Rooster Teeth's RWBY gets the full-blown anime treatment in the first official trailer for studio Shaft's RWBY: Ice Queendom.
Shared to the official BANDAI NAMCO Arts Channel on YouTube, the Japanese trailer for Ice Queendom recreates key moments from the first volume of Rooster Teeth's anime-inspired action series, such as the formation of Team RWBY itself. The trailer also reveals Ice Queendom's ending theme -- "Awake" by Saori Hayami -- and confirms the anime will indeed arrive later this year. The Japanese version of the show stars the voices of Hayami as Ruby Rose, Yōko Hikasa as Weiss Schnee, Yu Shimamura as Blake Belladonna and Ami Koshimizu as Yang Xiao Long.
‘RWBY: Ice Queendom’ presents a new RWBY story in beautiful 2D anime visuals. RWBY imagines a world filled with horrific monsters bent on death and destruction, and humanity's only hope is dependent upon powerful Huntsmen and Huntresses. Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long are four such Huntresses in training whose journeys will take them far past the grounds of their school, Beacon Academy. Though each may be powerful on their own, these four girls must overcome dark forces and work as a team if they truly hope to become the next generation of Remnant's protectors. ‘RWBY: Ice Queendom’ will establish the world of RWBY before taking viewers on a brand new adventure that RWBY fans have never seen.
Ice Queendom was recently announced online with an official piece of key art. A Crunchyroll article stated that the anime streamer would broadcast RWBY's latest spinoff in both Japanese and English, though that article was quickly deleted. However, Rooster Teeth has now confirmed that the starting this year, Ice Queendom will simultaneously drop subtitled and dubbed episodes for U.S. audiences on both Crunchyroll and Rooster Teeth FIRST on a weekly basis. The dubbed version will see original RWBY stars Lindsay Jones, Kara Eberle, Arryn Zech and Barbara Dunkelman reprise their roles as Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang, respectively.
"It's difficult to put into words just how honored and thrilled we are to see the show that we imagined into the world inspire a Japanese anime," said RWBY showrunner Kerry Shawcross. "I've been a fan of anime all my life, so to see RWBY in this new medium is surreal. I can't wait for fans to see this show, I think it's going to blow them away."
Regarding the crew behind Ice Queendom, Rooster Teeth explained, "The core creative team is led by Gen Urobuchi (NITRO PLUS, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Fate/Zero), Tow Ubukata (Mardock Scramble, Tenchi: The Samurai Astronomer, Fafner in the Azure), huke (Black Rock Shooter, chitocerium, Steins;Gate), and Toshimasa Suzuki (Lagrange: The Flower of Rin-ne, Fafner in the Azure: Heaven and Earth), with additional collaboration from Rooster Teeth's Kerry Shawcross, Eddy Rivas, and Erin Winn."
Created by the late Monty Oum, Rooster Teeth's main RWBY series originally premiered in 2013 and currently has eight volumes (i.e. seasons) under its belt, with a ninth on the way. Ice Queendom is the show's latest major on-screen spinoff, following the humor-centric RWBY Chibi and the lore-centric RWBY: Fairy Tales. Over the course of its run, RWBY has also spawned a number of multimedia spinoffs, including video games, Japanese manga, American comic books and YA novels.
RWBY: Ice Queendom premieres in 2022 on Crunchyroll and Rooster Teeth FIRST.
Source: Rooster Teeth; YouTube
