Shorts Review: RWBY: World of Remnant episode 1: Dust (Season 2 Episode 5… I guess)

 

What the hell?

Well, this was certainly unexpected. I was sitting down to watch the next chapter of RWBY and expecting to see what happens to our favorite foursome after the battle with Torchwick and the giant robo suit. How will the girls reset themselves for their adventures? What will come of the information they gathered? What is Yang’s background with this club?

We aren’t finding out this week.

Instead of a regular episode of this series and the momentum they had created, we get an introduction of World of Remnant, evidently a series of short explaining the world that RWBY exists in. This week’s topic is Dust, the magical power that is the basis of Weiss’s family fortune and a large part of the season 1 plot.

The two minute clip goes into detail of what Dust is and what it can do. We are told that Dust is a energy source that is activated by the aura of Humans and Faunus. It comes in four types (seemingly Water, Fire, Earth, and Lightning since they don’t actually say what the four types are). It can be combined in different ways to produce desired effects.  It can be used in it’s raw form, but the user has to be trained or else the power could grow out of control. More modern uses however are far less unpredictable as Dust ammunition is as simple as loading a cartridge into a gun. Dust can also be woven into clothing or even merged directly into the body. Even with all it’s uses the world doesn’t know how Dust came to be or how it will change the world.

And that’s it. That’s the entire thing.

On it’s own it’s not a bad clip. It would have been nice to actually know what the four types of Dust actually were instead of guessing based on color. I also would like to know how the different elements are actually combined for their desired effects as well. I also was left wondering how dust could power robots and machinery if it is activated by the aura’s of humans and faunus. Heck if I know if any of those questions will be answered either.

The animation of this short is not like the regular animation style at all. It more closely resembles the animation style of the “Tale of the Three Brothers” segment of the second to last Harry Potter movie. I liked it but it seemed to come out of nowhere (much like the episode itself). I’m sure we will see more of this style as presumably there will be more short, and I’m not turned off by that.

Of course there is no real plot to speak of as this is just an informational side series. One that is a nice addition to the series and may indeed help delve into the world that the story lives in more than what the structure of the show allows. Almost like a film short during a Fallout game. It’s a neat little side series to expand on aspects of the world and hopefully help you enjoy the series better.

However I’m not liking the idea of using these in place of actual episodes. As helpful as these shorts could be, using a 2 minute clip instead of an actual episode with characters, story, and plot just seems like a cheap way out and padding out the series longer than it really is. If this indeed had been a SIDE series and released on it’s own on a different day than I would have given it a thumbs up for being a good compliment to the story, but since they are using this in PLACE of episodes, it just feels like filler and making your audience wait another week for little reason. It’s well done and produced, but the application here is way off for what Rooster Teeth has been doing with this series.

Honestly unless you really want to know some more tidbits of what Dust is, you can skip this one and not miss a thing.