Viz Media announced during its panel at Anime Expo on Friday that it has acquired the RWBY series following Rooster Teeth’s shutdown. Viz Media now holds the rights for future distribution, production, licensing, and consumer products related to the series. The company is also working on the production of new chapters in the series.
Viz Media has previously published manga for the RWBY franchise, including Shirow Miwa’s adaptation of the web animated series in Shueisha’s Ultra Jump magazine from November 2015 to February 2017.
Viz Media published this manga in its English edition of Weekly Shonen Jump magazine beginning in October 2017 and also released it in print. Additionally, Viz Media published Bunta Kinami’s RWBY: The Official Manga, which Kinami launched in Shonen Jump+ in December 2018 and concluded in June 2020. Viz Media also published the RWBY manga anthology series.
The original RWBY web animated series, created by the late Monty Oum, follows four girls with unique weapons and powers training to hunt supernatural “Creatures of Grimm.”
Rooster Teeth produced nine volumes and 117 episodes, with the ninth volume airing from February 2023 to March 30, 2023. Shaft’s RWBY: Ice Queendom television anime premiered in Japan in July 2022. Crunchyroll streamed the series as it aired in Japan and also provided an English dub.
Rooster Teeth, known for RWBY and gen:LOCK, revealed in March through a memo from general manager Jordan Levin to its staff that, after 21 years, it was shutting down due to challenges in digital media arising from fundamental shifts in consumer behavior and monetization across platforms, advertising, and patronage.
At that time, Rooster Teeth’s parent company Warner Bros. Discovery announced it would look for options for its IPs, including RWBY and gen:LOCK.
