So as I said before I've given up on trying to support rwby directly and I still stand by that. That however doesn't mean that I still can't tune into the fandom every couple of months. I heard of the rumblings of volume 7 but I decided that I wanted to take a look at the volume myself. So I went through all the episodes reviews and reactions I could find and decided to give a baseline reaction to it. For those of you who haven't seen it yet, here's a little recap of the volume with plenty of spoilers.
Story
After getting to atlas our team found iron wood worse for wear after the fall of beacon. In The past couple of months ironwood has broken ties with the rest of the world and has imposed harsh laws on the city of mantle. However he admits this is mostly due to the fact that he wants to focus his forces on trying to restore global communications while at the same time informing people of the threat of Salem. Taking all of this info, the team rwby lies straight to his face and gets a new makeover courtesy of iron daddy.
After that the group spend the next month stalling as we get introduced to the up and coming leaders of Mantle Robyn hill and Jacques schnee who both want to take control from ironwood. However after Jacques gets defeated for his illegal dealings Salem's forces attack once again to bring our "heroes" lies to light.
That moment was the straw that broke the iron back as #bestcharacterinthevolume decides that the only logical plan left is to launch atlas into space to fight another day. And after a gigantic fight breaks out between atlas,rwby and cinder which leaves us with our characters divided with a new winter maidens and a down a relic right before Salem's attack.
Presentation
Since I haven't seen the whole volume yet but I have to say that this season seems to make use of the improved maya animation. Besides a couple of animation errors we've come a long way from poser. And I have to say that on a surface level this volume has some of the most spectacular and dynamic fights post Monty. However I will admit that the overall design changes for most of the characters, suck. People have brought this up before and I kind of agree. Volumes 1-3 were full of urban fantasy but ever since then more fantasy-esque designs have been taking over. I'm not against the new designs in particular but they don't make our characters feel united in design. For Team Rwby in particular the new designs either mess up the ever so popular silhouette test (Ruby,Weiss,Blake), look too busy (Weiss) or completely f over with the color motif of characters like Blake and Yang (who look more like white and brown). The soundtrack is also a great hit but I'll get to my fav song when I get to the cast section.
Cast
And this is pretty much where all my positives end for the volume because it still has a lot of messes. And I need not look further than the cast. The biggest issue of the volume is much the same as every volume since 3: The cast is too large and I like everybody else more than the main characters. I'm partially serious about the latter since I'll be honest in saying that this volume is the best so far in really absorbing us into the environment since most of the main stays in Atlas have been some of the most compelling characters in the series. But I might as well talk about our main characters first.
Jaune,Yang and Blake don't have much except funny quotes and a couple of shippable moments. Oscar has a couple of decent moments as the only voice of reason in the group. Qrow doesn't really do much besides be more passive and healthier, until he makes the literal stupidest decision in this entire series (and that's saying something). Weiss this volume is pretty good though since her interactions with her family reveal how far she's come while adding a new perspective to her character. And Ruby is disappointing as usual with her unexplained distrust of Ironwood and her completely underwhelming reaction to Penny's return.
Overall the main cast don't really do much for the narrative of this volume, further sinking them as completely reactive protags. It also doesn't help that despite Ironwood's completely reasonable and friendly demeanor the team does everything they can to criticize and lie to him for over a month until it's too late. Even though telling Ironwood valuable information that could help fight Salem should be the main goal. Hell I'd argue that not much would change in the entire volume (couple of small edits aside) if team rwby was gone since they kind of make things a little worse. I see what they were trying to do since this is a common arc in anime (the main characters would get to meet up with compelling characters in a new location and help them out). The problem is that Team Rwby don't positively make an impact on Ironwood's forces throughout the volume and didn't try to change their opinion on their decision but I'll keep an open mind until volume 8.
Meanwhile every other character we focus on is great. The Ace Ops are pretty decently fun characters and the Schnee family in general are by far the most compelling family members of the show with Whitley and WIllow's first appearances in a while being hits.Winter continues the trend with having some pretty great and unique scenes with both her sister and Penny that really give her a lot of perspective. She's continually supportive of her sister and I do like how this volume shows her off in a more active roll.
Which leaves me to the Megolaith in the room: Penny. I always thought that Penny could come back into the narrative however I do think that this was the worst way to do it. The commentary says that they didn't have enough time to experiment but I still it was a mistake to not treat Penny's death like a big deal. Unlike Pyrhha, Penny's death is arguably the most impactful and saddest because it led to the fall of Beacon. So it's either we should've had a Penny that was brand new or a Penny that was grappling with her own mortality, both of which could've caused substantial development for both Penny and Ruby. But because Penny gets so little focus and there wasn't enough time she barely gets anything.
Which leads me to my main man Ironwood. I legitimately don't know whether it was accidental or intentional but from this volume alone Ironwood is the best written character on this show (which says way more about the show than Ironwood but still). At first glance we get introduced to a man at his wits end, constantly replaying his biggest failure over and over again in his mind. While trying to balance the safety of his people with the safety of the world. But despite all of the pressure he's getting from both of his allies and enemies he still remains human and even nurturing to a lot of the team. Winter's speech to Weiss really puts into perspective that Ironwood always does what's needed regardless of the cost. But when everything starts falling apart Ironwood's resolve gets emboldened, to the point where he decides that he can only trust himself, and that he will keep going no matter the sacrifices as Salem's schemes still creeped in. Hero explains almost all of his character development in one of the best songs in the series hands down.
Once again I don't know if it was intentional but this volume honestly made Ironwood a better mc than the actual mc's. In one volume Ironwood has made more progress on beating Salem then the main characters have since if his original plan went off the world would have global communication and be on a witch hunt for Salem. He moves things forward and offers solutions while also going through the most dynamic development in the series. After the big betrayal every decision he makes while a bit far fetched and morally reprehensible is also understandable and most of all, grey. So many characters in rwby are either just good or bad but Ironwood has the perfect mix of flawed humanity and complicated morals to actually have a discussion around his decisions instead of just saying that what he's doing is wrong. And after all of team rwby's wins and seeing how flawed Adam became this is a breath of fresh air that I hope to god he doesn't get turned into a full on villain with no merit when volume 8 hits.
Nitpicks
Since most of my problems with the story and cast go hand in hand might as well talk about a couple of nitpicks or things I would have changed in the series moving forward.
Ace Ops vs Team RWBY: okay so everyone has kind of said this before but I'll try to say why this stupid without bringing up how these fresh out of the academy students beat the best huntsmen in Atlas. Other than that there are 3 main issues. 1: This was supposed to be this big betrayal but since the Ace Ops weren't built up that much as characters it comes off as dumb. 2: The animosity between the 2 teams feels way too unearned. Marrow is the only one that doesn't want to fight with Hariett even saying that they would have to kill them which feels kind of ridiculous. 3: Even with their power levels somehow being the same it's kind of ridiculous that Marrow couldn't have just stopped team rwby, have Hariet disarm and capture them and then just talk it all out. Don't get me wrong I love the fight's animation in a vacuum but the way it happens is still dumb. Finally between this and the past couple of volumes I now have to ask how can team rwby have any other minor threats without getting completely nerfed. 5 proved they could fight most of Salem's henchman and 6 proved that the grimm are a joke now so how they hell am I supposed to treat anyone but the maidens and Salem as threats now (even then Maidens are a bit of stretch given how easy they've been stopped by Ruby and Cinder respectively).
Robyn: While she's not a bad character but she feels very unnecessary to the narrative and kind of just goes nowhere. I don't care if she dies or shows up in volume 8 since her struggle feels way too closed off from everybody else's narrative.
Clover's death: No explanation needed on why it didn't need to happen.
Drunk Racist: Okay so I know the Fanus discrimination is a running problem within Rwby but I kind of dislike how close they were to handling it well to only f it up again. I know it's supposed to be a humorous scene but I really think that it would be better if they stuck with the original bit and just left him alone. Because I don't think thrusting one irritable drunk him into a trash can is the best portrayal of dealing with bigotry.
Winter Maiden: Definitely think Winter should've been the maiden since I feel like that would cause more drama. Penny getting the powers to me decrease tension since I know she isn't going to be the type of character that would be on Ironwood's side fully like Winter. I also very much question how that even works given her "predicament" (she's literally got the soul of an old man). While I don't agree with the whole, groomed your entire life to be the maiden I don't think that it would've hurt to have it since it would give her a lot more character moving forward and she feels more necessary to the plot then Penny.
Ironwoods semblance: This one fact here is the literal reason why I worry over Ironwood's character moving forward. Mettle is probably one of the worst semblances since once again it's too hard to keep track of and is just lame. It also brings up the issue of whether or not a semblance can be a personality trait. Not only does Mettle make everything he does less badass and complicated but on top of that I have to question when is his semblance active? Because technically speaking he's giving up on Mantle and fighting Salem to get to Atlas so what constitutes him being strong willed or logical?
Cinder: Unless she's on her own I think that Cinder didn't need to be here. If Volume 8 is as action packed as I hope it is I think Cinder could've been saved there as a third party since it makes Salem a better villain by having her forces get a win finally by retrieving the relic herself.
Poster: Compared to the others volume 8's poster feels very boring and disjointed.
Volume 8 hopes/Epilogue
Since volume 8 has only 2 days worth of time I don't have much hope. All I ask is for the heroes to either lose or at least realize they were wrong on some level so they can improve further. This has been a running issue since 6 but maybe just maybe the bunch of kids should listen to the only adult that's been nothing but nice to them since they still have no idea how to stop Salem. Plus I think this decision would actually make sure we build up some proper interactions with the villains and heroes for once. I also hope this arc will find some way to shorten the cast for both heroes and villains so that way the title of the show can have meaning again while we streamline the narrative. Finally I want this volume to answer some long drawn out mysteries like Cinder's backstory and why we need the four relics in the first place.
Outside of that despite all my complaints I do think that volume 7 much like 6, it's a step in the right direction and it's the best volume we've gotten since 3. The writing is getting better but it's still really sad that this show still isn't reaching the potential it's been building since volume 3. I only hope that volume 8 is better. If you liked this volume then good on you that's your opinion, all I ask is that you respect mine and have a nice day.