Review: RWBY Vol.4 – Chapter 9 “TWO STEPS FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK”

The double step.

Spoilers Below

After 5 episodes we finally get to see Yang again and she’s currently hand-to-hand training with her father with as their dog Zweii watches in the background.

Slowly we’re seeing Yang “get her groove back”, however, Taiyang knows she’s “off-balance” Yang is quite shocked at how much of an improvement and natural this mechanical appendage feels and Taiyang surprises her with a “sucker-punch” and puts her in a hold saying “I wasn’t talking about your actual balance” before leg-sweeping her to the ground.

As Taiyang gets a towel, he explains to Yang that he’s seen her past tournament fights (including the Vytal Festival from Vol.3) saying to Yang she was “Predictable, stubborn and maybe a little bone-headed” pointing out that she frequently used her semblance power to absorb physical damage and redirect it back in her attacks as an easy edge to win saying “It doesn’t make you invincible” and legitimately asks her what happens if the opponent is more overpowering than she anticipated?

Taiyang gives Yang a well-spoken lesson saying that she’s gotta stay focused and level-headed in battle by making her choices carefully and only using her semblance as a “Trump-Card” when necessary further hitting home that her semblance powers “won’t always save you… Obviously.”

And after acknowledging Yang as an adult thanks to Port & Oobleck’s encouragement 5 episodes ago, he finally wants to talk to Yang about her mother Raven. Taiyang says to Yang that while he’s proud for having at least the positive aspects of her mother, namely her strength, ambitons and convictions, He’s glad that she doesn’t see all of her mother in her saying that she had alot of “faults” which lead to the disbanding of Team STRQ.

Taiyang says to her that while she always relied on her strength to instantly go through any obsticle, there’s always a solution “around it” with the simple use of walking around Zwei as an example.

Taiyang suggests one more round before dinner which leads to Yang doing a fun takedown on her dear old dad. 🙂

We then cut to Weiss in the process of mastering her “Summoning” abilities until she gets briefly interrupted by her douchey brother Whitley who proceeds to troll her own sister by offering to pick her up anything since she’s “stuck here” while Dad and he are going out of town for a meeting.

Weiss wonders what this sudden heel-turn towards Weiss stems from jealousy of her & Winter’s abilities but Whitley says that physical combat to him is “barbaric” and “Beneath people like me” wondering what can one Huntsman accomplish that an Army cannot? proudly saying their homeland has an army even if he isn’t particularly fond of Ironwood being in charge calling him a “fool”.

Weiss straight up tells him to leave and Whitley tries to get under her skin asking what she’s trying to accomplish in her “training” and in response to his trolling, she slams the door in his face before going back to her Summoning practice.

Through her sheer force of will, Weiss finally performs a successfully controlled summon which busts the window open and her Butler shows up asking if she’s alright and Weiss smiles at him with the camera zooming back revealing that the White Knight Armor she fought from the “White Trailer” is now a Summon at her command.

And then Weiss asks her Butler Klein” for a favor which ends the scene with the butler looking at her apprehensively at first before changing to one of stern determination.

Weiss clearly gives off the impression of not wanting to wait for someone to come for her, which considering she’s the most “princess” like of the girls is a very welcome change to how things like this usually go. As for where she would go, Winter is an obvious choice but I could also see Ironwood too. Butler’s clearly on her side in regards to everything that’s wrong with the one-percenters in Atlas. Or maybe since Winter might work directly under him she’d go to both.

Picking up where “a much-needed talk” left off, we cut back to Blake & Sun Pursuing the ninja-white fang spy that ‘s revealed to be a Chameleon Faunus given her obvious stealth abilities

They jump tree-to-tree with Blake not giving up on finding out who the fuck this person is and the Spy proceeds to jump rooftop-to-rooftop like a scene from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

The spy briefly stops getting her gun-rapier thing that looks slightly different than Weiss’s but is frustraited that she can’t get a clear shot since Blake is hot on her tail but briefly stops her revealing that her weapon can intracately move like a whip cutting steam pipes but Blake walks through it unphased asking why she’s being watched.

Sun shows up from behind and almost strikes him and Blake kicks Sun’s scroll from her hand and in a suspenseful moment, the scroll is on the ledge of the random rooftop they’re on as Sun struggles to hold the spy long enough for Blake to get it using his semblance to make energy-copies of himself that dog-pile the spy.

But holding his semblance powers for too long becomes detrimental to Sun and exhausts him a bit which unfortunately leaves him open to the Spy’s sights for her laser-whip.

And the spy’s mask starts to shatter revealing her full face and apparently she’s a Ginger that Blake has a history with named “Ilia”.

Ilia gets annoyed by Suns asking too many questions and zaps him with her laser whip.

She demands the scroll in which Blake says “No” and tells Blake that she “shouldn’t have come back” before using a smoke bomb to disappear.

Blake goes to check on Sun who is injured by Ilia and telling Sun to hold on while she calls for help.

We finally cut to Team RNJR who are determined to help Qrow who is heavily injured & poisoned as they try to find a village that will treat his injuries and Ren deduces they’re close to something despite not having a map.

Ren walks towards a sign with three different routes Nora points out that they’re “on the right path” but realizes the sign is too damn vague and Ren further deduces that the path is up on the mountains.

Ruby notices a sign that says “Kuroyuri” wondering if it’ll lead anywhere but Ren says that village is destroyed and will take too long with Ren acting Angry while saying it (this is the first time we’ve seen Ren express anger and it’s quite concerning given his laconic nature).

They then resort to the obligatory “split-up” cliche with Ruby & Jaune going to Kuriyuri with Qrow while Nora & Ren go to the mountains for help determining they can see a better view of the land for possible medical attention.

The episode finally ends in traditional cliffhanger-fashion, as they come to the decision to finally split-up with Ren & Nora running upwards to the mountains while Jaune & Ruby carry Qrow towards Kuroyuri and as they leave, the camera pans out showing a giant symbol that resembles an animal-like hoof indicating danger potentially awaiting them.

Overview

There’s a hidden meaning in the title than just an obvious “Paula Abdul” reference, It’s more of a clever a very nice play upon words. Two girls move forward to their goals and two hit major obstacles.

I liked the bonding-moment between Yang and her father. He appropriately admonished the flaws in Yang’s fighting style up to this point, which has been long overdue, and gave us some insight into what kind of person Raven was in Taiyang’s eyes. I just hope we’re not pretending that she’s suddenly not having nightmares about Adam anymore.

People don’t instantly overcome trauma overnight and it sucks when Legend of Korra did a better job handling a particular subject like PTSD than RT is doing in comparison. I also liked the simple use of Zwei as an “object lesson” to finding a solution around the problem rather than going through it but it was nice seeing her smile.

Weiss also shined here as we now see her finally summoning the Giant Armor. Who cares if Whitley was a bigger troll to her than he already was, he’s got nothing on Weiss & her summoning. Looks like it’s time for Weiss to say goodbye to Atlas, with a little help from her Butler Klein.

Blake’s story looks like it’s taking a turn for the worse, as she now has to deal with the White Fang knowing where she is helping an injured Sun. Poor Monkey-Bastard just can’t get a break this volume.

As suspected, Ilia is the mystery ninja girl from last episode and is a chameleon species of Faunus. Her weapon looked pretty dangerous as it worked both as a rapier & an extendable whip-like blade when I thought was a “gun-blade” like something out of Final Fantasy.

I hope Sun pulls through not only for his sake, but Blake’s as well. We know Blake wants to sort things out with herself, and you can make the argument that this is some form of Karma for abusing Sun last episode but I’m suprised nobody gave her a “Bob Sweeney speech” for her past actions with the White Fang.

Team RNJR is clearly having problems of their own with a wounded & poisoned Qrow then encountering a fork in the road which kinda annoy’s me abit because predictably in cliche stories like this, why is it whenever a team needs to stick together, someone suggests the unwise idea of splitting-up? This isn’t fucking Scooby Doo!

It’s interesting to note Ren’s overreaction to the path Ruby & Jaune took. Whatever is or was in Kuroyuri village has Ren Irked & preferring to take the path to Mistral with Nora. I doubt anything good is in store for either teammates, especially for Ruby, Jaune, & Qrow. Whatever kind of dangers that wrecked the villages of Oniyuri & Shion might be waiting for them in Kuroyuri.

It was Good to see all the girls in 1 episode get equal screentime, it’s abundantly clear that RT is prepping us for the season finale with some “World of Remnant” segment to stretch it out further. Despite all the unjust bullshit they have gone through, Team RWBY will hopefully be reunited by the end of this season.