There isn’t a lot that can make me cry, but it is safe to say that the second season of Netflix’s and Riot Games’ “Arcane” is currently at the top of that list.
Where do I even start? There’s so much that could be said about it — which is impressive considering the season only has nine episodes ranging from 39-50 minutes in length — from the visuals, voice acting, story lines and music.
It is kind of incredible how much they could pull off in terms of character and plot development in such a short runtime, even if there was a time skip involved.
The story essentially picks up right where season one left off, after Jinx (Ella Purnell) bombed the council just as they voted to declare peace between the upper, rich Piltover and the lower, run-down Zaun. The season is separated into three acts (three episodes each) and with a week in-between releases, they might as well be three different seasons.
Technically there are four separate storylines to follow. One focuses on Jinx and her relationship with her sister Vi (Hailee Steinfield), her newly adopted sister/daughter Isha and their father Vander turned monster called Warwick (JB Blanc), while Jinx serves as a rebellion symbol for the Zaunites.
Another one follows Jayce (Kevin Alejandro) and Viktor (Harry Lloyd) after Viktor almost dies in the explosion Jinx causes. Jayce’s decision to fuse Viktor with the Hexcore results in Viktor becoming a robot-like entity and man essentially goes from Jesus to Antichrist in a span of a few episodes.
Tied with the previous one is the story of Ekko (Reed Shannon) and his travel to an alternate universe which makes him live up to his “The Boy Saviour” nickname.
Last line focuses on Caitlyn (Katie Leung) who goes through her own dictator arc supported by the warmonger Ambessa (Ellen Thomas), who has her own struggles when her daughter Mel (Toks Olagundoye) is kidnapped by an organization that is after Ambessa’s life and ends up turning into her League of Legends game champion format.
Of course all of these overlap at one point or another.
That was the least complicated way to explain the plot, I promise.
While all that sounds fun, it gets a bit more sad once all the bodies start piling up. I am still a strong believer that Jinx managed to escape the final explosion and that Isha’s death was absolutely unnecessary.
Ambessa on the other hand had it coming, argue with the wall.
“Arcane” loves to play with the audience’s emotions. It is hard to remember sometimes that the characters on the screen are just strokes of a pen, that’s how realistic the voice acting in this series is.
Do not, and I repeat, do not be one of the people who are already calling for a live-action remake of this masterpiece. The reason “Arcane” works so well is very much credited to the incredible visuals and details that went into it.
About 450 artists worked on this season in the Fortiche Production’s creative team, and it shows.
I could sit here and break down every single detail in every single frame, but were I to do that, this thing would be 250 pages long. Not because I was obsessing over said details in every episode and have already watched an insane amount of break-down videos, but because there are just that many of them.
Even the opening sequence features little spoilers that you can’t see at normal speed, but are a cool little easter egg once you realize.
Every frame, every mili-second of each episode is so carefully thought out. From barely-there frames that you have to pause the episode just right for, through the mixture of various animation styles used, the hours and hours of work that went into this make up for the three years we had to wait for the season to come out.
That is even more supported by the soundtrack. There isn’t a single song that is bad. “Enemy” by Imagine Dragons stayed as the intro — great decision in my opinion — and it is supported by songs from artists ranging from Ashnikko to Twenty One Pilots.
Woodkid, the artist behind “Guns for hire” from season one returned with “To Ashes and Blood” and d4vd’s “Remember Me” might just be the most emotional song when you watch the scene it accompanies.
My top three, though, have to be “Come Play” by Stray Kids (and yeah maybe it is because it’s my favorite group and the song plays in a scene with my favorite character), “Sucker” by Marcus King and “Ma Meilleure Ennemie” by Strommae and Pomme.
It is kind of sad to think that there won’t be another season. While multiple series’ about other parts of the League of Legends lore have been confirmed, “Arcane” really is over.
And it was a tragic masterpiece.
