- Joined
- Mar 16, 2019
I wasn't ever that much of a fan of the series, as so much of a detractor, but for an old anime fan like me, RWBY, in all of my stubborn teeth clenching reluctance....
....will admit that RWBY was the show that was intune with US anime fan subculture, and held immense promise, as it showed that yes, you could make anime outside of Japan, homegrown grassroots style.
From this angle, let me take you into my perspective of the world.
I know about Avatar and Teen Titans, but hear me out. Avatar was still restricted to Nickelodeon's "By Kids, For Kids" standards, and Teen Titans was pretty much an animesque take on already existing superhero properties. Despite both coming out to acclaim, there was something about them that did not capture the "anime feel", despite how many millennials and Gen Z babies will tell you.
RWBY however, you could tell that this was made knowing that this was the brainchild of an anime fan who grew up during the turn of the millenium US anime boom, when anime, manga, and video games blew teens and fans away that sequential art could be more than what the comics and animation industry at home was presenting. Actual comics and animation, and video games with stories and content that, wasn't regulated for kids and overly obnoxious moral overlords worried that Baby Jesus would cry caring what we enjoyed for entertainment? What a shocker!
Like back in those days, anime and video games were practically two peas in a pod, as far as I remember, before things branched off as heavily as it did today. Fans were as much into Final Fantasy, Mega Man, Street Fighter, and Guilty Gear as much as Slayers, Cowboy Bebop, Tenchi Muyo!, and Outlaw Star. This was because video games were the keystone for anime to get bigger out in the States and out west, among other socio-cultural events going on. And before you knew it, you had young fans inspired to try and make anime and manga just as they'd seen.
Monty wasn't a perfect creator, but he knew what he liked, and he was one of the very few who refused to let his anime dreams go, and especially in the face of the 2008 Great Recession. He went the distance and made his mark, he plotted out what he wanted to see on the screen, and before we knew it, in came the pilot trailers he made to showcase his next work after Red VS Blue.
He practically created a JRPG and fantasy anime styled world with a bit of its own depth. A magic system like those found in JRPGs, a warriors guild school for youth, a constant existential threat to the world that must be fought off, a world blending magic and technology, its own history even, he practically shot all of the right targets dead on the mark. He had all of the right pieces, and he did this when the hardcore diehard anime purist days came to their eventual end, all at the right time. Monty was a fan himself, and he created something that embodied what anime fans out west beloved and enjoyed about anime. Not stuff from Japan or to mimic all of the Japanese animes like the other amerime garbage, like straight out rise out of the sea like a fucking flying dragon paint the motherfucking sky "This is Anime made from outside of Japan, and this is our stand, motherfuckers, hear us roar".
For someone who still aspires to make anime shit into today, Monty had it all, and I'm still green with envy over this.
Sure, today it's practically a tragic shell of enormously bad writing, tangled in a huge web of internal politics, and to where even DC is literally constantly pumping its ass full of brand recognition capeshit semen, all after Monty's sudden and young death (RIP) but the initial concept, its ideas and the inspiration, that's where it shines. It's like taking a piece of gold ore and making a fucking asspick out of it, sadly. It really fucking sucks that talent like his was wasted on pissass poor writers and not actual teammates who could realize the series' potential, but that's just how the wheel rolls.
Hope I explained this.
From this angle, let me take you into my perspective of the world.
I know about Avatar and Teen Titans, but hear me out. Avatar was still restricted to Nickelodeon's "By Kids, For Kids" standards, and Teen Titans was pretty much an animesque take on already existing superhero properties. Despite both coming out to acclaim, there was something about them that did not capture the "anime feel", despite how many millennials and Gen Z babies will tell you.
RWBY however, you could tell that this was made knowing that this was the brainchild of an anime fan who grew up during the turn of the millenium US anime boom, when anime, manga, and video games blew teens and fans away that sequential art could be more than what the comics and animation industry at home was presenting. Actual comics and animation, and video games with stories and content that, wasn't regulated for kids and overly obnoxious moral overlords worried that Baby Jesus would cry caring what we enjoyed for entertainment? What a shocker!
Like back in those days, anime and video games were practically two peas in a pod, as far as I remember, before things branched off as heavily as it did today. Fans were as much into Final Fantasy, Mega Man, Street Fighter, and Guilty Gear as much as Slayers, Cowboy Bebop, Tenchi Muyo!, and Outlaw Star. This was because video games were the keystone for anime to get bigger out in the States and out west, among other socio-cultural events going on. And before you knew it, you had young fans inspired to try and make anime and manga just as they'd seen.
Monty wasn't a perfect creator, but he knew what he liked, and he was one of the very few who refused to let his anime dreams go, and especially in the face of the 2008 Great Recession. He went the distance and made his mark, he plotted out what he wanted to see on the screen, and before we knew it, in came the pilot trailers he made to showcase his next work after Red VS Blue.
He practically created a JRPG and fantasy anime styled world with a bit of its own depth. A magic system like those found in JRPGs, a warriors guild school for youth, a constant existential threat to the world that must be fought off, a world blending magic and technology, its own history even, he practically shot all of the right targets dead on the mark. He had all of the right pieces, and he did this when the hardcore diehard anime purist days came to their eventual end, all at the right time. Monty was a fan himself, and he created something that embodied what anime fans out west beloved and enjoyed about anime. Not stuff from Japan or to mimic all of the Japanese animes like the other amerime garbage, like straight out rise out of the sea like a fucking flying dragon paint the motherfucking sky "This is Anime made from outside of Japan, and this is our stand, motherfuckers, hear us roar".
For someone who still aspires to make anime shit into today, Monty had it all, and I'm still green with envy over this.
Sure, today it's practically a tragic shell of enormously bad writing, tangled in a huge web of internal politics, and to where even DC is literally constantly pumping its ass full of brand recognition capeshit semen, all after Monty's sudden and young death (RIP) but the initial concept, its ideas and the inspiration, that's where it shines. It's like taking a piece of gold ore and making a fucking asspick out of it, sadly. It really fucking sucks that talent like his was wasted on pissass poor writers and not actual teammates who could realize the series' potential, but that's just how the wheel rolls.
Hope I explained this.
