Series Thoughts: Arcane (Season 1)

• Released: November 6, 2021
  
• Total amount of seasons: 1
  
• Seasons watched: 1
  
• Rating: 4.5/5

Synopsis

The story of the two sisters as they are torn apart by a conflict between the upper city of Piltover and the underground of Zaun.

My Thoughts

I never intended on watching this as it came out. Sure, it looked promising, but as someone who was simply never interested in League of Legends it never looked that engaging to me. However after a continuous badgering from my brother and also other friends of mine recommending it and telling me it can be watched without prior knowledge of the game, I finally decided to give it a look.

And I was absolutely wowed by the result. Damn, is this a good show. And I'm not just talking animation and visuals (though they are phenomenal), but characters, story, conflict, etc. It's such a good show.

Starting with those visuals everyone praises: they are totally right. The series is CGI, but it has this really neat painterly and slightly unpolished feel to it that makes it just look fantastic. I love the style in this so much. It kind of reminded me of the humans in the 2018 White Fang movie by Netflix, but whereas there the style didn't work and looked too rough around the edges and unfinished, here it has been perfected into this beautiful style that's unlike anything I've ever seen. Heck, there's even some 2D animation incorporated into several sequences and scenes, usually for particle effects or stuff like fire/smoke. It just looks breathtaking and I wish we got more content in this type of animation. 

The characters are once more fantastic, to the point I have a hard time picking a fave. I love Vi, Caitlyn, Jinx, Ekko, Mel, Viktor, and heck even Sevika and Silco. And even the characters that aren't my personal favorites I still for the most part at least got something out of, whether it's them being a genuine threat or just really interesting. But this show has just an amazing well-rounded cast of characters who all have flaws and just feel very human. I liked the bad guys, too. Silco made for a genuine threat and I loved his bond with Jinx, kinda wish we got to see more of it. 

The lore and world-building, though I don't know how much of it is made up for the show and how much was borrowed from the game, is also very intriguing. Pretty much the entire thing takes place in just Piltover and Zaun, but I never once grew bored with the locations and instead wanted to know more of them. I loved learning about their history, politics, leaders, etc. The politics of both locations in general are a huge factor into the plot, so it was really neat to see that everything was so well-developed. Heck, how both parties were even willing to bargain for peace in the end. Up until that very last scene...damn that was intense. I know I normally talk spoilers in these reviews, but I'm just going to leave the ending up for you to watch because I wouldn't want to ruin it for new viewers in a million years.

Is it perfect? Honestly, pretty damn close to it, yes. I do have a small gripe but that's 100% a personal preference: I would've liked to see more major non-human characters. This takes place in a fantastical world with magic and it is established that multiple non-human sapient species do exist, however outside of maybe Heimerdinger all major roles belong to humans and while I like seeing humans as characters as much as the next guy, if it's a world with fantasy creatures I tend to also want to get my non-human representation. I wouldn't be half as interested in Lord of the Rings if all the major players were Men, for example. But, again, I acknowledge that this is mostly a personal preference and maybe they couldn't even do this due to the pre-established lore of the games or something. Again, I'm not at all educated on League. 

As for my other nitpick, I've brought it up before. I loved Jinx and Silco as characters. They have this father-daughter bond and despite the both of them being villains they do genuinely care for one another. Yet they don't have all that many scenes together to show them interacting, so I wish we got just a bit more of that. The ending to their bond though...yeesh. Again, not gonna spoil what happens, but it's pretty damn sad.

Overall this is definitely a fantastic show I recommend to animation fans and non-animation fans alike. Like said before, you don't need any knowledge of League going in. It is definitely for older viewers and not for children, but honestly that's great. We need more adult animation that isn't just poorly-animated sitcoms à la Family Guy. This series is beautiful and fantastic and I eagerly await the next season, whenever that drops.