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For a more detailed description of the show, see RWBY Wiki.

The future-fantasy world of Remnant is filled with ravenous monsters, treacherous terrain, and more villains than you can shake a sniper-scythe at. Fortunately, Beacon Academy is training Huntsmen and Huntresses to battle the evils of the world, and Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang are ready for their first day of class.
— Official website

RWBY (pronounced Ruby[1]) is an American anime series created by Monty Oum and produced by Rooster Teeth Productions. The first episode of RWBY premiered on July 5, 2013 at the RTX 2013 RWBY panel and was released on the Rooster Teeth site on July 18, 2013.

The show is set and takes place in the fictional world of Remnant, which is filled with supernatural forces and shadowy creatures known as the "Creatures of Grimm", where young people train to become Huntsmen and Huntresses to protect their world from the creatures of Grimm. Prior to the events of the series, mankind waged a battle of survival against the Grimm before discovering the power of a mysterious element called Dust, which allowed them to fight back against the monsters. After several promotional trailers were posted, the first episode was screened at RTX and then released on the website in July 2013. Subsequent episodes were released approximately weekly, first to Rooster Teeth's subscribers and then to YouTube a week later. The series became a viral hit, and a second season, subtitled Volume 2, was released in July 2014. The success of RWBY also resulted in a secondary series by Rooster Teeth, RWBY Chibi, which features the show's main characters in chibi form, with much more comedic elements and humor.

During production of the third season, on February 1, 2015, the show's creator Monty Oum died due to a tragic death after falling into a coma that was caused by a severe allergic reaction during a normal medical procedure. This left the future of the series uncertain for a brief period of time until producer and voice actor Gray Haddock announced that the series would continue, and that Volume 3 would premiere in 2015 as planned. Volume 3 was released on October 24, 2015. Meanwhile, the first two seasons were released to home media and made available on streaming services such as Netflix and Crunchyroll, the latter of which would include releases of the current season in their simulcasts. In October 2016, the fourth season was released, and Volume 5 followed in October 2017. The series has also been dubbed in Japan and broadcast there by Tokyo MX, in partnership with Warner Bros. Japan.

The four main characters were introduced one at a time in four trailers: Red (Ruby Rose), White (Weiss Schnee), Black (Blake Belladonna), and Yellow, (Yang Xiao Long), to much anticipation and speculation. On July 18, 2013, the first episode premiered for the general population. The first season, or 'volume', ran for sixteen episodes. Following the completion of Volume 1, the show had a brief hiatus before debuting Volume 2 at RTX 2014, and its online debut followed on July 24, 2014.

New episodes are usually released weekly on Rooster Teeth's website (Saturdays for Rooster Teeth First members, Sundays for the public), with episodes of a miniseries called World of Remnant dedicated to giving more information about Remnant sometimes being published in between episodes. The series is also being simulcasted on Crunchyroll. Additionally, each episode is put up on Rooster Teeth's YouTube channel one week after it premieres. Home video releases are available from Rooster Teeth's United States, and Australia/New Zealand online stores.

Monty Oum's death in early 2015 left the future of the series in question, but other members of the team assured the fans that the show would go on as planned, considering there was apparently enough story and information left by Monty to go straight through a potential Volume 5. True to their word, on October 15, Rooster Teeth released the intro animation of Volume 3, and Chapter 1 was released on October 24 for sponsors, and the next day for the general public. All the following Volumes premiered in October as well, often with a short holiday break in late December.

On April 1, 2016, a spinoff series was announced entitled RWBY Chibi, giving the franchise a more lighthearted and comedic spin after the events of Volume 3. Its first season ran for 24 episodes until October 15, 2016, one week before the premiere of Volume 4, and future seasons also aired in the hiatuses between volumes.

An official export to Japan (via Warner Bros. Japan) was announced at RTX 2014, with the first three seasons getting home video releases with a Japanese dub. Those curious about the Japanese dub can order the Volume 1 and 2 Japanese home video releases from Rooster Teeth's US store. There is also a video game, RWBY: Grimm Eclipse. Originally a fangame, the creators eventually teamed up with Rooster Teeth to make it official after RT found out about the game. Steam Early Access for the game began on December 1, 2015 and the full game was released on July 5, 2016. A manga was also announced in October 2015 and started running in November of the same year. On October 8, 2016, Viz Media announced that the RWBY manga would be circulated in Weekly Shonen Jump. A mobile game, RWBY: Amity Arena, was released on October 2018.

Synopsis[]

Many years ago, in a world known as Remnant, mankind lived in peace until the arrival of "The Grimm": malevolent creatures who emerged from the darkness to attack humanity. To fight back, mankind began harvesting a mysterious energy source known as "Dust" and used its power to not only drive back the Grimm but catalyze the growth of civilization across the planet.

In the present day, Huntsmen and Huntresses are trained in special schools to harness the Dust and become protectors of the peace. One such trainee, an idealistic girl named Ruby Rose, is scouted by the elite Beacon Academy and allowed to skip two years' worth of training to attend. Once there, she is placed into a team with three other students: Yang Xiao Long, her boisterous big sister; Weiss Schnee, the heiress of the Schnee Dust Company; and Blake Belladonna, a mysterious and aloof girl. Though initial tensions are high, the forces of darkness are preparing to return and the four girls must learn to work together to survive.

In short, Team RWBY trains to fight crime and monsters known as the Grimm. Together they will protect the world of Remnant. In the present day, Dust is used to power magical abilities and weapons. Those who use these abilities to battle the Grimm are known as Huntsmen and Huntresses. The series focuses on four girls, each with her own unique weapon and powers. Together, they form a team called RWBY at Beacon Academy in the city of Vale, where they are trained to become Huntresses in the city of Vale, where they are trained to become Huntresses alongside team JNPR (/ˈdʒunəpər/, "juniper"), team SSSN (/sʌn/, "sun"), team CRDL (/ˈkɑːrdnl/, "cardinal") team CFVY (/ˈkɔːfi/, "coffee"), and various other named and unnamed student teams

Volume 1 focuses on the introduction of the characters of the story, marking the events that lead to their team formations. All the while, mysterious thefts of Dust are occurring around the city of Vale, notably organized by the show's antagonist, Roman Torchwick. Volume 2 follows up from these events of Volume 1, and team RWBY sets out in order to investigate the meaning behind these thefts. They aim to discover the villain's plans for the city of Vale before the Vytal Festival—a festival between the four kingdoms of Remnant where they have their best students demonstrate their skills and abilities in celebration of the peace between all four kingdoms. Volume 3 starts with the beginning of the Vytal Festival; however, a sinister plot lurks behind the celebratory events, and the heroes can only do so much to prepare for the evil that is coming. Volume 4 takes place six to eight months following the events of Volume 3, with the members of Team RWBY separated and in different parts of the globe, and each of the girls will have to take on personal journeys of their own if they are to move forward in life.

Cast and characters[]

See main article: /Characters.
     = Main cast (credited, or appears in every episode for the season)
     = Recurring cast (5+ appearances in season)
     = Guest cast (1-4 appearances in season)
Character Voice actor
S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6
Ruby Rose Lindsay Jones Main
Weiss Schnee Kara Eberle Main
Blake Belladonna Arryn Zech Main
Yang Xiao Long Barbara Dunkelman Main
Jaune Arc Miles Luna Main
Pyrrha Nikos Jen Brown Main Guest
Ozpin Shannon McCormick Recurring Main
Glynda Goodwitch Kathleen Zuelch Recurring Main Guest
Lie Ren Monty Oum (S1–S2)
Neath Oum (S3–present)
Main
Nora Valkyrie Samantha Ireland Main
Cinder Fall Jessica Nigri Guest Recurring Main Recurring
Sun Wukong Michael Jones Recurring Main Guest
Qrow Branwen Vic Mignogna (S3-S6)

Jason Liebrech (S7-present)

Guest (unvoiced) Recurring Main
Oscar Pine Aaron Dismuke Recurring Main
Roman Torchwick Gray Haddock Recurring
Penny Polendina Taylor McNee Recurring
Neptune Vasilias Kerry Shawcross Recurring Guest
James Ironwood Jason Rose Recurring
Peter Port Ryan Haywood Guest Recurring Guest
Bartholomew Oobleck Joel Heyman Guest Recurring Guest
Emerald Sustrai Katie Newville Guest (unvoiced) Recurring Guest Recurring
Mercury Black J.J. Castillo (S2)
Yuri Lowenthal (S3–present)
Guest (unvoiced) Recurring Guest (unvoiced) Recurring
Raven Branwen Anna Hullum Guest Guest Recurring TBD
Mysterious Narrator / Salem Jen Taylor Guest Guest Recurring Guest
Tyrian Callows Josh Grelle Recurring Guest
Taiyang Xiao Long Burnie Burns Guest Recurring Guest
Maria Calavera Rachel Sternenberg Main

Music[]

The music for all volumes of RWBY has been composed primarily by Jeff Williams, with additional composition by Steve Goldshein and Alex Abraham. Most of the vocals are provided by Jeff Williams and his daughter Casey Lee Williams, with some additional vocals by Lamar Hall and Sandy Casey.

The RWBY soundtrack features a variety of genres, most notably intense, fast-paced rock music.

Trivia[]

  • The first footage of the show was seen on November 5, 2012, when a trailer featuring Ruby was shown at the end of the Red vs Blue Season 10 Finale.[2]
  • Before writing the show, creator Monty Oum gave the writers, Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross, some "anime homework" to watch. One of said anime was Gurren Lagann.[1]
  • Monty Oum has confirmed that the characters are not based on fairy tale characters, but rather just allude to or reference them.[3]
  • All teams in the RWBYverse are set to a theme, RWBY = fairy tales,[3] JNPR = warriors of the opposite gender to their inspiration, CRDL = birds.
  • All characters in the RWBYverse have names that allude to colors, and the team names must also allude to a color.
    • Some names, such as Ozpin, don't have such an allusion in play, but these exceptions are on the rare side.
  • Promotional material at NYCC 2012 has indicated that Rooster Teeth has been teasing RWBY since October 10, 2012.[4]
  • On October 10, 2013 Monty stated on Twitter that "The first RWBY anything to ever go public was handed out exactly one year ago at NYCC". Following this statement, the Rooster Teeth Twitter account posted a short message "RWBY Day". From here on the 10th of October was dubbed RWBY Day.

References[]

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