Editor’s Note: Just a reminder, we do cover some light story details here, although if you’re already familiar with the characters in the game, most of it is well known.
As with all things Riot Games is producing now, funding is very important on Arcane’s screen, with its striking new animated series Act 1 on Netflix last weekend, with Act 2 arriving on the 13th. As a League of Legends fan (to my perpetual shame), this is an unsurprising treat, full of winks and nods, and sparkling blue legends, and as I hoped and did doubt, fistfights are now formidable The stature of the studio can be managed. Still, as a fan of regular TV, it’s pretty surprising. Arcane is real, good TV.
To address the obvious: no, you don’t need to be a LoL fan to enjoy Arcane. It’s a prequel, and the goal here is clear – to attract a new wave of fans through a whole new medium that they might even stick to. Arcane is set years before the “now” in League of Legends, whenever. Basically, it follows a handful of characters from League of Legends, but they’re all a few years younger. Those in their 20s that the average gamer might know are actually teens and teens, those in their 30s are 20s, those in their 300s, like Yoda-esque covenants. Del Scientist Heimerdinger, is their early to mid-ish 300s.
It’s a neat way to balance the two — a ton of fresh knowledge for League of Legends nerds, and an equal entry point for new audiences who don’t know anything — and Riot has always been good at that. Smart, really. Arcane is set in the two cities of Piltover, a shiny steampunk land of scientific (and economic) advancement, and the “dungeon” Zaun that exists below it, just Like steampunk and ingenuity, but without freedom, safety, and money.This is a clever setup, because in terms of LoL’s Runeterra world (and connected “realms”), it’s about combining the safety of recognizable things (fairly modern technology, humanoids, guns) with some sort of a small amount
Arcane is novel in many ways, but also very safe in many other ways. This is Riot’s theme. If you’ve followed the new, post-League of Legends games — the card fighter Legends of Runeterra, the tactical shooter Valorant, or even the more niche auto-chess spin-off Teamfight Tactics — you’ll find them all in the middle of their respective The genre, first and foremost, sells a strict ability, the novelty is still there, but very secondary. From those games to arcane, most of it feels very similar.
An inevitable big example here is its role. Arcane’s protagonists—Ve, Jinx, Jace, and supporting characters like Ike, Caitlyn, Viktor, and Heimerdinger—are League of Legends champions, and League of Legends champions are often associated with highly recognizable Archetypes are linked together, and in some cases even other characters in popular culture. For example, Jinx is a chaotic, murderous, scrawny villain cut from a Harley Quinn mold. Victor, in the days of League of Legends, was a brilliant, bitter scientist accompanied by a robotic arm, Doctor Octopus.
This is absolutely necessary in LoL, and really is part of the whole fun of it – MOBAs, like any RPG, have progression, specialization, and their own characteristic immersion – but they’re also intense and full of super High-intensity action. That means the champions in the game all have to be instantly recognizable, drawn in thick lines, just by their looks, their four abilities, and possibly a dozen or so vocal barks in the carnage. Bringing those well-realized but ultimately rather superficial characters to life in TV series, more than in previous incarnations, like weirdly fast animated trailers with some raised eyebrows and cool flips, and even feature-length movies, Meaning the writers have had to go through a deep rework that goes well beyond the massive lore rework that League of Legends has gone through in recent years.
In some places, it does show. Arcane, at least for the first four episodes, which is what I’ve seen so far, tells several parallel stories. One focuses on an orphan, teenage Vi (it stands for Violet, it turns out) and sister Jinx (née Powder), whom LoL fans will know as “now” rivals, the two of whom are increasingly in crime and Zaun. The more dangerous prank. Thus, the B-plot follows the brilliant heartthrob Jess and his fascinating scientific endeavors to surface, alongside Academy members Victor and Professor Heimerdinger and his ultra-privileged childhood friend Caitlin.
The thing is it does, a lot of times, feel like you’ve seen these characters’ stories many times before. Vi is a doer of good who is forced to do wrong only because of circumstances. The fan is younger, rejected by older circles of friends, and before a rather significant twist, she repeatedly claimed she was “not ready” for the real action. Jace fell into a subtle, reluctant arrogance. Caitlyn is brave and determined, contrary to her upper-class upbringing. Victor is a genius who may have naively and generously accepted this gift for his own benefit. Heimerdinger was once a trailblazer who became fearful and conservative with experience and age.This effect, combined with Arcane’s origins as a series itself, can sometimes make the whole thing feel more like a knowledge-expansion exercise than a storytelling exercise where characters go through good telegram character development, but Considering their sheer number and the relatively limited amount of time Arcane gives each screen, there is less time Features
But at the same time, which is crucial, the beats are executed so well, the characters are immediately very engaging. Some of this comes from my perspective as a player – I think I’m as callous as anyone when it comes to fictional character attachments, but as a longtime Victor main character I find myself odd, seeing He’s in – a dynamic screen, a viewing experience that sometimes feels like watching an 8mm lens of my newfound parents before I was born: so this is my guy; this is his life.It’s weird – maybe touch Embarrassed – Emotional. Apparently, the thousands of hours spent with a handful of heroes in League of Legends affected me more than simply increasing my agility (or blood pressure).
Likewise, Arcane’s animation is extraordinary, the product of Riot’s partnership with Fortche, a French studio that has previously produced promotional campaigns such as music videos for major K/DA K-pop events in League of Legends. At first glance—every glance, in fact—the Arcane looks like a static, hand-carved piece of concept art, coming to life. Sometimes it can be uncanny and a little otherworldly. It sometimes feels like this is a painting that wants to be that, a dynamic picture that longs for stillness, forced into an unnatural movement by some kind of forbidden necromancy. But it’s always noticeable, culminating in moments of intense, shocking violence and screen-filling explosions, as well as the quieter, one-off expressions, laughter and shrugs that bring such a welcome texture to the action .
With that animation, its relative sparseness – rarely do more than one thing at a time actually move around the screen, or at least rarely do seem In this way, bringing classic, composed Japanese animation (like Evangelion) to mind – Arcane can achieve some real subtlety, gentle enough to cut through the broader brushstrokes of its episodic story. We can all see what happened to Powder, as she didn’t crawl like Anakin-esque transformation into Jinx—but predictability didn’t make that final moment any less painful or tragic. Not an inevitable rift either – I haven’t seen that happen, but pretty much anything can be wagered – between Victor and Jace. (It’s worth noting that some have highlighted a potential gay bait here, which can be a problem depending on how things go, but, that said, there are many cases where this is a simple brotherhood – Plato Formal, emotional male relationships are also necessary in entertainment, in their own way).
All that said, it’s still only the first four episodes — the first act of three, plus a little bit of the second. At the pace of events in the series, we’re whistling through the backstories of these characters, which is probably the most important point here. Arcane is a set that was likely created for self-sufficiency, however, knowing that LoL’s Runeterra planet has more than half a dozen more areas, plus more “realms”, I doubt it’s possible to spend every Different locations conduct seasons.
The LoL fans in me love this – I’m hooked on a crazy-paced origin story and can’t wait to see more of the same, applied to more of the things I love – but fans of “Good TV” I do not think so.Arcane, in its second and third acts, could benefit greatly by just slowing down a bit and spending more time with the small group of characters it now has and enjoying those characters as characters, rather than something that has to be developed programmatically at breakneck speed. It’s definitely a thrill, full of welcome color and life. But modern TV, the real good stuff, is all about slow burn after all. It just makes the kind of huge, decisive boom that Jinx and the like crave feeling better.
