Back in 2014, Warner Bros. Japan took the helm of RWBY’s Japanese dub and released the series on video in Japan. Later on, before volume 4’s release in Japan, the first three were condensed into 12 TV-length episodes and Volume 1 was packed neatly into just three of them. Following in those footsteps, the premiere of IQ has taken similar steps and condensed the events of the first season of the web series into just three episodes. Not every fan has been pleased with this decision, but it can be argued that it has its benefits and strengthens the story as a whole.
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A New Beginning
For those who don’t remember, when Volume 1 was released in 2012, each episode could range from 6-12 minutes, leaving viewers waiting a whole week for not a lot. With the benefit of hindsight, with more characters and backstory revealed by the American web series, Studio Shaft has retold the beginning of RWBY with new details.
These warriors are trained and assembled into teams at schools like Beacon Academy, where Ruby meets Weiss and Blake – forming Team RWBY along with Ruby’s sister, Yang.
While team RWBY studies to become the greatest Huntresses the world of Remnant has ever known, they are faced with a horrifying threat…
- RWBY: Ice Queendom on Crunchyroll
The original trailers that hyped fans up for the series are no longer separate hype pieces, but scenes within the premiere episode. In the case of Weiss, episode 1 ties in details and characters from season 1 all the way to season 8, allowing the introduction to her character to feel more resonant with new viewers.
It’s not just additions made that make this beginning feel special, but also addition by subtraction. Ice Queendom takes separate scenes from the early episodes of Volume 1 and combines them to make more functional scenes, the biggest example being the airship scene.
Less Is Sometimes More
In the original, Ruby’s anxiousness about making new friends has her falling back on Yang as someone she can spend all her time with. Yang disappoints her, telling her that she has friends of her own, but those friends never showed up at all. It also clashes with how excited Yang was about going to school with her sister.
Instead, IQ establishes that Yang wants to stick around with Ruby but doesn’t want to prevent her from making new friends, so she decides they should look for friends together. And that’s how they meet Blake and Weiss aboard the ship to school, albeit with some tensions between them before they’ve had the chance to fight as one.
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Instead of all the students arriving at the school and undergoing their entrance test the next day, the test in the forest happens before they’re even let onto the school grounds. By the end of episode 2, the story has progressed halfway through volume 1. And in that time, the characters have met, their motivations are clear, and they’ve overcome great conflicts with their teamwork.
The purpose of this comparison isn’t to lambast the original but to point out how with better pacing, the same story can be told in less time without losing anything. At least, this can be said of the first two episodes, but the third is unfortunately where many fans will take particular umbrage.
A Rushed Finish
Episode 3 starts well enough, with team RWBY settled in and attending class. Weiss participates in a tense duel with a Grimm and kills it but finds herself frustrated because she wanted to be the leader instead of Ruby. This leads to an argument between the two of them. This story goes by much quicker than the original, although there are small touches in visual storytelling that help it not feel too rushed at first. The big change is that Weiss’ internal conflict is the first sign of this anime’s original story that deviates from the source material.
A new character named Shion Zaiden appears, a hunter with a specialized talent for hunting Grimm known as Nightmares, that trap people in dreams and slowly kill them. Their appearance is mysterious and excited, them being the only thing that sticks out as definitively original. When Jaune of Team JNPR comes under the influence of a Nightmare, Shion reveals themselves and the nature of their specialty, helping to save them. The ideas and presentation of the mechanics are very cool, but the conflict is concluded so quickly that it feels too rushed.
Speeding through Volume 1’s events make sense because the plot isn’t so complicated that it can’t be paced quicker, but this is the first taste of this anime’s original story. The second half of episode three finishes the story from Volume 1 and would be a highly satisfying end to the introductory arc if not for it being severely abridged.
The two halves of episode 3 would have both been much better served as individual episodes themselves. As it is, each of the stories feels rushed and anticlimactic, and viewers are left with a cliffhanger that leads into episode 4 and the subsequent anime-original arc.
New Take, Old Problems
Die-hard fans who are skeptical of IQ might not be won over by its rushed retelling of volume 1 and thanks to a rushed character introduction, they might not be as excited about the new story. Granted, there are plenty of people who aren’t fond of RWBY who are interested to see if this show will be any better. First is the animation. By episode three’s ending, Ice Queendom may as well be called “RWBY: Hiroto Nagata is on the animation team.” For those unfamiliar with Nagata’s animation, it combines ludicrously detailed shading with high-impact choreography. They’ve produced some mind-boggling cuts for Shaft’s recent Madoka spin-off, Magia Record (see his Sakugabooru page here).
Nagata’s work is impressive, but when they aren’t animating, it’s easy to tell, because the action can seem a lot cheaper, as evidenced by some less than consistent character designs. That said, the storyboarding, thee directing, and the allocation of talent means that love was put into the moments that matter the most. The original RWBY was created by Monty Oum, an absolute machine of an animator with a style tailor-made for 3D animation. Comparing the two styles is foolhardy, but the fans are attached to RWBY’s action (its best attribute). IQ’s animation may be inconsistent, but so was the original series.
What IQ does a bit better across the better is the art design. The moments outside of action in the original were carried by motion capture and the occasional visual gag. IQ is carried by artwork by Studio Shaft, the brains behind Monogatari and Madoka Magika. Scenes of characters talking are more like mosaics than simple static imagery. Put simply, Ice Queendom is flawed much in the same ways that the original was, but IQ still has the potential to surprise fans. By delving into new territory, the staff at Studio Shaft under Toshimasa Suzuki’s direction might have the freedom to take more risks, and who knows how Gen Urobuchi’s story concept will play out.
So while IQ may not be what every fan of RWBY is looking for, its writing choices, aesthetic, and sakuga have the potential to be the best in the franchise. And even if not, the artwork and action will surely deliver an experience worth watching on repeat, and that is what RWBY is at its core.
RWBY: Ice Queendom is available for streaming on Crunchyroll and RoosterTeeth.com
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