in every threat coming Team RWBY’s way.  But there are other threats too.  The return of Cinder reminds us why she is so despicable and needs to be taken down a few pegs.  More interesting is the expanded story of Raven, Yang’s Mother.  She’s as beautiful and fierce as her daughter but also a far cry from the brave and selfless fighter.  Salem may have all the power in the world at her fingertips but I often felt Raven was the more dangerous threat.  She’s cast aside everything, including her own family, just for her own survival.  That cuts deep, especially for Yang, who is given a very strong arc courtesy of Raven’s expanded role.  There’s also the White Fang, which gets a satisfying continuation and keeps Blake so busy that she is kept out of the way of all the reunions until far late in the season.  That does suck a little since I wanted to see all four girls together for more scenes.  But Blake’s story continues to be one of the best to spin out of the split up approach of Season 4.  It’s helped by the likeability of her family, the always reliable Sun and her former friend Illia.  Blake arch nemesis Adam steps up his game a little but lets face it he’s not quite as compelling as Cinder or Raven when it comes to foes with depth.

As always, you know Monty Oum is smiling down on his Rooster Teeth brethren for continuing to infuse his creation with the best animation, music and action they can bring to the table.  The fights might be a bit fewer in number but are more personal this time around.  Though the stand out battle is definitely Raven vs. Cinder.  The speed, the rapid fire animation and an amazing music track from Cassey Williams mixes perfectly to give us one of the best fights in the show to day.  The character models all look more polished than ever, hard to believe given how great everyone looked during Season 4 (and is it me or has Weiss gotten hotter?).  I especially enjoyed the air chase through the floating islands early on in the season.  Who knew id get cool chases like these from Rooster Teeth in both RWBY and Red vs. Blue.

Even if Season 3 still stands as my favorite season from a storytelling standpoint, Season 5 of RWBY may come in as my second favorite, past Season 4.  All of the lessons learned from the previous season were shown in Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang, all throughout.  Their wiser, stronger and now theyre back together.  I often say this when writing reviews for this series but I always wonder how much story is left in RWBY.  In the past ive criticized the finales for not really pushing us towards something bigger (Season 4 wasn’t as bad about this as Season 1 and 2).  But Season 5’s ending feels like we’re about to head into the final act.  With Salem’s power on the rise, I can only imagine how much more is left for Team RWBY to accomplish before the final battle…well besides Blake and Yang airing out their problems after Blake abandoned her.  Still, Season 5 lagged at times but most times felt like a nice mix of story, character, action and art.  This is what the series has always wanted to be from the start.  And im glad it’s only getting better and better with every year.

8.5/10

RWBY Volume 6 will no doubt be hitting us this fall so it’ll be another year or so wait for another review.  In the meantime, the march to the 4^th Anniversary of the Anime Corner continues with Kakegurui starting next Monday.  Also keep an eye out for some additional announcements as to the shows ive chosen to review once Year 5 gets started.  I’m excited and it’s going to be busy.  See everyone Monday.