RWBY V7 Chapter 1 Review + Intro Analysis Script

WARNING: If you have not seen Chapter 1 of Volume 7 yet, do not read this! It is rife with spoilers!

INTRO/OVERALL THOUGHTS:

While not the best premiere RWBY has had thus far, “The Greatest Kingdom” is a great setup for the issues within Mantle and planting seeds for future conflicts, while also throwing our characters into the fray and putting them on the path towards their new mission, and last but not least, giving us a… pleasant but unfortunately divisive surprise, which we’ll get into later.

But overall, I enjoyed this episode, and I’m happy this is our intro to Volume 7. Originally this episode, and likely some of next episode, were going to be the Volume 6 finale, but were pushed back due to how demanding creating all of Mantle in such little time would’ve been. And that, honestly, was for the best. I’ve always loved the final note of Volume 6 with our first view of the flying city and the impending doom radiating from the air fleet all around the city. That was an incredibly strong and fitting moment to leave off on.

That said, because of how short this chapter is, I’d say it’s still below “Argus Limited” for me. That train station scene was just too perfect. But with all that out of the way, let’s dive into the episode, and later the intro, starting with Mantle, Remnant’s most neglected city! Aside from Mountain Glenn, I suppose… 

MANTLE WORLDBUILDING:

Mantle thus far is the strongest of any RWBY location, both in terms of design and worldbuilding. While I still personally prefer Argus’ design because I’m just a slut for the San Francisco inspirations, we got more information about Mantle, and by extension Atlas, in one chapter than we did on any other location in the series. Still bitter Mistral didn’t get this treatment, but what can ya do?

Mantle’s design is largely dominated deep blues and greens complementing orange from the windows, and red when the warning lights go off during a Grimm attack. The mood is dark, gritty, and oppressive, setting a fitting atmosphere for Mantle as a city quite literally trapped in the shadow of Atlas flying in the sky, always visible yet always out of reach.

The city was thought by fans before to have been largely populated by Faunus working in the Schnee Dust mines, but it also seems to be home to plenty of humans, many of whom seem to be working class, meaning class divides in Atlas—that’s, the kingdom as a whole—are tense, with all of the elites and members of the upper class living in luxury up in Atlas, and also living in safety, compared to Mantle being left to its own devices on the ground.

The Atlesian Military has propaganda blaring on nearly every screen at all times, directly from General Ironwood and Specialist Winter Schnee demanding absolute compliance from the citizenry, lest they face drastic consequences. And as Xiao Long pointed out in her recent review of the episode (Go check it out if you haven’t, link in yon card), all of the forces posted in Mantle are robots and drones, with no human resources whatsoever.

The only exception are some human soldiers to go after the rogue Manta airship after the team ditches it, and the Ace-Ops when they go after the “unlicensed Huntsman” for daring to protect the city they don’t care about from Grimm their robots couldn’t hold back.

And as we’ve known for a long time, the Kingdom of Atlas is the hotspot for racial tensions between humans and Faunus in Remnant. We see exhausted Faunus workers who are covered in dirt and grime as they return from the Dust mines, and when Blake makes a comment about Mantle’s apparent awfulness, a drunkard lambasts her defending Mantle and generalizing about “stupid Faunus” not being able to understand why Atlas is the greatest kingdom being targeted by the other kingdoms for their might and awesomeness. Note that Nora made a similar comment, but was completely ignored by Drunk Mann, as he’s credited.

Now people have raised some questions about this moment, but I’ll do my best to share my perspective as someone who’s not had to directly deal with this kind of prejudicial harassment, but is well aware of its existence, and has had friends who have gone through it firsthand. Blake doesn’t want to cause a scene because it might risk drawing the authorities attention at a moment where the heroes have to lay low. She doesn’t want someone taking their problems out on her to jeopardize her friends, because that’s kinda who Blake’s always been. She doesn’t want to burden others with her own struggles and hardships.

Not to mention that when you’re a person of color or LGBT person who has to deal with this on a regular basis, you know there’s a very good chance that the person, or oftentimes many people harassing you, might become more aggressive and even violent, even more so if you retaliate in any way, and there’s unfortunately an equally high chance no one will stand their ground for you, whether they’re on the aggressor’s side, or they just don’t want to get caught up in the mess.

Note, this is also why same-sex couples often fear holding hands when they’re out in public for fear of, in the best case scenario, odd glances. I remember back in high school when I dated a guy for a short time and we held hands, we were warned by pretty much all our friends that there were a number of people who whispered slurs about us or were talking about harming or jumping us.

So seeing Weiss toss Drunk Mann into the dumpster, where his worldview belongs, was so utterly satisfying. You might say that this kind of violence is not the solution, and normally I would agree when it comes to instituional discrimination, though often times shows of protest are met with violence, specifically from the authorities. When it comes to violence I’m only in favor when it’s done out of self defense, though the catharsis of seeing a bigot with no empathy for those he targets thrown into both the literal and metaphorical dumpster is hard not to enjoy.

I will say it is nice seeing the portrayal of Faunus discrimination in the show becoming much more prominent in recent years. There’s no way to retroactively fix the issues with it in the first three, even arguably four or five volumes, but I will give credit where credit is due.

PIETRO:

As for Pietro Polendina, it’s so nice to finally properly meet Penny’s father… well, one of her fathers—”He had help from Mr. Ironwood” (V2 Chapter 4)—and get a name for him after his brief cameo in “PvP.” Pietro is voiced by Dave Fennoy, who actually, as Kaito Dan pointed out in his review (Again, check le cards), voiced Dr. Merlot in Grimm Eclipse. Dave’s done a wonderful job thus far in portraying a fatherly warmth to Pietro’s character that, honestly, is going to be severely needed with all the coldhearted, ruthless characters we’ll have to deal with in Atlas.

So once we meet Pietro, we get an explanation of not only why Maria was headed to Atlas, to get her goggles fixed (With some wonderful short-term memory humor because old people am I right—”I adjust them every ten years or so!” (V7 Chapter 1)), but why she also stayed on the train. Apparently she wanted to give the team some advice on how to deal with the Sphinx? I mean, doesn’t quite make sense given she never got to the top of the train, but… okay then.

But I must say I’m quite happy to see Pietro is not only a person of color, but that he also gets around with… it’s not really a wheelchair, considering it’s a robot chair with like four feet, so… footchair? That was neat, and I’m happy to see some good disabled representation. Pietro’s also a kind soul in that he often does volunteer work to help the people in Mantle, rather than stay in Atlas like Ironwood and the rest of the military officers and researchers, so extra points for Pietro. He’s great, and if he dies I will riot.

PENNY’S RETURN:

Now the fight choreography was great, and I loved seeing Oscar fending for himself with his fancy pogo stick—albeit with some quick saving from Ruby, Rose Garden a.k.a. Pine Rose for life—Jeremy and I both found it odd that the Sabyrs, though their designs were great, were rather easy to fend off.

You could make the argument that given how far our heroes’ skills have come, it’s not that big a deal, especially since Sabyrs could very well be the northern equivalent of measly Beowolves, so I’m not that peeved about the one-shot-kills. The fight was a fun spectacle and also served to show how lackluster Mantle’s defenses are, and led into our next point of conversation: Penny!

This is by far the most controversial aspect of the episode, with the primary argument of detractors saying that Penny being alive is contrived and ruins the consequences of Volume 3 and the Fall of Beacon, and while I do understand where these complaints come from, I disagree, and we’ll list the other consequences of the Fall that are still in effect to begin.

Firstly, Pyrrha is still dead. Unlike Penny, her Aura was from her existence as a gross flesh person, and she was promptly incinderated with her ashes scattered to the winds. She’s not going to be coming back, so she won’t ever come back to life, and if she were to, I’d only accept in the form of weird esoteric nonsense like the Mystery Ginger of other hallucinations or illusions, or a screwed up demon version courtesy of Salem. No bringing Pyrrha back via the Relic of Creation unless it’s meant to be unsettling, please.

Secondly, the political conflicts in Remnant are likewise still in effect, with the Atlesian Military being in high effect, the Dust embargo still being upheld, and Ironwood’s paranoia at an all-time high, manifesting in him leaning more into authoritarian tendencies as he consolidates power on the Council while deploying more of his forces around every corner.

And thirdly, Yang lost her arm in the Fall of Beacon, and as we’ve seen of late, many people who’ve either experienced Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, have loved ones who have experienced it, or are knowledgeable about the topic has shown praise for how Yang’s arc portrayed her trauma. Rather than romanticize what she went through and make it this ever-crippling, all-consuming part of her, Yang instead was clearly still affected by her trauma, but refused to let it control her. When she stood against Adam in the Volume 6 finale, her PTSD didn’t vanish—it was there, but she acted in spite of it. That is why Blake describes her as “Strength.”

So with the other consequences still in effect, Penny’s return doesn’t invalidate the other losses. As Pietro explained, Penny’s core—her “heart,” so to speak, which generates her unique Aura, her soul, and channels into her synthetic body—remained intact, meaning that all she needed was a new body for her core to channel her Aura through. And might I say I am a fan of the new design. I dig the rocket boots, and I also love the long hair.

What I will express some level of disappointment in is that we didn’t get to focus as much as I’d like on Ruby’s initial reaction. The other characters weren’t nearly as close with Penny as Ruby was, so their relatively chill reactions are kinda understandable. But Ruby specifically has been bottling up her grief and emotions ever since the Fall of Beacon, trying to keep a brave face for the others and move forward.

And at this point in the chapter, she’s been constantly dealing with stressful situations all the way from “Stealing from the Elderly,” with the Cordo fight, the Leviathan fight, and now all of this, and that’s not counting the rest of Volume 6’s events which happened in rapid succession. I doubt she had much time or energy left to process what’s happened, but if we don’t get Ruby having some sort of talk about this, or a breakdown, or anything of the sort in future chapters, then I’ll have a problem.

QROW’S NEW VOICE:

And now, we touch on the other controversial thing: Qrow’s new actor. Qrow is now voiced by Jason Liebrecht, and might I say, he’s doing a fantastic job thus far. Though I didn’t initially confuse Jason and Vic’s voices at first like some others, I feel Jason captures Qrow’s character far better in terms of performance and range.

Vic fit Qrow’s gruffness and generally morbid mood, but he often fell flat when it came to more emotionally charged moments. “What was I thinking?” (V6 Chapter 10) It often felt as though Vic was playing up this cool, badass persona of Qrow’s without fully portraying the more vulnerable aspects of his character, like his self-loathing for the pain his Misfortune Semblance brought to his family, or the love he has for his nieces. Jason’s performance is much more down to Earth thus far, and I’m excited to see what he’ll bring to the table for Qrow’s more emotional moments in the near future.

ACE-OPS:

Now last but not least, we have the Ace-Ops, a pun on Aesop’s fables, and likely a team of Atlas Academy graduates who seem to be high-ranking members of the Atlesian Military, which is not shocking given Atlas’ general culture of consolidating power into the military and fusing it with the government. “The military and government are completely separate!” (V3 Chapter 3) Whitley’s comments about Huntsmen. (V4 Chapter 9) Ozpin’s comments on Atlas Academy. (World of Remnant, Huntsman)

We don’t have names on the four supporting members of the team, but we do know from the credits that their leader is named Clover Ebi, and he’s voiced by Chris Wehkamp. We don’t know much about them right now, but we know from comments from CRWBY that Team RWBY will be reminded of the skill gap between them and truly professional-level Huntsmen, and the Ace-Ops will likely fill that role. As for whether they’ll be full-on prideful antagonists is yet to be seen, but I do have concerns with how far they’ll be willing to follow Ironwood’s orders.

Some have theorized that Clover’s Semblance is going to be bringing good luck, either to himself or the people around him, and that would be interesting to see juxtaposed with Qrow’s Semblance. But we’ll see how far that good luck gets the Ace-Ops when the villains come knocking.

INTRO ANALYSIS:

And now it is finally time to talk about the Volume 7 intro. Visually, this is by far my favorite intro, but in terms of music, I’ll have to wait and see how I feel about this intro compared to the others. But I will say that the song is a bop. As of right now there’s no official name, as Jeff is debating on either “Trust Love” or “Open Up Your Eyes.” Personally I prefer “Trust Love,” as it fits the theme of the song far better.

This is by far the most positive of the intros, even more so than “Let’s Just Live,” and it definitely threw me for a loop, as I was expecting something more akin to “When it Falls.” But that said, I’m so happy I was wrong. We know from experience that the intro always sets the tone for the volume and gives us a solid idea of what to expect. As such, most of this volume is likely to be more lighthearted than the previous volumes, at least for a while.

The lyrics are all about getting over your romanticized ideals of what the world should be like and loving the flawed reality in front of you. Not to mention the lyrics “Trust Love” reinforce the idea that love, compassion, and empathy are the true tools needed to change the world (Not that Ruby’s silver eyes didn’t already emphasize that thematically, but I digress), contrasted with Ironwood’s idea of throwing guns, tanks, and bombs at the enemy until it dies. Just how many military occupations are you undergoing, Ironwood? How inflated is the Atlas Military budget? Don’t you know that strength will never bring victory?

And that’s perhaps going to be the big central conflict of this volume which will grow more pronounced as the story carries on. The team was trying to avoid Ironwood in Chapter 1, but are now being brought directly to him. We know, again from information directly from CRWBY, that this volume is going to deal a lot with the heroes not knowing who to trust, and it seems with Ironwood wanting to centralize his authority, he’s going to go ahead and insert himself as Team RWBY’s commander, giving them missions and even overseeing Oscar’s training.

That, however, is likely to become a problem when the kids decide to take matters into their own hands. That’s not to even mention the fact Ironwood is likely to want to hold onto the Relic of Knowledge himself, and if he uses Jinn’s last question to learn the truth about Salem—which the heroes are likely to hide from him, and rightly so given how unhinged he already is—shit will hit the fan instantly, possibly with him even turning on the heroes in the finale.

That would make room for Volume 8 as the Siege and Fall of Atlas, and if I’m correct in Ruby getting kidnapped like Dorothy was captured by the Wicked Witch, for Volume 9 to be a rescue volume where we march directly into Salem’s domain. We already know Volumes 7 and 8 are highly interconnected, and Volume 9 is going to be a shorter volume than usual, so all the pieces for the Atlas Arc—or perhaps, the Solitas Arc or, if we go to Forbidden Unnamed Dragon Continent, the Northern Arc—appear to line up.

Some nice visual touches I appreciated were the transitions of each girl’s outfits, all the way from the Beacon Arc to now. I dig using visual references and outfits to symbolize character growth. I’m also a fan of the 2D aesthetic with Tyrian jumping around with his stinger, and Team RWBY at the end before the obligatory group anime pose that you’re all obligated to make your desktop and laptop wallpapers—I do not make the rules.

Now something that’s present in the episode but fits better to cover with information gathered from the intro is one of political intrigue. The people of Mantle are clearly not happy with Ironwood and the military, and they want the Dust embargo to end likely because it’s disrupting their livelihoods being mostly Dust miners. Enter Papa Schnee, who himself is experiencing profit losses from the embargo, and is quite fed up with Ironwood holding so much power on the Council.

We see on some of the new broadcasts that a journalist has been slain. We don’t know why fully, but if someone’s trying to make sure that the upcoming election for the Council goes a certain way, it makes sense to pick off those who would be looking into the matter. And speaking of the election, the white-haired Mystery Woman every is infatuated with is, as it shows on one of her election posters, Robyn Hill. I’ll let you guess which fairy tale character she’s based on.

The general description of the election is that of a Mantle Hometown Hero going up against an Atlesian Tycoon, and what other tycoon do we know than Jacques-ass himself? If Robyn’s going to be a populist candidate going up against Jacques, tensions are gonna be high. Most will likely side with Robyn given she’s one of their own, but as we’ve all learned in recent years, sometimes rich assholes are just really good at marketing themselves—even if they’re the literal scum of the earth. Do I smell Jacques exploiting racial tensions to get the bigot vote?

We also see Watts is very interested in this election as well? Whatever his backstory is, and however he wants this election to go, whatever he wants is going to help Salem in taking down Mantle and Atlas from within, priming them for the siege and their fall. We know from the intro Robyn’s capable of fighting, and she might become a buddy of Qrow’s when they go up against Tyrian, so could Watts be trying to rig the election for Jacques? I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.

CONCLUSION & OUTRO:

So all in all, Chapter 1 of Volume 7 is a great start to the volume. Though it’s not nearly as strong as “Argus Limited” in the character department, it at least makes up for it in terms of worldbuilding and setup for potential storylines. I’m incredibly excited to see where Volume 7 goes with all these different threads, and you bet your ass I’m happy my robot girl is back. If you haven’t yet but would like to, you can check out Jeremy and I’s reaction to Chapter 1 either in the cards or in the description below! He blew out his mic when Penny showed up and it was glorious.