Fight scenes are an art form all by themselves. It marries the dual disciplines of cinematography and fight choreography, and when done well in conjunction with good writing and direction, pays off in spades (see: Justice League Unlimited, The Matrix). Even without a decent script, acting, or plot, consistently engaging battles can carry a whole movie and make it work, as seen in the shallow-yet-stellar Tom Yum Goong, as well as the more recent Man of Tai Chi. The Dead Fantasy web series, created by independent animator/artist Monty Oum, is yet another proof of the concept that you can build a sturdy house made entirely out of straw, if you're really, really good at working with straw.
Dead Fantasy is an animated series where the females from Final Fantasy fight the girls from Dead or Alive in neverending all-out melee. What DF looks like at first is a excuse for fantasy chicks to beat the shit out of each other. What it reveals itself to actually be, by Dead Fantasy 2, is an excuse to showcase Oum's ability to stage spectacular superhero-style brawls with breathtaking ingenuity; a standout sequence involves everyone fighting off bits of debris while in a swirling tornado. Though the action is often frenzied, Oum manages the proceedings with a clarity that makes the choreography easy to appreciate. DF doesn't need traditional plot or character because the characters distinguish themselves with unique styles and powers, which they happily use in a myriad of interesting ways.
There's an annoying tendency for fantasy/scifi action creators to infuse their characters and worlds with powers and ideas ripe with potential, and waste it on one-note curb stomp affairs consisting of guys hitting other guys really hard in slow motion. Dead Fantasy is just one song, but it's the song that's missing from so much mainstream anime and fantasy.
After Dead Fantasy became hugely popular, Oum joined machinima pioneers Rooster Teeth and discontinued DF in favour of a new cel-shaded anime-inspired webseries, called RWBY (pronounced "ruby"). It's about a group of cutey girls who wield oversize weapons and magic, and go to school to train how to kill monsters. So, it's just Dead Fantasy with a little additional context, right? Nope. To Oum's credit, he tries to build a proper story with proper characters this time, with combat scenes supplementing the drama instead of replacing it. However, the couple of mini-stories that RWBY Volume 1 tells in sixteen episodes are mostly clichéd and forgettable. The setting is extremely generic, recycled from Harry Potter and all the other "teens go to magic school" stories.
Most characters that don't have a name or line or role to play are relegated to flat black silhouettes - an easy way of making the world seem more crowded than it actually is. This is one of the biggest mistakes of RWBY - contrasted against the bright, detailed visual design of the main ensemble, it makes the world feel cheap, artificial, and meaningless. Any dialogue about saving the world or civil rights is undercut by the fact that the world is populated with literal cardboard cutouts. Worse, the disappointment extends to the main characters.
Monty Oum's background in animation has ill-prepared him to write good protagonists or dialogue, a problem that also plagues other action/VFX specialists who make the foray into longform narrative (see Corridor Digital's Sync, Freddie Wong's VGHS). The main characters are visually pleasing but ultimately generic archetypes: Ruby the young, unsure leader, Weiss the stuck-up rich kid, Blake the quiet but secretly badass, and Yang the feisty one with big boobs. Until the final few episodes, character interactions sorely lack depth, authenticity, and even continuity. In some episodes Ruby is hard at work attempting to get into her role as assigned leader of the group - and yet, a few episodes later she stands idly by when Weiss and Blake have an argument that threatens to splinter the group permanently.
One problem here is that Oum does not play to his strengths often enough. The only times RWBY rises above mediocrity are when Oum throws himself into his element: combat scenes. The moment Ruby unfolds her scythe-cum-sniper rifle, or when Weiss draws her sword with 4 firing modes, the animation quality, sense of place, and imagination all improve dramatically. It is because of this that the extended, action heavy trailers are oddly a better watch than the actual show. When you're allowed to lose yourself in the fury of a girl pounding away with shotgun gauntlets that can also propel her into the air, RWBY is an inspired roller coaster ride. But almost every other time, it's a dull merry-go-round playing music that we've heard many times before.
Miscellaneous notes:
- RWBY's animation can be clunky, most noticeable when characters physically interact with each other in ways that aren't punching or kicking.
- The cast is almost overwhelmingly female, but thankfully, there isn't a distracting amount of fanservice.
- Shotgun gauntlets are the best thing ever. Also in this series: Shotgun nunchucks.
Dead Fantasy and RWBY Volume 1 are both available on Youtube. Volume 2 comes out July 2014.
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