https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/94605-arcane
trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ps6nV4wiCE
tl;dr Watch it. The animation is about the best I've ever seen and the story has a refreshing depth that I haven't seen in a long while.
Spoiler free summary: I don't know anything about LoL lore other than memes and character/location names from Runeterra card text. But you don't need to know any background to enjoy this one even though I'm sure there is a lot of easter eggs only fans will get. The story is set in a fantasy crystaltech streampunk city divided starkly into a rich, clean area and a dirty, rough ghetto. The first ep has a group of lower city amateur thieves going for a "big score" in the good part of town. Naturally, things go wrong.
The plot moves smoothly from there, introducing new characters and integrating their stories while expanding the scope of the setting for the viewer. The show has an ensemble cast so there is a lot of content and background to deliver but I never felt that things were rushed or compressed. The writers did a good job balancing the individual character scenes and flashbacks with the main plot so there is enough to satisfy yet also leave the viewer wanting more.
The animation takes the spiderverse solid-color aesthetic and expertly refines it to what I would argue is one of the best looking series ever made. The background art is so lovingly crafted and obviously displayed to show off that it is almost a character in itself, helping pull the viewer into the show's universe. The motion and action and impact reminded me of the best of 70s/80s hand-drawn animation but at a modern framerate and resolution.
The main character of the first ep does have dyke-cut pink hair, but if you can push past that the series is a very satisfying watch.
And obviously pirate it because nobody should be paying neflix.
Spoilery category breakdown: Rated on a scale of 0-5 with 3+ pushing into unwatchable territory
Diversity: 1 - There are no black "main" characters though the city is conspicuously multi-ethnic. Some black side characters are shown to be in positions of respect and power. The police chief is stereotypically asian and has a daughter who appears to be white. Jayce who is the a co-main character is swarthy but that has no story impact. Overall this show does diversity "correctly" as in how it worked in the 90s. There are characters of different races but no attention is brought to that fact, and the society presented appears to be effectively colorblind.
Feminism: 1.5 - Three of the five "main" characters are female. They all have extraordinary abilities but iirc don't push into mary sue territory. If anything the show goes out of the way to "do the work" of explaining how the characters got their powers and what drove them to train. Episode one is the worst with the hyper-competent VI doing everything perfectly including winning fistfights with and effectively threatening men. But at the same time that expectation of feminist perfection is subverted because VI's later failures are major plot drivers, and her lack of humility is shown to harm those she cares about most. Still she does have the pink haired dyke side cut which made me cringe whenever I saw it.
Faggotry: .5 - There is a prominently displayed crossdresser prostitute for a few seconds of episode 1. One of the council members presents as gay but it is never highlighted. Otherwise the show is mercifully faggotry free.
Subversion: 1.5 - The main plot revolves around the downtrodden undercity dwellers and their struggle while the well off upper city lives in luxury. And the police are shown as faceless stormtroopers. Overall this trope is subverted by humanizing both sides and showing "oppressed" aren't always good and the "oppressors" aren't always evil, and violent revolution is probably counterproductive.
There's no reason to heap praise on something for having merely tolerable levels of wokeness.
You've been so starved of sanity in your media that you're jumping up and down in excitement at the merest whiff of it. Pull yourself together, man.
The visuals are astounding, and the production value is high but other than than that the best that can be said about it is that it isn't insufferable. Hardly a high bar worth celebrating.
While they are usually corollary I don't immediately equate wokeness with quality.
Almost all woke crap is bad because the medium takes backseat to the message and that is something to look for But in this specific case I didn't see it
The first few episodes almost feels like "woke bait" where they threw in the stuff NPCs like to grab those critic numbers. Then started their story in episode 4. I doubt this intentional but it is just the way things turned out.
But like I said in the review, you do have to suffer through the main char's dyke design for the first episode but that is the only one she is really the main focus of.
Probably because China owns Riot so their product was made with the Chinese market in mind from the ground up.
I couldn't stand this show.
It is pointless drivel, has the idiotic 'girl who dresses and looks like a boy beats up multiple larger people' archetype throughout, the plot was convoluted and the dialogue was cringe as hell.
If you like high quality animation then yes, the animation is excellent. Nothing else about this show was redeeming.
Seeing Reddit go apeshit over it kind of confirmed my dislike for it, Riot has paid a ton of money to flood social media with positive praise for it trying to turn it into a new profit stream for them.
As someone who watches a wide variety of TV and film this was an overall poor quality show with excellent production. You can't replace plot and dialogue with high quality animation.
Did you watch all of it? I think with Vi getting those power gloves it'll be a nice end to some of the unnecessary girl power. But, the fight between Vi and Silco's underling chick was kinda cringe.
Idk, I'm watching for Jynx craziness and my husband is interested in the descent of Viktor, both of which didn't get enough time imo.
My wife came for Jinx and stayed for Victor.
I'm looking forward to seeing Death Granny beat up Ionians in the next season, if that's the direction they go.
Victor didn't get nearly enough screentime but the story was already pretty dense. I think they did a good job balancing between introducing a lot of characters and telling a complete story.
The first ep was the worst in terms of everything you said. The rest are better because they don't focus exclusively on VI.
I thought the plot was OK, because it was based the interaction of multiple conflicts with characters on different sides of them. Risk vs safety, revolution vs negotiation etc.
I watched the first episode when it was free and liked it a lot.
The guy she beats and intimidates in the first episode was just another teenage street rat and not a man, I believe. I wouldn't find that noteworthy in any media - at worst it means fudging the numbers where boys start to seriously outclass girls by a year or two - but certainly not in the kind of fantasy setting where exceptional humans of either sex are capable of superhuman feats. If Tryndamere can literally be too angry to die, Vi can be a woman and a bruiser.
And the viewpoint character in that scene clearly found the two prostitutes repulsive. That's anti-woke, if anything.
I agree with you up to the "anti woke" part. It is more that this appears to be a production that is pleasantly free of overt woke messaging.
I read this was produced over 6 years so its possible that lot of it was written and designed before 2016 (year zero) when the world went completely mad.
And yeah also agree that I give a pure fantasy world a lot more leeway in terms of mary sueness. Particularly when, unlike star wars, the powers/competence doesn't appear to be breaking any established universe rules.
The main thing is Riot doesn't see it as an allegory to the real world. They aren't pushing any message. It's a fantasy world that has some gritty realism in it. They don't have a problem showing the girls engaged in violence and getting their noses broken and teeth knocked out. There even was an attempted rape scene which highlighted the difference between Cait who is a highborn without any struggle and Vi who is an orphan, born into warfare and violence.
It is plausible that she could be a badass that takes dudes out in this fantasy world which is why I think it doesn't come off as preachy woke horseshit.
You're right, I expected Mary Sue garbage but found it really enjoyable instead.
Well riot also never stopped putting out sexy skins so there's that.
I'm sorry, but Riot should be on our boycott list for saying Valorant is for women.
https://archive.ph/8blAW
Got Akali?
TLDR: it's woke feminist garbage.
Thanks for this!
I have been mulling if I watch this or not. Because League Of Legends is woke trash. But I am glad that this is not miserably woke(Looking at you later seasons of Brooklyn 99), and it is just a normal TV show.