How Arcane Solved the "Video Game Problem”

Why is Arcane incredible and successful? Riot kept Hollywood out of it. It's that simple.

Arcane is an example of a story with a focus on "show, don't tell" made by people that seem to love the material they work on...two primary things that made it successful imo.

Credit were credit is due, French animation Studio Fortiche is also responsible for Arcane as much as the creative team in Riot, they did collaborate with them on several music videos like Rise and the first KDA video (both which have the same 3D style with beautifully painted textures), even back then in 2018 everyone (myself included) were begging them to create a show using that exact style, and here we are now three years later with this wonderful show, hopefully season 2 will be as good as season 1 or even surpass it.

While I would argue that Castlevania was the one to solve "The Video Game Problem", Arcane is borderline a masterpiece. I would add that the soundtrack is also one of its strongest points.

Another huge point in the flashback fight between Ekko and Powder/Jynx is that Ekko learned and memorized Powder/Jynx’s shooting sequence so he was able to dodge all of her shots. Deep message that somethings never change.

Fun fact: the singer in "The Curse of the Sad Mummy" is Christian Linke, one of the showrunner of Arcane. Great video.

Detective Pikachu and Sonic walked so Castlevania could run and so Arcane could blast off to another fucking galaxy.

I completely agree. When studios trust the talent that made them what they are, that is when good games and stories continue to be produced. It is when companies forget or disregard their talent (for instance, turning to a completely unafiliated company to adapt their game to a movie) that we get mediocrity.

The thing I love most about Arcane is how real the characters are. Take Jayce for example (spoilers for Arcane ahead): At first it looks like a boring story I saw milion times before. Our hero is zero, but has great ideas. He team up with a guy who is also a zero but can help him and then they have success. Later our hero is popular and he starts to be selfish, doesn't listen to his friend who helped him get to the top and makes mistakes because of his selfish behavior. And now take a look at Jayce. Begining is same. Zero to hero story. But now Jayce is different, he listens to the ones with experience (listens to Heimmerdinger to not showing new Hextech inventions), his friends (he cares about Victor and listens to him), he still wants to sacrifice his lifes work for greater good. This is what I love, the feeling that every character is acting becuse of their experience and becuse of who they are. Awesome video by the way :) (sorry for bad english, its not my language)

I'd say that the first truly outstanding video game animated series was Castlevania. As it turns out the secret to converting a video game to a series/movie is making a good series/movie, but you base it around a video game. It's so simple but so many directors seem to think fan service and references will carry the whole movie.

I remember an interview by Peter Jackson where he said he and his co-writers put together what they thought would be a compelling story for LOTR, and then satisfied with the results went back and tried to incorporate as much Tolkien lore as possible. I feel like Riot did the same thing with Arcane. At it's core this is a great story well-told. They probably came in after several passes of the script and then said OK, what can we put in from the LoL lore without detracting from the heart of the story. Which is where I think a lot of VG adaptations go wrong - they start with a laundry list of 'must-haves' from the game and then try to create a story out of it.

Arcane almost makes me want to play League of Legends... almost

Arcane is what I call an anomaly of beauty and genius of art. Especially in 2021

Jinx's hat as a kid immitate a bird too, and the bird behind Jinx is actually a Raven with the upper beak longer ,Raven represent evolution, change, the third eye,.... it's usually mistaken for a crow, usually represent bad luck.

I'm willing to wait for season 2, may they take their time.

When I first saw Arcane getting 9.3 on IMDB, I was intrigued, but jaded by the history of videogame adaptations and my hatred for LoL as a video game. And then I watched it. I didn't think a story like this was possible, yet I came away with a profound love for every single character. Yes, I love Vander as the father figure, but I can't even explain how well done Silco's story was because I don't fully understand it myself yet. It's on another level. He quickly became my favorite character, closely followed by Jinx. Their tragic past against their 'siblings' they looked up to is, not only sympathetic but empathetic to me. I've heard some people complain that the story isn't really that good and that people are fooled by the visuals, but they fail to see what the visuals actually accomplish. They're not only there to be seen. Sure, the visuals are absolutely beautiful, but more importantly, they tell a story of their own. There were so many scenes without a piece of dialogue or plot point that still spoke volumes due to the sheer attention to detail in the facial animations, camera work, lighting, music choice, pacing, and so much more. This show is nearly perfect in every aspect of storytelling.

One of my favourite things about arcane is its portrayal of women. They have the “crazy but cute” stereotype in Jinx but she’s developed instead of a another Harley Quinn and her attractive appearance is never a plot point/joke. They have women who are built, badass and muscular but also feminine. The way they portray female relationships is also incredible without fetishising it by being overly sexual like a lot of shows have a tendency to do but still including a more intimate element with Caitlin and vi. Also the redesigns from the game characters are great and also make more sense, Jinx still has a cropped shirt and tighter clothes without her deign being sexual to the point of impractically, caitlyn still has a feminine dress sense while also not being impractical. It works I can honestly say arcane is the best portrayal of women in this kind of environment ever

I never played the game, didn't care about the lore, but this was the only show I've binge watched on Netflix since tiger King. The story was better then most Hollywood films in the last 5 years, the animation was inspired, the characters were captivating.

The creators weren’t making the show for league fans. At least not only for league fans. That’s why it’s awesome for everyone.

If Arcane is the result of a PvP game having a pent-up need to tell a story, then we need more narratively suppressed PvP games to have a series! (Knowing full well of the failures already.) Or lets just stick with Arcane since they seem to have good ideas and do it ever so beautifully. I sure hope they take their sweet time with season two.