Arcane Season 2: Flawed But Beautiful

I would consider Arcane Season 1 to be among the best television I have ever seen, I’ve played League of Legends for many years so the adaptation of that rich world was exciting, but beyond that, the show was incredibly animated, fantastically written, and immensely compelling. When I heard they were only doing 1 more season after everything they set up in Season 1, I was a little skeptical, some of my skepticism was warranted it seems, but Arcane Season 2 is still a beautiful story and a (somewhat) fitting end for the characters we came to love in these two seasons.

Studio Fortiche has outdone themselves on animation, a feat I barely thought possible after season 1. Arcane Season 2’s animation is even more gorgeous, fluid and even more filled with little details. From character design, to action to background sets, it’s clear Fortiche spends hours on every single frame we see on screen. This labour of love does not go unrewarded, as Arcane is easily the highest-quality animation I’ve ever seen. The season ( much like season 1) also has a number of specially animated segments like coal drawings, oil paintings, and comic-book-style animation for certain segments. The animation quality is so high you could almost watch the show on mute and still enjoy it.

The voice acting this season surpassed even the incredible performances from Season 1, a natural assumption given the more dramatic nature and faster pace of Season 2. All of the main cast, Vi ( Hailee Steinfeld), Jinx (Ella Purnell), Caitlyn ( Katie Leung) and Jayce (Kevin Alejandro) clearly gave every scene their all in the booth, while characters like Vi and Caitlyn get larger explosions of drama to act with, Alejandros Jayce is a more subtle character, what he does with his performance is incredible given how ‘normal’ his character seemingly is. The standout for me wasn’t any of the main cast but Brett Tuckers’ performance as Singed. While we did get a fledgling singed in Season 1, he is now much more like his league counterpart. He has some of the lowest screentime of the league characters, but every second of the screen he was present I was enamored with him, he runs the line between creepy, sinister, and caring father, a rather large divergence from his league counterpart, who is full-on maniacal. He ( as well as the writers) brought a far more compelling story for Singed to the show, and without his performance, the character would likely fall flat.

Now my biggest complaint of the season is one that it seems most fans of the show share, it’s pacing. I suspected there would be pacing issues as soon as I found out that Season 2 was going to be the final one, but for me, the pacing was substantially worse than I anticipated. For me, most of the unsatisfying or disliked parts of the season are a direct result of the pacing. Many people would cite Caitlyns’ Act 2 arc as one of the worst examples of the show’s pacing, given that she became a totalitarian dictator and then betrayed that regime in what amounts to about 80 minutes. For me, the worst victim of pacing was ‘Warwick’ (Vander). Vander had a large build-up including 3 end scenes of the first act to show his emergence as a character called ‘Warwick’ from League of Legends. Unfortunately, after only 1 episode of Act 2, he had already begun turning back into his old self, and by the 2nd episode he seemed almost fully human, except for a few outbursts, I would have liked a lot more time to explore his characters bestial ways, following that when he was brought back in Act 3, he served almost no purpose, he simply jumped around as a menacing villain that never spoke and didn’t engage any of the characters in meaningful ways. Overall I was disappointed to see so many storylines and character moments rushed in order to finish the show within 9 episodes, I understand the cost & work that goes into the season, but the above story is just one example of many that shows the story could have benefitted from at least a couple more episodes.

When I began watching Season 2 I imagined my greatest compliment was going to be once again to Fortiches’ animation, but after finishing the season, my favourite aspect was definitely the soundtrack. The volume of incredible and talented artists they managed to wrangle for Season 1 was impressive, but the way the soundtrack is used in Season 2 is not only more memorable but serves the story far better. Songs like Mick Wingerts ‘Spin The Wheel’ and 21 Pilots ‘The Line’ are just two examples of incredible songs in their own right that are also incredibly emotional songs in the context of the show. When I think back on my favourite moments from Season 2 or my favourite scenes, I immediately remember what part of the soundtrack played at that point, this is an incredible testament to both the quality of the artists and the genius of the music department’s use of these songs.

Overall I really enjoyed Season 2 of Arcane. I would consider Season 1 to be a 10/10, while I preferred some storylines and aspects of Season 2, I think ultimately the pacing hurts the story and the characters in a way I wasn’t super happy with. If you haven’t seen Arcane I would 100% encourage you to try it, don’t let the small issues of Season 2 let you miss out on one of the best animated shows ever!