RWBY Ice Queendom - RWBY vs the Grimm of Dreams

Based on the American wed series RWBY created by Monty Oum for Rooster Teeth, RWBY: Ice Queendom is an anime series co produced by Rooster Teeth and Studio Shaft, The story is a 12 spun off episode from the original 3d animated series as introduces a new type of Grimm called Nightmare that attacks and drains its targets via the persons dreams.

RWBY Ice Queendom is an anime is seeking to tell its own original story, building off the events of the earlier volumes of the original show. I’d suggest watching the original Rooster Teeth and Monty Oum version before watching this one. Or watch this one and watch the original afterwards as this series takes a lot changes from the original. Also minor spoilers are in effect.

RWBY Ice Queendom plot can be considered canon yet takes a lot of changes as it tries to deliver its own story that of the introduction of the Nightmare Grimm and the supposed new Nightmare Hunter expert character of Shion Zaiden. This of course resulted in a lot of Episodes being skipped from the original RWBY run as immediately after Episode 1 the show dives into the Emerald Forest arc that is Episode 7 and 8 respectively. They even skipped Yang  yellow during the beginning of episode 1 which was supposed to chow yang as this quirky hot headed thrill seeker type girl.

As characters goes we didn’t get to see much of the usual cast as it mostly focuses on Ruby and Weiss relationship with Blake and his White Fang issue making an added pivotal spin to the development especially during the final episodes. This left yang as the bike riding blonde who just happens that can punch really hard. So yes I suggest watching the original series cause a lot of the good stuff was rushed and glossed over. Even Team JNPR felt like filler characters and plot devices on this one instead of having their own character arc. Even the way they handled Jaune minor arc felt badly done.

The artstyle are gorgeous though like what you would expect from an animation studio like Shaft. It is nice seeing RWBY jump from the usual 3d animated style to full 2d and they didn’t disappoint. Although they did appear as 2d characters in the game Blazblue before but not like this grand of a scale. The fight scenes are dynamic although still not as fast or adrenaline pumping as the 3d original. Also the new soundtrack despite not RWBY-ish is good enough to convey the Ice theme this series was going for.

Story wise the main story finishes at episode 11 with the final episode being some sort of filler to tie up some lose ends with some sort of time skip leading to the first few minutes of volume 2 episode 1 of the original show. It also drops minor plot hints for the characters future which was Volume 2 onwards. I also like the new ice outfits RWBY team had showing much of their character persona without giving away much.

I do feel that the animation drops from time to time specially during the later episodes. Also as the story skip we didn’t get to see the characters minor quirks like that of Yangs temper and ego which plays a lot on her fighting style when faced with a bigger opponents or challenges. And the original RWBY had lesser time in its episode yet feels more solid in terms of character and plot. RWBY Ice Queendom plot seem to be banking on the hope that you know the original series already before watching it.

RWBY Ice Queendom is an entertaining new story based on the RWBY franchise. It is refreshing but tries to do everything all at once that it hurts both viewers who hasn’t and have seen the original series. Sadly hether you are new to RWBY franchise or an old time fan you will see problems in this series.  Animation looks great though but still fills short of the original 3d version in terms of visual, plot and character development. I’d suggest watching the original before or after watching this series to fully appreciate RWBY it.