RWBY (Season 8)

Season 8 of RWBY had the lofty challenge of chronicling the big Battle Of Atlas that Season 7 had been spending all of this time building up to. However, I'm not quite sure it managed to pull it all off.

Most of RWBY's eighth season has the good guys split up, with Ruby, Blake, Weiss, Penny, and Nora fighting from Atlas and Yang, Jaune, Ren, and Oscar fighting from Mantle. As a result, I found myself fairly split on a large portion of the season. The storylines involving Ruby's team was excellent, from Nora trying to be her own person, to Weiss's family struggling to repair itself, to Penny dealing with her new winter maiden powers. Seeing all of my favorite characters interact and develop was incredibly fun, and their focus episodes had some entertaining genre shifts. Yang's team on the other hand should have been more compelling, with storylines about a talking Grimm and blowing up Salem's whale, but they were so dour and gloomy the entire time, ultimately being far less fun to watch. Although, I did really enjoy Ren's character development and how it built off of his behavior in Season 7. Frankly, Nora and Ren are probably the best part of the season, or at least one of them.

On the other hand, Cinder's crew got a ton of development, which was another highlight of the season. Cinder got her backstory, and while it was somewhat predictable and standard, it finally gave her the depth she most desperately needed. Emerald and Hazel were particularly great though, with the former turning to the good side, and the latter getting over his hatred for Ozpin that has been blinding him. I was shocked at how much I loved Hazel this season. Given how dull he was in Season 5, he had some of the best and most emotional parts of Season 8. As for Ironwood's team, they didn't fare as well. While I liked that Winter and the Ace Ops spent most of the season conflicted, the lack of the nuanced political aspect that made Season 7 so unique definitely made Ironwood a bit less interesting. Ironwood was such an 

So I didn't love every aspect of Season 8, that's perfectly fine. There was enough good there that if this season stuck the landing just like Seasons 3 and 7 did, it could have still been one of my favorites. However, the final few episodes, while they did have some good moments like Yang falling, Atlas crashing into Mantle, and the intriguing cliffhanger, also made some decisions that left a bad taste in my mouth. For example, the annoying Ambrosius character, the underwhelmingly short big fight with Ironwood, and especially Penny getting an amazing character arc and being turned into a human only to be killed off a second time. I'm normally not mad when characters die (case in point: Clover), and I even liked Penny's goodbye with Winter, but the plot point just felt overly cruel. I also felt like the action was oddly lacking this season. Whereas Seasons 3 and 7 ended their seasons with some of the show's best fight scenes (Pyrrha vs Cinder, Ironwood vs Watts, RWBY vs Ace Ops), Season 8 was mostly composed of incredibly average fights with some janky animation at points. It was nowhere near as bad as Season 5, but I know that Rooster Teeth can definitely do better. And that's really the problem with Season 8, with so much build up, this should have been one of the show's best seasons, and there are signs of greatness as well. However, it just wasn't executed as well as it could have been.

Despite my misgivings, there were a few episodes I did really like this season, or at least thought were noteworthy:

Strings: This was still probably my favorite episode of the season. Strings is a full-on heist as Ruby's team sneaks into Command to launch Amity Tower, and it's a ton of fun. There are a lot of cute character dynamics, a fun fight with the Ace Ops, and even some surprising development for Nora that helped her become one of my favorite characters. Between this and Alone In The Woods, I really feel like RWBY is at its best when it utilizes self-contained genre shifts like this one.

Amity: This episode focuses nearly entirely on Penny as she tries to defend Amity Tower from Cinder's team so they can send out a broadcast to all of Remnant. This was one of the better fights of the season and it was great to see Maria actually hold up a fight against Neo, but obviously the best part was the broadcast itself which brought back a ton of old characters from the previous seasons.  

Dark: Similarly to Strings, this was another genre shift episode that focused on Ruby's team, this time around being a horror episode about the Schnee Mansion getting stormed by The Hound. I don't think it was as brilliantly-executed as Alone In The Woods with some janky animation, but I loved the character development for Weiss's family, along with just how tense the final few minutes ended up being.

Risk: While I wouldn't call this one of the season's best episodes, I want to give it credit for some amazing character moments: Nora and Ren talking out their problems with each other was excellent and a satisfying resolution to their arcs this season. Similarly, Yang and Ruby's conversation finally addressed those devastating implications about Summer, and was bolstered further by some amazing voice acting. And Emerald rooting the team on was absolutely adorable.

Worthy: Holy mother of cliffhangers! In a similar fashion to Heroes And Monsters (still my favorite episode btw), this episode introduced a ton of crazy set-up for the finale, from Watts hacking into Qrow's ship, to Winter fighting Ironwood. I don't think the big battle in the portal room was executed super flawlessly, but Yang's fall was incredibly emotional and it was cool to see Neo fight Ruby again.

The Final Word: Despite my gripes with Penny's death, this was still one of the show's better finales with a lot of really great moments, particularly when it comes to Winter. Her fight with Ironwood was great, and her Maiden fight with Cinder was even better! I'm excited to see where the void took RWBY, Jaune, and Neo, and I really liked Cinder's betrayal of Neo and I hope it means she joins the good guys. There's something admirable in just how much goes wrong during this episode, even if it wasn't all executed the best.

Overall, while I did like some aspects of Season 8, particularly Ruby's team, Cinder's crew, and the genre shifts, it just didn't live up to Seasons 6 & 7 despite how important it is, with weaker action and some frustrating developments. It's by no means a bad season, but definitely the weakest since Season 5.

3/5 Stars