Time for your weekly dose of Team RWBY courtesy of the guys over at Rooster Teeth.
Episode 4
This week’s episode picks up directly from where last week’s left off, as we finally get some hints to what Penny actually is and where she came from. She’s the “first synthetic person capable of generating an aura”, which seems like a pretty significant creation. The interaction between Ruby and Penny in this scene is very touching and Penny seems genuinely bewildered by Ruby’s kindness. Before long though, we’re given another warning that something big is coming. According to Penny, General Ironwood said the world isn’t in a time of peace, contrary to what we’ve been told all along. Put this info along with the fact that we saw this same guy bring a massive military presence into Vale in the second episode and there may be something big coming involving Atlas, or even just Ironwood.
Next up is Yang and Neptune who head off to the place where Yang fought in the trailer. Jack Patillo returns to voice Junior, which is a nice touch, and we finally get a follow up on what Torchwick was actually doing there in the Yellow Trailer. All of this exposition follows a funny entrance where Yang seems to scare the life out of every henchman in the place (whose only distinguishing features are their beards which is pretty funny). The scenes here are solid, but we don’t get any new information that’s of any use which is kind of frustrating. You would’ve figured we’d get something from this.
The real answers, and more questions, come from the Blake and Sun scenes. These involve the pair sneaking into a White Fang meeting and being greeted by Torchwick, who gives a pretty badass speech, and his new piece of technology; the giant mech we were shown being unveiled by a certain General from Atlas in last week’s episode. We’re told that his “employer” has access to them, which makes me wonder if he was talking about Jessica Nigri’s character Cinder or if it goes even higher up than her, possibly all the way to the good General, which could explain why Penny was told the world isn’t at peace. Maybe he’s trying to start a war, or maybe he knows something even bigger than a war between humans is coming. That’s all speculation, of course, but it would explain Penny’s dialogue in the scene with Ruby.
We’re soon treated to the second big action set piece of the season so far, this time Torchwick chasing down Blake and Sun in his mech. It’s not long before Ruby and the rest of the gang get there to help out and the fight scene is absolutely fantastic. I found it hard to take my eyes off of it, barely even being able to take notes. My one note about the fight was “Crazy awesome mech fight”. It’s pretty badass and the episode is worth watching just to see it. We’re shown a bunch of new moves and techniques that the team seems to have worked out since the end of last season and it’s beautifully animated. Lots of very cool things happen but there’s never too much happening on screen at any one time, which means you can easily pay attention to the nuances in the animation of the fight. Over the course of this scene we learn an interesting fact about Yang, apparently she gets stronger with every hit she takes. Whether there’s a limit to this or how this power even works isn’t explained, but we do see her break the giant robot apart in one punch. So, I think it’s safe to assume she’s pretty powerful.
We’re finally left with one new mystery as the cast of bad guys gets one bigger. We’re shown yet another new henchman for Torchwick, who can seemingly create copies of herself and others, a power which I’m sure will be put to good effect at some point later in the series. The final scene injects a bit of lighthearted humour into the episode, something it was conspicuously lacking. Sun and Neptune are two characters who have great chemistry and Michael Jones and Kerry Shawcross, their respective voice actors, have great chemistry too, which makes for a fun watch when the two are together. I also like the shoutout to another Rooster Teeth show in the background here.
So that’s it for this week folks. You can check out this week’s episode here and check back next week for more.
