Comic Review: RWBY #12 Blake: Part three “The Rose”

 

 

 

Overview (Possible Spoilers Below)

During the events of Volume 5 before Blake eventually got her shit together and decided to clean house and fix the White Fang’s screwed up philosophy, She went on a series of adventures fighting Grimm with her Monkey-friend Sun Wukong to protect her homeland of “Menagerie”. most notably, she and Sun within this storyline go out to help protect a caravan full of Faunus refugees during their convoy, but will she falter when she remembers a dark connection to one of the members of that same caravan?

Our Take

This was quite an intensely emotional story, but in a nutshell, some past sins that Blake committed with Adam many years before her time at Beacon Academy return to haunt her in a different way, as she vividly remembers the atrocious things she did back when she worked with the White Fang under Adam’s leadership and as the story cuts between the past and present, we do gain insight and understanding of what was going through Blakes mind at the time and how she feels now, especially when meeting a Faunus refugee within the caravan who also share a big reveal herself that even Blake didn’t expect…

Handled well thanks to the consistent joint-efforts of writer Marguerite Bennette, artist Mirka Andolfo and colorist Arif Prianto, this issue delves into a bit of Blake’s past that she rarely talks about before eventually becoming part of Team RWBY. During this time in Volume 5, Blake eventually comes to grips with how much of a shit-person she was and becomes a stronger person by learning to not run away from her problems, but this story although short, could be a step in the right direction for her.
Overall, this was a short but simple story that knew how to be emotionally effective in all the right places. And although Sun was never liked by Blake’s father (which has become a lame running joke at this point). Sun still knows how to get the point across to Blake about not beating herself up and coming to terms with her past mistakes, and if this was added to the main series as a legitimate episode, could’ve also helped re-contextualize how much this helped her grow as a person. I also can’t wait for part 3 of Weiss’s story next chapter.