Manga Review: RWBY Official Manga Anthology, Volume 2: Mirror, Mirror

Rating (Out of 5): ~3

Publisher: VIZ Signature (VIZ Media)

Release Date: August 2018

Volumes: 4.

Spoilers?: No.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Book Depository. Powells. RightStuf.

Volume: 1. 3.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Straight from Rooster Teeth’s hit animation series, a new four-volume anthology series featuring stories from various manga creators, each focusing on a different member of Team RWBY!

The world of Remnant is filled with horrific monsters bent on the destruction of humanity. Fortunately, the kingdoms of the world have risen to combat these forces by training powerful Huntsmen and Huntresses at academies around the planet. Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long are four such Huntresses in training.

All new short stories set in the world of RWBY from no less than twenty different manga creators in one single volume!

Includes a full color four-page story and four full-color illustrations. This volume focuses on Weiss Schnee from TEAM RWBY.

Plus, bonus messages from the illustrators and creators included in this volume, with longer notes from RWBY character designer Ein Lee and actress Kate Eberle, the voice of Weiss Schnee!

Review:

The second RWBY anthology, featuring all stories about Weiss, the ice queen of the team. While I haven't watched the anime, she seemed like the character I might like the most, so I was curious.

This is a lot of one-shot stories featuring Weiss. A lot of them focus on how alone she's been until now, some star her relationship with Ruby and others focus more on her relationship with her older sister Winter. There were a lot of odd artstyles, and I'll admit I didn't love a lot of them, but they were okay. There were a couple of really cute ones, though. Aside form Umiya's art, in the last story; I really don't understand the appeal or what's happening in those panel comics.

I can't help but wonder if a lot of these authors are mostly from webcomics? The author names sound more web comic than real mangaka names, but I might just be unfamiliar with them.

There were some cute stories, there were some meh stories. If you're a RWBY fan, I'm sure you'll love it more than I did, though.

A review copy was provided by the publisher, VIZ Media, for an honest review. Thank you so, so much!

Manga Review: RWBY Official Manga Anthology, Volume 1

Rating (Out of 5): ~3

Publisher: VIZ Signature (VIZ Media)

Release Date: May 2018

Volumes: 4.

Spoilers?: No.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Book Depository. RightStuf.

Volume: 2.

Goodreads Synopsis:

 Straight from Rooster Teeth’s hit animation series, a new four-volume anthology series featuring stories from various manga creators, each focusing on a different member of Team RWBY!

The world of Remnant is filled with horrific monsters bent on the destruction of humanity. Fortunately, the kingdoms of the world have risen to combat these forces by training powerful Huntsmen and Huntresses at academies around the planet. Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long are four such Huntresses in training.

All new short stories set in the world of RWBY from no less than twenty different manga creators in one single volume!

Includes a full color four-page story and four full-color illustrations. This volume focuses on Ruby Rose from TEAM RWBY.

Plus, bonus messages from the illustrators and creators, with longer notes from RWBY character designer Ein Lee and actress Lindsay Jones, the voice of Ruby Rose herself!

Review:

This is an anthology volume, by a ton of apparently new mangaka, and each volume is apparently about one character. This volume was about Ruby.

To note, I didn't recognize any of the authors. Some of them had better art than others, and there was a variety of styles. There was normal action plots, there were comedy and slice-of-life stories, and there were a few chibi and 4-koma ones.

I haven't read much of RWBY stuff, and I haven't watched the show. So I have very little to go by, aside from just reading some fun random stories. Some of these stories were a little too cheesy for me, and some were a little too random. I would like to think that it gave me a little more idea of what the girls' relationship with each other is. They're close, but still getting to know each other, it seems to me.

I didn't mind this volume. But I will admit that I don't think I love RWBY, at least not from what I've seen. I'm not sold.

 A review copy was provided by the publisher, VIZ Media, for an honest review. Thank you so, so much!