RWBY Episode 16: Black and White (Vol.I Finale) Review

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Another deliciously long episode and an excellent way to cap off the end of the first season. Let’s get into the review, shall we?

The episode begins with Sun, the monkey-dude from before excited to finally get her talking, although he ends up putting his foot into his mouth after bashing White Fang. Turns out not only was Blake a member, but she was practically born into it.

Originally White Fang was meant to be a symbol of unity between the two races, but discrimination by humans led to them becoming the voice of the people with protests and boycotts until five years ago, when a new leader took over and started the violence. The sad thing is it worked. Not out of respect,  but fear, and she decided that she was going to leave.

After Sun asks if her friends know, we then skip to them looking for her. Weiss suggests getting the police involved, for her being a supposed terrorist, but Yang insists on getting her side of the story. Penny then arrives and points out she knew she was a Faunes at a glance, something they didn’t, and then vows  help them find her as they split up.

Blake states to Sun that White Fang never needed that much Dust before so she doesn’t think it’s them, so Sun suggests they find out by staking out a huge shipment of Dust. It seems she was wrong, as people in White Fang armor are stealing it, until Roman Torchwick starts mouthing off and she figures they would never work with a human like him and holds him a swordpoint. He claims they have a business agreement and then fires at her, causing a big enough scene for Ruby and Penny to see in the distance.

She’s forced to take cover as Sun applies the Boot-to-the-Head on Roman and then gets surrounded. He promptly busts out the Monkey Staff and beats down on them until Blake takes a shot for  him and goes after Roman. It turns out the dude actually knows a thing or two about fighting and manages to keep them at bay long enough to drop a crate on them and hold Sun at gunpoint, until Ruby show up with Penny.

Penny, unfortunately, distracts Ruby and Roman proves to be savvy by shooting at her that moment, knocking her down and angering the tag-along. Penny then lays on copious amounts of ass-kicking with swords that float behind her like wings and can even fire a laser beam that takes out gun ships. It reminds me of Namine on Dead Fantasy. Roman quickly leaves like a good villain to save his ass.

When Weiss and Yang approaches them, Weiss has apparently had a lot of time to think and decides she doesn’t care about who she was, only that she’ll come to them the next time something this big comes up. The episode ends with Penny being taken away and  Ozpin receiving a message from Qrow about Ruby. Credits roll and season one ends with a stinger involving Roman and three others.

Okay, the episode was perfect and gets a full score, but let’s talk about the entire series. This entire damn thing has been awesome, the fluid animation during battle and the story itself being interesting as several people from different walks of life come together to be monster-killing badasses. Not just that, but it has character development at its finest.

I can honestly say, for something of this nature to be developed by such a small team is nothing short of amazing and they impressed me for it. True, I was annoyed with how short the episodes were occasionally, but they all came together wonderfully and I only regret the next season isn’t out.

Buy the Blue-Ray or DVD when it comes out on the 12th.