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Comparing RWBY and YGO DM: The Handling and Evolution of Themes

Hey! Its been a hot minute since I last posted anything RWBY-related but Im laying in my bed right now and Im sick and bored so I guess we're doing this. Today I will do my best to analyze what I percieve to be the main themes and messages of both of these shows, or more specifically, how theyre handled narratively. Im mostly focusing on that part because, while these series do have similar themes and messaging, they are still a few things in which they are wildly different. And with that, lets start with this essay-post-thing!

1. Theres something we need to adress first

Okay so, before we can really talk about this, theres something I feel the need to clarify here: Neither of these stories was "planned from the beginning".

Now, I dont think a story being planned from the beginning or not nesscessarily makes the story any better or worse by default, however, it is still important to acknowledge because the way the story is planned is going to affect every facet of it. Things are not going to be foreshadowed properly, things are gonna be set up only for nothing to come of it, the story might drastically change directions, characters might act differently, etc, etc.

And, this is bit off-topic but, it's much better to just admit that the story was not planned than trying to pretend that it was. Like, there are a lot of reasons why I tend to be so forgiving towards YGO even though its not very good, but one of them is definitely the fact that, as far as Im aware atleast, the guy who wrote it isnt pretending to have had this big master plan all along and neither is the fandom. With RWBY on the other hand... yeaaaah, its kinda the opposite. From what Ive seen of RWBYs fandom, there seems to be this pretty popular narrative that everything was planned even though it clearly wasnt. Thats pretty bad and honestly lowers my opinion of the writers so much more than if they would just admit to not having a proper plan.

Like, I initially consumed YGO like this: Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters, Yu-Gi-Oh (aka Season 0), like, a quarter of the Yu-Gi-Oh manga (I still havent finished it)

In all three of these we have the character of Yami Yuugi, or just Yami. Broadly speaking, he is an ancient egyptian gamer spirit who lives in a magical puzzle that has not been solved for 3000 years until this highschooler named Yuugi Mutou comes along and solves it, thus setting him free and allowing him to possess Yuugi and have access to the vague magical powers of the puzzle.

In Duel Monsters he's perfectly fine most of time, morally speaking. There is an instance of him almost murdering a guy and its a bit unclear what exactly happens to those he mindcrushes but overall he's very much a pretty good guy. In Season 0 most of what he does is set up these games for bad people, where they will go insane no matter what they do. From how I understand this whole Shadow Game, Penalty Game stuff, if you lose a Shadow Game, you get violent and intense hallucinations and you will always cuz yknow, gamer spirit. But if you try to cheat, which most of the bad people do in this show, you get violent and intense hallucinations as a punishment.

Since the two anime are generally considered two different continuities, its perfectly fine that Yamis characterization is wildly different in both of them. But in the manga both of these characterizations appear, basically one after the other with no real arc or consequences, for that matter. Why is that? Simply put, someone thought it was a good idea to try to turn an episodic, very slice of life-y light-horror manga into a more traditional, more plot-driven battle shounen. From what Ive heard, it was apparently largely because of network interference or something, but the point is, it changed directions incredibly drastically with little planning and everyone knows this and I can understand that for the most part.

In RWBY we have the character of Blake Belladonna, who, in the first 3 volumes/seasons atleast, was this aloof, more toned down loner-type character with a pretty strong sense of justice. She's an in-universe marginilized racial minority and she clearly cares about racial injustice. The way its initially framed makes it seem like she had a very hard life and no stable support system, which is what eventually pushed her to join a Civil Rights group/Terrorist organization (good god, the Faunus subplot is so awful, I could write a whole essay about it but Im already de-railing rn so I'll just save that for later).

Then, in volumes 4-5 it turns out her father is actually like, the mayor or chief of this island-place called Menagerie and she grew up in this big mansion with multiple guards/servants. Oh and also, apparently "space is a commodity" on there, so theres that. She still retains large parts of her personality but she's kinda like, worse somehow I think. I cant really describe it in a meaningful way but I hope you get what Im saying anyway. Then in Volume 6 she confronted her emotional abuser Adam (sorry for not mentioning him sooner but yeah, he was like, her abusive boyfriend, which is something that a lot of people disagree with but I wont really say anything about it either way because I dont really feel any specific way) with her friend, Yang, and ended up killing him.

After all that, she pretty much lost the rest of her personality, as well as her arc about all the Faunus stuff. She just kinda became the meek, generically nice, recovering abuse victim. Why? Well, the actual reason is that they didnt plan out shit and are just kinda flying by the seat of their oversized clown-pants and if they and the fandom just admitted it, I would have less of an issue. I still wouldnt be as forgiving towards RWBY as I am towards YGO because the crux of the issue, for me, is just that I dont particulary like RWBY but also like. Do you really expect me to take MKEK seriously as writers after admitting to not have a timeline because iT wOuLd CaUsE pLoThOlEs?

However, since they want us to believe that everything was planned out from the beginning, the explaination would be.... Idk, they deliberately butchered one of their main characters?? Because.. they hate her?? Maybe????

So yeah, that was quite a detour however, I would like you to keep this mind going forward.

2. Themes of the Early Series'

First, what do mean by 'Early Series' for both of these shows respectively? Well, for YGO that would have to be Season 0 or if youre reading the manga, everything pre-Duelist Kingdom. Basically, the part of the series thats a episodic, very slice of life-y light-horror series.

For RWBY that would be the first three Volumes, also known as the Poser-Era. Back then it was just kinda an action series that took place at Anime Warrior Academy (also known as Beacon) with some pretty bare minimum worldbuilding, character-driven plots and developments but now its more of an epic high-fantasy story with more of an emphasis on plot as opposed to just action.

The themes and messages in Early YGO are kinda vague, very confusing to me and if you were to follow any of it literally that would be pretty bad. For now Im just gonna say the main themes are Friendship and Identity and mostly focus on the Identity aspect.

Now, it took me a little while to figure out RWBYs deal but I think the main themes for Volumes 1-3 are also Friendship and Heroism. Once again, I'll mostly focus on Heroism and touch on Friendship more briefly later.

I dont have much more to add to YGOs themes right now, so I'll briefly go over Heroism in RWBY.

In RWBYs setting there are these man-eating monsters called Grimm that have basically infected the planet. In order to deal with that, they have people called huntsmen and huntresses that kill them and protect people. Theyre trained at special academies like Beacon and go on missions there and stuff like that. Our four main characters, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang, are training to become huntresses and one day they go on this mission to clean up a grimm infested city block with one of their teachers. Obviously, that takes a long time so they have to camp out in one of the empty houses. Weiss, Blake and Yang cant sleep because theyve been thinking about this question that their teacher asked them when they were fighting grimm: "Why do you want to become a huntress?"

They have a heart to heart and we find out about their motivations; Weiss wants to bring honour back to her family, Blake want to distance herself from the White Fang (that terrorist organization I mentioned earlier) and as an extension from Adam, Yang wants to have a life of adventure. They also talk about why Ruby wants to be a huntress and it turns out that she judt wants to help people. Unlike the others, she has no motivation besides that. We're meant to listen to that and look at her as a sort-of personification of Heroism: kind, but not naive, strong and most of all, selfless. The others on her team are not portayed as bad for not being like Ruby by any means but we are clearly meant to admire her the most out of all of them.

Okay, now comes the part Ive been looking forward to the most:

3. How did these themes evolve in the Modern Series'?

Alright, before we can really delve into the way they evolved in YGO I'll have to give you a brief summary of the character progression. At the start of DM, during the Duelist Kingdom arc, Yami Yuugi is just that; A darker Yuugi. Hes more confident, bolder, his voice is deeper, hes somehow taller, more ruthless, all that good stuff. Notably, he doesnt actually seem more skilled than Yuugi even at the start of this story, but he's still dependent on Yami. Yami on the other hand, has no identity of his own or even hints at one at this point. He's just The Other Yuugi.

Then during the Battle City arc, they find out that Yami was actually a pharao prior to being sealed in the puzzle, he just didnt know because of amnesia, I guess. So now they need to find out his real name and then send him to the afterlife because hes meant to be dead, but not before saving the world from being swallowed by darkness, which is also a thing they have to do now.

Then we finally get to the Memory World arc, where Yami, Yuugi and the rest of the gang astralproject to ancient egypt via puzzle magic. Yami is trying to figure out what the hell is going on and who all these familiar people are, while Yuugi & Co are trying their best to help him. Then some weird shit happens and it turns out that all of that is not just Yamis sealed away memories, but also a giant D&D Shadow Game that will destroy the world if Yami loses. So now theres Pharao!Yami who is still clueless on the metaphorical and literal playing field and Player!Yami, who is kinda controlling himself now? I guess?? Yamis opponent, The Spirit of The Ring, has something similar to that going on where hes both controlling and properly participating in the game. So Player!Yami is now fighting against Player!TSoTR, Pharao!Yami is now fighting against Thief King Bakura (who is like, the human, ancient egyptian version of the Ring Spirit) and Yuugi is now fighting against Yami Bakura (who is like, the human, modern japanese version of the Ring Spirit). Yuugi gets Yamis real name, he and the gang go over to Pharao!Yami and tell him his name, meanwhile Player!Yami is also somehow helping as well and they defeat the Ring Spirit, thus saving the world. Then they travel to modern Egypt, the Ceremonial Duel happens and Yuugi wins, sending Yami to the Afterlife where he can finally rest and that was the series!

I originally wanted to recount the stuff that was going on with the Ring Spirit and his host as well because they parallel eachother, but this summary is already far too long and I think youll get the point without me needing to explain any more.

My point here is, that the story went from being vaguely about Identity, maybe? to being very clearly about Self-Discovery and Learning to Be Independent. I think this is a very good way to evolve the messaging of your story. How does RWBY track on that?

Well, uh... its not great. I will acknowledge that they have tried to introduce new themes and ideas since, even though I wont really be talking about them in this post. But yeah, the whole Heroism thing really regressed.

Like, I didnt explicitly say it when I was explaining grimm earlier, but theyre not going away. The grimm have always been there and people who sign up to become huntsmen and huntresses are effectively signing up for a job that will never truly be done, no matter what they do. Characters like Ruby and even more minor ones like Phyrrah have shown us that that doesnt matter when youre a hero. No life isnt worth saving, no grimm isnt worth killing, no criminal isnt worth arresting. Then, in volume 6 they find out about Salem. Salem is the Big Bad of the show, shes immortal, controls the grimm and is supposed to be very powerful.

What do our heroes do? They give up. Sike! They were just mindcontrolled by monsters or some shit, of course they didnt give up their mission (which is to bring an Important Macguffin to a city called Atlas, sorry I didnt mention it)!

But then they arrive in Atlas (which is llike, a city thats floating over another city called Mantle) and yknow, they do some plot stuff thats not really important right now until the city gets invaded by Salem and this big grimm army she has.

What do our heroes do? Well, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and some side characters are chilling, drinking tea in a mansion and Yang and the B Team were actually trying to do something, but even those efforts seem incredibly minimal.

Oh wait, I also forgot to mention that Ironwood (a fairly minor, vaguely antagonistic character up until now) wanted to lift Atlas even higher to save Atleasian civilians from danger while leaving Mantle vulnerable to Salems invasion.

What would be the most heroic thing to do?

A) Let Ironwood lift Atlas, get as much support as they can down to Mantle and save as many Mantle civilians as they can from the invasion

B) Prevent Ironwood from lifting Atlas but then split up in order to protect both Atlas and Mantle civilians

C) Prevent Ironwood from lifting Atlas and then dont do anything else

Congrats! If you choose C, you think exactly like the writers!

And I just

This is so mindboggling to me, I feel like I shouldnt even have explain how this is bad. And like, it wouldve been so easy to actually make them seem herokc through their actions, to make it seem like they did try but no.

I have never seen a central theme be this botched, how in the world did they do that? Why did they think it was a good idea for Ruby "The Embodiment of Heroism" Rose to sit in a mansion doing nothing, no planning, no organizing just ..... God, how are they this bad? Like, this doesnt even have anything to do with it being planned in any way, this is just straight up incompetence

4. Very briefly touching on friendship

The friendship is awful and its not solely because they all have the same opinions. They barely interact with eachother outside their designated pairs which leads to it all feeling incredibly hollow. Theyre also practically indistingushable from one another now, which is a shame because it wasnt always like that. Like, I dont think the characters were that well-developed in earlier volumes but they were very well-characterized. But now we've gotten to a point where you can literally copy and paste one characters dialogue onto another and literally nothing changes, it really sucks.

5. Some closing words

Damn, this took way longer than I thought it would and now Im pretty exhausted. I have no idea how yall always write these but props to you! I feel like this ended up a bit rambly but overall, Im pretty proud.

Please let me know what you think of the points I brought up! Id also really appreciate some tips on how to get better at these longer posts because I am planning on writing more in the future (not the near future, probably but yknow).

Thats all I have to say for now, thanks for reading!

thats it. i want to clarify some shits. i am so sick and tired of being judged cuz i love justin bieber. ive been through so much and everytime i wanted to give up on myself, friends, family who ever whos around me and generally my whole life, justin was there and he didnt let me. he was there for me at 3am when i was crying. but i wonder who was there for him?? all the times he was feeling low. all the times he was getting hate from the whole world. dont wanna be dramatic but hes so strong. so this is one of the reasons why i love him. hes strong. as i said he has been through so much but ive never seen him harm himself or anything or anybody else. he just kept his silence everytime. he can take so much. i still remember how mad i was while watching the bieber roast. like i know i had to laugh and it was all a comedy show but still tho. i mean if anyone else was in the place of justin... with all of those things and... ugh nevermind. i mean cmon they talked shit about the love of his life, his father and so on justin is so honest with his fans. he cares about his fans. he takes time to talk with them, hug every single one of them, he has bought roses, coffees and stuff like that. and he does stuff like that now and then to show his love towards his fans. once he even played songs from his next album for them. he posted a video of that crowd- which was taken from the hotel balcony -via his instagram and captioned it; i wake up this morning to this :) best fans in the world #beliebers #sexyfans k can we pause here?? and another story bout this. actually i think yall have heard this one. "justin spittin on his beliebers from the balcony" bullshit. thats exactly what it is. total bullshit. and how do i know a fan cleared this mess up. actually one who was there: "i can definitely confirm that he didnt spit on anyone because i was there and in that instagram video he posted, i also have a video from my view, and he never at any point spit on us. TMZ and all these other media outlets and trying to put two and two together and make him seem like a bad person. personally i think he did it before were even any of us standing down there on the street, because at no point when i was stand there did he even spit off the balcony! he would never do anything like that to his fans. hate how media outlets try to make him out to be a bad person all the time when hes far from." tmz superimposed photos of the fans next to justin on a completely different balcony to make it appear like he was spitting on fans when he wasent. infact earlier that day, justin bought his fans hot chocolate and played them some of his new music. justin loves his fans. people talk shit about justin but little they kno most of the bad things they hear are just made up rumors. i love justin cuz hes such a talented person. i love him cuz hes a sweetheart. if u look real deep into his eyes you can actually see nothing but love. some kid at my school told me that hes a drug addicted and she was like srsly how can u look up to someone like that?? u must be a drug addicted too and she just walked away. hes not a drug addicted. i know yall have heard the story of cops raiding his house for eggs- when he egged his neighbors house which it wasnt a good thing to do i admit when justin does sth wrong i dont endorse it i can admit when he has fucked up and did that shit-and so on. but im pretty sure yall havent heard that the cops actually gave him a random drug test, and he tested negative for every single one. and yes he has smoked weed before but that doesnt make him a "drug addicted". tbh i see nothing wrong with that. alot of people do. plus it has been proven that marijuana is healthier than cigarettes and people are in the process of legalizing it in more states... so to the girl who goes to my school and all those who think justins not in complete health: hes not a drug addicted, he is not addicted to weed and whatever the hell he does in his personal time, people should not worry about it. annnnd about justin being disrespetful to Argentina flag. yes he did kick it off the stage BUT later he apologized and he said that he had no idea what it was. he thought that it was a shirt or sth. he clarified this by tweeting a several tweets saying: @justinbieber heard about what is going on with me down in Argentina and im shocked. I love Argentina and have had some of the best shows of my tour there @justinbieber people throw stuff on my stage all show and i get it to the stage hands to get off so no one got hurt. that video i saw a bra and thought... @justinbieber ...it was a shirt. Im being told by my team it was a shirt but even if it was a flag I would never do anything disrespect to Argentina... @justinbieber ...or the people of Argentina or the fans. Im so sorry for anyone who took my actions the wrong way and i hope you can forgive this mistake and if yall are interested u can search the tweets. to make sure these are actually real. yes he did that. "justin peein in a mop bucket" according to what his manager said he took a backway exit to avoid the paps and at that time he really needed to use bathroom and one of the employees told them that he can do it in a mop bucket... i admit that wasent the best choice but also if u have to go, you have to go... justin is a human being, i think people forget that. hes not perfect and at his lifetime he will fuck up some shits. what teenager doesnt???? tbh the only difference between our teenage years and his is that we all are not under a microscope. if we fuck sth up its just us. we may blame our selves for a while but then we let it go. cuz u cant be hard on yourself. but about justin... well the whole world is watching his every single move. and "its hard to do the right thing when the pressure is coming down like lightning." anyway he said that he has learned from that experience and promised that it wont happen ever again. nobody is perfect and you have to accept that. im pretty sure you have done some not so good things as well that yourent proud of them, but as i said the difference between you and justin is that you are not under a microscope. you dont get judged by everyone in the world. and i actually have another proof to show yall justin isnt bad but the media is lol. they try so hard to ruin justins reputation like why yall bitter i dont get this... so anyway. you mightve heard this or maybe not idk but there was a rumor goin round for a while :" justin called a girl a beached whale then she committed suicide" lol this is like so BULLSHIT i know cuz the girl is alive and she spoke up bout this. she apologized about the whole story goin around cuz she felt guilty. she shared some tweets sayin: @TropicalFlower0 i was NEVER called a beach whale by justin bieber. so sorry about making that up. im sorry @justinbieber and his fans @TropicalFlower0 but i am willing to give the money back to them i just dont want to feel guilty. justin bieber was really nice to us @TropicalFlower0 im not a bieber fan either like the news reporters said. im just a normal girl that needed the money. @TropicalFlower0 so i just want to clarify, justin bieber never called me a whale. all he told us was "hi girls" like i said earlier. @TropicalFlower0 well, after i got home i really felt guilty, my friend told me that what i did was very wrong. @TropicalFlower0 i really needed the money so i said sure, first of all they also invented that i was a bieber fan to make him look even worse @TropicalFlower0 and if i did they would pay me a higher amount of money, they also told me if i get friends and guests to help me they would double @TropicalFlower0 they seemed very unsatisfied and then they came back and told me to make up a story about justin bieber to make him look bad @TropicalFlower0 Then a lot of news reporters came at me and my friends asking us what justin bieber told us so we told them that he just said hi @TropicalFlower0 the other day i was with my friends sun bathing, we saw justin bieber and he came toward us and said nothing else but "hi girls" @TropicalFlower0 i dont understand twitter but i hopefully this gets out there and i wont feel guilty anymore so as u read justin goin to a pool area isnt that much interesting and sort of boring so some paparazzi guy payed this girl and yeah mainwhile when this shitty rumor started to spear around this was his indirect way of sayin that it wasent tru. justin tweeted you are all beautiful i dont even know what to say anymore. these were all some examples. i got so much more to talk about but its just too much. so imma leave this here and the rest for later. "and haterz.... i love u too. ;)" he tweeted this and i think it was needed rn atm im not trying to make justin look like a pure angel who hes not MY point is to show u he does mistakes like us, he is a human like us, he has a beating heart in his chest like us. and most of the bad things u hear about him are just made up rumors. thats it. there i said it.