English Dub Review: RWBY: Ice Queendom “This Is Beacon”

Overview

Young boys and girls wanting to become Huntsmen gather to attend Beacon’s entrance ceremony. As everyone gathers, a shy Ruby is being urged by Yang to make friends. However, after being dismissed by Blake and angering Weiss, she gets depressed.

Our Take

Continuing with Volume 1’s re-telling, the girls arrive at Beacon Academy, with Yang and Ruby being the close sisterly bond as they are. Of course, Blake and Weiss at this point are unknown strangers, one a closed-off recluse and the other a famous standout. For a start, taking a test as a pair to become certified Huntsmen and Huntresses, and this is where we get our introduction with Team Juniper (JNPR) with Pyrrha and Jaune Arc, while Beacon Academy headmaster Ozpin, Glenda, and the special anime-exclusive character named Shion Zaiden (Kdin Jensen who also voiced May Marygold in RWBY Season 8). Upon research, Shion is RWBY’s 2nd known nonbinary character and his/her androgynous design gives off a Yoshiaki Kawajiri-inspired aesthetic.

Thankfully the Grimm monsters within this show’s universe remain as deadly as they were in the original series, and it’s where the remaining Team JNPR pair of Nora and Ren comes in, and all candidates bond together to avoid certain death. Since this is still adapting bits and pieces of Volume 1, many of the action scenes during their scavenger hunt are properly replicated even if their dialogue doesn’t match what was originally spoken in the original series. The Nevermore scene was well-done eye-candy but it isn’t perfect. this could be due to the replicated action scene losing a bit of its intensity without the show’s original music in the background, but might not be that noticeable for newbies.

While the Intro/Outro was miles above in terms of quality, the episode was slightly disappointing, but not completely. At least the visuals, artstyle, and background quality were slightly better, even going as far as to downplay the shadow silhouetted characters that the first original Volume was guilty of and replaced with actual character designs for random background people outside of the core protagonists. As for the cliffhanger ending with Shion, I’m curious about her purpose in the story and how she fits into the anime narrative tied with Weiss.