I am going to preface this by saying I was not expecting this to be as fantastic as it was. I have never played League of Legends but am familiar with it since I have watched it being played. I had no idea how they were going to translate a MOBA style game into a show. However, I watched the trailer and I was immediately intrigued. Not only did the plot seem like it could actually be good, but the art was beautiful.
I can gush about this art style all day. It was fantastically done and the colors popped. The difference between Piltover and the undercity was eye-catching. It was produced by a French animation studio called Fortiche, and after looking at their other projects, it is mostly video game trailers and music videos. It seems like this is their first series project besides a collaboration with Marvel called 'Rocket and Groot'. which you can find on YouTube. This art style reminded me of video game trailers, which after looking at the production background, makes sense. However, while those trailers can look someone jerky, Arcane's animation was so smooth that it almost seemed like real people.
Now for the story. I absolutely fell in love with these characters. Every single one of them, regardless of whether they were from Piltover or the undercity, had redeeming qualities. They also had negative aspects to their personalities. In this regard, they seemed real as well. There was no shiny golden hero trope and not really any villain that was evil for the sake of being evil. Vi was by far my favorite character. It is rare that we get a female character that is as badass as she is while at the same time showing emotion. And while we got tiny hints at a possible connection to Caitlyn, a rich woman from Piltover who joins her on her mission, I am very glad they didn't try to force a Sapphic relationship just for the sake of it. Speaking of Caitlyn, she was also a fantastic character.
Now the main "villain" of this story is Silco, a crime-lord from the undercity who wants to save the city and destroy Piltover by stealing technology to gain control. Now that may seem like a fairly mundane goal, but Silco has an actual reason behind his motives that is actually understandable once you see where he is coming from. He is a slimy control freak but with his brains, because yes he is very smart, he is able to gain some sort of control early on in the series.
My second favorite character, after Vi, was her younger sister Powder. After an accident that separated them when they were children, Vi is on a quest to rescue Powder from Silco's grasp. It seems simple enough but Powder is no longer herself and goes by the moniker of Jinx. It is quite a heartbreaking story once you get later in the series and fully understand all the backstory. Jinx was lied to for so long that she has zero trust in people. It doesn't help that there is a mental issue with her where the friends she accidentally killed as a child are haunting her.
While the main cast is great, I can't forget about the side characters. And they aren't actually side characters, I would just say lesser main. While the main plot involves Vi and Jinx, there is another main plot that is set in Piltover where Jayce and Victor, two academics, have created a technology that allows travel between cities through HexGates. This HexTech borders on magic and it is what Silco wants to steal.
Now, if you're skeptical going into a video game adaptation I'm not surprised. Given the history of them ranging from terrible to not good, it is understandable. However, since you don't really need to have ever played or even seen LoL before, I think anyone can watch this and enjoy it. There were no episodes that were slow or unimportant. Every character that was featured did play a role and were given complete personalities. Even the baddies had something that could make you sympathize with them. I am so excited for the second season that is currently in production. I gave this first season a solid A+. I thoroughly enjoyed it and definitely want to see more animated adaptations of fantasy because you can do so much more with it than live action.
Comments
Post a Comment