I've been slowly working my way through
RWBY. I've reached episode 6 of volume 3 now.
Monty Oum tragically passed away between volumes 2 and 3, and it really shows in the fight scenes. There have been plenty of analyses of Monty's animated fights, and what makes them special, such as Monty's impeccable grasp of poses and body positions, the rhythm in his fights, and how his scenes are framed. But to me, the biggest difference I've noticed so far is that Monty didn't "cheat" in his fight scenes, for lack of a better word.
I'm sure many of you are familiar with this
Every Frame a Painting video that compares Jackie Chan's fight scenes to fights in western movies. One of the points made in the video is that western movies tend to use the camera to hide deficiencies in the actors' technique. For example, abrupt cuts when a hit lands, moving the camera around the combatants, etc. These things all started happening in volume 3's fight scenes, starting from the first episode. In the first episode, Team RWBY fights in the tournament, and
Yang takes a punch to the face. The punch isn't shown, it just goes "enemy's fist flies towards Yang" -> "punch sound" -> "cut to Yang flying backwards". I mean, what's the point of that? That kind of thing is done in movie fight scenes because the actors can't act out the fight convincingly enough, but these are animated characters, so what's your excuse?
There's also a tendency in volume 3 for fighters to become a literal blur of movement, as in the animators will draw them as a blur when they move from one location to another, or when they dodge hits.
One example is in the fight between Qrow and Winter. The fights in volumes 1 and 2 generally wouldn't do this; characters do move fast enough to look like a blur of movement in the video, but if you slow the video down or go through it frame by frame, you can see that the characters are actually doing moves incredibly quickly, and it's just that we as viewers can't catch it (at least not the first time we watch it). Characters who really do move fast enough to become a blur generally have story-related reasons for being able to do so, such as when Ruby and Blake use their semblances.
Another example of "cheating" would be
Sun landing hits on his opponent in the tournament. The shot is framed so that only the hits from his weapon are seen, as if to indicate how fast he is. But in volume 1,
there's a fight that illustrates his speed and technique, where the shot is from a wider angle and the camera is held more or less steadily, so that his every move is visible.
In episode 6 there's a fight between Yang and Mercury, which I considered a return to form for the series, because it replicated very well the stuff that made the fights from the earlier series so memorable. Afterwards, out of curiosity, I looked up who had animated that fight, and it turned out that most of it had been done by Monty before his passing.
I'm sure that the animators worked very hard on the fights in volume 3, and that they are undoubtedly talented animators in their own right. Monty and his work were unique, and almost irreplicable, and I understand that RWBY had to find a new direction after his departure. But so much of my enjoyment of the first two volumes came from Monty's spectacular fight scenes, so it's hard not to be at least a bit disappointed at how things are turning out. As I understand it, volumes 4 and 5 use a new animation software and their fight styles deviate even further from Monty's original style. That's making me less inclined to continue watching.