For as much shit I have given RWBY over the years for something that it isn’t, on a more through examination, it’s less of a failure, and more of a mix of tragedy, arrogance and identity crisis.
From what I’ve seen and heard, part of the reason why RWBY has been so divisive is because of the anime clichés it copies off in the first couple of seasons, only to throw curveballs whenever the story gets bogged down. Another is that story and characterization often takes a back seat to the fight spots, which wouldn’t be so bad if they were trying to be a straight up action series instead of a fairy-tale adventure series, and considering that the quality has been in a tailspin since Monty Oum died, that’s not a good sign.
Finally, When Oum died and a few of the key animators left, the cadaverous chimera of a cartoon began to collapse in reputation and quality, yet Rooster Teeth essentially put much of their eggs on the RWBY basket at the expense of others, that everything else became secondary at best in the hope that they can catch lightning in a bottle again. It’s no wonder why RT has turned into a punchline and will either absorbed into Cartoon Network or be dissolved entirely.
Personally, I have always viewed RT as an overrated one-trick pony company that only held up because they were an indie studio with a good reputation. Now since neither of them are true, RWBY has been buttfucked in a comatose state where all of its flaws have been magnified and about the only thing that can salvage it to have Volume 8 be the end of the series. It should be telling that fanfic writers and R34 artists have treated RWBY a lot better than Miles and Kerry have in the last 5 years, and by proxy, Rooster Teeth as a whole.