Comic Review: RWBY #11 Yang: Part three “The Journey”

Taking place after the events of Vol.4’s Finale, Yang comes to terms with her disability and sets off on her quest to confront her terrible mother, and Qrow’s sister, Raven Branwen but when she comes face-to-face with a gang called the “Picotee pirates” will she be able to find the strength she seems to have lost?

Our Take

Much like one of the previous chapters that were Yang-Focused we get to see the supporting character Madam Mallari once more who helped Yang somewhat recover on a psychological scale. There’s some profound words she says to Yang that While she has a right to anger & trauma, it doesn’t mean she has the right to “surrender the battle against herself” It sounds a bit forced but I think she could’ve said it better with the phrase “Don’t give up on yourself” instead.

Upon encountering said Pirates during her Journey to see her hypocritical piece of work of a mom, which was better expanded upon during the events of Volume 5, Yang meets with the pirate captain and confronts him about the kind of shitty lifestyle he lives by giving him a proper ass-kicking in tandem with a speech that attempts to get the point across that despite the Captain using his disability as an excuse to justify his criminal lifestyle, He’s still capable of doing more for himself and shouldn’t have to use his excuse to use it as a “Low-Rent Villain Origin Story” as Yang so simply put it and teaches him a lesson in self-worth.

Once again we’re graced with the joint-efforts of writer Marguerite Bennette, Artist Mirka Andolfo and Colorist Arif Prianto, who continue to impress with their attempts to retcon certain plot and character elements throughout the run of this comic and have potential to be added if the current head-writers of RWBY Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross from Rooster Teeth ever made an effort to integrate these storylines if they wanted to.

Overall, aside from some poorly worded but well-intentioned words of wisdom from Madam Mallari, this was a decent chapter. The colors stand out, the message is subtle but clear and despite the minor difficulties Yang encountered on her journey, she didn’t give up finding what she was looking for and for that, we commend her for committing to her words to look out for her sister Ruby even when we the audience had our expectations played with when we blindly thought otherwise at the end of volume 4.

And with the next chapter hinting at a Blake storyline, let’s see where it goes with her this time.