RWBY Volume 9: Beyond (alternatively RWBY Beyond), is a Spin-Off Miniseries of the RWBY animated web series that tells stories set during Volume 9 and after. Due to the eventual closure of Rooster Teeth on May 15th, 2024, it is officially the last bit of RWBY media under the Rooster Teeth banner (and by proxy Warner Bros. as a whole) as the company is planning to sell the RWBY property to another company.
In General
- Limited Animation: Compared to the main series and arguably to some of the other 2D animated series Rooster Teeth has done, RWBY Beyond has notably limited animation, with everyone having a few poses and much of the story relying more on narration over animation.
- Spin-Off: Is one to tell stories of what different characters were doing during Volume 9 or afterwards.
Jr. Detectives
The Junior Detectives are on the case!...Kinda.
Sun and Neptune have taken it upon themselves to discover the truth behind one of Remnant's most vexing questions: Where is Team RWBY (And Jaune)? What they find proves surprising.
- Call-Back: Sun and Neptune's playing detectives is one to when they were assigned to the Vale Police. The fake mustaches they wore is a meta nod to their comedy skits in RWBY Chibi.
- Foregone Conclusion: Because this is set not too long after the evacuation, but before the end of Volume 9, Team RWBY and Jaune would ultimately return as Sun hoped.
- Framing Device: It has Sun and Neptune narrate in a Noir Episode style which reveals near the end that they were recapping what they were doing after being caught by Qrow...who promptly proceeds to toss them into the air for snooping, leading to them crashing into the screen.
- I Remember It Like It Was Yesterday: Sun says this line during his "noir monologue" with Neptune interject that it was yesterday.
- My Friends... and Zoidberg: Sun treats Team RWBY's disappearance very seriously but treats Jaune's as an extra incident with less urgency.
- Solemn Ending Theme: While the Noir elements are played with throughout the episode, with Sun and Neptune's goofy antics interweaving with the tidbits of important plot points, the ending is a relatively sober piece, with Sun hoping that Team RWBY (and Jaune) are out there somewhere doing the best they can to not give up, and that Sun hasn't given up either (addressing the audience).
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Sun and Neptune might be acting like detectives, but they are definitely not officially such. Thus, when Qrow catches them snooping on a private meeting involving Raven, Winter, Oscar/Ozpin, the Shade Academy Headmaster Theodore, and a mysterious cloaked woman, he is not impressed and tosses them out immediately...albeit after allowing them to comedically recount the episode to him.
A Knight's Journal
He's a young man again, but the scars of the Ever After remain.
After returning from the Ever After, Jaune is having trouble with readjusting after his experiences in the Ever After. He ends up speaking to someone who knows what it is like to gain perspective.
- Call-Back: In "Worst Case Scenario", Ironwood told Oscar that once the merge with Ozpin progresses enough, Oscar won't be able to tell which of them is which. During his conversation with Jaune, Oscar claims to have played a part in several fairy tales, which Jaune assumes he meant Oz.
- Commonality Connection: Jaune spends a good chunk of the story talking with Oscar/Ozpin about his journey as the Rusted Knight, feeling that their sense of being a Stranger in a Familiar Land, as well as the feeling of not really being young or old anymore ends up making the immortal more able to understand Jaune's plight.
- Fling a Light into the Future: It's also revealed that Lewis' story about "The Girl Who Fell Through The World" wasn't just a story about his sister's adventures through the Ever After, but also intended as a guide of sorts for Team RWBY to find Jaune when they finally got there.
- Happy Flashback: Oscar suggests a variant of this for Jaune's situation: to try to think about what few good times had existed for him in the Ever After prior to things going wrong, so he can focus and try to make sense of why he did what he did and what drove him forward. Jaune notes that one of his favorite moments was getting to know Alyx and Lewis prior to the former becoming afraid of him, since they were so fascinated with each other being from different time periods and the cultural differences. He also fondly remembers the days of them actually enjoying their time in the Ever After, and the times they spent around the campfire listening to each other's tales, how Alyx once viewed his story with fascination and amazement (which Jaune admits he found that a bit odd, since for him it was just his life, his achievements and mistakes and the like). Through his recollections, Jaune comes to understand that what drove him at first was the simple fact that he appreciated his time with Lewis and Alyx, and wanted to safely help them get back home, before he lost sight of that and started fixating on "how the story should end" according to the fairy tale.
- I Hate Past Me: A downplayed case, as it's more incredibly conflicted rather than outright hate. While Jaune does recognize that the Rusted Knight persona was a part of his life, he's not too proud of some of the things he did as said persona, and isn't really sure how to process what to feel about that persona in addition to his aging and de-aging prior to returning.
- The Reveal: Lewis and Alyx were from Vacuo before the Great War, before the Huntsmen system ever existed.
- Stranger in a Familiar Land: While Jaune is happy to reunite with his friends and team in Vacuo (not taking the fact that they're in a different nation from Atlas now), he feels very out of place due to his temporal situation, being probably the most drastically changed mentally out of the Ever After group besides perhaps Ruby herself.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Being regressed back to his original age after spending years in the Ever After wasn't going to undo the years of trauma, bad decisions, and mistakes Jaune committed as the Rusted Knight, and much of the episode is centered around his conflicting feelings on the matter.
- Vocal Evolution: Jaune's voice is now settled at a sort of midpoint between his original 19 year old voice, while taking on a tone more akin to how the gruffer Rusted Knight sounded.
- Wingding Eyes: In Jaune's recollection of telling his story to Alyx and Lewis, Alyx's eyes shine four point stars showing her excitement.
