The RWBY: Official Manga Anthology is a comic adaption of RWBY. It consists of side stories that follow the plot of the show, put together by multiple manga artists. It was released in a multi-volume format.
This manga is a separate work from both RWBY (2015) and RWBY: The Official Manga.
At New York Comic Con 2019, a second anthology set focusing on Team JNPR was announced.
This manga provides examples of:
- Adaptation Expansion:
- Ruby gets more Character Development than the main show proper.
- Weiss's backstory is expanded, such as her sister Winter defending her from their father Jacques.
- Yang's backstory is explored more as well.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Though he was already an asshole in canon, Mercury adds on a whole new flavor of dickishness by dancing with Ruby at a party, but not laying off despite his advances making the girl extremely uncomfortable. When Weiss comes to her rescue, Mercury says they were being incredibly rude to him and does not apologize for his behavior. He also helps Emerald commit petty theft on some unsuspecting civilians and gets away with it.
- Agitated Item Stomping: Yang commissions some Roman and Neo dolls for training, explaining beating up irritating things helps motivate her. When she shows the rest of her team, she reveals the dolls even have a speaking function which the other girls find creepy and resort to stomping on the dolls. Neo discovers the smashed remains later and is... not happy about it.
- Ambiguously Bi: There's some Ruby/Weiss teasing, particularly on Weiss' side, compared to the show only having her display a brief interest in Neptune.
- Arch-Nemesis: Yang seems to consider all of Cinder's henchmen, but especially Neo, to be this to her. She describes them as 'the four, wicked villains' with Neo getting a closeup, and uses Roman and Neo-themed dolls to beat up for training. After seeing the remains of the training dolls, Neo seems to feel the same towards Yang.
- The Bad Guy Wins: While Weiss and Yang are out, they spot a man steal a pouch off of someone and pursue him, leading to an altercation. However, just as they are about to finish him off, the thief vanishes into thin air. It's revealed the man was only an illusion created by Emerald, who makes off with her prize scot-free.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: While Team RWBY is discussing how much damage Yang can absorb, Blake mentions Yang's arm was cut off by Adam... despite Yang presently having two flesh and blood arms.Yang: Which timeline are we in?
- The Cameo:
- Mercury and Emerald both appear in one scene each of Ruby and Weiss's anthologies.
- Adam Taurus makes a flashback cameo in Blake's anthology. It also features Team CFVY assaulting Team CRDL.
- Yang's anthology has a cameo for Taiyang Xiao Long.
- Depending on the Writer: Justified as this is a compilation of stories made by fans. The artstyle, story, and character portrayals vary from each artist in some chapters. Although the fans worked with the authors there are still some issues with these portrayals in some chapters of each anthology story. These can probably be explained by some obvious obstacles in the collaboration and the fact that the original show's creators have clarified that they only got the early versions of the stories.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: In Blake’s manga anthology, there’s a story about her getting tired of seeing Faunus discrimination (particularly Cardin’s bullying of Velvet). She then goes back to her dorm to see Team RWBY dressed up in animal costumes, squealing about how cute they are. She later talks to Sun about how she was uncomfortable due to many Faunus being treated terribly for the very traits that her team finds so adorable and can wear as a costume without fear of being bullied. This calls to mind cultural appropriation in the real world, in which some groups of people will be harassed or discriminated against for certain things (clothing, hair) while another group of people can take it and wear it without consequence.
- Mistaken Identity: Weiss is terrified there's a ghost haunting the dorm when she sees a creepy, blood-soaked figure wandering the halls. When Team RWBY investigates, it's revealed to only have just been a sleep-walking Nora covered in the syrup she stole from Ren. It Makes Just As Much Sense In Context.
- Rewrite: Each anthology has a couple of contradictions, and character inconsistencies, barring a few - obvious - just for fun stories, in some chapters and thus renders some chapters non-canon via Word Of God. Examples of this are…
- In chapter 18 “Don’t Forget To Study", of the Ruby Anthology, Ruby is shown to fail a test because she didn’t even study for it. It contradicts how she had already resolved to be a better leader, during her conflict with Weiss a little after initiation, by taking things seriously and work hard to study among other things.
- In chapter 12 “Who Is The Ice Queen Meeting”, of the Weiss Anthology, Weiss is shown summoning and practicing with her white knight sword even though she didn’t summon it until the Fall of Beacon.
- In chapter 11 “Take Me Back”, of the Blake Anthology, Blake explains that Yang knew that Blake was a Faunus from the beginning, judging from her bow, even though it was clear, from volume 1, that Yang didn’t know about Blake’s cat ears until Penny informed her.
- In chapter 10 "Semblance Challenge", of the Yang Anthology, Yang's and Weiss's semblances are grossly overpowered and Blake casually mentions Yang's arm being cut off by Adam but...Yang's arm is still intact as well as Beacon, which should be overrun by Grimm at that point considering what happened in canon. The story does make note of that, with Yang asking "Which timeline are we in?"
- Ship Tease: The stories contain a lot of Ruby/Weiss and Blake/Yang teasing:
- From Ruby's "Red Like Roses" Anthology:
- One comic has Ruby decide that, in the vein of many adventure heroes, she needs a love interest. After dismissing every guy in Beacon for one reason or another in short order, she teases Weiss about being jealous and starts to flirt with her, outright saying It's Okay If It's You. She even holds her chin up and leans close to her, all while puckering her lips.
- In another comic, Mercury gets Ruby to dance with him at a party, who is clearly uncomfortable with his advances. A disgusted Weiss pushes him away, and Ruby comments how she's kind of a "knight in shining armor". As they're leaving the party, Weiss echoes Ruby's own thoughts about how she'd rather be studying or practicing than attending the party, leading her to comment that she's glad they're partners.
- In one gag comic strip, Ruby starts referring to her teammates as "Sister" (Yang), "Friend" (Blake), and she gives Weiss the title of "Wife". This makes Weiss blush, and a confused Ruby asks, "Why are you blushing?!"
- Weiss getting angry with Ruby after she got their team's roaming privileges revoked for getting in a fight with Cardin. When she runs into Cardin in the halls, she discovers Ruby only fought him in the first place because he'd insulted Weiss's scar; Ruby very nearly fights him again when he does so to her face. Weiss calms her down, forgiving her and thanking her for her friendship, gifting her a handkerchief she used to wipe her tears when she got emotional.
- The "Mirror Mirror" Anthology follows up with yet more Weiss/Ruby moments:
- The very first comic has Weiss finishing up a study session, when Ruby appears to offer to share some cookies she'd made. Weiss reflects on how lonely her life was before coming to Beacon, and how Ruby changed that, before offering to make them both coffee. When she deduces that Ruby hadn't finished her homework, she then offers to help while the two eat.
- The idea of Ruby being the one to help Weiss break out of her lonely shell gets repeated in several comics throughout the book. Another has her sulking over feeling inferior to her sister after not making team leader, only to realize how ridiculous her line of thinking was just seeing Ruby smile. When Ruby offers to make her coffee like she had for her, there's even a visual of two mugs arranged like a heart.
- Another comic in this vein sees Weiss spend the day in a daze after having a nightmare about returning to her old, lonely life. She snaps out of it when Ruby talks to her and reassures her that she's not alone, even in that very moment.
- In a comic where Weiss has to skip class after falling ill, Ruby at first tries to skip too, to keep her company, but gets dragged to class anyway. When Weiss falls asleep and has a dream about how Winter used to keep her from being lonely when she fell sick before, she wakes up to find that Ruby had returned to stay by her bedside. While Ruby offers to read her a story, Weiss thinks about how she thought she wanted to be alone, but that maybe she really did want her close.
- The second comic has Weiss harshly turning down a guy trying to ask her out, meeting up with Ruby instead. When she muses on how much she hates the nickname "Princess", which even Ruby had called her, because of how she thinks it focuses more on her wealthy family than herself. Ruby responds by telling her she'd think of her as a princess, even if she weren't a Schnee.
- When Ruby and Weiss see Velvet being bullied by Cardin while studying, Weiss rushes to save her after she gets knocked out a window, getting a bit beat-up in the process. Afterwards, Ruby bandages her, telling her how cool she was and how proud she is to have her as a teammate.
- In a sequence of 4koma strips, Weiss denies being Ruby's "BFF", yet the thought gets so stuck in her head she winds up thinking about it all night long.
- Going to do some training on her own after thinking her teammates are slacking leading up to the Vytal Festival, Weiss winds up sulking as she wonders if they're really coming together as a team. When she spots Team JNPR walking by, she briefly imagines her team as a pair of couples like they are, blushing at the thought.
- In a comic where Yang and Blake grow suspicious of Weiss sneaking out at night, thinking she might be seeing someone in secret, it's revealed that she was actually going out to train Zwei. Ruby then reveals that she knew what was going on the whole time because obviously she knew that Weiss didn't have a boyfriend.
- From Ruby's "Red Like Roses" Anthology:
- Unorthodox Reload: Mercury sees Yang do her signature reload with Ember Celica and tries to replicate it with Talaria. Unfortunately, given that his weapons are attached to his feet, it doesn't quite follow the Rule of Cool and he decides his version looks really stupid.
