The following article reviews a TV show that contains graphic content.
On Oct. 27, 2009, Riot Games, commonly referred to by its shorthand, Riot, released “League of Legends,” a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game filled with cut scenes, biographies, and voice lines for each character but lacking an overall story, since its main goal was to simply make an entertaining game.
Over time, as the game gained more fame, Riot included new characters, places, and storylines. However, this led to the story being re-routed several times, causing the game’s stories to contradict each other at times.
This left dedicated players and fans with an undefined timeline for its lore.
Nevertheless, after six years of hard work in partnership with French animation studio Fortiche, on Nov. 6, 2021, Riot released “Arcane” on Netflix.
Since “Arcane” is the most recently released lore, it is implied to be the new canon for “League of Legends,” a generally-accepted trend that applies to all lore released by Riot.
In 2022, “Arcane” became the first streaming-exclusive program to win an Emmy for Best Animated Program, proving with its intense storytelling that video game adaptations can be a work of art and that adult animation doesn’t always have to be comedic.
That same year, the show was nominated for five awards and impressively won four in total.
“Arcane” mainly follows the lives of two sisters, Violet, shortened to Vi, and Powder, who is later known as Jinx, as the two are set on opposite sides of a conflict between Piltover, a wealthy utopia, and the undercity, Zaun, which wants to be independent from Piltover.
One of the most notable things to recognize “Arcane” for is its unique and breathtaking artstyle. It uses a mixture of three-dimensional and two-dimensional elements that make the characters look like they are in a painting but still human through their movement.
Aside from the characters’ motion, the camera action in “Arcane” is also not as static as other cartoons — it has more dynamic camera angles that makes the viewer feel like they are there with the characters in the moment.
The creators also chose for their characters to express emotions more realistically than what is normally seen in animation through details like dynamic wrinkles on their face when they’re screaming or a runny nose when they’re crying.
This helps the audience better connect to how the characters are feeling.
Using complex camera angles and a variety of human expressions is difficult for animators to do — it takes a lot of time, thus resulting in higher costs, so it was really inspiring seeing “Arcane” accomplish this.
With a tendency to trust the audience, “Arcane” shows how subtle, nuanced visual storytelling is important and effective as opposed to spoon-feeding viewers all the information they need to know.
For instance, in episode two, the creators visually show through its music and art how the city of Zaun changes after the various events in season one, updating the audience on what happened, but also not telling them everything and helping the audience figure it out themselves.
Moreover, when developing most characters, the writers don’t try to make them completely good or bad — they show how all of them are human through their flaws. They also give them motivations that make sense for their character and for the story as a whole.
For the character designs, they lean away from making the female-identifying characters’ designs align with the male gaze, like most of them did in “League of Legends.” Instead, the outfits resemble who they are as a character and better help tell the story.
A good example of this is Vi’s design in “Arcane” compared to hers in “League of Legends.”
In-game, Vi’s outfit enhances her chest and tightens around her waist. Her outfit in “Arcane” season 1, however, tells her story and compliments her personality better without trying to highlight any part of her body.
For instance, the bandages wrapped around her arm show how she has gained scars from constantly fighting, which is a big aspect of her character. This detail helps make the design less pandering to the audience and more accurate to who Violet is as a fully-realized character.
It also makes more sense to the environment she lives in — the city of Zaun is a place where the characters in the show normally want to cover up or stay away from others, so the outfit Vi wears in the “League of legends” wouldn’t fit well with that aspect.
Furthermore, “Arcane” has a lot of cut scenes with music backing to help narrate the story. For instance, in episode four, they play “Paint The Town Blue” by Ashnikko.
This scene gave me this almost exhilarating feeling through its use of blue spray paint over the black and white paintings shown throughout the scene to show how many of the people in the city of Zaun want to escape and rebel against Piltover’s oppression. As a whole, it matched beautifully with the song, and I really enjoyed watching it.
Season two wasn’t a disappointment; it still retained the amazing writing, art, and animation they had in season one. I definitely enjoyed watching this season more, as it introduced a lot of new characters that I personally enjoyed seeing on screen, like Isha, Jinx’s little companion and chosen sister.
One of the things I found interesting was seeing the characters’ development, especially Jinx’s change in her relationship with Vi after the various trials they faced in season one.
The show also adds some well-executed and subtle parallels from season one throughout season two.
For example, in episode two, Isha falls down from a pipe when trying to run away and hits Jinx, who protects Isha from the people that were chasing her. This reflects the scene in season one where Jinx (known as Powder at the time) was about to fall from a roof, but Vi caught her.
This parallel shows how Vi was there to lift Jinx up while Jinx was there to help Isha survive in the city of Zaun and understand how to get her way around, highlighting the differences between Isha and Jinx’s relationship and Vi and Jinx’s relationship.
Instead of making the show feel repetitive, the parallels support the narrative by revealing differences between some of the characters.
Additionally, the show steps up its game in creating good background characters by giving them beautiful and heartbreaking stories.
In most shows, background characters don’t often get their time to shine. However, in “Arcane,” without straying too far from the main characters’ stories, secondary characters have their own stories and factors that make them unique.
Like the main characters, minor characters get to grow and develop throughout the story as well, although it is not as in-depth.
I really liked how they added memories from the past between some of the main characters as well — even if they weren’t my memories, they made me feel nostalgic, especially when they played one of my favorite songs: “Our Love” from Curtis Harding and Jazmine Sullivan.
Despite how many good reviews the season has received, including a rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, there has been a lot of backlash about the ending, as it left many fans feeling unsatisfied — especially because this was confirmed to be the last season.
This is in part because several scenes focused on some fan-favorite characters were cut, and many viewers, myself included, felt the finale was too fast-paced due to the time crunch the creators had to work on it.
Because the rest of “Arcane” was so remarkable, I was led to have high expectations for the finale. However, when it was not everything I expected it to be, hearing about the last episode’s unrealized potential left me feeling even sadder that the show was not getting another season.
On the brighter side, Riot assured that they are working on three new sequels for “Arcane.” These sequels are set to be in different regions in the “League of Legends” universe, focusing on new characters while also further expanding on some concepts and characters from “Arcane.”
As a whole, this show has impacted me a lot through my art and my appreciation for animation, so I’m sad to see its ending.
Although the finale was quite disappointing, I still recommend watching this show as it is not only entertaining to watch, but it also teaches viewers a lot about art and writing good and complex characters. Across both seasons, “Arcane” displayed its ability and willingness to push boundaries and carve a new path for many more animations and game adaptations to come.
