Review: RWBY Vol.7 “With Friends like These”

The episode tries to do too much at once, but thankfully the conflicts were well-executed, and possibly the best so far in this volume. Team RWBY outclasses the Ace-Ops pretty effortlessly despite training with them six weeks ago, between Ruby’s speed, Weiss’ Summoning, and Yang & Blake’s well-timed team-attacks. Apart from Blake’s Aura breaking, it didn’t even seem all that close. However whatever victory RWBY achieves is rather bittersweet, as Atlas is now left without its top Huntresses and Huntsmen to defend them when the shit presumably goes down with Salem.

Neo despite how skilled a killer she supposedly apparently is, has difficulty capturing or even killing Oscar despite whether or not unlocked his Ozpin powers or semblance yet, and then comes head-to-head with Jaune’s team for the first time. I honestly have no clue where they’re going with this. Neo’s a more than a passable fighter, but four-on-one odds without the element of surprise? Not sure if Neo predicted those odds. Despite the far from subtle inner-conflict Winter is feeling, she seems to be giving Penny the much-needed wisdom she needs to go off and follow her heart, rather than her duties. Cinder is there to fuck their shit up, but of course, Penny has a score to settle with Cinder as she played a role in killing her the first time in Vol.3.

Meanwhile, after receiving new orders from Ironwood to arrest Team RWBY and anyone associated with them (Including Qrow, Oscar and Jaunes team). Clover apparently thinks it’s a good idea to try and arrest Qrow while transporting Remnant’s most dangerous psycho-killer (Tyrian), leading to a potential recipe for disaster when the recently-detained Tyrian escapes custody amidst the chaos. In the crashed ruins of the ship, everyone survived, including an unconscious Robyn, but as the three begin to face off, I can’t help but notice how even when Qrow and Clover are sort-of “teaming up”, Tyrian is clearly constantly trying to pit Qrow against Clover. Qrow’s most interesting line is an almost off-hand remark noting that he always ends up fighting with his friends, which may be a hint into his yet to be revealed tragic history with team “STRQ” (a team he was part of which primarily consisted of Ruby & Yang’s family members), but it takes a messed up direction for Qrow when he sort of unofficially teams-up with Tyrian to keep Clover from arresting him which goes about as well as you’d expect…

Our Take

In all honesty, I know Winter is a skilled fighter but vs. Cinder? I hate to say it but unless they find some way to get the Maiden powers out of her hands, Winter and Penny are potentially low-tier compared to her. However the more emotional aspects of this episode was mainly the 3-way battle between Qrow Tyrian and Clover, and Josh Grelle who voices Tyrian was easily the stand out of this episode as I think it shows off a more dangerous aspect of his character than his insane joker-like cackling and displays a sheer disregard for human life and nowhere was this more spotlighted than his scenes in the episode, especially the ending…

With General Ironwood going batshit insane, and Team RWBY in a race against time to stop him, Given that next week is the final episode/chapter of the Vol.7 There’s potentially an awful lot of ground to be covered in the finale and I’m interested to see where this leads towards in the finale and possibly the future.