HOOOOOOOOOO BOY LADS IT’S HEREEEEEEEEE

I’m qualifying this as video game-adjacent enough that it belongs on this blog so here we gooooooo!

Lemme preface this review by stating that I am approaching the series as an EXTREMELY casual League of Legends fan–I play exclusively on bots because real people are terrifying and it’s absolutely true that League has earned its reputation for, um, less than savory 5v5 human interactions, unfortunately. That being said, the world of League has fascinated me for years, and I have a grand time trying out different characters and play styles while also avoiding the repercussions of playing against other real humans.

I’m also a huge fan of the storytelling Riot occasionally throws into its events–yes, at the end of the day, League is an MMO with a minor focus on story and the like, HOWEVER…they pretty much always have some sort of event running to tease us with storytelling potential. Is it primarily to sell skins and other merchandise? Yes. Do I buy into it often? Also yes.

While Riot has certainly played around with the idea of story before, they’ve almost never (to my knowledge) really threaded it into the game itself. Yes, each champion has extensive lore, but you have to seek it out for yourself if you’re curious, and it’s not essential to the gameplay. Is it more fun with the lore?? I mean I think so, but Riot is also aware of their audience–mostly people who don’t like reading, I assume. Some events in the past have offered some alternate universes with story for the champions, i.e., Star Guardians, Odyssey, Spirit Blossom, and K/DA (I’m sure there have been others, but as a suuuuuuper casual player, these have been some of my personal favorites). While many of these events have come with their own stories and often really impressive animated clips to help hype everyone up (or music that is a real bop and has no reason to go as hard as it does???), they still haven’t shoved lore down anyone’s throats necessarily.

THAT ALL CHANGED THIS WEEKEND WITH THE RELEASE OF ARCANE, BABYYYYYYYY.

Set to release in 3 acts over the next couple weeks, Arcane delves into the lore of some specific regions involving some of League’s well-known champions, telling their story in a beautifully animated and also incredibly heart-crushing tale. Again, I’m approaching the series as someone who has delved (shockingly) very little into League lore itself (unless it involves Xayah, the actual love of my life…also possibly Ahri, unironically), so I’m going in mostly blind.

Did I have an absolutely fantastic AND terrible time as Arcane managed to fill my heart with happiness and then promptly rip it out of my chest and crush it in front of me? HEEEECCCCKKKKKK YEAHHHHHHHHHH BOIS.

Do you need to know anything at all about League of Legends before going into this show? Amazingly…NOPE! It’s miraculously built this story that both (from what I’ve read so far) satisfies long-time fans and complete newbies alike. It’s exactly what I’ve been craving from Riot for a loooooong time, and so far? I ain’t disappointed in the slightest.

Let’s dive in, shall we?

(light spoiler warning now if you’d rather go into the show totally and completely blind)

THE STORY

Arcane starts on an absolutely decimated bridge, full of bodies and fire and all manner of cheerful things. It is here we meet our (arguably) primary trio of ultimate Dad Vander, protective and too grown up already Vi, and too precious for all of this crap going on around her Powder. Through a rather haunting and mostly silent opening scene, we gather that in the carnage, Vi and Powder’s parents were killed. They both fall into the arms of Vander, who makes a point of removing these massive metal gauntlets he was wearing to fight in order to carry them both.

We cut forward a few years, and we learn that Vi and Powder now run with a lil gang of sorts with their buddies Claggor and Mylo (oh look I’m already crying ha ha we’ll talk about that later)–mostly it seems like they go on jobs to steal fancy rich things from the fancy rich city of Piltover so they can survive in the Undercity. On this particular job, however, they end up raiding some sort of science-y place, though they can’t figure out what anything inside actually does. Powder wanders into a side room and comes across these eerie blue crystals. In the panic of almost getting caught when someone tries to open the door on them, one of the crystals drops from Powder’s grasp and uh, blows up…the building…

This is fine.

The four kids race through Piltover to escape the Enforcers and the consequences of, you know, blowing up a building, but they manage to slide down a sewer to safety. For now. On their way back through the Undercity, they are challenged by a ragtag group of thugs for their treasures. Vi tosses the bag of loot to Powder while she, Claggor, and Mylo attempt to fight their way out. Powder is seen by one of the thugs, however, and runs off, hoping to keep the loot safe. Cornered, she attempts to create some sort of mechanical bomb to throw the thug off and get away safely, but unfortunately, it doesn’t work, and in order to save herself, she tosses the bag of treasures into the water, where it’s (presumably) lost forever. Claggor and Mylo (mostly Mylo) are furious with Powder for losing everything, but Vi tells them off, comforting Powder as best she can.

(Anyone coming into this with previous LoL knowledge will note that Mylo calls Powder a “jinx,” because everything goes wrong whenever she tags along, like she jinxes the jobs….for any newbies out there, just note that that’s an important moment for the future.)

While Vi and Powder reconcile, letting the audience in on the fact that Vi is best at fighting with her fists while Powder seems to be more gadget-oriented (despite the fact that none of her inventions have actually worked….yet…..oh look I’m crying again ha ha), Vander meets up with one of his pals Benzo at his shop. It’s here we’re introduced to Ekko, another well-known champion from League, so therefore, someone to keep an eye on. Vander and Benzo’s chat is interrupted by some Enforcers from Topside–it’s hinted at that Vander actually works with the Enforcers to some degree, and has been for some time. Though the peace between the Topside of Piltover and the Undercity is strenuous at best, it is present, and it’s implied that that’s due in no small part to Vander and his “partnership” with the leader of the Enforcers. Grayson, the Enforcer…captain? tells Vander that she needs to bring someone to justice for the um, blown-up building that um, got blown up. She hints that if Vander just gives her a name, any name, things don’t have to get any uglier–the Council just needs someone to blame. Vander, of course, knows that those to blame are his adopted problematic children, and he won’t give them up. Grayson warns that if he doesn’t, the Enforcers will keep coming down to the Undercity until they have someone they can blame. Because of this, Vander tells Vi and the kids that they need to lie low for a while until this can all be sorted out.

Meanwhile, on the Topside, we catch up with the person whose scientific lab thing got blown up–a young idealist and magic enthusiast, Jayce. Even though Jayce didn’t blow up the lab himself, it was still his lab and his research, and the Council doesn’t yet have anyone from the Undercity they can blame, so Jayce is brought in for a trial to determine his fate. It comes to light that Jayce is fascinated by magic, specifically because it saved him and his mother when he was younger (they were rescued by a mysterious mage whom I believe most have theorized to be another LoL champion, Ryze, although I’m not sure if that’s been officially confirmed or not yet). Piltover, however, is strictly anti-mage and anti-the-arcane (ROLL CREDITS) because of all the damage magic can do. Jayce has seen the good it can do, however, so he’s intent on combining magic and technology to be used for good, and he tells the Council as such–annnnnd it almost ruins his trial. Ultimately, Jayce is expelled from the Academy and sent to live with his parents, rather than being banished from Piltover for good. His mother is thrilled about this, of course, but Jayce doesn’t understand how she can be so okay with this whole anti-magic sentiment when it literally saved her life. He almost gives up entirely, but not before his professor Heimerdinger’s assistant, Viktor, comes to talk to him. Viktor wants to team up with Jayce because he believes this magic-technology thing could definitely work, and he wants to help. Together, they agree to break into the Academy and Heimerdinger’s office in particular in order to nab Jayce’s equipment and create what Jayce is calling “Hextech” (and if you’re even a casual LoL fan like me, you probably said “hextech” right along with him).

MEANWHILE meanwhile, in an abandoned building in the Undercity, some freaky creepy dude with a nasty scar on one side of his face and one eerie glowing eye, Silco, is working on some sort of purple serum that turns humans and animals into raging beast forms of themselves with incredible strength and, likely, bloodlust. Working together with Singed, Silco gives this purple serum to Deckard, one of the thugs who attacked Vi and the gang earlier on in order to take their loot. But what exactly is Silco’s endgoal with this serum, and how will Vi and Powder be tied into it all?

SPOILER WARNING NOW IN EFFECT!! LIKE FOR REAL THIS TIME!! If you wanna go in mostly blind, I highly recommend doing so!

As someone who, as we all know if you’ve spent any amount of time on this blog, is REALLY SUPER INTO STORY, so far this show is doing a FANTASTIC job. Act 1 essentially serves as the prologue, and it’s PHENOMENAL. It’s dark, it’s intriguing, it’s incredibly heartfelt, it does a beautiful job of rounding out its key characters and their motivations, and it pulls you in and keeps you there. Was I in pain basically the entirety of the third episode as I watched all the unfortunate events unfold? Absolutely. Did it only hit as hard as it did because the show did a brilliant job of preparing me and making me relate to and love the characters it gave me beforehand? Definitely. Did it build an intriguing world with intriguing issues that were relatively easy to follow and feel for? For sure. The unfairness of Benzo’s and Grayson’s deaths at the hand of a ruthless monster just because they were in the way? Smacks you in the face. The suddenness of Claggor’s and Mylo’s deaths just when things started going somewhat their way? Hits you upside the head. The heartwrenching mini arc of Vander giving himself the purple serum just so he can save Vi one last time rather than pursuing revenge against Silco, and then asking Vi to take care of Powder? Vi learning that Powder was the cause of the explosion that ultimately cost Claggor and Mylo their lives (and, presumably, Vander as well) despite the fact that Vi asked her to stay home and stay safe? Calling her a jinx, blaming her for everything? Running from her? Trying to get back to her but being pulled away by the Enforcer? Silco realizing he can use Powder’s pain to his advantage in his war?

I’m crying again.

I’ll be curious to see where they go from here and if the other Acts are able to pack quite the punch this first one did–Act 1 really plays like a perfect tragedy, misunderstandings and all, and I’m interested to see if they format the remaining two acts in the same way.

Also, will it make me cry more? Probably.

THE ART

Alright so first off–visually, this show is STUNNING. The best description I’ve seen so far is from people calling it “concept art come to life” and it really feels like that! The animation is smooth and wonderful, and the choppy looks of the characters really fits into the world they inhabit, both Piltover and Zaun alike. And the fight choreography?? THE FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHY????

Even the slow-motion moments don’t feel out of place, giving the viewer time to really focus on and think about the horrors both they and the other characters are witnessing, whether it be Powder watching her friends getting beat up while she sits on the sidelines, or Vi watching Vander fall to the serum-ed beast Deckard. The color schemes for both Zaun and Piltover are different enough to separate the two environments clearly, but similar enough that it’s clear they’re still somewhat unified.

THE FACIAL EXPRESSIONS. THE FACIAL EXPRESSIONS!!!!!!

There are also glimpses in Act 1 of these sketchy, messy overlay animations that flash in and out–if you’ve seen any of the other marketing for Arcane, including the “Enemy” music video and the Worlds 2021 Opening Show, you may recognize this. It seems that those flashes directly tie into Powder’s mental state, but we probably won’t see more of it until she’s fully transitioned into the Jinx we all know and love and are also kind of terrified of from LoL. It’s a jarring effect, but somehow it doesn’t feel out of place in Arcane’s world, which is nice.

THE MUSIC

OHHHHHHH BOY Y’ALL, THE MUSIC.

If there’s another thing I’m continually pulled in by about Riot, it’s the music. Whether it’s K-Pop bangers like K/DA or sweeping orchestral songs like their champion themes, the music is just *chef’s kiss* and I’m thrilled to report that Arcane is no exception. Just like the episodes, songs and music from the show will be released each week following each Act.

The score, composed by Alexander Temple and Alex Seaver of Mako (according to the opening credits) is DELICIOUS. It’s eerie and unsettling when it needs to be, it’s powerful and endearing at other times, I love it. And yes, I’ve had it on repeat since I started writing this review, what of it.

So far, my favorite tracks are “The Bridge,” “Just A Taste,” and “You’re a Jinx” because I really like crying.

For the other songs, so far we have the opening theme “Enemy” as well as “Playground,” “Our Love,” and “Goodbye.” All of which are complete BOPS albeit it very different ways. I am thrilled for the rest of the soundtrack–so far at least, the songs have folded really well into each episode, and I’m excited for more.

THE CHARACTERS

Like I’ve mentioned above, so far I think Arcane does a brilliant job of introducing characters and their world and having the viewer really feel for them (or hate them, depending). From Vi’s ragtag group of misfits to Jayce and Viktor to Vander and Silco and whatever was going on there, I really felt like I understood them all to some degree.

We also know already based off of trailers that we will follow (the surviving) characters into the future some years, which also creates potential for even more LoL champions to make an appearance–as of now, we have Vi, Jinx, Jayce, Viktor, Singed, Ekko, Caitlyn, Heimerdinger, and Ryze (have we determined that that was definitely Ryze? Probably? Most likely? Okay). Because the show also gives us some key characters who seem to have no tie to current League lore, it leaves us with some fun speculation about who they could become…

The two most popular theories I’ve seen so far relate to Silco and Vander–while most seem to be concluding that Vander will eventually become Warwick (for any LoL newbies out there, Warwick is not a champion I play personally, but he’s essentially a werewolf experiment man gone horribly wrong, and his lore hints at previously being a man who just wanted to settle down and do some good in the world after a troubled past, and also apparently he remembers a little girl…could be Vi or Powder?), I haven’t seen a lot about who Silco could become, aside from, perhaps, a brand new champion introduced in League at a later date.

Could be fun! Could also be extremely satisfying to go head-to-head with him in game as Vi.

While the speculation about champions in the series and who else could be introduced is a fun game, it’s also worth noting that you don’t need to know ANY of that to enjoy Arcane–the series so far is doing a great job as a standalone piece, with plenty of easter eggs for LoL fans, but mostly it’s just an enjoyable piece of media all on its own.

HEADING INTO ACT 2…

So what happened at the end that needs to be addressed and dealt with in Act 2 on November 13?

EVERYTHING IS A MESS THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED

Okay really though–

After Silco and his mad scientist group of friends kidnapped Vander, Vi, Claggor, and Mylo race off to save him.Vi tells Powder to sit this one out, because she cannot lose anyone else. Powder reluctantly agrees, but she’s clearly not happy about it–after all, wasn’t Vi the one who said she was ready?

We learn that Vander and Silco were involved in the original uprising of the Undercity against Piltover, and that Vander decided to focus on keeping the peace and Silco hates him for it, convinced that fighting is the only true way to victory. He locks Vander to a chair, but before he can perform any sort of experiments, Vi and the gang show up to the rescue.

While Claggor works on an escape route and Mylo focuses on freeing Vander from the chair, Vi challenges all of Silco’s goons, actually doing a decent job. She equips Vander’s gauntlets–a nod to the giant hextech gauntlet fists she wears in game and will eventually have on the show (I’m assuming)–and though she manages to fight off most of them, it’s almost lights out when Silco sends a serum-ed up Deckard after her.

Meanwhile, Powder decides to try her hand at gadgets one more time, employing the explosive crystals she stole in the beginning, determined to save her sister and her friends. Once she sees Deckard overpowering Vi, she knows she has to help, and sends in one of her homemade gadgets, crystal attached.

Meanwhile, one of the Council members, Mel, assisted Jayce and Viktor in getting inside Heimerdinger’s office to work on Jayce’s experiments. They manage to crack the hextech code just in time for Heimerdinger to witness it, claiming that this is dangerous and isn’t Piltover’s future, just as Mel walks in and says “well, actually…”

Back with the rest of the crew, in a really unfortunate sequence of just…all-around bad timing, it looks like Vi, Vander, Claggor, and Mylo actually would have been able to escape just in time, but right then, Powder’s crystal bomb goes off. One of her gadgets finally works, but uh…not…not in a good way.

The multiple explosions brought about by the crystal send the abandoned building reeling, setting everything ablaze–Silco shoves a wounded Vander off the edge, where he lands on a pile of vials of the purple serum. The ceiling collapses on Claggor and Mylo, trapping Vi as well. Seeing Silco closing in on Vi, Vander takes the serum himself, morphing into a beastly version of himself in order to save her. As the last of the building catches on fire, Vander and Vi manage to escape, but it seems that the fall from that height was too much even for Vander’s beastly form, and he seems to die right in front of Vi.

(It should also be noted that Singed was shown for a brief moment in the chaos, but his fate remains unknown)

Vi, reeling from losing all her friends and her father figure all at once, is interrupted by Powder–having been blasted from the building herself after the first explosion, she has seen none of the consequences of her actions thus far. She’s thrilled that one of her inventions finally, finally worked!

Confused, grieving, and frustrated, Vi takes it out on Powder, once she realizes what her sister has done. Despite Powder’s pleas, Vi walks away from her, collapsing around a corner in tears. Powder falls to the ground, screaming and crying. Vi notices that Silco has spotted Powder, but before she can go back to her, she’s knocked out by an Enforcer and taken away.

Silco, realizing he can use Powder’s pain to his advantage, promises to be there for her.

So, basically, everything is awful, and we now have the setup for why it seems Powder(Jinx) and Vi are fighting each other in the opening sequence. So where will Act 2 take us?

SHOULD YOU WATCH THIS FOR YOURSELF?

YES. I mean, if you’re a League fan, definitely. If you’re into gnarly animated series with excellent characters and worldbuilding, yes. I don’t know that I’d say this is for everyone, but I definitely think it’s worth a shot if you’re at all curious about it. Again, you don’t need to know anything about League prior to going into it, which I think is such a great selling point for it.

Time will tell if the other Acts are as strong as this first one was, but man, what a way to begin your story.

Tune in next week for “will I cry about Act 2 HAHAHAHA IS THAT EVEN A QUESTION”

In the meantime, I highly recommend you chug on over to Netflix and check out Act 1 of Arcane.

All in all, I give Arcane Act 1 a rating of….

5/5 UNFORTUNATELY EXPLOSIVE CRYSTALS!!