Arcane

I finally got round to finishing Arcane. Mark me as impressed. All round. It starts as a steampunkish dystopia and just gets better. I mean who doesn’t love magic in their gear sets? The diversity of characters is astounding. Which is of course to be expected from a series based on LOL, but I’m still impressed they managed to pull it off. And it’s not just the characters which are diverse. The series starts out in the undercity (the name is totally apt), but soon proceeds to show the overcity (proper steampunk), and also has other “environments” to show.

The animation is also 10/10. I was initially somewhat irked by the Disney eyes, but after a while stopped noticing as I was too focused on the sheer beauty of the animation. The backgrounds are just stunning, and the attention to detail is phenomenal. Forget Ghibli characters stumbling - Arcane takes it even further. And the action scenes… few animations get it done this well. For a spoiler-example check the J vs E fight. Or the last scene… That’s an instant classic. Every second.

And on that topic, the music. I’ve long held that a very good heuristic for the quality of a film/series is the soundtrack. Obvious examples are Attack on Titan, Planetes or Haibane Renmei for examples which might not be the best songs possible, but they perfectly fit them. Or Peaky Blinders for a non anime example. Arcane totally nails this. If all that it had was the soundtrack it would still be a masterpiece. Each song was written specially for the series, and it totally paid off. Both in the resulting quality of the songs and in how they fit. I mean just take a look at this scene when the Imagine Dragons song starts playing! Pure gold! Not to mention that they got Sting to write a song for it…

The story is an ensemble, which is to be expected for a series based on LOL heros. But they’re interwined seamlessly. One could nitpick that it’s implausable for so many of them to meet in order for the story to progress as it does, but that would disqualify most of fiction. The interactions are very fluid and make sense in context. I personally prefer shows that are slow paced, and this is most certainly not one of those. There were moments that I felt that some things were moving a bit too fast, especially the Vi parts, while others were a bit slow. But that’s just a matter of taste. This is an action packed series and good at it. I really enjoyed meeting characters I know. I don’t play LOL much, but when I do it’s usually as Caitlyn, so it was nice to see her and to anticipate her interactions with Jinx. It’s also nice how the heros fit how they’re represented in the game. Down to their signature moves and styles. That being said, previous knowledge is by no means needed. It’s like the 2019 Joker film - knowing somewhat about Batman will add an extra dimension to the film, but it stands perfectly well on its own two feet, thank you very much.

All in all, Arcane is a really well done show - totally recommendable. Which is to be expected from Riot Games, a music company which sometimes dables in games…