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When you hear about a League of Legend-based series about Piltover, with the crazy marksman Jinx being chased by the huge mechanical gloves wielder tomboy bruiser Vi and the overly exaggerated British sniper Caitlyn, announced at the peak of the hype around Cyberpunk 2077, what do you expect if not mindless action?
Well, as Arcane proved, turns out that was not the intention, as instead there was a lot of focus on the emotional connection between the characters, the basics of the way the arcane magic from the setting works, a theme of fusing magic and science, and a sociopolitical conflict between the rich and developed Columbia (from Bioshock Infinite)-like Piltover and Zaun, the poor and contaminated slums below it, and surprisingly without victimizing nor demonizing neither side, as there are gray characters on both sides of the conflict.
The first season shows engineers Jayce and Victor (this one originally from Zaun) learning to canalize arcane infused magical crystals on weapons and tools, which may help as a resource for Piltover, enforcer (policewoman) Caitlyn and gangster and former prisoner Vi working together to find Jinx and other criminals, so the conflict between the cities does not escalate further, part of the higher ups from Piltover wanting to leave Zaunites alone, and even early in the story one leader of misfits, Vander, containing the gangs back there with the same objective. And as the emotional core of it all, the conflict between two separated sisters, confronted about a tragic event in their past.
Although the cast in general is fine, the best handled characters are Silco, a major gangster developing toxic weapons and monsters with a gas that Piltover releases over Zaun, to use them back against the city, and Jinx, whose crazy antics were changed from the videogame from maniacal to traumatized, with seemingly a personality disorder, constantly having conversations with another version of herself, or completely alone, flashbacks and illusions of people from her past, and being hurt for all the loses and abandonment in her life, plus seeing her sister working with those who were their enemies their whole lives.
To that can be added an almost impeccable production. The artstyle is distinctive, the 3D models, places and backgrounds are well rendered and show no issue whatsoever, the character designs were updated for the better from their originals (besides Viktor), the motions are polished, the facial expressions are impressively detailed, and the special effects are also very good. The audio department contains incredible sound effects, good enough voice acting at least in English, Spanish, Latin American Spanish and Japanese, and some references to the music from the videogames, but suffers from a not very good soundtrack with even Disney’s Phill Collins era of excusing exposition with the weak lyrics of easygoing songs.
Besides that, not everything in the first season was good, as the runtime sometimes suffered from slice of life moments, silly comical bits that clash with the overall seriousness, some unnecessary scenes which stalled the plot, and the lack of an ending. But nonetheless, if you just stick with the first season, it is overall a solid watch.
Unfortunately, there’s a notable drop in quality in the second season. Not in terms of production though, as the audio kept the same level and the animation was just as phenomenal if not better thanks to having some different and distinctive visual styles during some scenes.
But what was undeniably worse was the script. To be fair with it, the overall story is good and it does start well with Zaunites rioting and Caitlyn dealing with her loss from the first season and turning it into a class-based hate, beyond a personal one, even telling Vi she’s “one of the good ones”. Besides that you have Jinx helping other Zaunites and making them rise, the sisters sorting things out, the lesbian pairing becoming canon after more than a decade, Noxians displaying the invasion they were cooking over since the beginning, an anticipation and buildup of the Black Rose group, a look into Mel’s past, objective and family situation, and even metaphysical aspects with a sort of multiversal closed loop at the end of the series.
Unfortunately, too many things are happening at the same time, and in such a short time, that you can’t help but feel that the pacing is rushed or the amount of episodes is short or the runtime is poorly handled. Caitlyn becomes a dictator and snaps out of it after a montage; she breaks up with Vi, gets together with someone else, then helps Vi again for her personal gain despite going against her whole plan, and then gets back with her, out of nowhere. Silco is revered as a hero of the people for… reasons, Jinx becomes his successor of sorts and liberates Zaun, out of screen, Vander turns out to be alive, his past and relationship with Silco is revealed, introducing issues with what was previously established about the kids from the first season, the sisters sort things out out of nowhere, a whole episode is dedicated to what if scenarios in another timeline, wasting runtime that could have been dedicated to what it is actually happening in the plot.
Also there’s another unnecessary sex scene, not as long as the one from the first season but even more awkwardly introduced in the series, there’s some silly comedy here and there, there’s a whole invasion, war and Zaun and Piltover uniting out of nowhere to fight a bigger threat, and that was the end of their decades worth of conflict, and the metaphysical aspects are presented and resolved, all of these last things taking place in one and a half episodes.
Also, regarding the death of characters, some people complained about their lack of impact and how little the characters ended up matter in the plot, while players of the game complained about the canon inconsistencies. Personally I think no death is confirmed on screen, every character can get back to life one way or another, and the canon of the game doesn’t matter one bit because they can always rewrite it for the third or fourth time and call it a day.
But down to it, it is true that every interesting aspect introduced on either the first or the second season got a rushed and lukewarm resolution in the end. So although I had this series rated positively for a while, I no longer can turn a blind eye to its many problems in the second season, and have to lower my score to the point of considering the series not worth the watch, at least not beyond the first three episodes of the second season.
5/10
