RWBY (pronounced "Ruby". The show's title refers to team RWBY which is pronounced "Ruby" in the show.) is an American animated web series created by Monty Oum for Rooster Teeth. It is set in the fictional world of Remnant, where young people train to become warriors ("Huntsmen" and "Huntresses") to protect their world from monsters called Grimm. The name RWBY is derived from the four main protagonists' forenames: Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long, and their respective thematic colors (red, white, black, and yellow).
Following several promotional trailers, the first episode was screened at Rooster Teeth's convention, RTX, and premiered on their website on July 18, 2013. Subsequent episodes were released weekly, first to Rooster Teeth subscribers and then to YouTube a week later. Following Oum's death in 2015 during the production of the third season (stylized as volumes), there was an overall shift in the series' production and release schedule. Despite the death of its creator, the remaining crew members confirmed their intention to continue the series. Following the eighth volume, the series was moved to Crunchyroll. Volume 9 premiered on Crunchyroll on February 18, 2023. In March 2024, with the announcement of Rooster Teeth's shutdown, plans were made to sell the IP rights to RWBY, among other Rooster Teeth properties. On July 5, 2024, Viz Media was announced to have acquired the RWBY IP. A tenth volume of the series is in production.
RWBY has been dubbed in Japanese and broadcast by Tokyo MX in Japan, in partnership with Warner Bros. Japan, and has spawned several spin-off media, such as the video games RWBY: Grimm Eclipse and RWBY: Arrowfell, the animated series RWBY Chibi and RWBY: Ice Queendom, and the two-part direct-to-video film Justice League x RWBY: Super Heroes & Huntsmen.
Synopsis Background The story takes place in the fictional world of Remnant, composed of four kingdoms (Vale, Mistral, Atlas, and Vacuo) under constant assault by monsters known as the Creatures of Grimm. Prior to the events of the series, the world was overseen by two opposing brothers, the Gods of Light and Darkness. Humanity was destroyed by the gods due to the actions of Salem, a vengeful woman cursed with immortality for trying to manipulate them into reviving her beloved Ozma. Ozma was subsequently reincarnated by the Gods to guide a new human race toward harmony and eventually summon the gods back for judgement using four relics, leading to an endless conflict between him and Salem, who hopes that an unfavorable judgement by the gods will allow her to die. The discovery of the element Dust triggered a technological and industrial revolution for humanity.
The gods themselves come from a separate world called the Ever After. Having been created by the Ever After's Great Tree to help it make that world, the brothers' arguments forced the Tree to exile them, left to create and experiment until they understood the true nature of balance. This eventually led to their creation of Remnant.
In the present day, Ozma has gifted four "Maidens" magical powers, distinct from Semblances, unique abilities tied to a person's soul. Keeping Salem's existence known to a select few, one of Ozma's incarnations, Ozpin, establishes academies in the four kingdoms to train Huntsmen and Huntresses against the Grimm, with each academy concealing one relic.
Plot
The series focuses on Team RWBY (pronounced "ruby"), four girls attending Beacon Academy in Vale: Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long. Their friends Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie, Pyrrha Nikos, and Lie Ren form their own team, JNPR (pronounced "juniper"). Ruby and Jaune become leaders of their respective teams. Blake reveals herself as a Faunus (a humanoid species possessing animal traits) and former member of the militant White Fang. After several clashes with the protagonists, Salem minion Cinder Fall, her ally Roman Torchwick, his assistant Neopolitan, and the White Fang under Adam Taurus invade Beacon. Penny Polendina, an android friend of Ruby's, is destroyed at the outset, and Roman is killed in the chaos. Yang loses her arm trying to protect Blake from Adam. Cinder assumes the power of the Fall Maiden, and kills Ozpin and Pyrrha, but is forced to retreat by Ruby using a divine power associated with her silver eyes.
The members of team RWBY separate. Ruby travels to Haven Academy in Mistral with her uncle Qrow Branwen, Nora, Jaune, and Ren. Weiss is forcefully returned home to Atlas by her abusive father Jacques, Blake reconnects with her family and fights the influence of the White Fang in the Faunus territory of Menagerie, and Yang remains home in Patch struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder. Ruby's group is joined by Oscar Pine, Ozpin's new incarnation. Yang reunites with Weiss and has her mother Raven send them to Ruby and the others. Cinder believes that Raven harbors the Spring Maiden, not realizing it to be Raven herself, and strikes a deal with her to open the vault containing the Relic of Knowledge. Jaune unlocks his Semblance, Blake returns, and together Ruby's allies defeat Salem's followers to obtain the relic. They fall out with Ozpin when Jinn, the spirit within the Relic of Knowledge, reveals that Ozpin has no way to kill Salem. They meet ex-Huntress Maria Calavera, who helps Ruby control the power of her eyes. Blake is ambushed by Adam but kills him with Yang. After saving the city of Argus from a giant Grimm, Ruby's group departs for Atlas, while Salem plans to seize the relics.
Ruby's group arrives in the occupied city of Mantle, reunites with a rebuilt Penny, and is recruited by General James Ironwood who plans to inform the world about Salem. When Salem attacks, Ironwood betrays Ruby's allies and Mantle, attempting to abandon the rest of the world and save the floating city of Atlas itself and its relic. Despite overwhelming odds, Ruby warns Remnant about Salem. Penny becomes the Winter Maiden, but is infected by a computer virus by Salem's acolyte Arthur Watts. Team RWBY obtains the Staff of Creation, and guided by Ozpin uses its spirit Ambrosius to turn Penny into a human and evacuate Atlas into Vacuo through a portal, causing the city to fall. Cinder intercepts them, mortally wounding Penny, who has Jaune kill her in order to transfer her Maiden powers to Weiss' sister Winter. Cinder betrays Neo and sends her, Jaune and Team RWBY falling into the void in the portal. After defeating Ironwood with the Maiden powers, Winter joins the others in Vacuo. Cinder delivers both relics to Salem, leaving Ironwood and Watts to die in the falling city. Team RWBY, Jaune, and Neo find themselves in the Ever After, where they are forced to confront and ultimately come to terms with their feelings and losses, especially Ruby and Jaune, who blame themselves for the fall of Atlas and Penny's death respectively. They defeat and destroy the Curious Cat, one of the gods' early creations. Other than Neo, who makes peace with Roman's death and stays behind, they return to Remnant to find the world mobilized against Salem in Vacuo.
Voice cast and characters
Character English Japanese Ruby Rose Lindsay Jones Saori Hayami Weiss Schnee Kara Eberle Yoko Hikasa Blake Belladonna Arryn Zech Yū Shimamura Yang Xiao Long Barbara Dunkelman Ami Koshimizu Jaune Arc Miles Luna Hiro Shimono Nora Valkyrie Samantha Ireland Aya Suzaki Pyrrha Nikos Jen Brown Megumi Toyoguchi (Volumes 1–2, 4)Shizuka Itō (Volume 3) Lie Ren Monty Oum (Volumes 1–2)Neath Oum (Volumes 3–9) Soma Saito
Episodes
Production and release
Development
RWBY had been a long-standing concept of Oum's for years before it began development. Towards the end of his work on the tenth season of Rooster Teeth's Red vs. Blue, he developed the color-coding approach to character names and design as a hook for the series. During production on Red vs. Blue season 10, Oum asked series creator Burnie Burns if they could produce RWBY following the conclusion of that season. Burns, worried for the production schedule, told Oum "If you finish Season 10, then you can do whatever you want." Production on RWBY began as intended, with the first trailer being finished within two weeks and premiering after the credits of the Red vs. Blue season 10 finale on November 5, 2012.
Oum designed the characters with assistance from artist Ein Lee, utilizing designs inspired by classic fairy tale characters. Each character has an associated color, and it is the first letters of the main character's colors, red, white, black and yellow, that give the series its name. The series was originally written by Oum, along with fellow Rooster Teeth employees Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross. Oum was initially concerned about a story focusing on female characters being developed by a primarily male crew, but said they managed to do well developing the female characters. Regarding the design, Oum wanted to "present a two-dimensional, toon-shaded look, but with all of the depth and complexity of a 3D-animated production". Volumes 1 to 3 were animated by the internal animation team of Rooster Teeth's studios in Austin using Smith Micro's Poser software, out of assets built on Autodesk Maya; however, starting with Volume 4, the production switched to using Maya entirely alongside additional modelling and animation being outsourced to the Monterrey-based studio CGBot. The series' music is composed by Jeff Williams, who previously composed the soundtracks for seasons 8–10 of Red vs. Blue, and features vocals by Williams' daughter, Casey Lee Williams.
Marketing A series of four promotional trailers, one for each lead character, was released. They were primarily produced by Oum and assistant animator Shane Newville. Each trailer begins by unveiling one of the four primary characters and then showing a detailed action sequence. The "Red" trailer was shown after the credits for Red vs. Blue's season 10 finale in November 2012. It was followed by the "White" trailer in February 2013. The "Black" trailer was unveiled at a PAX East panel at the end of March and was the first to include voice-acted dialogue. Following the premiere of the "Black" trailer, Oum noted with regret that the first two trailers were shorter and had less character development. The "Yellow" trailer was shown at Rooster Teeth's A-Kon panel on June 1, 2013. Music from the trailers was sold as digital downloads at several online retailers.
On July 5, 2013, at the RWBY panel for their RTX 2013 event, Rooster Teeth premiered the first episode of RWBY, and would post the episode to their website on July 18.
Release Following the premiere of RWBY in July 2013, Rooster Teeth released new episodes of the first season (stylized as volumes) weekly on their website, with access two hours early for their sponsors. In August 2013, streaming website Crunchyroll announced it would simulcast RWBY. The first volume ran for sixteen episodes and concluded on November 7, before being released on DVD and Blu-ray.
The second volume was first screened at RTX on July 4, 2014, before its premiere on July 24. The second volume consisted of twelve episodes, and concluded on October 30, before being released on DVD and Blu-ray. In February 2015, Rooster Teeth announced that both volumes of RWBY were released on Netflix. The third volume premiered on October 24, 2015, along with an episode of the RWBY spinoff series World of Remnant.
Starting with the fourth volume, Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross were now the only writers for the series. The fourth volume premiered on October 22, 2016. In January 2017, a fifth volume was announced to be in development, and premiered on October 14, 2017. Following the conclusion of the fifth volume, Rooster Teeth First members would get episodes one week earlier than the general public for future releases.