Arcane (2021) Review: Two Sisters, Two Cities

Is Arcane worth watching?

Yes. Arcane is a landmark of animated television, a video-game adaptation that works as a genuine tragedy about sisters, cities and the price of progress. Its hand-painted look is astonishing, but it is the writing and voice acting that make it great: every major character, including the villains, has a wounded logic of their own. The only real reservation is that the second season crams a great deal of story into nine episodes, so its final stretch moves faster than it should.

What is Arcane about?

The city of Piltover is a gleaming centre of invention and wealth. Beneath it lies Zaun, the undercity, where the poor live among pollution, crime and the chemical trade that the city above prefers not to see. Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) and her younger sister, Powder (Ella Purnell), are orphans raised in Zaun, fiercely bonded and constantly in trouble. Up in Piltover, the young inventor Jayce (Kevin Alejandro) and his partner Viktor are trying to harness magic through technology, a discovery that could transform the city or tear it apart. Katie Leung voices Caitlyn, an enforcer from a privileged family whose path crosses Vi’s.

Arcane was created by Christian Linke and Alex Yee, based on the world of the game League of Legends and animated by the French studio Fortiche. It is in English. This review covers the complete series: two seasons of nine episodes each, 18 in total, and the story has ended.

Animation that works like painting

Fortiche’s style blends 3D models with painted 2D textures, and the result looks like no other series. Faces carry brushstrokes, light glows through smog, and Zaun’s neon-lit alleys feel both beautiful and toxic. It is expensive animation spent on feeling rather than spectacle: colour palettes shift as characters change, and action sequences are staged to reveal emotion as much as to thrill.

Music is part of the design. The series uses original songs, including Imagine Dragons’ theme, as dramatic punctuation, and several sequences cut between action and memory in ways that live-action television would struggle to match. Its Emmy win for outstanding animated programme was a rare case of an award feeling inevitable.

A class war with no clean villains

Arcane’s story is built on a divided city, and it treats that division with real anger. Piltover’s progress depends on Zaun’s suffering, and the show refuses to make either side purely heroic. Zaun’s crime boss Silco, voiced with silky menace by Jason Spisak, is as much a revolutionary as a gangster, and the politicians above are as compromised as the criminals below. That moral seriousness gives the fantasy the weight of a political drama.

Voice acting that carries the heartbreak

At its core, Arcane is about two sisters and how grief and circumstance pull them apart. Steinfeld gives Vi a bruised toughness, a protector who blames herself for everything. Purnell has the harder role, playing a girl whose trauma shapes her into someone volatile and dangerous, and she makes that transformation both frightening and deeply sad. Their scenes together are among the most affecting in recent television, animated or not.

The second season expands the cast and the scale, which brings some of the show’s most spectacular sequences but also its biggest weakness. Several strands compete for time, and some developments that needed room are compressed. It never loses its emotional core, but the first season is the more complete work.

Who should watch Arcane?

It is for adults and older teenagers who love character drama, fantasy or great animation, and it is equally rewarding for viewers who have never played League of Legends. At 18 episodes of about 40 minutes, the full series streams on Netflix and is easy to finish in a week. It is not for young children: there is frequent violence, drug use, death and intense emotional material.

If Arcane hits hard, try these next:

• BoJack Horseman, for another animated series that proved the form could handle trauma and adult drama.
• House of the Dragon, for a family torn apart by power and loyalty on a grand fantasy scale.
• The Wire, the definitive television portrait of a city divided by class and institutions.

The verdict

Arcane is the rare adaptation that transcends its source entirely: a gorgeous, heartbreaking tragedy that happens to be animated and happens to come from a game. Its second season is more crowded than its first, but together they form one of the finest series of the decade.

Rating: 5/5