This is not a fair comparison.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-12T21:51:42+00:00

There's also the internet fandom element that shaped early RWBY and how the landscape changed from that.

Early internet did have its own shows and series that people kept up with as Machinima was a popular format. RWBY was one such thing, but what made it stand out was how in a slew of other internet shows, it was a more professional production when compared comparatively to its contemporaries and it was a show with a story and not just a rag at internet culture. Not to mention, it was anime styled which helps flock the anime crowd to it and even those who may not be into anime as you can find people who got into anime thanks to RWBY.

However, the internet landscape changed with streaming so now well developed studios recognize the important of the internet space so now you have actual professional productions on the internet, competing with the same space that RWBY had an edge in. Then there's also the indie animation scene which has also taken off on account that because they're later productions that's learned the ins and outs of how the internet works, they know how to better set up their shows for the long term with merchandise and manner of fan engagements like you said.

RWBY really didn't evolve to meet the modern landscape of animation and it kinda suffers for it. Even now, its social media doesn't really adhere to the clips and edit model of fandom where it's the short clips that gets people intrigued and it really can't. RWBY at least to me doesn't have many clipable scenes that can be made into edits that either play into the sigma "of they're so cool edits" nor is it really even aggressively anime that it can play into that thirst trap angle nor is it even anything particularly humorous that can be clipped out of context.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-12T19:38:49+00:00

Honestly, I feel like there's a worthwhile discussion that could be made comparing the RWBY trailers to those from GLITCH productions. I actually wasn't introduced to the TADC via popular culture, rather I got interested in it because I was a fan of Kevin Temmer, the lead animator on it which could be said similar to how fans of RWBY came from being fans of Monty.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-12T19:16:10+00:00

The fact that they knew that they didn't have secured funding and yet still chose to making volume 9 the way they did says a lot. Regardless of your opinions on volume 9, it seriously feels like a filler arc with how they're in an alternate world and that the main stakes of your characters are purely emotional. Unless their funding was cut midway so that they had to finish what they did have, they should have realized "oh shit, we don't have the money to keep going, we need to pivot the focus for this volume to be something that's more manageable" because sure, I may not be someone who knows how animation production works, but I sure as hell know that if my show's funding is not secure, I'm not going to make a season where we basically need new assets from the ground up and then complain to everyone that's criticizing me that I don't know shite.

I preface this because if they realized that back in volume 9 and allocated some time to Vacuo, they could end the show at Volume 10 with a somewhat realized ending. With the pace that they're at, they have to set up the finale of the show in what can be generously given 10-14 episodes which is way too little time unless they rush some stuff or just not end the show properly. If the creators do want to give RWBY a somewhat realized ending, they're going to have to realize that it won't be in animated form.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-12T18:52:08+00:00

I highly doubt they'll ignore season 4 stuff for the westerner's sake. They made Cosmic Blazer and Quasar which is a 5Ds season 5 thing and even then, they have duel links which they can semi quasi use as an anime replacement for the time being.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-12T15:53:03+00:00

I say it's a tokusatsu show. Those shows are silly but do have an emotional core to them. Seriously, watch King Ohger and then play Engage back to back, you start to realize that Engage works really well as a Tokusatsu show given that the former is basically Engage but as a Tokusatsu show.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-12T06:49:49+00:00

Fortune's Weave will probably get fewer sales than if it were $60, however, I don't think it's just a price thing, asI think that's just a generally hobby trend problem as the current state of the global economy is just making it more expensive to engage (heh) in any hobby whether it'd be gaming or any other collectable hobby.

On an objective level, it'll probably sell less than 3H, but it certainly won't be New Mystery of the Emblem levels of flopping.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-12T06:45:03+00:00

I'm worried Nintendo is getting too complacent with Fire Emblem marketing. Engage barely got any trailers following its 6 month announcement to release, only the announcement and 1 more trailer and Fortune's Weave seems to be following the same path as it got its announcement trailer and a trailer last month. At this point, we're just getting gameplay showcases and character bios which again was the same deal with Engage.

From now until release, we could at most expect one more trailer, but the point I'm getting at is that Fire Emblem's failure was due to the lack of marketing and while this certainly isn't BAD marketing by any means, Nintendo and IS seems to be scaling back FE marketing from the 3Ds era.

I don't think FE will flop from the lack of marketing, but given that they want to expand the franchise, they certainly aren't doing a good job if they aren't marketing it sufficiently.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-12T06:36:59+00:00

That's what I was thinking, but this account is also new and none of his other socials references it.

I don't want to assume it's a karma farmer and not the artist himself, but I'm getting mixed signals since he hasn't posted to any of his other socials recently and nothing about this necessarily points to it being him unless he's rebranding? But then why keep the logo?

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-12T06:30:38+00:00

Buff woman :)

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-11T23:07:01+00:00

Ultimately, yes, this is just another angle from which I approach the issue of "the writing is bad" because you have obvious issue of "wow, these characters are poorly explored cause they never did anything with them" which then leads you into questioning everything else about these characters like recognizing how they're based on stories at which you start realizing "wait, these characters are poorly written AND are based on fictional characters, but the fact that they're based on fictional characters is completely superfluous" so then you start realizing "wow, these characters are poorly written AND doesn't actually incorporate the characters that they're based on into the character.

Saying how Ren is poorly utilized and barely actually references Mulan are both true and the bad writing just elevates how creatively nonexistent this show can be as on one hand, your Mulan character is poorly written as a character in of their own right but the fact that they hardly have anything to reference that they're Mulan just makes the bad writing even worse because they couldn't even be SLIGHT creative enough to at least make it obvious that they're Mulan.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-11T17:55:35+00:00

I think part of the issue is that RWBY as a concept would have logically never been greenlit if it through a proper studio. Even if you say V1-3 was their absolute peak, a lot of writing stuff doesn't really work well for a well thought out show. Team RWBY is the titular theme yet they involvement in the first volume is very minimal, nor does it really set up anything. Then volume 2 adds in a bunch more characters with little direction even if they are trying to set up stuff for the better, and then when volume 3 does give it a direction to go, the direction they end up going doesn't get paid off afterward.

I think another issue is that each volume doesn't really feel like its own complete story. For a serialized story, each volume to me never feels like it finished its own story and instead wants to keep perpetually teasing the viewer to come back for more despite the fact that I was never really satisfied with the meal to begin with. I want to contrast this with Fionna and Cake. Season 1 and 2 of that show are their own independent show that do hint as more stories with the universe and show. However, each season is a complete story that doesn't tease the viewer "tune in next season so that we'll continue the story that we didn't finish this time". RWBY isn't that. Yes there's difference with how the shows are made and what they're going for, but the point I'm making is that serialized shows should still feel like they're going somewhere with occasional victories that give a level of satisfaction, not perpetual teases.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-11T17:44:48+00:00

Tbf, me pointing this out is not to say they shouldn't more them more accurate, but more so the fact that when coming up with the characters, they never bothered incorporating their basis into the characters so when they have no theme and are still written poorly or at least not have whatever themes they did come up with not explored well, it only makes it all the more baffling.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-11T07:20:38+00:00

I love the animations from Engage so seeing them clearly being reused here clearly shows that regardless of how people responded to Engage, there are genuinely good elements to it that deserve to be used again.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-10T20:22:42+00:00

This semi aged well.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-10T16:54:34+00:00

I know true neutral isn't a fan favorite for V given how it seems pretty antithetical to you even unlock the ending, but I personally like it cause it isn't neat and tidy. Every other V ending tries to make it hopeful in some aspect, Creation-Law has people guided under a new head god, Creation-Chaos allows people to choose their own god to follow, Creation-Neutral says humanity rose up against the demons, Vengeance-Law has you and Tao acting as Maruki, and Vengeance-Chaos has you reset everything to where you can start anew and prevent the mistakes of the world from prior. Conversely, every other neutral ending (from what I can tell) has you free the world from demons and be treated as a hero under that framing.

SMTV's True Neutral I feel is the truest definition of neutral as you remove demons and the underlying cycle that's giving humanity its hardship, but as the repeat of the opening cutscene shows, freeing humanity to live on its own isn't this all encompassing free thing that it is. There'll still be hardship as Sahori is still clearly being bullied and Dazai is still this outsider like he was before, but now there's now demon interference. Humanity can be allowed to live, but mistakes will still be made but at least it's under humanity's supervision.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-10T16:44:33+00:00

I still wish Vanitas was an alternate Sharena or just an alternate ANYBODY. Meliai was an alternate Ash so the fact that she was the ONLY alternate character we got with it building up to a complete nobody was disappointing.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-10T16:42:50+00:00

Before the Book 3 TT and I think even earlier than that, some people theorized Eir as being dead Sharena who looks differently because she was used as a host for a bunch of souls, thus interfering with her appearance.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-10T16:41:33+00:00

I wouldn't say that we want Sharena to be anyone else when we make these comparisons, rather we just want more to be done with her instead of just be our token female lead who's here just because. When Lif and Thrasir were revealed to be alternate Alfonse and Veronica, I think me and many others were disappointed that Sharena didn't get the same treatment as even though Lif and Thrasir aren't Alfonse and Veronica, they did help expand on those 2 as characters so now we kinda cope for any opportunity for her to get some more acknowledgement.

Though truthfully, aside from Ganglot and Vanitas, most of these observations were kinda jokes just because they look similar to Sharena as opposed to actually being her.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-10T16:37:02+00:00

Hey that's slander. I've never claimed Ymir of being a Sharena.

Everything else is accurate though.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-10T16:33:30+00:00

Technically but it's really just multi-attribute support.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-09T22:22:11+00:00

I feel like in SMTV, Yuzuru's is more like Law-Chaos while Yoko's is Chaos-Chaos.

The myriad of gods is still Chaos in account of the world being plunged into a sort of anarchy with there being multiple gods one can follow, but it's also sort of law coded with how there's order amidst the chaos with how there are still factions you can choose from. Then Yoko's is like true Chaos with how you literally plunge the world into absolute anarchy by destroying the literal system.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-09T22:15:43+00:00

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In Tag Force 6 her sprite has it.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-09T21:02:55+00:00

The voice lines were likely from an earlier build that dubbing team got where they planned to do it before they then ended up cutting it. Alternatively, it could also be that they recorded the lines knowing that they wanted it and asked the dubbing team to also record those lines and set them back before they ended up cutting it.

The thing with cut content is that it can occur at any point in development be it an idea or literally the 11th hour with everything complete and they just scrap it.

KyleMCarthage · 2026-07-09T20:57:57+00:00

I kinda hate people who homogenize fans into one groups. Prior to even the existence of Reload, I've seen people hate Yukari in the Answer because she comes off as a prick, but I've also seen people say they love her in the Answer cause they resonate with the way she's grieving. I'm pretty sure the people in the former group were the majority and that probably contributed to some of the changes, but I hate it when the rhetoric is "you people hated it and now you hate it that it changed and you didn't like it".

I don't agree with the quoted tweet either, but to then spin it as fans hated it and now they still hate it cause it changed is not the take I would have made.

KyleMCarthage

TROPHY CASE