Review: RWBY: World of Remnant: Kingdoms (WoR: episode 2)

RWBY

 

Spoilers Below

So after some really great episodes dealing with characters’ personal stories leading to the dance, we run smack dab into a brick wall with another part of World of Remnant.

As I said before, it’s not so much I hate these small, brief, informational clips. I just don’t like the idea of using these as substitutes for real episodes. While they play their part in telling the story and going into some detail that the series is unable to do, it feels like they are just stalling and stretching things out. These could come out on the first of the month as a separate release than the episodes themselves and would be perfectly fine. However Rooster Teeth has chosen to release these disappointingly instead of the continuation of the series that does so well in making you want to watch more.

Anyway, this chapter of World of Remnant looks at the Kingdoms. There is a really interesting visual at the start of the episode as we see what looks like to be a moon, only fractured with a large chuck being cut out of it. Makes you wonder if there is a story there. Is this a post apocalyptic Earth? We do not know for sure.

The four Kingdoms of this world are: Vale (where the story takes place), Atlas (in the North), Mistral (in the East), and Vacuo. However what this short DOESN’T tell us is the names of the geographical lands they sit on, how big they are, or much of anything about them at all. Just, they are there.

Beyond these kingdoms are roaming nomads that do not call any kingdom home and travel on their own. The short eerily mentions that these nomads and small villages are not uncommon, but so is their tendency to ‘disappear overnight’.

Finally the short makes brief mention of The Huntsmen and The Huntsman academies (Beacon being one). It doesn’t really expressly say what the purpose for the Huntsman are, just that they are the ones who are willing to live and die to protect the lives they are accustomed to.  Are they extensions of the military? Are they able to act on their own or do they take command from the kingdoms they live in? Again, no details are given here either.

Honestly, this was pretty much useless. Aside from telling us the names of the four kingdoms, it spends most of its time trying to be menacing and illusionary, so it didn’t really establish much. At least the first World of Remnant short actually told you things to help you understand what is going on. This was more just trying to be ominous and not really doing much of anything except wasting time.

If there is a bright spot to this, the animation was once again very good. This, like the previous short, used its own style. Once again it is s similar style than the “Tale of the 3 Brothers” short from the 7th Harry Potter movie. It is a very calm and pleasing animation style and can understand why it is used in such a way. Shame they used it in what was just a 2 minute excuse not to deliver anything of note or importance this week. In this case it only serves to not hate this offering completely.

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