RWBY/Recap/Trailers/P4 Yellow Trailer

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
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Scathing eyes ask that we be symmetrical, one sided and easily processed. Yet every misshapen spark's unseen beauty is greater than its would be judgement.

A girl in brown and yellow rides a motorcycle through what looks to be an industrial neighborhood. She parks and enters a club, her golden hair a beacon of light. As music plays and the clubgoers dance, she makes her way to the bar and orders a drink. She banters a bit with the owner -- a man called "Junior" -- when he questions her age, then grabs him by the balls and demands information on a person displayed on a handheld device she holds up.

As he denies any knowledge of the person in the picture a collection of nattily-dressed Mooks run up to his defense. "Blondie" releases him and offers to "kiss and make up". Junior takes her up on it, and she punches him hard enough to send him flying to the other side of the club. As the clubgoers flee, the girl's heavy golden bracelets suddenly transform into massive gauntlets filled with what appear to be shotgun shells. Junior's minions attack.

Using the shots from her gauntlets to both augment her punches and propel her across the dance floor, "Blondie" handily deals with them, only to find herself facing twin girls in Elegant Gothic Lolita dress who address each other as "Melanie" and "Miltia". "Blondie" reloads and then launches herself at them.

Melanie and Miltia are much more capable fighters than Junior's minions were, and their fighting styles give "Blondie" some difficulty. But she manages to take first Miltia and then Melanie out, the latter with an impressive spinning back-kick clothesline. However, they were just the warm-up for the final act -- as they stagger off to lick their wounds, Junior reappears, carrying what appears to be a bazooka. It's a bazooka that fires multiple shells at once and transforms into a massive club. And Junior's no slouch with it, getting several hits in on "Blondie" with it and sending her tumbling through what remains of the club's decor.

But Blondie's got her second wind, getting what looks like a power-up and hurtling back at him to give as good as she got -- and more. Her lavender eyes have turned red and her hair seems to be on fire as she batters Junior, who's thrown backwards with the remains of his bazooka-bat in one hand -- and a few strands of familiar-looking blonde hair in the other.

Apparently Nobody Touches the Hair, because the sight of him with those strands in his grasp pushes "Blondie" over the edge. She literally explodes in flame and hurls herself at Junior to deliver a punch that sends him flying through a window and out into the street, where he lands in a crumpled heap at the feet of a familiar-looking girl in red and black. She looks up as "Blondie" follows out into the street and says, "Yang? Is that you?"

"Oh! Hey, sis."

"What are you doing here?"

For a moment we see the pair in the street under a shattered moon. Yang sighs, then there's a Hard Cut to black.

"It's a long story."

Tropes used in RWBY/Recap/Trailers/P4 Yellow Trailer include:
  • Bar Brawl: Pretty much the majority of the trailer.
  • Berserk Button: We get the first appearance of Yang's berserk button when Junior comes away from a melee exchange with a handful of blonde hairs, and Yang explodes. Literally.
  • The Cameo: Ruby appears in the last few seconds of the trailer.
  • Characterization Marches On: Compare Yang from the trailer with Yang from early V4.
  • Circling Birdies: A stunned Junior is momentarily circled by a ring of hearts. It even gets mentioned in Yang's Image Song, "I Burn":

Watch the little hearts as they scrape you off the floor.

  • Combat Stilettos: Melanie and Miltia Malachite wear high-heeled ankle boots. Melanie's boots have blades attached to them, making them very literally for combat.
  • Cowgirl: Although on close examination her clothing isn't really a cowgirl outfit, it still manages to give off an Old West vibe.
  • Destination Defenestration: Junior gets punched through a window and out of the club at the end.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Roman Torchwick can be seen concluding some business with Junior as Yang enters the club. It's not until V2 we discover that this business was hiring the Mooks he was leading in V1E1.
  • Elegant Gothic Lolita: Miltia and Melanie's outfits.
  • Epigraph: Quoted above.
  • Foreshadowing: If you look at it the right way, the epigraph at the start of the trailer hints strongly at Yang losing her arm at the end of V3.
  • Groin Attack: Yang inflicts one on Junior while pressing him for information.
  • Guns Do Not Work That Way: Averted by Junior: using it as a bludgeon is a great way to break your rocket launcher.
  • I Have Several Names: Or so Yang claims to Junior. More than ten years later we've yet to hear any except "Yang Xiao Long".
  • Image Song: Almost averted. Three-quarters of the soundtrack of this trailer is made up of remixes of the previous three trailers' distinctive songs. It's only at the end that we get a single verse and chorus of Yang's Image Song, "I Burn". In order to hear it it in its entirety, you have to buy the soundtrack CD (or track down a YouTube video).
  • Incendiary Exponent: Yang's shots explode in small fireballs, and Yang herself explodes into flame when she gets sufficiently pissed off.
  • It's a Long Story: Yang's final line in the trailer, when Ruby asks her what she's doing at Junior's bar.
  • Jerkass: Yang probably could have walked out of Junior's bar after apologizing for the Groin Attack and not had any trouble. But she chose to escalate matters unnecessarily, apparently just for kicks.
  • Kick Chick: Melanie, whose combat style is based around the blades attached to her Combat Stilettos.
  • Low-Angle Shot/Dutch Angle: The shot of Yang walking from her motorcycle to the club.
  • Mooks: Junior's minions.
  • Nobody Touches the Hair: Yang's berserk button, introduced here.
  • Punched Across the Room: Everyone Yang hits, basically. And Junior gets punched completely out of the club at the end.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: When Yang's lavender eyes turn red, take cover!
  • The Reveal: We learn that Yang and Ruby are sisters in the very last moments of the trailer.
  • Schmuck Bait: Yang's offer to Junior to "kiss and make up".
  • Spent Shells Shower: When Yang reloads Ember Celica.
  • Stealth Pun: "It's a (Yang Xiao) long story."
  • Umbrella Drink: Yang explicitly asks for "one of those little umbrellas" when she orders a Strawberry Sunrise at Junior's club.
  • Unorthodox Reload: As seen when Melanie and Miltia come out to fight Yang.