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In praise of Arcane season 2
To me this is the best thing I've ever seen, movie or series or otherwise. Characters, artstyle, writing, animations, worldbuilding, character depth, mental issues and disability representation and the music.
It's bold, it's flashy, it's outright heartbreaking and earth-shattering yet comforting and soft when it wants to be and then totally can spin the story again in a new direction. Bravo.
And I've seen anything from the Shawshank Redemption and The Dark Knight on release to obscure anime and bad TV series these past 25 years.
I bow to the incredible talent that has made this possible.
Absolutely loving it and I am very impressed with the rich world that Riot has managed to create.
Great animation, great characters, great story. Without a doubt one of the better shows out right now.
I'm glad you like it, though personally I have found it quite a mixed bag. I loved season 1 for all the reasons you mentioned and more; the writing was incredibly tight and every scene was woven together into perfection. Season 2 has some amazing moments and incredible animation as always, but it feels much messier. Still, I enjoyed it and will definitely be seated for act 3.
Complaints - Act 1-2 spoilers
There are so many plot-lines, with even more being introduced on the fly, and several of them are going in circles. I'm getting whiplash from how many times they spontaneously go back and forth between peace and war—whether it's Piltover vs Zaun, Caitlyn vs Vi, Vi vs Jinx, etc. Mel's scenes are really cool, but she's practically in a completely different show.
The entire point of season 1 was to kill off Powder and create Jinx, exploring and grounding the transformation in great detail before the final point of no return in the ending. But this season randomly reverses it with the addition of a new character, then seems to be reversing that reversal by killing them off.
Every song in season 1 was memorable and felt integral to the story, but here it feels almost shoe-horned in sometimes (with some exceptions, of course, like Remember Me) with the constant music video openings. The scenes move by so fast that you can't really take them in anymore.
Spoilers
I believe the character was added to make her reflect on how she was seen by Vi in the previous season and as such was a way to bring them closer again as she now has someone to care about.Spoilers
Yes, they used Isha and the return of Vander to mend their sisterhood and enact a family reunion. But at the end of the act, Isha seems to unnecessarily blow herself and Warwick up using three hex crystals (the exact same thing Powder did), which could potentially put us back to square one. Hopefully the writers do something more interesting with it rather than just rehashing Jinx's transformation again. I do realize there's quite a lot of routes they could take in act 3 other than the obvious outcome, especially with all the crazy stuff that's concurrently happening.
Wow I was glued to my seat during all that season 2 arc 3. I'm so impressed. My favorite episode is that episode 7. Everything looked so amazing in that episode. The art style, I want more of it. I hope that they announce their next shows soon.
I think I need to rewatch Act 3 because I was actually a bit disappointed in the ending. Everything felt very rushed and messy to me, I think it really would have benefitted from at least one extra episode to smooth the run into the finale, or ideally a full extra act. Having said that, I loved the first two acts, plenty of series highlight moments and great ideas throughout, plus consistently superb animation and VA.
I much preferred the last act to the first and second of season 2. Ended so strong. It's definitely a series that needs to be analyzed to get the most out of it.
Yea it was amazing, just finished it now too :)) I feel this story has been told though. They can reuse the artstyle and do something like Arcane: What's Hext? with a new slew of characters. If you check the League of Legends roster there's a so much to pick from it's insane, I bet they could spin up a new story and not milk the old one dry.
They definitely laid the seeds for another story. We have the ties in Noxus that are unresolved.
Totally agreed on E7, by far the best thing in the season. I kinda liked it more than anything in S1 even.
But the rest of S2 didn't feel as good. Too many plot threads, too much focus on lore and superhero stuff when the strength comes from the characters. I think overall I liked S1 more.
It's still completely gorgeous and I'm glad they went bananas with the art style in some scenes.
Season 1 of Arcane is one of the best things I've ever seen. I very much enjoyed Season 2, but in comparison it feels like something is missing. I think that 'something' is a cohesive, overarching theme.
Season 1 elegantly wove its threads together. Common themes were shared across storylines. Developments in one plotline would drive those in the others, until they all culminated in a climax that felt fitting to them all.
Season 2 feels less focused. Some individual plotlines and character arcs are satisfying on their own merits, but they feel like separate stories in the same world. Links between storylines are circumstantial (ie, one character might be in two storylines), not thematic. In the final episode, various storylines happen to reach their conclusions at the same time and location, but they do not feel essentially intertwined.
The net effect is that Season 1 is greater than the sum of its parts, whereas Season 2 is exactly the sum of its parts. Those parts are, however, fantastic. The setting, the characters, and the action scenes are excellent. Most notably, the show is an oustanding visual masterpiece. Even the Spider-verse films do not match Arcane's beautifully stylised animation.
The ending to the show has lead me to jokingly develop a theory that
Act 3 spoilers
all great sci-fi anime end with the human instrumentality project. Obviously this is an exaggeration, but for some reason I really connect with the idea of a villain trying to save humanity from itself. Up until the final ActI legitimately found myself routing for Vikor to save the world through space magic.By the end of the show I felt like there every character had some level of morally grayness, which is probably a big reasons I feel quite attached to the characters.
I didn't bother watching Arcane since I've never played LoL, but I've heard the show doesn't require any previous knowledge of the game. Is that correct? I keep hearing good things, so I'll have to check it out if that's the case.
It doesn’t. And, to be honest, you don’t really learn any league lore from the game to begin with.
I still find it incredible that the game's lore is available in so many mediums except the game itself. They could have done PvE campaigns around lore events, maybe even a single-player mode that you could repeatedly complete using different (relevant or not relevant) champions.
It is a weird situation. To be honest, most players don’t care about the lore. But, if you were to speculate, what if they just didn’t bother? I think the game would have less players. Despite the fact that most people don’t care. It may be that the fact that you know there’s some 4 hour YouTube essay on the character you’re playing out there gives a feeling of polish even if you don’t watch or know any of it.
It also informs the design of the characters from a gameplay perspective. If the world is fleshed out then you have many little hooks where you can add-on your mechanics and visual design. Which indeed makes the entire experience feel more polished, but it also feels very cohesive.
Because of its addictive nature & occasionally toxic community, I don’t feel like it should be as popular. Despite of this, I can still appreciate the artistry behind it. It shows in Arcane, but even before this, they were always interested in making a story, an experience out of a “simple” game. By this I mean, there is not a lot of meta-gameplay going on. You’re on the same maps all the time, with the same objectives, dynamics and goals.
They put in a lot of effort into everything across the years: lore, character stories, presentation, UI, and more. The game went through many redesigns from each of these perspectives.
If a person reading this doesn’t know anything about League of Legends but you are still interested in visual media, look at this 80 second cinematic and tell me it’s not a great piece of audiovisual media.
And they’ve always done this sort of thing. Many cinematics, music videos, character design videos, etc.
So I find it natural, but fortunate that this ethos spilled over into Arcane.
It was, but then they purged and retconned a bunch of it and pushed it all elsewhere. There aren't many people that still remember the Megling Genocide for example.
Yeah never played the game but my partner and I both enjoyed season 1 alot.
Season 2 Act 1 was a bit shit and had a tonne of writing and pacing problems but Act 2 more than made up for it and even managed to hit the peaks of the very first season. Can't wait to see what the finale is like next week.
Meh. I think the issue with the current season is its rushed pacing, lack of a clear story direction and ham-fisted ways of setting story beats. Its tone is also way off than the first season. I would highly recommend reviewing the first season, its tone, its emphasis and thematic focus on the dynamics of power and then compare what they’re trying to do in the second season. The second season has already started off with several issues and based on what they have set up, will likely crack further under the small time frame they have to finish the story.
I can see that but I believe it works nicely when watched in conjunction with each other.
I’m watching through season 1 again and I’ll hit season 2 after. The immediate difference is the pace and development is much more methodical rather than a forced and rushed style. But also I think the answer “when watched in conjunction” doesn’t work. When you consume anything rapidly, it can make it look not as bad in comparison. Like season 6-9 of Supernatural seem not so bad because 10 kinda had a Renaissance. I think that doesn’t mean Season 2 isn’t bad.
I loved season 1, but I'm a more sceptical about season 2 at the minute. I think episodes 4-6 were a lot weaker than 1-3. I worry it's juggling too many plots at once. Now there is a lot I enjoy about the show, but lately the concerns are starting to pile up.
Season 2 Episode 4-6 spoilers
Mel, as stated elsewhere in the thread already, is in her own show. I half expect that her storyline will end unresolved as a setup for whatever project comes after Arcane.
I think it's a big mistake to have Heimerdinger and Ekko totally vanish from the story for at least 3 full episodes. I think they've got an interesting dynamic and they have their own plot about the tree dying that should be followed up on. (also with Ekko and Mel gone from the story, they've sidelined 2 of the 3 black characters in the show, which isn't a great look)
While I enjoyed the reunion of Vi and Cait, I cannot understand what either of them gained by having Vi pretend to be captured. I'm not certain why Cait doesn't even try to order Ambessa around given that she has at least nominal power over her.
The show suffers from the common affliction of not wanting to kill named characters. I don't believe there's any in-story justification for why Jinx didn't kill Singed or why Vi didn't use any of the nearby weapons to kill Ambessa (something that would've explained the faked capture plot). This same cliche also robs a lot of power from Isha trying to kill Warwick since they've refused to kill a character from the video game, so why would they start now?
I think that having Jayce try to kill Viktor because of the spread of hextech-derived prosthetics and because he feels he's fulfilling his promise to destroy the hexcore would be a good character beat.
Unfortunately, it looks like Jayce has been possessed by something that latched onto his wrist. Possession is almost always a dull storyline because it removes character agency in a way I find extremely boring.
So in the last three episodes they have to find some resolution for Mel, bring back Heimerdinger and Ekko, unpossess Jayce, resurrect Viktor, give Cait and Vi a proper ending, maybe exile Ambessa from Piltover, find endings for Jinx and Singed and Warwick too, resolve the issue of government in Piltover, and find some sort of uneasy truce between Piltover and Zaun.
Maye I'm too pessimistic and they'll pull it off and it'll be one of my favourite TV shows. But I am getting the impression they have bit off more than they could handle.
SPOILERS ALL OF SEASON 2 OF ARCANE
It was still bautiful and I had a good time with it, but that was only because I really like the Victor's arc. I fully recognize that Jayce/Victor are completely separated from the rest in a similar way as Mel and her stuff.
Season 2 should've been about a Zaun/Piltover civil war and them ultimately coming together to defend themselves against Noxus. But Mel, Victor and Jayce really needed to get through their stuff to set up future shows I guess. It did not mesh well, and instead of being connected by the plot, the only thing that connects the 2 climaxes of the invasion and then whatever the fuck you want to call Victor's ending weren't actually connected by any plot. The only thing that connected them was that they happened at the same time, in the same place.
They really needed to kill their darlings in S2 and focus on one plot, and that was the civil arc stuff because it's the logical conclusion after Silko's death in S1. I still had a great time with it though.
I did not know Arcane season 2 was already out. I had such mixed feelings about season 1. It was impressive showcase of the capabilities of 3d animation but somehow managed to burdened by and unfaithful to the source material it was adapting in some very frustrating ways.
Fun fact: Arcane is considered canon to the game and any inconsistency in the game will be retconned according to Riot.
But as someone who haven't played LoL for over a decade, what was unfaithful?
Weird, I enjoyed the first season, but thought this one was pretty bad. It just seemed very disjointed and chaotic.