Shirow MiwaRWBY

loved the art. the story was well written, but the art, for me was the kicker. recommend purchasing. not sure about the other books due to different artist, but this guy is phenomenal.

I don't really know RWBY, but Miwa Shirow is one of my favorite artists. That said, I think he's a far, far better designer and illustrator than a comic creator. Based on the early fight scenes in the comic, I was afraid his choreography never improved beyond loosely connected shots of pretty people posing while enemies randomly get hurt. But as RWBY progresses, individual moves are presented with more coherency and bother flowing into each other for more impactful maneuvers. Maybe it's Monty Oum's influence, and I'm glad to see Miwa got better since his DOGS days. So the resulting visuals here are generally top notch.Unfortunately, he did not improve at writing and dialogue, to the point where it lessens how interesting those fights are.* Worsened by a clumsy, overly literal translation, everybody just randomly spouts off anime cliches that neither build up the battles nor result in a plot. Tidbits about the setting get unnaturally crammed into the dialogue, but none of it goes anywhere or makes the weapons, abilities, or monsters more interesting. Characters spell out each others' tropes and have dramatic flashbacks, but it's never emotionally relevant to give weight to their efforts or victories. They're more like badly timed info dumps that make it harder to ignore that all fights are pointless random encounters which affect nothing.Buy this book if you dig the art style and character designs, but don't make the mistake of reading the text. It is rare when basic shounen tropes get botched so bad, they un-hype fights to the point of causing nihilism. If there were no bubbles, I might have given it another star.*Edit: I've since been comically informed by a youtube review and watching the trailers that this is mostly just how the source material was written. Apologies to Mr. Miwa; if anything he deserves credit for seriously punching up the atmosphere within the same script. The opening fight scene is a stylized interpretation of a hectic action sequence that would have needed to be at least three times as long to effectively illustrate each move. It's a pretty big accomplishment capturing its striking mood within 13 pages.The dialog remains pretty bad, but there was an attempt to add context and a more consistent tone. It's a worthy effort considering the overall improvement while being tossed back and forth across a language barrier and into a whole other medium. While I don't know how it read in Japanese, the changes point to Miwa having made leaps and bounds in world building, flow of information, and understanding of presentation within comics. This book tracks how far he's come as an artist and writer to give a sincere effort to improve upon an existing work. That earns another star from me.

On the world of Remnant, humanity is besieged by dark creatures known as Grimm. For protection, academies were founded to teach people to become huntsmen and huntresses, the warriors who hunt down and destroy Grimm. RWBY tells the story of Team RWBY as they attend Beacon Academy. Led by 15-year-old Ruby Rose, the team is composed of Weiss Schnee, the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company; Blake Belladonna, a cat-Faunus and former member of the Faunus extremist group White Fang; and Yang Xiao Long, Ruby's older half-sister.This adaptation is... okay. Art captures the action and feel of early RWBY, but the story is disjointed. It opens in the middle of the original Ruby trailer before ending and switching to a day in the life at Beacon, where Ruby ends up in a mock battle against Cardin, a fellow first-year that bullies Ruby's friend Jaune. After the battle, we then go through Weiss's, Blake's, and Yang's trailers for the next six chapters. After that, we then switch back to Beacon to Team RWBY and Team JNPR (Jaune's team) fighting a Grimm that Roman Torchwick (the villain that Ruby tried to stop that got her to skip the next two years of her training to attend Beacon early) accidentally unleashed while he was trying to gain access to the abandoned city of Mountain Glenn.With the focus being on the trailers, this means the majority (six and a half chapters out of twelve) of the book is spent on these events, meaning that Beacon, Team JNPR, Roman Torchwick, and others get little to zero introduction. Why does Roman hate Ruby? You would need to have watched the first episode to know that. Who is this Penny girl that shows up at the beginning of chapter 11 that shoots down Roman's plane? You would need to have watched the last two episodes of season 1 (but seriously, she just shows up for a page, does her thing, and then peace out; she doesn't interact with Ruby or anyone else. She's not mentioned before this or after and she's not even on the fold-out at the front of the book that gives a little run down about the story). Really, I feel they should have started with their adaptation of the trailers and then go into adapting the early episodes of season one or just had focused on an original story set somewhere in the seasons.However, because the manga began serialization during season three, it was able to add little details that weren't learned until after season one, where the book is mostly set (except for the final three chapters which are set between seasons one and two). For example, during the Ruby v. Cardin fight, the opening of Yang's section, and near the end of the RWBY/JNPR v. Grimm fight, there is a small flashback to when Yang and Ruby were attacked by Beowolves and saved by their uncle, but from Ruby's perspective this time. We also get a flashback to child!Weiss and her sister Winter, along with learning that the knight from her trailer was a Grimm that her father used to test her*. We also get a small, nice scene at the end of Blake's final chapter that is set shortly after the end of season one that shows how Blake and Weiss's relationship is changing after the revelations learned previously in the season (though for some reason Blake's cat ears look more like dog ears in this scene).I also enjoyed the original Ruby v. Cardin fight (it was nice seeing that smug bully get taken down again by another of Jaune's friends) and the original RWBY/JNPR fight against the new tentacle Grimm introduced in chapter nine (though I did feel the fight was starting to get stale by the end).Overall, I feel a fan of RWBY would get more out of this adaptation than someone who discovers it on the shelf at the bookstore.*Apparently Rooster Teeth had gone on record during the season three marathon stream that the manga is canon unless the show/ Rooster Teeth contradict it. For example, while the manga was the first revelation that the knight armor Weiss fought was a Grimm, the manga explantion of it being an amalgamation of smaller Grimm (and from Weiss's dialogue later, these were the tentacle Grimm introduced in chapter nine) in a suit of armor because Miles and Kerry confirmed on the commentary for season four that the armor was possessed by a Geist Grimm. However, other stuff like the Ruby v. Cardin fight would be considered canon.

Great addition to the RWBY-verse. Shirow Miwa's art fits perfectly with the universe and I can't stress enough how much of great addition this is to the collections of RWBY fans everywhere. It may not add a lot of story to the show (This was set in Volume 1 and as of writing this review Volume 5 had just concluded and we are in hiatus hell...) it's still worth just learning a little bit more about the lives of the team in between the episodes.

Product arrived on time and in good condition. While the manga doesn’t add much to the over all story of RWBY it does add to the character trailers at the start of season 1 and adds a little extra insight into the characters.

I find it excellent so far, the art is enjoyable and it feels a lot like your experiencing the show in a fun and imaginative way but... one of my pages didn't print correctly during part three with Weiss Schnee's section and it really disappoints me that such a horrible mistake was made since the picture is so terribly messed up it's impossible to read. I was very upset about that but I may have just gotten an unlucky copy... unfortunate but it's still a great read.

The story and art were amazing. Shirow Miwa's art is as good as always and the stories told gave either a deeper look at things shown in the show or untold events. The only issue I had was that my copy of the manga had some bad printed pages. I had 3 pages through out the whole book that were not readable because majority of pages were smeared with printer ink. I got around this by just getting the kindle version though.

I love rwby a lot a just had the get the mangas too

Bought as part of a surprise birthday present for my daughter. Arrived in time for her birthday. She was overjoyed with it although it.

I bought it because it was very cheap, it is definitely worth it for any RWBY fan and is considered canon afaik.

The book is an amazing read, with it including amazing backstories about the four main characters in the anime, and these bring to light a more indepth connection with the personalities of the characters. But whether you buy the hardback or the paperback is just a personal choice, they are both of high quality and are very well written.

Love it