Okay, this scene with Oscar let me down a little bit. His design is great, even his VA is doing a stand-up job with him (nothing seems too stilted with his dialogue), it's just he's immediately going down the reluctant/angsty teenage route with his sitaution with Ozpin, despite the fact we as the audience haven't been given any real evidence as to why we should feel sorry for him here. I mean, the way he was introduced had an upbeat, optimistic tone: from the music, to the lighting, and his body language seemed to express a sense of positivity - even if he was doing farm work. And then that scene where Oz introduces himself literally cracked me up it was so funny, there was no sense of his frustration at living on a farm, there nor that he'd be the kind of character that would go for brooding when his life took a turn for the bizarre. I had the distinct impression this guy wasn't going to be comic relief, and not some messiah figure, but still be an instantly positive person to be around. To go from that attitude to this self-pitying was a little out of place imo. Not saying I dislike him, but it did make me a bit more apprehensive for the next scene in a thread I was actually loving.
Hell, the way Oz just says "hello", made me think this guy is going to be awkward teen Ozpin, made even more weird by the fact hes guided by a disembodied voice. Since the series is clearly not dragging itself through sobriety, I really thought any and all inclusion by this guy was going to be light hearted, yet important to the plot. By the way, anyone else notice they added an echoed effect on Oz now? I swear in the previous scene he was so clear it was as if his model was just an inch away from the shot, whereas here they're making more of an effort through the audio to show he's inside Oscar's head.
As for Weiss, damn that was a brutal way of showing her be struck, I love how they didn't dramatise it too heavily (no tears, no long drawn out silence), they gave it the gravity that action deserved, they weren't too violent in it's presentation, and they kept Weiss's diginity following it - she's a battle-hardened Huntress now, Jaucqe proved he is the only bitch there (unless you count Whitley outside) with that slap. Also, kudos to Jason Douglas, he's channeling a whole lot of smarminess to make his character as big of a fucker as imaginable. However, the same can't be said for Whitley just yet, (the character, not the VA), he just seemed like a side-note at the end of that confrontation, though I'd love it if that were a theme: he's ultimately a puppet for his dad, but never truly amounts to any real threat in Weiss/Winter/Ironwood's arc.
And finally, that fight! Still not feeling anything like Monty's but it's clear they want it to be slowing in action, they've spent a fortune on that rendering farm they showed off this autumn, they want to capture as much detail to the characters as possible. Perhaps we'll see more fluiditiy in the future, but I'm still impressed by what the animation department have already accomplished here. I feel Qrow's wound will be the crux of Ruby's second plot this volume, a way of keeping RNJR busy (getting him help, learning of the maidens, Ruby & uncle bonding, maybe a Jaune and Qrow scene about Pyhrra), while we get more advancement on the other girls plot.
On Jaune, he was so set up for a shot of greatness here and it never even materialised at all! They set up the great plot-point in the fight that Tyrian is easily distracted when he's in the thick of it, proven by how Qrow went to town on his face. They established that RNJR wasn't a shonen-esqe group of onlookers (I really was expecting a cutway to them saying something generic like "So this is a real hunter!", thankfully not) with Ren and Nora stepping in, but being pushed aside since Tyrian was still composed at that point. Ruby had already got her point across that she was fighting side-by-side with Qrow, not his damsel, Jaune (already proven to someone Tyrian is interested in) has a swing so vicious now it creates a shockwave, he's tried so hard. Why didn't he get the tail cut? This last point is nitpicking to the extreme, but it did feel like a missed oppurtnuity nonetheless...