Hey there, Layman here! Real talk this time, no humorous gimmicks.
So if you don't already know, there's a RWBY manga. (I read it on MangaHere, but it's probably hosted elsewhere as well.) I have phenomenally mixed feelings about it, because on one hand I'm an Otaku and the thought of seeing one of my favorite shows realized in one of my favorite mediums excites on some level, but on the other hand this is just going fuel the "RWBY R TEH ANIMEZ LOL111111" thing that annoys me to no end. That's not to say that the show doesn't wear its influence on its sleeve (The very first scene of the the show is a giant homage to the Cowboy Bebop movie, for crying out loud, and tell me Zwei isn't supposed to be a reference to Ein from the series!), but at best it occupies the same space that shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender and Teen Titans do. (I've ranted about this in some of my other RWBY stories, so check those out if you're interested in my thoughts on the matter.)
Anyway, between my gratuitous nitpicking of the thing, I got to wondering what the actual RWBY would think of this new adaptation of themselves. And be aware that I'm going to do my best to put aside my personal bias and try to be as objective as possible in my (and by extension the characters') critiques.
So without further adue, let's see what our favorite kickass Huntresses in training think of their Manga!
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"You'll never take me alive, Copper!"
"Don't do it Johnny, you've got so much left to live for!"
Weiss groaned, rubbing her temples as Ruby and Yang ran around their dorm room, playing a very odd game of Cops & Robbers; it was loud, obnoxious, annoying, and it was starting to drive her crazy!
"They've been doing that for over an hour now," the heiress complained, sticking her fingers in her ears, "you'd think they'd get tired after the seventh time doing the exact same thing." She looked over at Blake, "How are you not bothered by this?"
"It's not that hard," Blake said, shrugging. She was laying back on her bunk, her nose buried in another book. She was also wearing a pair of earmuffs over her Faunus cat ears, "you learn how to tune it out after a while."
"Made it, Ma!" Ruby declared, standing proudly on top of her own rickety bunk bed, "Top of the world!"
"You could always go somewhere else until they're done," she suggested. "You could have all the quiet you want in the Library."
"I'll track you to the ends of the world!" shouted Yang, shaking her fist at her little sister.
"...you know, that's actually not a bad idea." With a new sense of determination, Weiss got up and headed for the door, dodging the pillow artillery shootout that had broken out. She reached the door and was about to grab the handle when a knocking sound suddenly came from the other side.
That's odd, she thought, I'm sure none of us were expecting anything... Curious, she opened the door.
"Hey there, Snow Angel," Jaune said suavely. At least, as suavely as he could manage (which wasn't very, let's be honest), "Wanna make some heat-"
She immediately slammed the door in his face.
"Aw come on, Weiss!" he protested through the door, "Open the door, please? I promise not to hit on you anymore!"
Weiss sighed and reopened the door.
"This came for you guys," he said, holding box out for her to see; it was a manila envelope about the size of your average magazine, with their room's number and address printed on the front. There was a slightly, square shaped bulge in the middle. "I was on my way back to my room when I saw this sitting on the floor."
Weiss took the package and examined it, turning it over in her hands. It's too small to be one of Blake's novels, she reasoned, did Ruby order more bullets for Crescent Rose? No, it's not heavy enough for that...
"So," the scraggly blond asked, "are you gonna open that, or-"
She slammed the door again.
"Ooh, whatchya got there, Weiss?" Ruby asked as Weiss sat back down on her bunk, before getting beaned in the face with a pillow when she took her eyes off her sister. "Ow!"
"Apparently someone sent us something," she said, "unless one of you ordered something without telling us?"
Blake shook her head, "It's not mine, I prefer buying things in person."
"You think Dad sent it?" Ruby wondered, peeling the pillow off her face.
"Nah, not his style," Yang pointed out, plopping down next to the heiress. "Open it up!" she urged, "I wanna see what's inside!"
"Hold your horses, I'm getting to it!" She tore top off the envelope and emptied the contents onto her lap.
Blake and Ruby immediately crowded around her to see what they got.
"It's...a comic book?" Weiss said, looking quizzically at the tome. It was the same relative size as the average paperback novel, but inside were mostly illustrated pages with the occasional word bubbles.
"Comic books are shorter than this," Blake explained. "This would be more of a graphic novel."
"And it's about me!" Ruby squealed, pointing excitedly at the cover, "I look so cool!"
"I don't know," Yang rubbed her chin thoughtfully, "there's something about the way they drew your hair that doesn't seem right to me."
"How so?" Blake asked.
"I don't know! I can't explain it, it just seems off to me. Also, Ruby, this is probably about all of us, not just you."
Weiss, on the other hand, was having her own problems with the cover art. "Why doesn't she have a nose?"
"That's might just be a quirk of the artwork," Blake assured the heiress, "It'll probably get better inside."
"Oh my god Crescent Rose looks awesome!" Ruby marveled.
"Let's read it," suggested Yang, "We can't just look at the cover forever, right?"
"Yesyesyesyesyes!" Ruby cheered, "I wanna see how the rest of you look like!"
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"Whoa...!" Ruby literally had stars in her eyes now. "Best...splash page...ever!"
"Not gonna lie, Sis," Yang said, patting Ruby on the head as she squeed, "that is a really cool looking picture."
Blake nodded, "The I like the contrast of colors in it."
"And I'm doing such a cool pose!"
"Doesn't it bother anyone that these Beowolves have red teeth?" Weiss asked, "We fight them all the time, and I've never seen one with teeth."
"I thought that variant was hunted to extinction years ago," Blake mused.
Ruby shook her head, finally broken out of her trance, "I fought a pack of them before I came to Vale, so they're still around."
"You know, Weiss, if you keep nitpicking everything then you're not going to be able to enjoy the story," Yang pointed out in a "big sister" way.
"...Fine, let's just move on."
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Literally two pages later...
"Pfffft!" Yang snickered, "That Beowolf looks soooo goofy!"
"Yeah!..." was all Ruby was able to managing, cracking up even harden than her sister.
"How old are you two," Weiss asked, "five?"
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On page 13...
"So the first dozen or so pages had no dialogue whatsoever?"
"Pretty much."
"But there's less than twenty pages in this first chapter, couldn't they have used some of that space to help flesh out the characters or set up the story or world build or something?"
"...but it looked cool, right? Like that one panel with all that negative space?"
"That's irrelevant! Now they're going to need to cram everything into the last few pages and it's going to feel rushed!"
"...maybe they'll focus on you?"
"Ruby...let's just continue reading, OK?"
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The next page...
Yang jovially patted Weiss on her shoulder. "They got you down perfectly, didn't they?" she remarked.
"Shut up! I wouldn't be on your cases so much if you all would just wake up on time!"
"I have no complaints," Blake said in reference to her portrayal.
Yang said nothing, merely staring intently at the page.
"...what's up, Sis?"
"The hair's all wrong," she explained, "I don't just mean mine either, everyone's hair is way too spiky."
Ruby scrutinized the image as well. "It's not that spiky," she assured the blonde.
"Well I think it is! I take my hair very seriously, you know," she said, flipping a lock of hair in emphasis.
"So you've mentioned...," Weiss mumbled.
"The least this artist could do is pay better attention to my hair, is all I'm 'Saiyan'." She paused to let her joke sink in. "Eh, geddit?"
While Blake and Weiss were busy glaring at Yang, Ruby had turned the page and was staring at an image of the four of them walking in a line. There wasn't anything particularly wrong with the scene, but to Ruby, one singular detail stood out like a sore thumb.
"...where's my cloak?" she asked in a low voice.
Yang looked over at her sister, "What are you talking about, Rubes? You're wearing it right now."
"I mean in the comic!" she yelled, holding up the book to show the rest, "Look, I'm not wearing it!"
They all regarded the picture, and indeed, Ruby was sans cloak.
"Huh," Yang realized, "what do you know, you're not."
"It's...surreal to see you without that thing on," Weiss marveled, trying to bring to mind a time when her pint sized team leader wasn't earing her iconic red cloak. "The only time I've ever seen you without it on was at the dance."
"Is it really that bad that you don't have your cloak on in this?" asked Blake.
"Um...yes!" the young teen shouted, tossing the book wildly into the air. (Weiss fumbled to catch it as it fell.) "This comic is terrible!"
Blake tried to say something to console the crimsonette, only for Yang to gently grab her shoulder.
"Let her be," the blonde cautioned, "that cloak's kinda special to her."
Blake nodded in understanding, resisting the urge to pry.
"Let's just finish up this first chapter," Weiss suggests, "this is obviously bringing out unpleasant emotions in us."
Yang and Blake both nodded "yes".
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On the next page...
"Maybe it's a good thing Ruby isn't reading this anymore," Yang said after reading the first bits of dialogue, "This doesn't really make her out to be that smart."
"We know plenty about Dust!" Weiss shouted indignantly, "We wouldn't be able to use it everyday if we didn't!"
"Actually, they make a good point," Blake countered, "Despite the many uses for Dust we have and all we know about its makeup, we still don't have any idea how it came to be or why."
"Am I wearing my cloak yet?" Ruby called from her bunk.
"Nope!" Yang called back.
"Then I still don't care for it!"
"Why is she so upset about this?" Weiss wondered, "It's just cloak, for crying out-" She was interrupted when Ruby angrily tossed a pillow at her face. "Hey!"
"It has something to do with Summer," Yang solemnly explained, "Since she, well...isn't around anymore, wearing it helps her still feel close. At least, that's what Ruby says."
Neither Weiss or Blake said anything.
"Sooooo...," she drawled, trying to come up with something to break the awkward silence, "this thing isn't very funny, is it?"
"Should that matter?" Weiss asked.
Yang shrugged, "Not really, but if this is supposed to be about us, it should at least be a little chuckle worthy, right?"
"I think I can live without any more of your awful puns, thank you very much!"
"Life isn't all fun and games," Blake reminded her assigned partner.
To which she countered, "But this isn't real life, this is a story! It should be fun to read!"
Weiss looked at the page again. "Jaune's backside most definitely isn't fun," she remarked, turning the page. "And Cardin is the one who threw Jaune at our table. Big surprise."
"Which reminds me, I haven't seen those guys around in a while," Yang said, "Did they get kicked out or something?"
"No such luck, I'm afraid; I saw Russel and Sky in class earlier."
"You know," Blake interjected, "I just realized that they never said that I was a Faunus in the entire chapter."
"Really? You sure?" Yang wondered, "I thought I saw Velvet a page or two back."
"How could they not mention that?" she asked, apparently ignoring Yang, "It's literally the biggest part of my identity! I mean, did they just forget, or did they not think it important enough to include?..." She just couldn't wrap her mind around it.
"Not so nice, is it?" Ruby quipped. She then turned over so that she was facing the wall.
"...why don't we take a break?" Weiss suggested, closing the book, "It's clear that we're all getting too worked up over this."
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," agreed Yang. "Besides, it's almost dinnertime, and I heard they were serving cookies for dessert-"
Ruby zipped down from her bunk and hung onto the lapels of her sister's blazer, her previous melancholy forgotten. "REALLY!?" she squealed, her eyes sparkling with little chocolate chip cookies.
"Aaaaaand she's back," Weiss stated, sighing. "Very well, let's head to the cafeteria then. Do you know what they're serving tonight?"
"I think it was some kind of tuna dish-" Yang was interrupted by a furious gale rushing past the group. "...well that was weird, right Blake- Huh? Where'd Blake go?"
fin.
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And that, with one or two exceptions and some creative extrapolation, is pretty much my actual thoughts on the first chapter of the manga. (Like I said, phenomenally mixed feelings.) And so far, it's the only chapter out at the moment. I might, emphasis on might, do this again for the second chapter, but only if I have enough new material to talk about. (I don't want to sound like a broken record, after all.) And at the end of the day, regardless of what I think about it, I can't force you not to check it out on you own time, and it is worth it for some of the artwork in the first 2/3's. Just...temper your expectations, 'K?
And, if you like the idea of RWBY characters reacting to Fanfiction, anime, video games, tropes, etc, then go check out the Weiss Reacts stories by ElfCollaborator. (A couple of my stories are featured in Weiss Reacts Volume 2!)