For context, I didn't know much about League of Legends besides that they're a video game. Before watching, I didn't know Arcane is a part of LoL's world. Regardless, I'm a fan of animated shows so after hearing about it I became interested.
The first episode was impressive & engaging. I was confused at times but still glued to the screen. I remember being moved by Episode 1's ending scene where Powder & Vi were talking and looking at the city. The visuals, dialogue & music altogether during that fit perfectly. Afterwards, I knew this show was going to be unique.
Fortunately the rest of the episodes were overall pretty great too. I don't think there was a boring or bad episode. Watching the story lines unfold felt like being on a roller coaster. There were a mix of action, angst, & heartfelt moments. My highlights were the action scenes and awesome battle choreography.
Other aspects such as character designs, dialogue, and world building were great too. Character designs were cool; Jinx, Vi, Ekko, Heimerdinger, and Mel's mother designs stood out the most to me. In terms of world-building, the show actually felt lived-in & immersive thanks to the dialogue, characters, events, environments, and information put out.
The music and voice acting were also superb. Shout out to the songs included and how they were used because they helped with feeling the scenes even more. Having an episode end with an epic or sad song was nicely done. Voice acting is as vital as everything else and they did not disappoint here.
The animation, without a doubt, is one of the most captivating & best parts of Arcane. There's a painting look and feel to it. It's colorful, expressive, and overall very artistic. There are animated series targeted towards adults, but still look very cartoon-ish and are usually in 2D style (nothing wrong with those), but it was just a nice change with Arcane. The cinematography and editing were well done too.
I love that the two main characters are women and sisters. I think these two things are rarely shown in mainstream animation. There's also a brewing romance between Vi & Caitlyn which I'm interested in and hope are shown more next season.
Being an adult and avid animation fan myself, it's nice to have a show with this style with mature content and themes. It reminds me of video games like Bioshock Infinite and Dishonored but in tv series format.
Now despite my praises, Arcane's first season was not perfect. There were also parts I disliked. For example: Silco & Jinx's relationship. I understand that they were portraying a father-daughter relationship, but it was also weird.I also wasn't emotionally attached to all characters (main or supporting). No one was completely uninteresting though.
Overall, I personally enjoyed Arcane S1 and would also recommend it to others. If you're a fan of badass animation, sci-fi, action, artistic storytelling, and unique characters then you might like this show.
I have so much to say about this show and how bad it is. If you want a excellent supernatural drama, then watch this BUT only from season 1 to 5. The fifth season's finale offers a great ending to the show and after that, everything is just plain bad. The plots stop making sense, they bring back characters just to kill them off and introduce new ones nobody gives a shit about. Think about everything that makes the show amazing, all those characters you love. Well, you'll be lucky if they decide to kill them off, because they managed to ruin Castiel and Crowley's characters to a point where I can't even stand them. Season 10's Crowley is just terrible, all he does is sit on his chair in his castle or whatever the hell that is (look i made a pun) and kill random demons. Regarding Castiel, a lot happens to him after the fifth season, sure, but his character just doesn't evolve. This is so irritating because i was such a huge fan of this show but now i feel like i'm gonna have to drop it.
I can only recommend the 5 first seasons, after that everything is just bad.
Just look at the gap between season 1-5 ratings and season 6-10 (or 11 now, since it has been renewed), and really the only people still defending this show are tumblr hardcore fans and shippers.
