Monday, February 29, 2016

RWBY Volume 3: Review

Yo! YanderePanda here!

As a lot of you RWBY fans know, Volume 3 ended a few weeks ago with it's rather... Tear-jerking, heart-bursting, feelzy, dark-inducing, OTP-ship-breaking, Trollsterteeth-trolling finale. Volume 3 was clearly the best out of all the other volumes so far in terms of quality, transition to a darker story, story, animation, voice acting, etc! So without further ado, here is the review! *opens up the RWBY OST Playlist on Youtube

LET'S GO OUT WITH A YANG!
First off, we gotta summarize the episodes!


Episode Summaries


So Episode 1 was pretty light-hearted, much like the past few volumes. The action, the humor, etc. When I first saw Episode 1, I was pretty impressed by the change in quality of the animation- it was very much improved and you can definitely see the progression as Volumes continued on.

Volume 3 starts with the Vytal Festival Tournament thingie, where huntresses/hunters in training from all four kingdoms in Remnant participate in matches against each other. The first rounds are fought in teams, then doubles, and then singles, until one winner remains. The Vytal Festival stuff was kinda built up from the earlier seasons, as it was mentioned in Volume 1and 2 a few times and here we finally get to see it happen. There's RWBY's first match in the tournament in this episode, Ruby mentioning that she still wondered why Ozpin let her into Beacon two years early (I CALLED THE FORESHADOWING, PEOPLE!), and Weiss notably ignoring a call from her father. (MORE FORESHADOWING!) We also get some more of Cinder, Mercury, and Emerald doing rather suspicious things. Still don't know what they plan to do, but it ain't pretty.

Episode 2 showed our beloved team JNPR out there participating in their first matches... And... My Arkos ship STILL wasn't SAILING! I vowed to make sure those two ended up together by the end of this Volume... And yeah... I mean, Roosterteeth even ACKNOWLEDGED the ship names for JauneXPyrrha and RenXNora! We also got a first glimpse of Sun's full team, Team SSSN. An interesting match, followed by a BlakeXSun moment! Nice, nice! We also got to see Qrow Branwen, Yang and Ruby's Uncle for the first time, sittin in a bar, drinking and watching dem matches and we also saw a giant Atlas Ship heading towards the stadium. And this ultimately built up into Episode 3, where we got to see Weiss's big sis, Winter for the first time.
Bada$$ or Tsundere? 10/10 get this wrong.
So Weiss and Ruby meet up with Winter Schnee, who appears to have a rather high position in the Atlas military, as all of these Atlas Troops and whatnot have been arriving in Vale for added security for the Vytal Festival... Apparently. Moving on, Qrow appears, drunk. He mocks Atlas and their military and then starts a fight with Winter and we get a pretty cool fight going on. Qrow is my new fave male character, just Super Saiyan. He's childish one moment, this bada$$ Uncle the next. Pretty awesomesauce if you ask me. Anyway, fight gets stopped by General Ironwood, leader of Atlas Military, and we get Qrow, Ozpin, Ironwood, and Glynda all together, discussing some shady stuff. This group is pretty much known as "Oz's Inner Circle", cuz ya know. Wizard of Oz. Qrow was revealed to be on a some kinda mission, revealing that the person who infiltrated Beacon a Volume ago (Cinder in the Dance Episode) is responsible for more shady stuff going on. Basically, they're just trying to figure out what to do with threats that are rising and are trying to figure out what to do. Also, there's some issue with all of the Atlas people everywhere, which could spread concern and fear among the population, as Grimm monsters are attracted to negative emotions. Ozpin then mentions that they need to get a "Guardian" to protect the place... Meanwhile, we see Cinder and her posse again, mentioning how the people don't know their identities so they can continue with their plans and that infiltrating the CCT tower in the Dance Episode allows her to rig the matches in the Vytal Festival Tournament. Sketchy. Episode ends with Emerald and Mercury vs. the two people from Team CFVY. This clearly isn't going to be good.

Episode 4, we see CFVY badly destroyed by Emerald and Mercury, simply because of Emerald's illusions. Sigh. Anyway, we get some Winter and Weiss bonding and find out about the Schnee Semblance, and how their's is hereditary, unlike most of them. Along with the Glyphs, they can also summon, and Weiss has trouble with this, but it hints so much more about what she is capable of. As Winter is about to leave, she tells Weiss about dealing with relations with their father, as Winter had problems with him when she joined the military and Weiss yet again rejects a call from him, as Winter told her about either relying on him for support or taking her own path. FORESHADOWING! SUMMONING! DADDY ISSUES! FORESHADOWING!
We get some cute Uncle and Nieces bonding time with Qrow and Yang and Ruby! The girls mention how they were proud of taking down Roman Torchwick, but Qrow is suspicious about how crime and violence in Vale stopped and how it's clearly not over yet. He also tells them that they have a lot to learn before being Huntresses, and this just shows how awesome he is- he's this snarky, childish guy, but also shows how he's a true warrior.

Onward to Episode 5, we get Ruby interacting with Penny, who just won her match! Even though Penny's a robot, Ironwood has her fighting still... Which was interesting... Anyway, we also get Yang and Weiss vs. the two people from Team FNKY: Neon Katt and Flynt Coal. This fight was actually quite interesting, with the opponents' semblances being interesting. Flynt uses a friggin trumpet as a weapon and quadruples himself, while Neon just rollerblades her way through and attacks with glowsticks. They pretty much have the upperhand against Yang and Weiss and Weiss even knocks herself out in an attempt to take down Flynt, but this fails and it's pretty much just Yang soloing against those two. Also, Neon kept taunting Yang, making her angry, which further hindered her, but once Weiss was taken out, Yang's Semblance activated. Now this is where I kinda had issues with the fight. Like usual, Yang takes advantage of her Semblance and her anger to take down her opponent, with her insanely powerful abilities that allowed her to pretty much take down both of them in an instant. Now granted, I get that Yang kinda used a strategy by causing the terrain to get all bumpy which would throw Neon off course, but still. It didn't make much sense to me as how she just won the fight just because of her semblance at that point and ONLY that point. As much as I love Yang, it was an issue I had with her- the Semblance being used as plot armor. The Episode ends with Cinder rigging matches again, after finding out about Penny... It also ends with Ozpin's gang talking about the Guardian and Ozpin states that he has found her... And then Pyrrha appears, about to enter his office.
Do I look like a "showerbag" to you?
Episode 6 is pretty much a concept-explaining episode. Pyrrha meets with Ozpin and his squad and they talk about fairytales, with Ozpin talking about the "Story of the Seasons" about an old hermit being a wizard being visited by four sisters that were kind to him. In return for their kindness, he granted them powers that represented the Four Seasons, allowing them to spread their gifts throughout Remnant. Turns out the story was true and the powers exist in the Four Maidens, wielding a power that is stronger than Dust and Semblances. Personally, I think Ozpin is the Wizard from the story, as he mentioned in Volume 1 to Ruby that he "made more mistakes than anyone else" and since he's based off the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz, it made sense to me. Anyway, they mention that the powers are passed down to people as they die. Maidens have existed forever and powers transfer to a new host once they pass on and they pass onto the last person the Maiden thinks of before death. If they're male, too old, etc, it's given to someone at random. Maiden's existence used to be common knowledge, but people tried to hunt them down and that's why it's a secret these days. Ozpin's Squad is pretty much there to protect the power and keep it a secret and there's a great urgency to get the next Maiden. The previous Fall Maiden, Amber was attacked a while ago and part of her powers were stolen and she's now in a comatose state, held inside Beacon's vault. And there's fear regarding the rest of Amber's power and whether or not the rest of it will go to the person who stole it in the first place. Basically, situations are tough and consequences are unknown. They want Pyrrha to be the next Fall Maiden and the Guardian, by transferring Amber's power to Pyrrha through Atlesian Technology, but they don't know what will happen since the process is not natural. Ozpin gives Pyrrha a choice and she has until the end of the tournament to decide.
Later on, we see the finalists for the Singles Matches. First match is Yang vs. Mercury. As predicted, Yang wins, despite being weak to kick-based combat, but again, the Semblance grants her the win. Though I've seen some people complain about this, I think Mercury purposely threw the match in order to do what he did next. He and Emerald made it look like he attacked Yang after the match, prompting Yang to strike him and break his leg, but the audience only saw what Yang did, thus getting Yang into big trouble with the security and her peers. Episode ends here.
More Jessica voice acting... *rolls eyes
Episode 7 is basically a filler episode and when things start getting dark. Like forreal. It basically explains Cinder's activities and it starts with her speaking to someone and wishing to be strong and feared, but it's not shown who she's talking to. It also shows how Cinder was able to get Emerald on her side, as she was a jewel thief at the time who could use Illusions. Then they get Mercury on their side, after he kills his own father, who was an assassin with some booze problem. After getting Torchwick, Cinder then tries to get Adam and the White Fang to join her, who denies her offer at first, refusing to work for a human cause. Sometime after, Cinder and her posse go attack Amber and she is able to steal some of her powers using some spider-like thing and a glove. Fortunately, Qrow appears and rescues Amber, and Cinder is only able to get a fraction of the Maiden's powers. Emerald is able to blur their faces and they escape. Cinder returns to the White Fang's area and murders a decent amount of Adam's men and bribes him to join her with money and whatnot and he agrees. Episode then flashes towards Present Day, where Mercury still is "injured" with a "broken leg" and Cinder and the crew are disguised as paramedics and take him away, while Yang is surrounded by Atlas troops. And it's shown that Merc has robotic legs and easily repairs them and they move on with their plan. Meanwhile, Yang's attack is shown everywhere on the news and the general public is angered, blaming Ozpin and Beacon, and the negativity arouses the Grimm outside of Vale.


Oh boy, and Episode 9 isn't exactly a picnic either. Yang is disqualified from the tournament and people in general don't believe Yang when she states that she's innocent. Ruby and Weiss believe her, but Blake is a bit skeptic, because of her and Adam in the past and how he gradually became a monster due to similar events, but eventually believes her. Bumblebee! Wooh! Yang decides to rest up in her room and the rest of RWBY counts on Pyrrha to win the next match for Beacon and although our favorite redhead agrees to this, she clearly is troubled deep down because of the Maiden Stuff. Ruby goes to watch the other matches and Weiss and Blake go out for tea. Ren and Nora try to prep up Pyrrha, but Jaune is aware that Pyrrha is upset over something . I SMELLED ARKOS HERE.
Meanwhile, Qrow appears beside Yang and basically tells her to move on and mishaps happen. Then a discussion happens about Yang's mother, as she mentions seeing her, when she saved her from Neo in Volume 2. Qrow turns out to be in contact with Raven for a while and passes on a message from her, stating that Raven saved Yang once, but will not do so the next time. He states that she's dangerous and has a worldview that he doesn't agree with, but offers to help her find her.
And then we are back to Pyrrha's end. She's clearly still down about her fate and the decision she makes and Jaune comes to comfort her, as she was the one who had faith in him from the start and he will do the same for her. THEN WE GET SOME AWESOME ARKOS SHIP MOMENT!
JUST KISS ALREADY.
Unfortunately, Pyrrha still has to choose between what she is destined to do and what she wants to do. She doesn't know what the Maiden's power would do to her, she wants to continue to help protect the world, but she doesn't know what it will cost her. It's very understandable.
In the last parts of the episode, Ruby runs into Velvet, who is notably taking pictures with her special camera that was seen in Volume 2. Heh... Heh... Anyway, she mentions how Coco had to deal with weird hallucinations and this arouses Ruby's suspicions. Ruby then goes to see the next match and she spots Emerald in the audience, which is very suspicious, since it was made clear to everyone that Cinder's group left to tend to Mercury and she leaves the stands and runs into Merc himself, who is in perfect condition. He is about to attack and she doesn't have her weapon with her, sadly. At that moment, Penny and Pyrrha are about to fight and Mercury points out that Pyrrha's polarity would be destructive against Penny's robotic state. SCREW YOU, CINDER! 

Episode 9 is quite the rollercoaster. Penny v. Pyrrha starts and the two are pretty evenly matched. The fight was pretty enjoyable to watch... Well, until the Illusion part -_- Anyway, we also have Mercury attacking Ruby at the same time, and since Ruby doesn't have her scythe and since Mercury destroyed her scroll, she can't call for help, so she can only try to run away. Back at the Arena, Penny is attacking Pyrrha and she uses her Polarity on the defensive. Emerald makes it look like Penny has bazillion swords that are about to hit Pyrrha and she acts more on the defensive, using a very powerful pulse of magnetic force, deflecting the swords and somehow having Penny's wires latch onto herself and cut straight through her, cutting herself into various parts, showing that she's a robot, much to Pyrrha's horror, as she is now gone. Everyone is shocked, Ozpin, audience, etc. Ruby arrives at this time and sees Penny destroyed... :( Cinder hijacks the broadcast, and blames all the stuff that happened from Yang's match to this one on the headmasters and also mentions how corrupt the schools are and that Atlas and Vale are hostile, bringing up more nonsense about how the kingdoms are at the brink of war and the people don't know about this. People respond negatively to this and the emotion draws all the Grimm in and giant Grimm are attacking the city and destroying everything. Ozpin's crew heads out to defend the place, while even more Grimm overwhelm the area. Meanwhile, Torchwick is freed and Adam and the White Fang appear, attacking Beacon.

Episode 10 continues the suspense. RWBY is split up, with Weiss and Blake heading out from the cafe thingy and Yang is still in her room. White Fang are releasing Grimm into the school and the two decide to head back to Beacon to help Yang, getting their weapons from their rocket lockers. (was pretty cool.) Ruby and Pyrrha are still in a state of shock after Penny's death and you can see Pyrrha's mental stability decreasing to the extremes, as she's frozen with the trauma. A giant Nevermore Grimm is up above, about to get into the Arena and breaks through the barriers to attack Pyrrha. Fortunately, Ruby, rest of JNPR, and the other teams appear to take down the Nevermore. Everyone decides to work together to take down the Grimm and stop the madness, while civilians are evacuating. Ironwood is busy fending off the place with his troops and he meets with the students, who decide to stay to defend the area. Torchwick is being a duncehead and messes with the Atlas Robots to turn them against the good guys, on this giant Atlas Ariship. Ruby sees this and goes all Chuck Norris, using a rocket locker to throw herself onto the ship to take down Torchwick. Weiss and Blake are still at Beacon, taking down White Fang forces, Grimm, and Atlas Robots. Other students join them and Blake splits off from the group to take down more people. Blake finds herself reunited with Adam, who is sadistically destroying everything. I CALLED IT. I TELL YOU. I CALLED IT. Cinder is watching the world burn as Mercury is filming everything and broadcasting it. An enormous Grimm Dragon Behemoth thing erupts from a mountain and heads towards the city. Ozpin is alone at the end of the episode, and appears outside, where Pyrrha is and she leaves JNPR to join him and then Cinder is there in the background... S***
Ah yes, the gamechanging episode for Ruby.
With Penny's death, this invasion of the city, etc, Ruby is clearly traumatized and we see her as more of a warrior than ever before. She's no longer that cute child with the scythe. She means business now. In Episode 11, she's busy fighting both Neo and Torchwick on the giant airship. Which was good, considering the fact that Ruby never got any proper fights against special enemies until now and I have been waiting for this Ruby development since Volume 1! I CALLED IT AGAIN! RUBY DEVELOPMENT! She puts up a good fight against them, but technically there aren't any winners to this fight. Torchwick states that he cannot stop what's happening, so he just joins the winning side of the conflict- aka Cinder's group.  Ruby is able to send Neo flying off into the wind by LITERALLY THROWING HER OFF the ship. That part kinda suprised me, because she did it so quickly and ruthlessly, and she didn't seem like that 15 year old child.  Then Roman gets eaten by a Griffon Grimm, after trying to beat up Ruby. She quickly grabs onto Crescent Rose to jump off the ship and land safely by using her scythe as a "pogo-stick". 
At the Battle of Beacon, the students are clearly getting weakened by the excessive inflow of enemies. At this point, Coco tells Velvet to use her weapon- the camera that we've been seeing multiple times. EVERYONE was busy trying to figure out what the heck this camera does and NOW we know! Velvet is able to create light copies of the weapons she's taken pictures of and use them against her enemies! Replicating the exact fighting styles of those replicated! And she is able to take down these giant robot Paladin things! She's eventually overwhelmed, but Weiss saves the day by being able to summon an arm of a suit of armor wielding a sword, to take down the last Paladin! This scene gave me the chills with the "I May Fall" playing in the background! HYPE!
We see Glynda and Qrow taking down enemies as well and Ironwood joins them, revealing his half-cybernetic body. And WE SEE QROW'S SCYTHE! WOOOOH!!!! I LOVE YOU QROW!

We finally see Blake and Adam again and he calls her creepy things like "my darling" and "my love"... And idk, I thought it was kinda disturbing, because it made him sound like an abusive molester. I mean you can tell that he was abusive, by the way Blake was so afraid of him. He calls her a coward and taunts her about running away, attacking a fallen student, prompting Blake to jump out to fight him, but is easily overwhelmed. THIS GUY IS OP! He promises to make her suffer for leaving him and the White Fang by destroying everything she loves, after seeing Yang come out, calling for Blake, as she was seen earlier trying to find her. Adam stabs Blake in the lower abdomen area- a not vital part of the body, but still enough to anger Yang. Yang is enraged and goes HAM, clearly the angriest we've ever seen her. Adam retaliates and cuts Yang's right arm off and before he can finish her, Blake shields her. Adam slices Blake's head off, but then it's shown that it's one of Blake's clones, and she manages to get her and Yang out to safety. Honestly, I was at the edge of my bed when I saw this happen. I was like "WHAT THE HECK!" I was pretty shocked and I almost lost it when Blake's head got cut off and I was in denial, and was so relieved to see that it was just a clone. Meanwhile, Jaune, Pyrrha, and Ozpin go down to the vault, where Oz will transfer Amber's powers to Pyrrha, but it fails when Cinder appears, shooting an arrow towards Amber, killing her and absorbing the rest of the power. Oz tells Jaune and Pyrrha to run while he plans on fighting her and we see Cinder showing hatred towards Oz, saying "She was right about you all along"... And uh... It doesn't get much lighter from there.

So we get like a thirty second fight between Oz and Cinder in the beginning of the finale. It's pretty cool, all DBZ and whatnot... And then the fight just kinda stops. Scene shifts to where the students are. Thankfully Oobleck and Port are still alive! And I knew they would be! Ruby is reunited with Weiss and the others, but Pyrhha (:() and Jaune are still gone! Our poor heroine then sees Nora and Ren exhausted, and then Yang lying on the ground next to Blake, with her arm gone. It's up to Ruby and Weiss to save the day! The giant dragon Grimm thingie has become a threat and even the White Fang and the other enemies retreated. However, Cinder is still around. 
WE GET ARKOS INTO THE NEXT SCENE. They see Cinder arrive at the top of Beacon Tower, with Ozpin MIA. And since even Ozpin is gone, Pyrrha pretty much has no choice but to be the last resort to try to stop Cinder, since she WAS the best candidate for the Fall Maiden powers. Our poor Jaune realizes what's going on and tries to convince Pyrrha not to go fight Cinder, but...
AHHHHH! THE SHIP HAS SAILED! But not for long. S/O to Trollsterteeth
Then our favorite redhead shoves Jaune into that rocket locker thing and sends him away. Quite touching, isn't it? Reminds y'all of Volume 1 when Cardin shoved Jaune into the rocket locker and launched him away. Jaune tearfully tries to call Ruby and Weiss to go after Pyrrha... Because it's pretty clear at this point how the fight will end...
Cinder somehow is able to communicate with the Grimm Dragon Behemoth thing and at that point, Pyrrha arrives at the Tower to fight her. The fight is actually quite enjoyable to watch, being... Pyrrha's last fight and all. Pyrrha clearly puts up a good fight, I mean for someone fighting the Fall Maiden, I thought it was a close fight. Cinder is able to overpower her however, and manages to shoot an arrow into her heel. Great Achilles reference there, since Pyrrha is based off that hero with the weakness in the heel. Ruby at that time, is able to get on top of the tower, thanks to Weiss's glyphs! Reference to Volume 1 against the Nevermore! Before she gets up there, Pyrrha is clearly a goner. She notably asks Cinder "Do you believe in Destiny?"... It was a pretty touching and emotional scene tbh. I probably would've gotten emotional, if I hadn't seen the spoilers earlier from Facebook Comments and the RWBY Spoilers Thread on the Wikia. After that, Cinder fires an arrow into her heart, and Ruby comes up at this point. Pyrrha disintegrates into ashes... And our poor Ruby, who had to deal with Penny dying, Vale being attacked by Grimm and other monsters, her friends being injured, Yang being dismembered, etc, now has to deal with THIS. She goes to her breaking point and screams, allowing some binding white light to come from her eyes, which envelopes the whole area, causing Cinder to lose her $@#!.


The scene just kinda fades from there, and Qrow's voice is heard in the background. Ruby wakes up in her bed back at home, sometime later. Her father, Tai Yang is seen in person for the first time (Technically). The CCT is gone, so all communications with the outside world are gone and Oz is still MIA. Tai Yang reveals that Ruby was able to freeze the dragon, but it's still alive and has attracted waves of Grimm, so the place is inhabitable. At that moment, Qrow comes in and asks to speak with Ruby alone... And when Tai Yang reluctantly agrees, he kinda gives Qrow this weird side-eye.
Seriously, what has been going on between these two??? They're teammates and in-laws!
Idk, it was quite a cold look honestly. Maybe Tai is just disapproving of what Qrow is about to tell Ruby. And ENOUGH of the theories where Qrow is Ruby's actual father! Sheesh! Qrow tells Ruby that she's special and has the silver eyes from her mother. It's very rare and it's said in legends that the Grimm feared the silver-eyed warriors and that they were destined to lead. I KNEW SOMETHING WAS UP! Qrow also pointed out that Ozpin mentioned the Silver Eyes when he first met Ruby. And THAT'S WHY HE LET HER INTO BEACON TWO YEARS EARLY! SILVER EYES! However, there's obviously a lot more to it. He mentions that he's been investigating the enemy under Oz's orders, but with Oz MIA, he has to continue Oz's work. He sneakily mentions that his findings led him to the Haven kingdom, before leaving. 
Ruby visits Yang in another room... Which is strange. Because in Ruby's room, there were two beds- a red one and a yellow one, with Ruby in the red one. I assumed that Yang's bed was the yellow, so it clearly seemed like Yang was staying in a spare bedroom or something. As if she wanted to be away from Ruby.
You can tell the poor girl is broken, after everything that happened.
After the loss of her arm, Pyrrha, Penny, and the school, Yang's condition is understandable. You can tell that she's clearly depressed and down. She mentions to Ruby that Weiss left for Atlas, because her father came to bring her back. I KNEW HER FATHER WOULD HAVE SOME ROLE AT SOME POINT! And that Blake ran away after the battle. She's clearly very upset about her partner leaving like that without a word and claims she doesn't care, that bad things happen, and that she wants to be left alone. She even ignores our poor, sweet Ruby when she says she loves her. This honestly was one of the most heartbreaking parts of the episode. Seeing Yang broken like this bites. She's getting the Korra treatment. She's going to change, and finally get the development her character needs. Not gonna lie, I like this change to Yang's character. I hope she can understand from this point on, that she has to be more careful about her fights. She always just went in and relied on her Semblance for easy wins, and now... She lost an arm. Perhaps Yang will be more careful and strategic once she starts fighting again- which will definitely happen. Robotic arms are possible, and she could be even more powerful with one! I want to see the characters at their breaking point, to see what they will do, how they will develop and move on, etc. First it was the disqualification, and now this. 
And for all of you hating on Blake because she ran away, it's not like she had any other choice! Blake HAS NOBODY! Weiss has her father and Winter. Yang and Ruby have Qrow and their father. BLAKE DOESN'T HAVE ANYONE! Her school is gone and she's not part of the White Fang. All she can do is run away for now. Adam promised to her that she would destroy everything she loved. So far he cut off Yang's arm, and Blake blames herself for it. If she stuck around them anymore, there would be even more severe consequences. Honestly, I think Blake has it the worst as of now. 

Moving on, some time passes and it's winter. Ruby steps out of her house to join team JNR and the four go to Haven, as Qrow hinted that place. We see Yang still bed-ridden, Weiss on some plane with her father, and Blake out on the rooftops of Vale alone. Ruby stops by her mother's grave on the way.

Meanwhile, we see some sort of Underworld area, as the lady who narrated the first episode appears once again, talking about heroes and destroying mankind by dividing and depriving them of hope. She invites the MIA Ozpin to send his huntresses and huntsmen and Guardians and his "Simple Soul" and she promises to destroy them all. 
Kinda terrifying if you ask me. Your future mother-in-law
So her name is Salem, most likely after the Salem Witch Trials. In the Post-Credits Scene, Qrow is there, holding onto Ozpin's Cane, watching over team JRRN, transforming into a crow and flying towards them. MAYBE THAT'S HOW QROW KNEW ABOUT OZPIN MEETING RUBY WITH THE SILVER EYES COMMENT. HE WAS THERE ALL ALONG. Ozpin being the Wizard is still a theory in my book and I still believe it is true. He and Salem have existed since the beginning of mankind and have engaged in a never-ending battle between Grimm and humans. I'm still curious about the silver-eyes thing. I wonder what the full extent of their powers are and what exactly happened to Summer Rose. And it's pretty cool how the narrator turned out to be the antagonist.

Thoughts

We now know who Cinder's Boss is. Though I thought it would be Raven Branwen at first. Part of me thinks Raven will be a villain eventually and Yang will have to deal with her, since Qrow called her "dangerous".  Was kinda disappointed to not hear much about her this Volume, but at least Yang got her development. Pyrrha is definitely gone now, since it was confirmed that she was intended to die from the start, given her namesake. I'm just worried about the rest of the protagonists. The White Fang still exists and RWBY is now split up officially. When's the next time they reunite? I hope they don't pull a Naruto and decide not to reunite them until like 500 chapters later. If Blake ends up at Mistral or something, we'd have one member of RWBY in each kingdom. Since JRRN is now in Haven, I wonder what they'd find. Sun and Neptune's school is there, and perhaps there are secrets with their headmaster. Maybe we will find out more about Ozpin, the Silver Eye thing, Salem, etc. And the White Fang is still and issue. Some point, Blake better get a rematch with him and DESTROY HIM FOR HURTING HER LOVER! 
Anyway, I'm psyched about Jaune and Ruby's growth. Maybe we will see Jaune's Semblance in Volume 4, and have it be meaningful. Ruby will continue to grow and mature, definitely and maybe we will find out if Summer Rose truly was the Summer Maiden or not. We don't know, and there wasn't anything said against it YET, so. We could also find out more about the other Maidens. There's just so much more questions that need to be answered now!

                                                  Review

Overall, Volume 3 was the best volume of the series so far. It's been progressively getting better and better. I like how it started off goofy, light-hearted and whatnot and then transitioned into a darker series during the last half of Volume 3! I'm loving the growing character development with all the characters, the multiple concepts that have been added with new enemies, powers, etc! I used to think RWBY was kinda stereotypical Shounen with schools for fighting, teams, evil monsters, etc! But now, there's just so much more to it and I love how it's falling together! The voice acting, animation, soundtrack, and fight scenes were impressive as well! It's a huge improvement in terms of plot buildup too!
However, I still have some issues. For example, we still don't know Cinder's true motives. She's just a regular, cunning, sadistic villain with no true background just yet, and she's kinda one-dimensional as a villain in general. Some of the fights were a tad sub-par earlier on, in the tournament and I would've loved to see more Ozpin v. Cinder. I would definitely give this season a 9/10. It's not perfect, but it's definitely an improvement!

Smell ya later, guys!
-YanderePanda