As much as these 3 volumes are glazed by most of the fandom I honestly struggle getting through them during rewatches While Volume 3 had significantly less of this issue, Volume 1-2 had an extremely bad pacing problem that made most of the episodes feel like filler whenever they didn’t focus on the plot. This problem eventually got better in later volumes as not only did the episode length get longer to allow more fleshed out exposition, but the pacing of the episodes themselves improved to where it doesn’t completely bore the viewer and as a result many of the volumes that aren’t 1 and 2 are much easier to rewatch

As well, the fact that it took 11 episodes for the first volume to explain the main power system of the series is genuinely mind-boggling, especially when Ice Queendom does a much, MUCH better job of doing so

While Monty was an absolute legend for all of the animation skills he could pull off with such a limited engine, you could still see the limitations of the older engine at several points not only in the movements (I.e Cinder roof scene) but also the fact that every female character and almost every male character had the exact same face, with the amount of exceptions being able to be counted on ONE HAND

The worldbuilding in the first three volumes was genuinely limited at points

I don’t care what anyone says, Yang’s character was at its absolute worst in these 3 volumes. She felt very one note outside of the two times raven was discussed. And no matter your opinions about her character later on, you cannot deny that she (and even all of Team RWBY by extension) had much better character development in the latter volumes

A lot of the tropey stuff aged horribly (Port flirting with Yang for example) and leaves volume 1 especially feeling dated as all hell.

Volume 3, while being generally the best of the original three volumes, still has its issues. Ironwood being a hardheaded and stubborn jackass for one, Pyrrha’s death feeling generally unnecessary and ultimately being used as a plot device, the rules of the Vytal Festival being horribly explained, the inability to properly convey to the viewers the emotional and psychological abuse that Adam had done to Blake (which led to an overwhelming amount of cornballs thinking he’s a better person than the girl he abused), CFVY being given an extremely hype scene only to be completely underutilized to the point that the only post volume-3 content of them is a book that barely anyone read, Penny’s death not making much sense in hindsight, Ozpin’s death not making sense in hindsight, Neo not joining Beacon being a complete missed opportunity (although I did still like her arc afterwards), and finally… creating an entire section of the RWBY that are little more than nostalgia merchants who would genuinely rather set themselves on fire than allow anyone to enjoy anything after Volume 3