Arcane season one was released in 2021 and ended on a dramatic cliffhanger, leaving viewers’ jaws dropped, hungry for the not-yet-announced season two. The two-part sequel season was dropped three years later, catching more eyes than the first season. A riveting sequel that took the characters and plot to new levels sparked discussions across social media platforms and in person, debating the character’s motives, the questionable ending, and what it means to take these themes into the real world.
Season one follows sisters, Vi and Jinx, through the political turmoil of the high-class city of Piltover and the crumbling impoverished Undercity. Jinx works and acts like a daughter to the drug overlord Silco, doing his dirty work and causing general disruption. Meanwhile, enforcer Caitlyn has broken Vi out of jail to help restore peace between Piltover and the Undercity. The season ends in disaster, but season two picks up right where it left off: in the middle of a scene. This season focuses more on the political aspect of the city, painting Jinx as a hero, Vi as a fallen legend, and Caitlyn as a military powerhouse. Piltover and the Undercity dissolve into a full-blown war that introduces new weapons and tactics of control. Vi and Jinx, while at odds, are dragged together against their will as new alliances form, old ones are broken, and characters change completely.
One of the reasons Arcane is such a big hit is the completely new take on animation. The animators have combined different techniques such as airbrush, 2D drawing, and traditional 3D animation. Every single shot of the show is so perfected that it takes one animator a whole day for just a second to be animated. Each shot of a scene is an individual piece of artwork worthy of a museum. The still scenes of the city or the background are perhaps the most captivating. The animators choose to use a more hand-drawn technique on the background which creates a very artistic image but it also makes the characters stand out more with their sharp edges and colors compared with traditional animation designs. Many people will automatically swear off Arcane just because it’s animated, but that is the wrong move because the animation adds to the characters and general themes of the show.
Arcane is also such a powerful look into our future as it imagines minorities and people from all backgrounds in a dystopian world. Oftentimes dystopian or sci-fi stories such as Star Wars, Blade Runner, and 1984 center around a straight white man who is suppressed by the government. Arcane imagines a more realistic future, incorporating many different races and sexualities in all positions of society from the leader of Undercity gangs to the head of the Piltover council. Queer people and people of color have always been a part of society and they always will be, so it’s important to include them when we imagine a dystopian world. The characters represent a wide range of humanity in appearance but they also are vastly different on the inside as well. No two characters have the same motives or reactions. When a giant event is attacked in the second episode it realistically changes the characters, leading Caitlyn to turn to the government, Vi to search for her only stability, and Jinx to isolate herself. Every single character grows and changes in a way that is completely unique to them, making them each stand out in the story.
Some viewers think Arcane is messy and incorporates too many themes, trying to say too many things, but that’s not the case. It shows how police brutality can impact a community, the difference between first and third-world countries, and how the economy varies between the two. It also explores the effects of a manipulating family and trauma, as well as having mental illness representation woven in seamlessly. This cacophony of social commentary isn’t busy, it’s realistic. All of these things are happening at once in real life, and that’s what makes parts of Arcane relatable. It takes things that we experience in our world and blows them into such a large proportion that the effects and consequences of those things are finally recognized. Perhaps the biggest theme of Arcane is the struggle of governmental power. How much power does the government get, and who decides that? What happens when the government abuses that power? Does the government deserve that power if they are disconnected from most of the population? Art always reflects the issues we face, and the fact that Arcane can incorporate all those issues in one show makes it relatable while also causing the audience to think about how this applies to the real world.
Arcane started from a hit video game, but once a small studio got its hands on the story, a whole new world took form, and audiences couldn’t help but watch. Using its revolutionary animation style, dynamic, lovable, and hateable characters spring to life in a suspenseful story that, at the end of the day, aims to open our eyes to the issues in our society. Although season two is the last season of Arcane, the studio has said they plan on creating other shows focusing on new characters in the same universe. Since they’ve already proven their mastery in cinema, audiences can’t wait to see what happens next.
