RWBY

"Red like roses fills my dreams and brings me to the place you rest

White is cold and always yearning, burdened by the royal test

Black the beast descends from shadows

Yellow beauty burns gold"

In the world of Vytal, humanity clings to civilization in the face of the creatures of Grimm, a veritable army of monsters and supernatural forces. Only the power of a substance known only as "Dust" allowed humanity to win a battle for its survival against the Grimm, and even now its creatures are only barely held at bay.

Responsible for defending human civilization from the forces of darkness are the Hunters and Huntresses, highly skilled individuals with unique weapons and a mastery of the use of Dust. These guardians are trained in special institutions, such as Beacon Academy in the nation of Vale.

RWBY follows the story of four extraordinary girls and their friends as they make their way through their training at Beacon, and come face-to-face with not only the creatures of Grimm, but all-too-human threats to the survival of humanity in this dangerous world.

An innovative Web Animation series by Monty Oum of Rooster Teeth, it was heralded months in advance by a series of carefully doled-out trailers ("Red", "White", "Black" and "Yellow"), which built up a remarkable level of excitement and speculation before its premiere in July 2013.

As of Fall 2013, it has completed sixteen episodes -- the first half-season of a projected ten seasons.

RWBY includes examples of the following tropes:
(List compiled at the end of Volume One of Season One, and is subject to update/revision.)


 * Absurdly Sharp Blade: Ruby's scythe, which can effortlessly slice werewolves in half and is capable of decapitating giant monsters.
 * Alien Sky: Vytal is definitely not Earth, not with two moons in the sky (one of which is shattered).
 * Alternate Universe: No argument. Two moons in the sky, active magic with technology, humanity beseiged by hordes of monsters...
 * Ancestral Weapon: Jaune's sword and shield, which belonged to his grandfather, a great hero.
 * Artsy Moon: If you consider being broken into a few dozen pieces "artsy".
 * Ascended Fangirl: Ruby, who geeks out over hunters and huntresses, manages to get into Beacon Academy years before she normally would be old enough, on the basis of both skill and overwhelming enthusiasm.
 * Applied Phlebotinum: Dust, which seems to be a fuel for magic or magic-like effects.  Plus, whatever it is that makes all the weapons do what they do.
 * Badass Adorable: All the girls on Team RWBY, but especially Ruby Rose.  Also Nora Valkyrie.
 * Battle Aura: Demonstrated by Yang in her trailer as part of her fire powers, but also seems to be a visible manifestation of "aura" or a "semblance" in use.
 * Beast Folk: The Faunus, who are treated as second-class citizens.
 * Berserk Button: Never, ever, touch Yang's hair.
 * Beware the Silly Ones: Nora.  If only because she has a Grenade Launcher.
 * Bizarre and Improbable Ballistics: Blake's weapons seem to demonstrate this in the "Black" trailer.
 * Breaking the Fourth Wall: During the fight in the forest in "Players and Pieces" (S1 Ep8), Nora winks at and blows a kiss to the camera.
 * Call a Rabbit A Smeerp: A mix of averted and expressed.  The obvious werewolves Ruby fights in the "Red" trailer are called beowolves, but many of the other creatures of the Grimm are original and have original names.
 * Cheaters Never Prosper: Appears to be subverted with.
 * Cyborg:, maybe.  If she's not a Robot Girl.
 * Drop the Hammer: Nora's weapon, which is also a Grenade Launcher.  With hearts on it.
 * Fantastic Racism: Towards the Faunus.
 * Fantasy World Map: Glimpsed (at least partially) several times so far during the first season.  Played with, in that according to IMDB's trivia page for RWBY, Monty Oum squirted ketchup into a paper napkin, wadded it up, and then unfolded it to determine the basic landmasses of the world.
 * Genki Girl: Ruby.
 * Grenade Launcher: Nora's weapon is one of these, when it isn't a warhammer.  With hearts on it.
 * Guns Do Not Work That Way: Certainly not as part of transforming gadgets which are melee weapons half the time.
 * Averted in the "Yellow" trailer, by Junior: using it as a bludgeon is a great way to break your rocket launcher.
 * Hair of Gold: Yang.
 * Important Hair Accessory Blake's bow.
 * Kill It With Fire: Yang.
 * Kill It With Ice: Weiss incorporates this in her style.
 * Legacy Hero: What Jaune feels he has to be.
 * Machinima
 * Meaningful Name: It appears that nearly everyone in the cast has a name that makes some kind of reference to fairy tales or fantasy literature.
 * Mix and Match Weapon/Impossibly Cool Weapon: Everybody's got one!  Most combine a firearm of some sort with a melee weapon.
 * Son Goku goes one better: his weapon is a staff that splits into a pair of nunchaku, which themselves are made out of pairs of flintlock pistols.
 * Blake's Gambol Shroud can be a used as one or two blades for melee, as a kusarigama/sick-and-chain, and as a gunblade.
 * Jaune seems to avert this; his sword doesn't appear to become anything else, even if it is an Ancestral Weapon.
 * Mooks: Torchwick has a small crew of them, and he's not impressed by their quality.
 * Junior's minions in the "Yellow" trailer.
 * Motor Mouth: Ruby, when she gets excited.
 * Named Weapons: Most if not all of the multiform weapons have names:
 * Ruby named her scythe Crescent Rose.
 * Weiss' sword is Myrtenaster.
 * Blake's gunblade/kusarigama is called Gambol Shroud.
 * Yang's "Dual Ranged Shot Gauntlets" are called Ember Celica.
 * Personality Powers: The Beacon students all appear to have gifts or talents, and most of the ones we've seen seem to be reflective of their owners' personalities:  Ruby's speed, Yang's fire, and Pyrrha's magnetism, for example.
 * Robot Girl:, maybe.  If she's not a Cyborg.
 * Rule of Cool: Appears to be a law of nature.
 * Shields Are Useless: Averted by Jaune, whose shield seems pretty awesome even if he doesn't quite realize it.
 * Shout Out: Built on them, and many are rolled into Meaningful Names.  Where can we start?
 * The fairy tale references in and around the girls of Team RWBY.
 * The Wizard of Oz references in Professor Ozpin and Glynda Goodwitch.
 * Jaune Arc and his tormentor Cardin Winchester.
 * Son Goku
 * Roman Torchwick, whose name has echoes of "roman candle", and who looks like he just stepped out of A Clockwork Orange.
 * The White Fang.
 * might be a reference to both Pinocchio and Blaz Blue, and possibly to Inspector Gadget.
 * Professor Oobleck may reference Dr. Seuss' Bartholomew and the Oobleck.
 * The Grimm are an obvious play on the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales.
 * Theme Naming: All over the place.
 * The girls of Team RWBY all have names which are or reference colors. ("Ruby Rose" is obvious; "Weiss Schnee"="Snow White"; "Blake" is an old English word for "black"; "Yang Xiao Long" is Chinese for "Little Dragon of the Sun".)
 * Trailers: Starting November 5, 2012, Rooster Teeth released four trailers, spaced four to six weeks apart, which each featured one of the four main characters. Combining beautiful animation, non-stop action, Foreshadowing and awesome music, they were responsible for a remarkable level of anticipation and speculation before the series' premiere in July 2013.
 * Wacky Girl: Nora.
 * Web Animation
 * Weird Moon: There are two moons in the sky, and one of them is shattered.
 * Well Intentioned Extremist: The modern incarnation of the White Fang, but there are hints that they are being manipulated for some sinister purpose.
 * Western Terrorists: The current version of the White Fang is somewhere between Type VII and Type VIII.  It started out as a non-violent Civil Rights Movement for Faunus, but there was a change in leadership about five years before the start of the series, and their methods turned violent.  There are hints that they are being manipulated by someone else for more sinister purposes.
 * Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: What the current version of White Fang thinks of itself, of course.