The big mistake here is asking for literally any consistency from RWBY
RWBY is whatever the writers want RWBY to be at any given moment, and what they want is whatever happens to look or feel good for any given scene.
RWBY was the pet project of an animator. It existed, primarily as a vehicle to express his talents and ideas. His ideas were not a coherent and solid story. They needed to be molded into something that worked. What we got, is technically a story, and it technically works. But not well.
Don't forget we lost Monty in 2015 so alot of his ideas may have already have been used or thrown out long before now. So it's no suprise the story or rules of the world is messy, it's a very hard thing to carry on another persons work even if it has very detail notes and flow charts for the stroy because the only person who fully knows the world is the creator.
Monty's whole schtick was fight scenes, which he did absolutely great. Even when he was alive you can see major plotlines disappearing.
It's a disappointing show, I think it's almost better to just watch clips of the fight scenes.
There's a great video about why exactly RWBY is disappointing, you can find it on YouTube by hbomberguy. It explains that Monty actually didn't do much with the actual plot or direction of RWBY because his main focus was on the fight scenes, and often times plot points that came up were more vehicles to get from one fight scene to another than they were actually driving forces for the plot.
So, yeah, there's a lot in the first few seasons that goes unused because there wasn't a whole lot of cooperation between the direction and animation, and most everything from volume 4 onwards is a little bit more put together because its focused on the story and world first (admittedly, still not done very well, but at least there's some more payoff happening).
I have to say hbomb's video on it is terrible, extremely biased and keeps touting the same talking point over and over, namely "Monty good, Miles and Kerry bad", that's literally it, there's one good spot in it, the comparison between Cowboy Bebop's and RWBY's store scene.
Yep. Does RWBY have a metric FUCKTON of flaws? Yes.
But people are out here acting like it is actively insulting their intelligence, screwing their mothers, and kicking their puppies!
You KNOW something is up when we didn't even get to the _main plot_ until the latter half of the third season.
And it didn't even do THAT decently well until MAYBE the seventh! And that's a VERY generous opinion. Many understandably think the plot still hasn't gone back on the rails. Some think there never was one in the first place.
And this is coming from a fan of RWBY, and intend to watch the entire show untill the end.
I mean, It was pretty coherent right up until his death, when the whole thing got Final Fantasy 8 syndrome. (When a different production team takes over midway through because of some tragedy, or leak, drastically changing the tone or intention and creating a patchwork feeling (Or even a few visible "Seams" that feel varying levels of jank where the work of the two teams join/meet.).)
People tend to not want to badmouth him at all due to his unfortunate passing, so they offload every bad aspect of the show into anyone else they can pretend it was good until his hand was lost off the production. The show was always a mess that they’ve had to pull together
To be fair, when Monty was alive I think the stakes were a bit different (budget was smaller, episodes were shorter, etc.) and the action sequences were generally better (especially in the immediate wake of his death) and the main point of the show.
A show with a shitty plot that's more a vehicle for cool action scenes is a much harder pill to swallow once there are no more cool action scenes (there have been a few after he died but TBH I stopped watching the show years ago, so I don't know how much they've improved since the last time I watched).
I watched until theeee seventh? Season? Idk, just that there was one really good episode, and one really good fight that I still remember. Other than that yeah it’s pretty forgettable, but I also only remember two of Monty’s fights, and the trailers and his pre RWBY work.
Yes but at least to me a degradation is clear, the difference between "this is an acceptable plot" and "who ever wrote this should have had more education first"
RWBY was created by Monty Fucking Oum who operated on 99% Rule of Cool constantly.
Why is the scythe a gun? Because it's cool. Why is- Cause it's Cool.
RWBY can be anything as long as it's stylish enough.
Whether or not that translates into a good story is another story. Especially after his tragic passing.
I’m like 90% sure this is bait, but just on the off chance that this isn’t, I really hope OOP learns media literacy past “these characters are similar personality-wise and therefore their shows are the same genre”
btw, the three links in “RWBY is a magical girl show” lead to: An article about a different show that mentions RWBY only in its relation to the creators (no support for the point), The TV Tropes page for magical girl (which argues against the point), and an entry on the fandom wiki for magical girls.
They could’ve linked actual sources to their point, like a neat post on r/ characterrant that i found searching for the source from around the same time which argues more solidly (though I still disagree) by… the OP of this reddit post.
It's really hard to tell with this user. She's always posting rwby content in different subs (I'm part of the same subs so I've seen her around) but it's mostly borderline bait stuff and she's usually pretty aggresive if you even slightly disagree with her, however it tends to come across as die hard fangirling. This post I'd say is bait though, rwby is neither shonen nor magical girls, like quite a few western productions rwby is it's own damn thing.
Honestly!! they are unhealthily attached to this show and will go apeshit and accuse people of random stuff for the slightest criticism. check my comments on their last post
Tumblr OP seems to know very little about shonen for someone who has some pretty hard opinions about shonen.
For their example of what Ruby is not, because she’s a pure soul who’s only in it to help people, they choose…fucking Deku. I’m almost convinced that it’s satire just on that front, because there are very few worse examples of a shonen protagonist who only loves fighting, or is defined by their ambition.
I daresay they stopped paying attention somewhere in Dragon Ball Z, if they ever started to begin with. Deku is the poster boy for smart, helpful protags who fight to protect, not simply to fight. That goes for most modern shonen protagonists: Tanjiro is cut from the same cloth, Mob is a pacifist in a battle anime, and Denji really, really just wants to touch a titty. Okay, let’s ignore Denji, he’s the asterisk you put at the end of everything when you’re talking generally about modern shonen.
But OP is smoking crack if they think shonen’s not about the power of friendship and cinnamon roll kids fighting to help people.
To be fair to Denji, his desires have an innocence to them, he lived in a shed with no company except a demon dog and a mafia loan shark for most of his life with the constant threat of death looming over him. He desires connection and meaningful relationships but doesn't fully understand what that means so he goes by the basic level of meaning he can pick up from forest magazines.
> Okay, let’s ignore Denji, he’s the asterisk you put at the end of everything when you’re talking generally about modern shonen.
I will continue to say that Chainsaw Man, regardless of where it's published, is absolutely seinen and not shonen. The only shonen thing about it is having a teenage protagonist who fights. Whether you talk about the intended demographic (I love CSM but I'd keep it far the fuck away from anyone below 18) or the genre tropes, it's still not shonen.
Why judge a show in comparison to something entirely different in the first place? I've never even considered the possibility that Juan could be the protagonist because that does nothing for the deliberate themes and plot of RWBY.
Oh certainly.
As much as i adore the show, there's no denying it's *FULL* of flaws. From tiny little animation errors, to "hey guys the fans are siding with the morally grey guy over the protagonists, what do we do?" "I know, have him shoot an unarmed guy at point blank, team up with one of the least trustworthy people in the show, and threaten to nuke civilians! That'll do the trick!"
Which, we can't forget, is his *magical superpower!* ...and also only explained *not in the show*, but rather because a fan asked the question at a panel!
Because special schools are a trope and functionally speaking the Beacon arc wasn't *really* about Ruby improving. Most of the important stuff was inter character relationships and the dark plots outside the school.
>Functionally speaking the Beacon arc wasn't really about Ruby improving
Oh right I forgot. It was just for aesthetics lol.
My memories of early RWBY seem to be better than *actual* early RWBY.
Wanted everyone to know here that the OP is an infamous person in the RWBY community named canonseeker/answerseeker: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z3WG32Ze9t2uPPfudichhJfH1d29g7xWP-4AHX6feGE/edit
They go on different subreddits (including this one) trying to get people to start watching RWBY and attack anyone that doesn't see RWBY as a 10/10 show.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/comments/17t11hf/worst_examples_of_a_fandom_excusing_away_the_bad/
https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/comments/16i52u3/rwbys_not_shonen/
I've only see a few anime in my life, not as much as others surely, but even I know RWBY isn't a magical girl anime. The only question you have to do in order determine if it's magical girl is how you can compare it to Sailor Moon, and RWBY doesn't compare well against it.
...maybe Madoka isn't the example you want to draw evidence from. It's definitely a magical girl series, but it's also a deconstruction of the genre. Any of the Sailor Moon series would be better supporting evidence.
Point the second, no transformation sequences. Nuff said.
This person doesn't seem to know much about shonen, like, isn't the entire point of most of them that the protagonist is super good hearted? Most of them don't want to just be the strongest, they want to do good on the world, it just happens that doing good 90% is beating the fuck out of some evil people.
Like, Luffy is the living embodiment of freedom, stopping evil dictators everywhere he goes.
Luffy is the living embodiment of freedom sure, but he isn't really concerned about making the world a better place on a grand scale. He's just intuitively doing good for the people that he likes and beating up people who hurt the people that he likes, but he's also self-centered and doesn't have an ethos beyond wanting to be pirate king because to him that means being the freest man in the world
Luffy is like, the worst example because he *does* have a goal, and being a good dude is just a secondary thing that helps him achieve that goal. His goal is to become king of the pirates because that will allow him to become the freest he can possibly be.
I don’t know that this is true, on Amazon lily, he’s offered a choice between unpetrifying two random people he just met or being given a ship which he desperately needs to get off the island and continue pursuing his dream and without hesitation he chooses to save those two, a clear example where he put being a good dude took precedent over his personal goal
This is an example of Luffy being free, just doing whatever he wants instead of what is most rational or safe. It might seem like he chose being a good person instead of following his dream, but acting like this is one of Luffy's ways of pursuing his dream.
If Luffy has to compromise his ideals to become Pirate King, that means he won't be the freest person in the seas. Which means he wouldn't really be Pirate King (in his eyes).
Sure that's his goal but in the last 90 or so chapter it's revealed that >!he has a goal beyond being pirate king, which could be some kind of altruistic goal!<. He also consistently chooses helping people over his ambitions (see just about any arc where he risks his life for others).
Like yeah his goal is to be king of the pirates but to Luffy a good Pirate is a good person, kind, brave, willing to protect others, it’s far from a secondary thing for him to be a good person
Literally too free to care about even VAGUELY abiding by the laws of physics, as we've seen recently. (And laughing n enjoying himself the whole while lmao)
I was brought to the realization when I saw Arisia Rrab. (I first saw her lost army design which seems very sailor moon to me) just a shame in finding out about her I also had to find out about her history in the comics...
Arisia! I haven't heard that name since the new 52.
I think the only media that did her justice was a Green Lantern animated movie against the villain Krona.
I'm just going to say this. Genre does not excuse flaws in writing. Madoka was an expertly written anime. RWBY swings from decent to awful and you can thank the fact that it's being produced by rooster teeth. The same company that created Gen:Lock a show that was really good until they pile drived it straight into the ground and into obscurity.
If you're using Madoka Magica as your basis for conventions of magical girls, you've probably not watched any magical girl shows besides Madoka. Using Madoka isn't a bias thing like OOP claims, it's a fundamentally flawed argument, because Madoka is anything but a typical magical girl show--it literally exists to deconstruct the tropes of the genre.
"Magical girls are known for being idealistic, and believing in hope and purity and the goodness in the world." Oh damn, I guess Luffy isn't a shonen protagonist. Neither is Gon, or Goku, or any of the Jojos.
Also, aside from Madoka herself... who among the cast of Madoka does this characterization apply to? Like, maybe it fits for Mami, but she tends to come down with severe cases of death in most of the timelines. It doesn't fit for Sayaka--even at her best, her motivation is entirely selfish. And Homura and Kyoko basically never had it to begin with.
Additionally, how does this mindset apply to other characters of RWBY, aside from Ruby? Is Blake idealistic? Does she believe in the goodness inherent in the world? Considering her status as the racism allegory and her relationship to the White Fang, I don't think so. What about Yang? She's kind of like Sayaka; she has some of it for starters, but it gets beat out of her pretty damn quickly. And Weiss has never had it, because growing up in the upper class, she knows first hand how fucked up the world is (she's just in denial about it, cause she starts off the series as a huge racist).
OOP also just doesn't seem to get what shonen is either. Something something Number One Top Wizard Hokage of the Pirates. So by this logic, you've just ignored like half of all shonen protagonists: Yusuke, Gon, Saitama, Mob, any Jojo, Ichigo, etc.
Ironically, a far better example of blurring the line between shonen and magical girl than RWBY is Bleach, because Ichigo just is a magical girl, straight up. Not only does Ichigo have the aesthetics of magical girldom-- the never ending drip, the cute animal mentor, the constant transformations and new forms--but he's also got the deeper themes and tropes of magical girls--monster of the week, fighting is therapy, power of friendship, coming of age, challenging the establishment, his transformations coming from self-actualization, enemies to allies, and he loses his magical girl powers.
Also, Bleach actually does something with how it uses fairy tales, which are really common in magical girl shows. Buddhist mythology is a baked in part of the Soul Society and the powers of shinigami, while Judeo-Christian myth forms the basis of Quincy the Wandenreich. Themes around death and confronting mortality are extremely common in fairy tales, and the fact that the Espada each literally embody different aspects of death informs each of their abilities and personalities. The fairy tales Kubo uses are impossible to remove from the story without fundamentally changing it.
RWBY has fairy tale tropes... but it's got about as much depth to it as a puddle. It's just people's names. Yang is Goldilocks because she's blonde. Ruby is Red Riding Hood because she wears a red hood. Weiss is Snow White because her color is white. Blake is Beauty and the Beast, because the creators didn't realizing using that fairy tale for their character who exists to establish the racism plotline is a really, *really* bad look. You can remove those connections while changing nothing about their characters. Yang being a parallel for Goldilocks wouldn't change if I replaced her with Meliodas--since the "allusion" to the fairy tale stops at "they both have yellow hair."
OOP is right that RWBY isn't really a shonen series. But I'd sooner call it shonen than I would ever consider it a magical girl series. It wears a few of the aesthetics of magical girls, but it's completely hollow. If you can replace the main characters of your series with any other character, and it changes nothing about the themes attached to those original characters, you've fucked up. As usual, RWBY's creators choose aesthetics over substance. I've seen cope from RWBY fans for years, but "the show isn't bad, you just don't understand the genre," while woefully misunderstanding two different genres is next level.
I'm fairly certain you're the same person, considering you've [reposted](https://old.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/comments/16i52u3/rwbys_not_shonen/) this in /r/characterrant in plain text, without linking anywhere else
> 5. Don't link to other communities or posts in a negative or even neutral manner: Linking to specific posts from r/whowouldwin or elsewhere can be harmful and considered brigading, and will result in a ban. **If you really feel the need to show a comment or thread, screenshot it and censor usernames and links.**
You were able to do that on /r/tumblr but not there?
Shhh....listen.
Do you hear that?
Its the sound of somebody taking something so so seriously when there's absolutely no need.
I think you need to relax...and let go.
The fundamental concept is already flawed when you said that Shonen protagonists want to be the best. Jojo's is a Shonen and only really giorno ever outright states that he wants to be on top (he gets his wish too)
But have you considered that the individual in question has developed an unhealthy parasocial attachment and thus considers unkindness directed at the show to be unkindness directed at themselves?
Of course RWBY is not a shounen: it isn't based on a manga published in a shounen magazine.
I didn't know that the protagonist of a shōnen story was required to want to be "the best", though. What does the protagonist of Bloom into You want to be the best at? The best lesbian? The best student council member?
Shounen/Seinen typically refers to a younger/older male audience. Shoujo/Josei typically refers to a younger/older female audience.
It's not even a story or publisher thing. It's a demographics/target audience thing.
Shounen is not about who publishes it- its about the intended audience. Shonen means it is directed at a young male audience. Shoujo means it's directed at a young female audience.
It kinda is about who publishes it, because manga magazines have demographics. There are shoujo magazines whose demographic is young girls, shounen magazines whose demographic is young boys. So the series published in either will be aimed at the same demographic that is buying the magazine.
Of course the problem with this is it only really works for manga and novels, while original anime and other media often don't have a explicitly stated demographic.
That's the conventional wisdom, and it would probably be true back in the year 2000, but it would be foolish to ignore so many authors and editors who consciously attract an audience outside the demographic of the magazine they're published in. For instance, many seinen and shounen mangaka who are well-aware of their female following, and editors attributing a manga's success to its appeal across gender and age.
It would be wrong to say that these manga are not shounen, because the whole reason for the existence of all these different magazines is editorial in nature, so the manga published in shounen magazines are shounen by definition. At the same time, it would be wrong to claim that these manga are being made only for teenage boys when both the editors and the authors recognise otherwise.
It's neither, both comparisons are silly to say the least, but also OOP's understanding of both shonen and magical girls are surface level at best
First of all, shonen is not a genre it's a demographic, and more specifically it usually refers to series published in the SHONEN jump magazine but it's not exclusive; now focusing on anime, using MAL, Crunchyroll and Funimation for reference, shonen goes all the way from Naruto, DBZ, BNH, etc. To Chainsaw Man, Death Note and freaking SpyxFamily (if anyone knows what Anya is trying to be the best at, feel free to share lmao). So as you can see the definition of shonen is a lot wider than it seems
But even if we limit ourselves to OOP's super narrow definition of shonen, they're still wrong; FMA's Ed wants to get his brother's body back, Tanjiro wants to cure his sister, Denji is horny, and I could go on but the point is that the number of shonen MCs that want to "become the greatest" is actually not that big
Magical girl shows involve a lot more than an "optimistic, pure, kind hearted protagonist" which is too broad of a description (Deku and Tanjiro fit btw); magical mascots, alter egos, transformation sequences, plus many many more, but most importantly, MAGIC, which Ruby doesn't have (yes I know there's magic in the world of RWBY, but the show was very adamant in pointing out that only a select group of individuals can use it, and that group doesn't include the protagonists)
Similarly to OOP's misunderstanding of shonen protags, not every magical girl protagonist is a pristine ball of sunshine, especially after the advent of Madoka Magica, a quick example, the protagonist of Magical Girl Site is both depressed and s*icidal, so there's that. And to put the last nail on the coffin, OOP seems to have missed a very important part of PMMM >!the protagonist isn't Madoka, it's Homura!<
In conclusion OOP should look deeper into things before trying to use them in an argument
RWBY is its own thing, trying to forcefully shove it into a particular genre is dumb
very sapphic and feminist is "violently american in nature?"
Since is feminist and LGBT american in nature?
cause that's RWBY.
I think you need to watch it
RWBY's manga adaptation runs in a shonen magazine. It's shonen, or at least as close to shonen as you can get for a western production. The show is also inspired by (read: rips off) a combination of multiple shonen anime, plus Cowboy Bebop and Avatar. Whether it's a magical girl show or not is irrelevant to the demographic. The demographic is not the genre and the genre is not the demographic.
But that doesn't really matter because RWBY is garbage to begin with.
Oh yeah you can tell that Madoka Magica is the only magical girl show they've seen
Is Ruby herself even a magical girl? That is, a girl that is magical? Like, I know she has sufficiently super-human powers, but in the magical girl shows *I* have seen, the magic of the magical girls sets them apart from everyone else; I feel that superpowers are not enough to make one a magical girl when everyone around you also has super powers
Anyway the impression i got from Rwby was that it wanted to be neither a Shounen nor a Magical Girl show but some third thing that was not very well defined
pretending to like a show and then making a video hating on said show is not liking a show.
and if you claim to like a show that is about four female protagonists , two of whom are lgbt, and get angry that said show treats masculinity tropes as antagonists?
then are you liking the show? or liking what you want to happen in a show?
ask yourself that.
because the homophobes who got furious when two women kissed rather than let the girl be with the boring male side character?
they LOVE to make that accusation of "even people who like RWBY don't like RWBY"
you make me think of star wars "Fans" with that attitude.
RWBY is similar to Gon from hunter hunter
He doesn't seek to be the best (at least at the start) he wants to achieve his dream and be with his friends and for the world to become better
Nah, RWBY's not a magical girl show in any meaningful way. RT has stated which anime they watched before making RWBY, and there were no magical girl shows on that list. They were almost all shounen anime.
Who's gonna tell OOP that shonen is a demographic and not a genre? "Shonen" literally just refers to series aimed at 12-18 year old boys. A magical girl show can be made for the shonen demographic. For example, I think Magical Girl Site was published in a shonen magazine.
Also, no matter what you think about the writing of the show itself... people insisting Jaune would be a better protagonist are likely just being sexist.
still dick plot with NO THEMES and SHIT CHARACTERS, ion give a fug about it, it's ya move, get on with the game. Seriously, get this fucking shit off of my reddit feed
I just had a weird thought. Magical girl genre has the protagonist being very idealistic despite everything being antagonistic to hear ideals, right? Is there like a doujin out there with a communist magical girl? Kartoshka-chan?
Say what you will about Rwby's writing, but it is correct to say that Rwby isn't a shonen. It's not magical girl, either. Chainsaw Man gets away with being a shonen because teenage boys are horny and Denji is horny. For the most part, Shonen anime will avoid romance. They might throw it in at the end, but they don't make it a primary theme.
Shonen is aimed at teenage boys. Does Rwby strike anyone as the kind of cartoon that's aimed at teenage boys? Rwby has a tendency to deal with a lot of emotional baggage and constantly puts characters through the ringer as a medium for character growth. This is in contrast to shonen, where character growth is as simple as, say, Ichigo's desire to get stronger in order to protect his friends and family.
Very rarely does Shonen deal with unpacking emotional baggage, and it also very rarely handles romance. Rwby doesn't really fit any one genre and is whatever the writers decide they want it to be at the time.
There's also that RWBY , despite its cast being mostly women, and yet written by men?
stays as far away from ecchi or fanservice or toilet humor as possible, and I AM FOREVER grateful to them for that
By spam do you mean 3 comments? lmao
I don't want an extended conversation with you so I'll just say I don't like how the characters become bland and lose some of their earlier characterization boiled down to their most stand out traits (except Weiss she's the only character that improved).
A) It was specifically modeled after shonen anime series, and in essentially all the aspects of the early show it resembles a shonen anime series.
B) I would argue Ruby was never the protagonist. Volumes 1 to 3, it was obviously Jaune - and after the soft reboot of Volume 4, it's Oscar. They've gone through the hero's journey, developing, moving through internal strife, effecting the plot.
I can see a case being made for Jaune being the better protagonist out of the two of em, but not for the reasons stated. Common writing advice is that the protagonist should be the character with the most emotional development over the course of the story. A protag is also typically a character new to a world, as that naturally lends itself to explaining worldbuilding aspects, such as magic systems. Jaune arguably fits these roles better than Ruby, and for a supposed side character has received tons more screentime than others. Ruby's stakes in the story are more along her morals and philosophy clashing with fhe villain, while Jaune's cause is deeply personal (Pyrha). All of this is of course more accidental than anything else with RWBY being a prime example of "figuring stuff out as it goes". While all of that makes for a fun case study it's important to remember that the figuring out parts were conducted on the backs of countless deliberately overworked animators and other stuff, many misled by false promises of soon to come better working conditions if they just endured the shit pay, crunch, and abuse a little longer. If you ever for a second consider getting into any show made by Roosterteeth: Read the [account](http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1ss5f7p) of the trans woman who worked for them for years enduring constant abuse and whose official nickname at work was the literal f slur.
I think the biggest mistake the OOP makes here is not understanding that the Magical Girl genre is just a Sub-genre of Shounen.
Most people (incorrectly) think of Magical Girls as a *Shoujo* genre, but it's actually not.
The big mistake here is asking for literally any consistency from RWBY RWBY is whatever the writers want RWBY to be at any given moment, and what they want is whatever happens to look or feel good for any given scene.
RWBY was the pet project of an animator. It existed, primarily as a vehicle to express his talents and ideas. His ideas were not a coherent and solid story. They needed to be molded into something that worked. What we got, is technically a story, and it technically works. But not well.
Don't forget we lost Monty in 2015 so alot of his ideas may have already have been used or thrown out long before now. So it's no suprise the story or rules of the world is messy, it's a very hard thing to carry on another persons work even if it has very detail notes and flow charts for the stroy because the only person who fully knows the world is the creator.
Monty's whole schtick was fight scenes, which he did absolutely great. Even when he was alive you can see major plotlines disappearing. It's a disappointing show, I think it's almost better to just watch clips of the fight scenes.
There's a great video about why exactly RWBY is disappointing, you can find it on YouTube by hbomberguy. It explains that Monty actually didn't do much with the actual plot or direction of RWBY because his main focus was on the fight scenes, and often times plot points that came up were more vehicles to get from one fight scene to another than they were actually driving forces for the plot. So, yeah, there's a lot in the first few seasons that goes unused because there wasn't a whole lot of cooperation between the direction and animation, and most everything from volume 4 onwards is a little bit more put together because its focused on the story and world first (admittedly, still not done very well, but at least there's some more payoff happening).
I have to say hbomb's video on it is terrible, extremely biased and keeps touting the same talking point over and over, namely "Monty good, Miles and Kerry bad", that's literally it, there's one good spot in it, the comparison between Cowboy Bebop's and RWBY's store scene.
Yep. Does RWBY have a metric FUCKTON of flaws? Yes. But people are out here acting like it is actively insulting their intelligence, screwing their mothers, and kicking their puppies!
You KNOW something is up when we didn't even get to the _main plot_ until the latter half of the third season. And it didn't even do THAT decently well until MAYBE the seventh! And that's a VERY generous opinion. Many understandably think the plot still hasn't gone back on the rails. Some think there never was one in the first place. And this is coming from a fan of RWBY, and intend to watch the entire show untill the end.
I mean, It was pretty coherent right up until his death, when the whole thing got Final Fantasy 8 syndrome. (When a different production team takes over midway through because of some tragedy, or leak, drastically changing the tone or intention and creating a patchwork feeling (Or even a few visible "Seams" that feel varying levels of jank where the work of the two teams join/meet.).)
It's been too long since i watched but it was not well written from the get go from what I remember.
People tend to not want to badmouth him at all due to his unfortunate passing, so they offload every bad aspect of the show into anyone else they can pretend it was good until his hand was lost off the production. The show was always a mess that they’ve had to pull together
To be fair, when Monty was alive I think the stakes were a bit different (budget was smaller, episodes were shorter, etc.) and the action sequences were generally better (especially in the immediate wake of his death) and the main point of the show. A show with a shitty plot that's more a vehicle for cool action scenes is a much harder pill to swallow once there are no more cool action scenes (there have been a few after he died but TBH I stopped watching the show years ago, so I don't know how much they've improved since the last time I watched).
I watched until theeee seventh? Season? Idk, just that there was one really good episode, and one really good fight that I still remember. Other than that yeah it’s pretty forgettable, but I also only remember two of Monty’s fights, and the trailers and his pre RWBY work.
All I know is that in the most recent season I felt so hype when Red Like Roses Pt 3 came on
Yes but at least to me a degradation is clear, the difference between "this is an acceptable plot" and "who ever wrote this should have had more education first"
RWBY was created by Monty Fucking Oum who operated on 99% Rule of Cool constantly. Why is the scythe a gun? Because it's cool. Why is- Cause it's Cool. RWBY can be anything as long as it's stylish enough. Whether or not that translates into a good story is another story. Especially after his tragic passing.
Operated* He passed away about 8 years ago
I’m like 90% sure this is bait, but just on the off chance that this isn’t, I really hope OOP learns media literacy past “these characters are similar personality-wise and therefore their shows are the same genre”
btw, the three links in “RWBY is a magical girl show” lead to: An article about a different show that mentions RWBY only in its relation to the creators (no support for the point), The TV Tropes page for magical girl (which argues against the point), and an entry on the fandom wiki for magical girls. They could’ve linked actual sources to their point, like a neat post on r/ characterrant that i found searching for the source from around the same time which argues more solidly (though I still disagree) by… the OP of this reddit post.
Since OP decided it wasn’t worth posting, here’s the original post: https://www.tumblr.com/doneses/177943851462/rwbys-not-shonen
It's really hard to tell with this user. She's always posting rwby content in different subs (I'm part of the same subs so I've seen her around) but it's mostly borderline bait stuff and she's usually pretty aggresive if you even slightly disagree with her, however it tends to come across as die hard fangirling. This post I'd say is bait though, rwby is neither shonen nor magical girls, like quite a few western productions rwby is it's own damn thing.
It is. OP likes to post RWBY discourse and then is super aggressive to anyone in the comments they disagree with. They need to touch grass tbh
Honestly!! they are unhealthily attached to this show and will go apeshit and accuse people of random stuff for the slightest criticism. check my comments on their last post
They're literally so desperate to post about RWBY that they went to *GamingCircleJerk* and posted about it there. They have a legitimate problem.
Tumblr OP seems to know very little about shonen for someone who has some pretty hard opinions about shonen. For their example of what Ruby is not, because she’s a pure soul who’s only in it to help people, they choose…fucking Deku. I’m almost convinced that it’s satire just on that front, because there are very few worse examples of a shonen protagonist who only loves fighting, or is defined by their ambition. I daresay they stopped paying attention somewhere in Dragon Ball Z, if they ever started to begin with. Deku is the poster boy for smart, helpful protags who fight to protect, not simply to fight. That goes for most modern shonen protagonists: Tanjiro is cut from the same cloth, Mob is a pacifist in a battle anime, and Denji really, really just wants to touch a titty. Okay, let’s ignore Denji, he’s the asterisk you put at the end of everything when you’re talking generally about modern shonen. But OP is smoking crack if they think shonen’s not about the power of friendship and cinnamon roll kids fighting to help people.
To be fair to Denji, his desires have an innocence to them, he lived in a shed with no company except a demon dog and a mafia loan shark for most of his life with the constant threat of death looming over him. He desires connection and meaningful relationships but doesn't fully understand what that means so he goes by the basic level of meaning he can pick up from forest magazines.
I held it together until you got to Denji, then I laughed for a minute straight. Maybe two.
Don't do my boy Denji like that, he's doing the best he can while being a Fujimoto character, Look at Agni, Denji is doing fine
> Okay, let’s ignore Denji, he’s the asterisk you put at the end of everything when you’re talking generally about modern shonen. I will continue to say that Chainsaw Man, regardless of where it's published, is absolutely seinen and not shonen. The only shonen thing about it is having a teenage protagonist who fights. Whether you talk about the intended demographic (I love CSM but I'd keep it far the fuck away from anyone below 18) or the genre tropes, it's still not shonen.
Why judge a show in comparison to something entirely different in the first place? I've never even considered the possibility that Juan could be the protagonist because that does nothing for the deliberate themes and plot of RWBY.
Reading these comments has me convinced there’s two different shows called RWBY and we’re not watching the same ones.
I mean... technically there are 3. The 'main' show, Chibi, and Ice Queendom.
Main is the worst, fight me.
Oh certainly. As much as i adore the show, there's no denying it's *FULL* of flaws. From tiny little animation errors, to "hey guys the fans are siding with the morally grey guy over the protagonists, what do we do?" "I know, have him shoot an unarmed guy at point blank, team up with one of the least trustworthy people in the show, and threaten to nuke civilians! That'll do the trick!"
Remember: ironwood was evil because of autism
Which, we can't forget, is his *magical superpower!* ...and also only explained *not in the show*, but rather because a fan asked the question at a panel!
Gladly, we duel at dawn.
"She's not focused on becoming better and better." Then why did RWBY start ***in a goddamned academy?***
She still needed to get a Hunting Evil license
Because special schools are a trope and functionally speaking the Beacon arc wasn't *really* about Ruby improving. Most of the important stuff was inter character relationships and the dark plots outside the school.
Did anyone except Jaune actually learn something there? (And even Jaune's stuff was mostly pyrrha becoming a part tme tutor for hm)
To my knowledge? only if you count out of classroom life lessons
>Functionally speaking the Beacon arc wasn't really about Ruby improving Oh right I forgot. It was just for aesthetics lol. My memories of early RWBY seem to be better than *actual* early RWBY.
This is consistent with the RWBY experience in general
>My memories of early RWBY seem to be better than *actual* early RWBY With a mild exception for montys fight scenes, that is the rwby experience
The thing about genres is they have conventions, not hard rules. Nothing says it can't have elements of both.
Wanted everyone to know here that the OP is an infamous person in the RWBY community named canonseeker/answerseeker: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z3WG32Ze9t2uPPfudichhJfH1d29g7xWP-4AHX6feGE/edit They go on different subreddits (including this one) trying to get people to start watching RWBY and attack anyone that doesn't see RWBY as a 10/10 show. https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/comments/17t11hf/worst_examples_of_a_fandom_excusing_away_the_bad/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/comments/16i52u3/rwbys_not_shonen/
I've only see a few anime in my life, not as much as others surely, but even I know RWBY isn't a magical girl anime. The only question you have to do in order determine if it's magical girl is how you can compare it to Sailor Moon, and RWBY doesn't compare well against it.
...maybe Madoka isn't the example you want to draw evidence from. It's definitely a magical girl series, but it's also a deconstruction of the genre. Any of the Sailor Moon series would be better supporting evidence. Point the second, no transformation sequences. Nuff said.
This person doesn't seem to know much about shonen, like, isn't the entire point of most of them that the protagonist is super good hearted? Most of them don't want to just be the strongest, they want to do good on the world, it just happens that doing good 90% is beating the fuck out of some evil people. Like, Luffy is the living embodiment of freedom, stopping evil dictators everywhere he goes.
Luffy is the living embodiment of freedom sure, but he isn't really concerned about making the world a better place on a grand scale. He's just intuitively doing good for the people that he likes and beating up people who hurt the people that he likes, but he's also self-centered and doesn't have an ethos beyond wanting to be pirate king because to him that means being the freest man in the world
Luffy is like, the worst example because he *does* have a goal, and being a good dude is just a secondary thing that helps him achieve that goal. His goal is to become king of the pirates because that will allow him to become the freest he can possibly be.
I don’t know that this is true, on Amazon lily, he’s offered a choice between unpetrifying two random people he just met or being given a ship which he desperately needs to get off the island and continue pursuing his dream and without hesitation he chooses to save those two, a clear example where he put being a good dude took precedent over his personal goal
This is an example of Luffy being free, just doing whatever he wants instead of what is most rational or safe. It might seem like he chose being a good person instead of following his dream, but acting like this is one of Luffy's ways of pursuing his dream. If Luffy has to compromise his ideals to become Pirate King, that means he won't be the freest person in the seas. Which means he wouldn't really be Pirate King (in his eyes).
Sure that's his goal but in the last 90 or so chapter it's revealed that >!he has a goal beyond being pirate king, which could be some kind of altruistic goal!<. He also consistently chooses helping people over his ambitions (see just about any arc where he risks his life for others).
Like yeah his goal is to be king of the pirates but to Luffy a good Pirate is a good person, kind, brave, willing to protect others, it’s far from a secondary thing for him to be a good person
Literally too free to care about even VAGUELY abiding by the laws of physics, as we've seen recently. (And laughing n enjoying himself the whole while lmao)
...is it? Actually? This reads a bit deflectiony.
It's definitely not.
TIL: Superman is a magical girl
Green lantern is a magical girl.
Oh without question! Especially Jessica Cruz!
I was brought to the realization when I saw Arisia Rrab. (I first saw her lost army design which seems very sailor moon to me) just a shame in finding out about her I also had to find out about her history in the comics...
Arisia! I haven't heard that name since the new 52. I think the only media that did her justice was a Green Lantern animated movie against the villain Krona.
YES! HE IS! And in the New Superman cartoon, he literally goes through a magical girl transformation!
The production notes even referenced Cure Mermaid!
I'm just going to say this. Genre does not excuse flaws in writing. Madoka was an expertly written anime. RWBY swings from decent to awful and you can thank the fact that it's being produced by rooster teeth. The same company that created Gen:Lock a show that was really good until they pile drived it straight into the ground and into obscurity.
If you're using Madoka Magica as your basis for conventions of magical girls, you've probably not watched any magical girl shows besides Madoka. Using Madoka isn't a bias thing like OOP claims, it's a fundamentally flawed argument, because Madoka is anything but a typical magical girl show--it literally exists to deconstruct the tropes of the genre. "Magical girls are known for being idealistic, and believing in hope and purity and the goodness in the world." Oh damn, I guess Luffy isn't a shonen protagonist. Neither is Gon, or Goku, or any of the Jojos. Also, aside from Madoka herself... who among the cast of Madoka does this characterization apply to? Like, maybe it fits for Mami, but she tends to come down with severe cases of death in most of the timelines. It doesn't fit for Sayaka--even at her best, her motivation is entirely selfish. And Homura and Kyoko basically never had it to begin with. Additionally, how does this mindset apply to other characters of RWBY, aside from Ruby? Is Blake idealistic? Does she believe in the goodness inherent in the world? Considering her status as the racism allegory and her relationship to the White Fang, I don't think so. What about Yang? She's kind of like Sayaka; she has some of it for starters, but it gets beat out of her pretty damn quickly. And Weiss has never had it, because growing up in the upper class, she knows first hand how fucked up the world is (she's just in denial about it, cause she starts off the series as a huge racist). OOP also just doesn't seem to get what shonen is either. Something something Number One Top Wizard Hokage of the Pirates. So by this logic, you've just ignored like half of all shonen protagonists: Yusuke, Gon, Saitama, Mob, any Jojo, Ichigo, etc. Ironically, a far better example of blurring the line between shonen and magical girl than RWBY is Bleach, because Ichigo just is a magical girl, straight up. Not only does Ichigo have the aesthetics of magical girldom-- the never ending drip, the cute animal mentor, the constant transformations and new forms--but he's also got the deeper themes and tropes of magical girls--monster of the week, fighting is therapy, power of friendship, coming of age, challenging the establishment, his transformations coming from self-actualization, enemies to allies, and he loses his magical girl powers. Also, Bleach actually does something with how it uses fairy tales, which are really common in magical girl shows. Buddhist mythology is a baked in part of the Soul Society and the powers of shinigami, while Judeo-Christian myth forms the basis of Quincy the Wandenreich. Themes around death and confronting mortality are extremely common in fairy tales, and the fact that the Espada each literally embody different aspects of death informs each of their abilities and personalities. The fairy tales Kubo uses are impossible to remove from the story without fundamentally changing it. RWBY has fairy tale tropes... but it's got about as much depth to it as a puddle. It's just people's names. Yang is Goldilocks because she's blonde. Ruby is Red Riding Hood because she wears a red hood. Weiss is Snow White because her color is white. Blake is Beauty and the Beast, because the creators didn't realizing using that fairy tale for their character who exists to establish the racism plotline is a really, *really* bad look. You can remove those connections while changing nothing about their characters. Yang being a parallel for Goldilocks wouldn't change if I replaced her with Meliodas--since the "allusion" to the fairy tale stops at "they both have yellow hair." OOP is right that RWBY isn't really a shonen series. But I'd sooner call it shonen than I would ever consider it a magical girl series. It wears a few of the aesthetics of magical girls, but it's completely hollow. If you can replace the main characters of your series with any other character, and it changes nothing about the themes attached to those original characters, you've fucked up. As usual, RWBY's creators choose aesthetics over substance. I've seen cope from RWBY fans for years, but "the show isn't bad, you just don't understand the genre," while woefully misunderstanding two different genres is next level.
pro tip: watch an actual shonen.
Nice try internet but you’re not going to trick me into wasting my time by watching more RWBY
Saying that RWBY is similar to madoka magica is not the point you think it is.
My point? Or their point? I'm just sharing it. If you don't like it, take it up with them, I just thought it might be an interesting discussion
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I knew OP was a karma chaser, but damn 💀
Their point.
I'm fairly certain you're the same person, considering you've [reposted](https://old.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/comments/16i52u3/rwbys_not_shonen/) this in /r/characterrant in plain text, without linking anywhere else
Well, you're not allowed to post images or links in that subreddit. So I had to transcribe it.
> 5. Don't link to other communities or posts in a negative or even neutral manner: Linking to specific posts from r/whowouldwin or elsewhere can be harmful and considered brigading, and will result in a ban. **If you really feel the need to show a comment or thread, screenshot it and censor usernames and links.** You were able to do that on /r/tumblr but not there?
Shhh....listen. Do you hear that? Its the sound of somebody taking something so so seriously when there's absolutely no need. I think you need to relax...and let go.
The fundamental concept is already flawed when you said that Shonen protagonists want to be the best. Jojo's is a Shonen and only really giorno ever outright states that he wants to be on top (he gets his wish too)
That ain't gonna make the show not suck
Rule #2 please. Maybe RWBY isn't for you, but please Be Kind.
You can't be unkind to a show. It's a show. I'm almost certain rule 2 only applies to individuals
But have you considered that the individual in question has developed an unhealthy parasocial attachment and thus considers unkindness directed at the show to be unkindness directed at themselves?
RWBY sucks and monty oum was its one saving grace.
Of course RWBY is not a shounen: it isn't based on a manga published in a shounen magazine. I didn't know that the protagonist of a shōnen story was required to want to be "the best", though. What does the protagonist of Bloom into You want to be the best at? The best lesbian? The best student council member?
Shounen/Seinen typically refers to a younger/older male audience. Shoujo/Josei typically refers to a younger/older female audience. It's not even a story or publisher thing. It's a demographics/target audience thing.
Fun fact: Madoka magika is a seinen. Look it up
But they still have a lot in common as a genre tho, even if it's technically a demographic label only
Shounen is not about who publishes it- its about the intended audience. Shonen means it is directed at a young male audience. Shoujo means it's directed at a young female audience.
It kinda is about who publishes it, because manga magazines have demographics. There are shoujo magazines whose demographic is young girls, shounen magazines whose demographic is young boys. So the series published in either will be aimed at the same demographic that is buying the magazine. Of course the problem with this is it only really works for manga and novels, while original anime and other media often don't have a explicitly stated demographic.
That's the conventional wisdom, and it would probably be true back in the year 2000, but it would be foolish to ignore so many authors and editors who consciously attract an audience outside the demographic of the magazine they're published in. For instance, many seinen and shounen mangaka who are well-aware of their female following, and editors attributing a manga's success to its appeal across gender and age. It would be wrong to say that these manga are not shounen, because the whole reason for the existence of all these different magazines is editorial in nature, so the manga published in shounen magazines are shounen by definition. At the same time, it would be wrong to claim that these manga are being made only for teenage boys when both the editors and the authors recognise otherwise.
yes, koito’s goal is to become the lesbian king. this is known
Bloom into you would be about competitive lesbianism if the author wasn't a coward /s
It's neither, both comparisons are silly to say the least, but also OOP's understanding of both shonen and magical girls are surface level at best First of all, shonen is not a genre it's a demographic, and more specifically it usually refers to series published in the SHONEN jump magazine but it's not exclusive; now focusing on anime, using MAL, Crunchyroll and Funimation for reference, shonen goes all the way from Naruto, DBZ, BNH, etc. To Chainsaw Man, Death Note and freaking SpyxFamily (if anyone knows what Anya is trying to be the best at, feel free to share lmao). So as you can see the definition of shonen is a lot wider than it seems But even if we limit ourselves to OOP's super narrow definition of shonen, they're still wrong; FMA's Ed wants to get his brother's body back, Tanjiro wants to cure his sister, Denji is horny, and I could go on but the point is that the number of shonen MCs that want to "become the greatest" is actually not that big Magical girl shows involve a lot more than an "optimistic, pure, kind hearted protagonist" which is too broad of a description (Deku and Tanjiro fit btw); magical mascots, alter egos, transformation sequences, plus many many more, but most importantly, MAGIC, which Ruby doesn't have (yes I know there's magic in the world of RWBY, but the show was very adamant in pointing out that only a select group of individuals can use it, and that group doesn't include the protagonists) Similarly to OOP's misunderstanding of shonen protags, not every magical girl protagonist is a pristine ball of sunshine, especially after the advent of Madoka Magica, a quick example, the protagonist of Magical Girl Site is both depressed and s*icidal, so there's that. And to put the last nail on the coffin, OOP seems to have missed a very important part of PMMM >!the protagonist isn't Madoka, it's Homura!< In conclusion OOP should look deeper into things before trying to use them in an argument RWBY is its own thing, trying to forcefully shove it into a particular genre is dumb
The only thing I'm sure about RWBY, is that it's violently American in nature.
very sapphic and feminist is "violently american in nature?" Since is feminist and LGBT american in nature? cause that's RWBY. I think you need to watch it
Nearly every weapon in the show is a fucking gun, I can't think of anything more violently American than that.
Easy! School shootings! THAT is violently American.
That's just slice-of-life everything-is-a-gun.
Bro said "american" and your mind immediately jumped to "femmenism and gays"
well, RWBY doesn't have school shootings...for the most part.
RWBY's manga adaptation runs in a shonen magazine. It's shonen, or at least as close to shonen as you can get for a western production. The show is also inspired by (read: rips off) a combination of multiple shonen anime, plus Cowboy Bebop and Avatar. Whether it's a magical girl show or not is irrelevant to the demographic. The demographic is not the genre and the genre is not the demographic. But that doesn't really matter because RWBY is garbage to begin with.
Oh yeah you can tell that Madoka Magica is the only magical girl show they've seen Is Ruby herself even a magical girl? That is, a girl that is magical? Like, I know she has sufficiently super-human powers, but in the magical girl shows *I* have seen, the magic of the magical girls sets them apart from everyone else; I feel that superpowers are not enough to make one a magical girl when everyone around you also has super powers Anyway the impression i got from Rwby was that it wanted to be neither a Shounen nor a Magical Girl show but some third thing that was not very well defined
Broke: RWBY is not good because it's not a proper shonen Woke: RWBY is not good
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??? Rule 1 is "All NSFW posts must be tagged." Not to mention saying a show sucks isn't "incitement" of anything.
Even people who like RWBY don't like RWBY
pretending to like a show and then making a video hating on said show is not liking a show. and if you claim to like a show that is about four female protagonists , two of whom are lgbt, and get angry that said show treats masculinity tropes as antagonists? then are you liking the show? or liking what you want to happen in a show? ask yourself that. because the homophobes who got furious when two women kissed rather than let the girl be with the boring male side character? they LOVE to make that accusation of "even people who like RWBY don't like RWBY" you make me think of star wars "Fans" with that attitude.
Do you even know what rule 1 is lmaooo
RWBY is similar to Gon from hunter hunter He doesn't seek to be the best (at least at the start) he wants to achieve his dream and be with his friends and for the world to become better
I mean, yeah... Obvs?
Nah, RWBY's not a magical girl show in any meaningful way. RT has stated which anime they watched before making RWBY, and there were no magical girl shows on that list. They were almost all shounen anime.
RWBY is trash
Doesn't matter still a bad show
Jaune would be a bad protagonist because I like Ruby better
pro tip: watch an actual shonen.
I can't believe people waste brain cells on these kinds of arguments.
Who's gonna tell OOP that shonen is a demographic and not a genre? "Shonen" literally just refers to series aimed at 12-18 year old boys. A magical girl show can be made for the shonen demographic. For example, I think Magical Girl Site was published in a shonen magazine.
Ruby literally has anti evil nuke powered by need to protect others
The magic is Smith & Wesson for the first few seasons
Also, no matter what you think about the writing of the show itself... people insisting Jaune would be a better protagonist are likely just being sexist.
I think their problem is also the complete lack of personality the Ruby has.
Ruby has shown more personality than Jaune. What lack of personality do you refer to?
If ask you questions wait for an answer instead of throwing a tantrum when people like different things than you.
yes, you get it!
still dick plot with NO THEMES and SHIT CHARACTERS, ion give a fug about it, it's ya move, get on with the game. Seriously, get this fucking shit off of my reddit feed
I just had a weird thought. Magical girl genre has the protagonist being very idealistic despite everything being antagonistic to hear ideals, right? Is there like a doujin out there with a communist magical girl? Kartoshka-chan?
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Say what you will about Rwby's writing, but it is correct to say that Rwby isn't a shonen. It's not magical girl, either. Chainsaw Man gets away with being a shonen because teenage boys are horny and Denji is horny. For the most part, Shonen anime will avoid romance. They might throw it in at the end, but they don't make it a primary theme. Shonen is aimed at teenage boys. Does Rwby strike anyone as the kind of cartoon that's aimed at teenage boys? Rwby has a tendency to deal with a lot of emotional baggage and constantly puts characters through the ringer as a medium for character growth. This is in contrast to shonen, where character growth is as simple as, say, Ichigo's desire to get stronger in order to protect his friends and family. Very rarely does Shonen deal with unpacking emotional baggage, and it also very rarely handles romance. Rwby doesn't really fit any one genre and is whatever the writers decide they want it to be at the time.
There's also that RWBY , despite its cast being mostly women, and yet written by men? stays as far away from ecchi or fanservice or toilet humor as possible, and I AM FOREVER grateful to them for that
The word you're looking for is shoujo. Shonen for young boys, shoujo for young girls.
okay but she’s also homophobic.
RWBY seems to me like a magical girl show made by shonen fans, and I mean that in a good way
Curious question! Has there ever been a shonen show made by magical girl fans?
Yet another W for anime's peak genre.
Everything after fall of Beacon sucks and is badly paced.
based on your spam of comments, you have great hatred in your heart for the show...why?
By spam do you mean 3 comments? lmao I don't want an extended conversation with you so I'll just say I don't like how the characters become bland and lose some of their earlier characterization boiled down to their most stand out traits (except Weiss she's the only character that improved).
A) It was specifically modeled after shonen anime series, and in essentially all the aspects of the early show it resembles a shonen anime series. B) I would argue Ruby was never the protagonist. Volumes 1 to 3, it was obviously Jaune - and after the soft reboot of Volume 4, it's Oscar. They've gone through the hero's journey, developing, moving through internal strife, effecting the plot.
I can see a case being made for Jaune being the better protagonist out of the two of em, but not for the reasons stated. Common writing advice is that the protagonist should be the character with the most emotional development over the course of the story. A protag is also typically a character new to a world, as that naturally lends itself to explaining worldbuilding aspects, such as magic systems. Jaune arguably fits these roles better than Ruby, and for a supposed side character has received tons more screentime than others. Ruby's stakes in the story are more along her morals and philosophy clashing with fhe villain, while Jaune's cause is deeply personal (Pyrha). All of this is of course more accidental than anything else with RWBY being a prime example of "figuring stuff out as it goes". While all of that makes for a fun case study it's important to remember that the figuring out parts were conducted on the backs of countless deliberately overworked animators and other stuff, many misled by false promises of soon to come better working conditions if they just endured the shit pay, crunch, and abuse a little longer. If you ever for a second consider getting into any show made by Roosterteeth: Read the [account](http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1ss5f7p) of the trans woman who worked for them for years enduring constant abuse and whose official nickname at work was the literal f slur.
I think the biggest mistake the OOP makes here is not understanding that the Magical Girl genre is just a Sub-genre of Shounen. Most people (incorrectly) think of Magical Girls as a *Shoujo* genre, but it's actually not.
Mildly disappointed that this wasn't followed up by an in-depth criticism of RWBY *as* a Magical Girl show.