We dig into authorial intent, the challenges of animation, and fan work (and entitlement) as we talk about Rooster Teeth’s RWBY and its fans!

Episode Outline

Topics: RWBY (obviously), Anime, Linguistics, the _Tales of_ series, authorial intent, dudebros, expectations and fan work

Fandom Facts

“RWBY (pronounced "ruby") is an American anime-style web series and media franchise created by Monty Oum for Rooster Teeth. The show is set in the fictional world of Remnant, where young people train to become warriors (called "Huntsmen" and "Huntresses") to protect their world from monsters called Grimm. The name RWBY is derived from the four main characters' forenames: Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang, as well as their associated theme colors; Red, White, Black, and Yellow. Following several promotional trailers, the first episode was screened at the Rooster Teeth convention event RTX and then released on their website in July 2013.”

‒ Wikipedia - RWBY

• A fan survey from about a year ago gives us some idea of the demographics (and other interesting tidbits about the fandom) with over 700 respondents:
• 86% of respondents identified as male (and a non-zero percentage as assholes: Attack Helicopter)
• Almost 86% are under age 24 (67% are between 18 and 24); if we do some math, its reasonable to assume that means that folks probably started watching between ages 13-19 (i.e. five years ago)
• Just over half (55%) watch Rooster Teeth’s podcast

First Impressions

Z:

I knew absolutely nothing about RWBY before starting the research for this episode. I’d seen some cosplayers and had no idea who they were until someone told me, but had no idea that it was a web series or “anime” or whatever. Also, had no idea that it was something Rooster Teeth did - and had no idea how big Rooster Teeth is until digging into the research for this episode.

T:

I couldn’t even tell you what my first impressions of RWBY were, not because it was so long ago, but because a lot of life happened between now and then. I was following along pretty closely for a period, though digging into the research, that was probably only the second season. I … definitely was watching for the Anime-ness of it all.

Famous Last Words

What did we have to say about next week’s topic, _Beyblade_ with only our first impressions?

G: How much is focussed on the battle tops in the anime? 50/50? 90/10?

T: Is Beyblade still running? If so, what innovations have there been in battle tops?

Z: Is there a world championship tournament? If so, who is the world champion Beyblader?

Where can you find us?

Pretty much everything we do is something/thenickscast, but specifically...

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• If all else fails, you can email us: nick@thenickscast.com

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