Arcane is an animated series by Riot Games taking place in oppressed Zaun. It tells the back story of young Vi and Jinx, 2 iconic champions in the game.
If you are not a League player, you might be wondering whether it is worth watching. Judging by the overwhelmingly positive reaction thread in the League subreddit, it is.
I’m going to dive in later today. But if you are looking for a new series to give a try to, this could be it.
I will be watching this, once a few more episodes pile up - I think episodes drop weekly.
They do indeed drop in batches of 3. The first 3 are out now, 4-6 on the 13th and the final 3 on the 20th.
It’s on my watch list for tonight. I played the game years ago, watch competitive League semi regularly and don’t really know the lore beyond what my son who does has told me.
But I know the world of LoL has some great stories. So I’m looking forward to it.
Thought this was pretty good and the animation is outstanding.
Seems nicely done. If Vi and Jinx are two iconic champions, I’m badly out of touch with the game (I think I did 100% of my playing during Obama’s first term.) I think they have always done a good job with lore, though, and it makes sense that once they built out the stock pool of DotA archetypes they could really make the lore sing.
Vi and Jinx were introduced in 2012 and 2013 respectively. They are pretty old school and well known champions. Vi doesn’t really see play in competitive, but Jinx pretty much shows up at some point every year.
Jinx was also introduced with one of the best game music videos ever (IMO).
Gives you a pretty good idea of her character.
This just made me realize that the last time I played LoL was over 10 years ago. Jesus the life in this game is insane.
I’ve never played the game, so as a non-fan who knew nothing about the IP I can weigh in. And I loved the first three episodes. The animation, the voice acting, the music, the overarching story. All fantastic. Can’t wait for the next three!
Oh, for sure. It’s just mildly funny to me that champions that felt really new and “am I ever going to have time/points to try these?” back then are now iconic. Knowing nothing, I would’ve expected a series about “iconic” characters to be about someone like Annie or Ryze.
But when you look at the originals, you can see how they had to up their storytelling and design game in order to make characters that could make a series this good–and then give them years to further bake the lore and let the iconicness happen. :)
If they tried to make a show about this crew, I don’t think it would’ve worked. Jinx and Vi are much better envisioned since they don’t need to fill out basic archetypes and in-game strategic roles.
I never did get into LoL but the band they put together for their metal albums, Pentakill, fuckin slaps. I LOVE Jorn Lande.
Their KPOP shit is also cash money
Wtf kpop uses anime avatars in videos now?
Same for me; I was never into MOBAs, so never bothered playing the game. But this series seems great so far and I really like the style.
How is league of legends still going???
Oh right, all those videos? You can buy the skins to play those models in game. The tamer ones are $14 USD. The fancier ones are in the 20-25 range.
If a streamer is a “league partner” then they get all the skins for free, and you watch them playing those skins and of course you want to buy them too!
I believe both KDA and Pentakill went platinum. Not bad for virtual bands :)
As the Riot CEO replied to someone on Reddit asking whether it was too late to get started with the game: Reddit - Dive into anything
We are planning to keep developing for several decades. So technically, you’d still be starting in the early days of League of Legends ;-)
So it should still be going for a while. :)
At the start of the first episode, was the animation style heavily human captured? It was definitely super-high framerate, and made me think more of rotoscoping.
Also, Shohreh Aghdashloo! Her voice is instantly recognizable.
I’ll be interested to hear reactions from people who aren’t familiar with the game or lore. Is this story interesting enough for someone who isn’t already invested?
My interest in this show just tripled.
That KDA POP/STARS video was an amazing combination of music, video and dance. They released a video of the dancers performing the routine as well, and teaching the moves. Whoever is running the music side of LoL is doing an amazing job.
Having never played, for me the answer is absolutely yes.
Act 2 is up and this show continues to be very good.