RWBY (pronounced "Ruby")[6] is an American anime-influenced 3D computer-animated web series created by Monty Oum for Rooster Teeth.

The name RWBY is derived from the four main protagonists' forenames: Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long, and their respective thematic colors (red, white, black and yellow).

[9] Following several promotional trailers, the first episode was screened at Rooster Teeth's convention, RTX, and premiered on their website on July 18, 2013.

The story takes place in the fictional world of Remnant, composed of four kingdoms (Vale, Mistral, Atlas and Vacuo), which are under constant assault by malevolent monsters known as the "Creatures of Grimm".

Humanity was obliterated by the gods, due to the actions of Salem, a vengeful woman cursed with immortality for trying to manipulate them into reviving her beloved Ozma.

The series focuses on four girls attending Beacon Academy in the kingdom of Vale: Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long.

[20][21] With their friends Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie, Pyrrha Nikos and Lie Ren forming their own team, JNPR ("juniper").

Cinder Fall, Roman Torchwick along with his assistant Neopolitan and the White Fang led by Adam Taurus, invade Beacon Academy.

Ruby and her allies arrive in the occupied town of Mantle near Atlas, reunite with Penny Polendina, and are recruited by the Ace-Ops and their commander James Ironwood for their plan of informing the world about Salem.

Team RWBY, with the guidance of Ozpin, obtains the Staff of Creation, and uses its spirit Ambrosius to turn Penny into a human and evacuate Atlas into Vacuo.

However, Cinder intercepts them and mortally wounds Penny, who asks Jaune to kill her in order to transfer her Maiden powers to Weiss' sister Winter.

The heroes ultimately come to terms with their shortcomings, defeat and destroy the Curious Cat (one of the brother deities' early creations) with Neo's help, who makes peace with Roman's death and stays behind, and return to Remnant where they witness the world mobilized against Salem in Vacuo.

Towards the end of his work on the tenth season of Rooster Teeth's Red vs. Blue, he developed the color-coding approach to character names and design as a hook for the series.

Production on RWBY began as intended, with the first trailer being finished within two weeks and premiering after the credits of the Red vs. Blue season 10 finale on November 5, 2012.

[35] Following the premiere of RWBY in July 2013, Rooster Teeth released new episodes of the first season (stylized as volumes) weekly on their website, with access two hours early for their sponsors.

Following the conclusion of the fifth volume, Rooster Teeth First members would get episodes one week earlier than the general public for future releases.

[63] The music for the first eight volumes of RWBY has been composed primarily by Jeff Williams, with additional composition by Steve Goldshein, Mason Lieberman, and Alex Abraham.

In December 2022, Williams announced his retirement from music composition, with his daughter Casey taking over as the lead composer for RWBY starting with Volume 9.

The first season, which was narrated by Jen Taylor (who voices the character Salem on RWBY), premiered on Rooster Teeth on August 21, 2014, and concluded on November 14, 2014.

The third season, which was narrated by Vic Mignogna (who voices the character Qrow Branwen on RWBY for volumes 3–6), premiered on October 17, 2016, and concluded on January 14, 2017.

Ten additional RWBY Chibi segments were later produced as part of Rooster Teeth's animated anthology series, Neon Konbini, which premiered on May 27, 2021, and concluded on July 15, 2021.

[68] The Japanese language version of the anime series premiered on July 3, 2022, on Tokyo MX, BS11, and MBS and concluded on September 18, 2022, after twelve episodes.

[71] Justice League x RWBY: Super Heroes & Huntsmen is a two-part direct-to-video film that was announced on July 1, 2022, at RTX, and was produced by Rooster Teeth in collaboration with Warner Bros.

Also featured are characters based on the DC Comics superheroes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Cyborg, Vixen and Black Canary.

[73][74] Part One first premiered at WonderCon on March 25, 2023[75] before being released on April 25, 2023, on Prime Video, Apple TV+ and Google Play among other digital platforms.

[83] Kotaku's Richard Eisenbeis praised the series for its clever use of fairytale elements, fun and enjoyable dialogue, and the fighting choreography, but was critical about the short nature of the episodes, stating that, "The biggest drawback in doing a micro-series ... is that there is precious little time for good characterization".

"[84] Rachel Sandell of Collider recommended watching each season as a feature-length film, and argued the pacing the series has "always been a strange experience".

[85] Ruth Johnson of ComicsBeat argued that the series has expanded so much over its run since Season 1 that it can be "hard to keep track of all the storylines", but praised the voice acting, animation, and writers, and said that show is "consistently...growing stronger.

[91] Anime News Network writers Paul Jensen and James Beckett wrote: "We don't have any formal reviews of RWBY here on ANN, but it is kind of cool to see an American production make it to the release encyclopedia.

"[94] However, mainstream news articles dated after Hullum's statement and previewing later seasons and the franchise have referred to RWBY as an American anime, including Variety,[95] Collider,[96] iDigitalTimes,[97] Entertainment Weekly,[98] Adweek,[99] and Deadline Hollywood.