Arcane: What is it?

The hit Netflix animated series “Arcane” is a visual storytelling and complex world-building program that broke the internet. From the creators of League of Legends, which was developed by Riot Games, the Netflix animated series Arcane is derived from video game lore. In the prosperous Piltover and the impoverished under-cities of Zaun in the TV series Arcane,  much of the storytelling tells of fictitious and artistic points of real-world issues today. Zaun continues to thrive off of theft and violence throughout the series. Piltover, known as the topsiders, and the city of progress is the apparent cause of the oppression and inequality. 

Zuan is advanced through creating technologies known as shimmer, a chemical that can alter one’s body and essentially enhances past human capabilities, which becomes identical to that of Piltover’s new technologies Hextech, magical infused technologies that advance one’s military capabilities. 

Overall, this latest enhancement allowed Zaun to revolt and take part in their fruition, becoming the overarching conflict of Arcane. Not only is it an incredible show to binge, but it’s become a recognizable art style in the art industry. 

Arcane: Fortiche Production 

Using the technique of blending 2D and 3D art, “Fortiche,” the animation company based in France took the initiative to create a groundbreaking animation style unlike any other. Through the masterful animators of Fortiche, their attentiveness knew no bounds to the point that a viewer commented on Reddit, saying, “You can make a wallpaper out of every scene.” This showed how much effort and time was put into the show visually, and described how each scene, frame by frame, was drawn with care. 

Based on the game world of “Runeterra,” “Arcane” has had recurring characters parallel to the game but, despite this, the writers of the show were able to bring these game characters to life, giving them dimension and allowing the viewer to feel relatable or see the complexities of the characters physiological thinking past being just a “2D character.” 

With the series ending with season 2 this winter, “Arcane” became an award-winning show, allowing the creators to each be awarded an Emmy for their achievements, with its masterful soundtrack, beautifully animated artistry, and well-written characters. Christian Linke, a music composer, and the showrunner of the series struggled with bringing his vision to life, as he pitched Arcane for the first time. 

In the YouTube documentary “Arcane: Bridging the Rift,” Linke talks about the ins and outs of the series and how it was made. 

There were many doubts about “Arcane” becoming a failure, and how this show was a huge gamble in terms of success and the large sum of money it would take to create this series. Fortiche Production, known for making animated music videos and content for League in the past, decided to take on the large task of bringing Arcane to life. 

Arcane: Bridging the Rift Documentary

Through the documentary “Arcane: Bridging the Rift,” this series goes through the rigorous process it took to create this show. 

Thomas the producer mentions the “Video game curse, which is: that very few games have adapted into film and television well.” Christian Linke, reluctant to push the idea of Arcane, was given $2,000 to pitch a design and said, “It was a risky bet.” With only 5 people at Fortiche, they had to build a studio for a whole team, hiring over 100 animators as the project went on. Even Fortiche believed that Linke’s far thought out ideas believed he was crazy saying, “We haven’t even started the first minute of the show…But the excitement he had when he was talking about the show made the difference to me.” 

In an attempt to intervene in the succession of the show, Riot workers had pulled Linke into a meeting room, and tried to degrade his idea, saying “It was a such a blow to the team…like we’re being told to stop completely and potentially even find different showrunners, different writers for the whole thing.” They eventually delayed the show and let the animation team go. 

With the team eventually brought back for production, Arcane was finally up and running

with showrunner Monica Macer mentoring people, and with Linke saying, “Finding the right way to realize our vision.” An addition to the team is Annie Award-winning producer Melinda Dilger, head of production. As Covid affected the team and the included exhaustion amongst the team, Dilger shines a light on the reality of “Arcane’s” rocky development. 

She goes on saying, “It was just taking them a long time to kind of get their bearings…let’s face it, Fortiche, our animation partner studio in Paris also never produced a series. So you have a bunch of newbies trying to figure this out.” The next part of the documentary moves on the notable voice actors such as Hailee Steinfield, Ella Purnell, and Harry Lloyd voicing the main characters Vi, Jinx, and Viktor, their voices becoming an integral part of the show and bringing the characters truly to life. Not only did the voices elevate the characters, but so did the music. Amanda, writer of the team says, “I’ve never worked on a show before…where the musicians are such an integral part of everything.” 

With musicians from across the country extending a hand towards the soundtrack behind Arcane, many contributors can be seen from massive orchestras to state-of-the-art singers as each episode has music curated for each scene. Linke says, “I believe that…what we are doing in “Arcane,” season one…has never been done in entertainment.” With the production of “Arcane” finally wrapping up, the release of the show began. Marc Merrill, Riot Games co-founder says, “It’s going to be the first media product in the history of the world to launch everywhere, including China, at the same time.” 

Alex Yee, and Christian Linke, showrunners of “Arcane” enter the premier as they open for “Arcane.” The audience enters a large dome with a light show, as they watch the first 3 episodes of “Arcane.” The five-episode documentary ends with the premier being a success, with articles and YouTubers reacting to the show with positivity and reactions that exceeded their expectations. Fortiche and Linke end on a sentimental note, smiling as they say, “They’re very happy now….such a relief, after six years now, they feel like they know they worked on something, that this is part of animation history.”

Arcane: Afterglow Documentary

With Season Two’s newest release in November of 2024, viewers have been anticipating how the Netflix animated show might finally end between the two sisters Vi, and Jinx at the center of it all, and the demise of many characters around them in the dystopian steampunk world of Piltover and Zaun. 

In a 3 Act series on YouTube titled, “Arcane Afterglow,” some of the voice acting cast overviews how the showrunners go about season two. Showrunners Christian Linke and Alex Yee discuss these questions alongside the voices Hailee Steinfield, Ella Purnell, and Reed Shannon as they can be seen answering questions on their thoughts about the show.

They analyze a majority of season 2’s nine-episode series with their own opinions on the complexity of the characters and storyline. One of the first few comments Linke makes is Ella’s (voice of Jinx), “destruction of the vocal booths,” reminiscing about the times in the recording booth Ella would mention how she would do karate chopping movements, making sounds, and occasionally breaking things to emphasize her voice during fighting scenes, and showing just how much care the voice actress put into her character. 

Another part of Act 2, asks how much creativity comes from the animation team, and Linke answers saying, “animators researching that kind of stuff… looking closely at…instruction videos or even just real fights. They also film themselves. There’s like a bunch of martial artists among the animators.” This explains some of the interesting facts behind the scenes on the creative team and how they illustrate the intense combat scenes in the show. 

In Act 3, Reed (voice of Ekko) mentions his growing love for the show, as he says “When I signed on to do this, I was 16, so I’ve grown up watching the process of this show and watching fans fall in love and debate and argue and fall back in love over what is and what isn’t. So I’d just like to cheer for you guys ’cause we did this together.” This just shows the love and support for the show from many fans of “Arcane” around the world, and Reed mentioned all of this to show that the fans are a part of the success of “Arcane” as it comes to an end. 

Steinfeld ends the third Act by saying, “We hope you enjoyed watching this show as much as we enjoyed being a part of it.” As a bonus part of this Act, they go behind the scenes on the second season’s soundtrack. Linke says, “Music has always been a big part of Arcane. And this season we got to work with Twenty One Pilots.” Tyler Joseph, the frontman singer of Twenty One Pilots, goes on set for their MV for “The Line” which can be showcased during the second to last episode during a heart-wrenching scene about losing humanity within oneself. With once again incredibly masterful songs on this show, more notable artists can be seen featured in “Arcane” for season 2.

Arcane: Fan Interview Session

During an interview session with a couple of “Arcane” fans, a couple of questions were asked including how they came about this show. The first fan said, “I was scrolling through Netflix, watching the trailer, I fell in love with the art style and the music at first sight.” Another question was asked about something this show demonstrates well, and the fan said, “The hardships of family relationships due to war and corruption.” 

Another question was also asked about what characters resonated with their similarities and situations. The first fan said, “I found Vi’s situation similar to mine, being the oldest and having responsibility for others on your shoulders.”  And a last question was curated for this fan who is also an artist. They were asked, as an artist, what was something they appreciated, and they said, “I appreciate the facial expressions and signature colors and music they used to represent each character.” The second fan also had similar answers including saying, “‘Arcane’ has good animation and story.”

They also resonated with a character named Jayce who is an inventor in the show, and this fan mentions how they also love to create and construct things such as 3D printing and sculpting. The third and final fan that was interviewed asked what they liked about the show overall, and they said, “I love how the developers manage to make facial expressions in 3D that feel as dramatic and compelling as what is common in 2D, especially with stylized characters. I’m not a huge fan of hyper-realistic 3D characters and much prefer the stylization of the character designs in Arcane.” 

Something they believed was well demonstrated in this show was, “The economic divide and how much being born into poor socioeconomic status impacts a life. It does it through a well-designed setting that shines a clear light on the stratification of society.” The character they resonated with was Viktor, saying, “This show takes its character arcs in some very interesting directions. Many characters go through a change in the first season that evolves even further in the second and transcends typical, predictable character arcs,” overall explaining the complex arch of Viktor and how it’s well written in terms of non-cliche ideals, and gives Viktor a dimensional backstory within the two seasons without falter.  

Arcane: Final Thoughts

From the stories of the city of progress, and the undercity coming to a close, the showrunners plan on making more expansions of Runeterra as TV shows in the near future. As of now, they overcame many obstacles within the making of Arcane, but despite that, they were able to create animation history amongst the world with a cinematic masterpiece like no other.