Orphaned sisters are protected by the leader of the rebellion…

Arcane is the animated show inspired by and based on the lore of League of Legends. So far so much the latest in a long line of Netflix shows based on computer games.

It’s a curious trend and not one I could have predicted even three years ago. After all, who would have thought Dragon’s Dogma, Castlevania or DOTA would arrive on the screen with great animation, superb stories and brilliant aesthetics? Sure, there’s a long history of animation accompanying games – just look at Pokémon if you’ve any doubt – but this is like its own sub-genre of adult animation with mature themes and coherent stories based on the deep lore a lot of these games have developed, sometimes over decades of iterations and sequels.

Some of them have been powerfully average (such as Dragon’s Dogma) while others have been outstanding – Castlevania, for instance. The irony being that movies and live action television has spectacularly failed to deliver a watchable adaptation of a video game while we are seeing hit after hit arrive on our screens in the form of animated series.

The latest show to arrive is Arcane.

A prequel to Riot’s League of Legends the show is brought to the screen by animation studio Fortiche, a group of whom I’d not heard before. On the basis of what they’ve done with this show I’ll be hunting down everything they do.

Strangely Netflix has released the show in three sets of three episodes. Each one being a thematic arc or act semi-distinct from the others in terms of when the events take place. However I watch this experiment with unease – I like the fact that unlike Prime or Disney+ we get shows all at one go with Netflix. I can see the compelling reasons for releasing in parts though because this show has leapt to the top of the charts and delaying its complete release over three weeks has certainly helped keep the hype machine fuelled. I’d also sympathise given the fact that each episode is probably twice as long as any other episode of any other animated series I can think of. This is not slight and fleeting in any sense.

I’ll start with what works for me, and there’s a lot, so let’s luxuriate in everything it gets right. The show has a coherent sense of how it wants to appear. That’s not a huge surprise given just how carefully a game studio like Riot works on their characters and settings – good design makes characters distinct, settings clear and unique and brings to life each and every experience of players as they navigate the game world. This sensibility is wonderfully delivered onto the screen by Fortiche whose animation style feels like a delightful mix of hand drawn and CGI – fused together to give the show a raw, edgy feel which is a perfect accompaniment to the content and themes its tackling.

The prequel nature is also the perfect place to start. If a universe like the MCU bounces up against boundaries around the morality of superheroes then an arena game like League of Legends is also going to bounce up against hard boundaries which it won’t be able to avoid if and when the stories near the time in which the live game takes place.

For instance – you can’t kill a character who players are playing: it makes no sense from a strategic sense to have diverging narratives cross platform. Still, this is in the future and setting the show earlier than the game gives us some time before that becomes a concern.

This brings me to the second brilliant thing the writers have achieved – you do not need to know anything about the world, the game or the characters to enjoy this show. It does its world building on screen and in the script and it works tremendously well. I watched it and kept wondering what it would look like as a live action show – the sense of place and authenticity was such I could see it working perfectly.

Although the initial story feels a little tropey it takes unexpected turns and brings the characters to life with realistic tics and drives, conflicts and joy. More than that, the story puts them into a place where the viewer can’t be certain where the story is going. All too often it’s clear what’s at stake but Arcane’s special sauce is that it confounded my expectations about the kind of story it was telling. It started out simple and then twisted and twisted again, bringing in politics, diplomacy, hope, anger and all kinds of motivations and agendas I’d not expected an animation to bring to the screen.

Was that because I expected less of animation? No. I expected less of a story based on a computer game and it’s with real joy that I tell you the first act had the entire family sat in shock at its ending.

So far it hasn’t put a foot wrong and I’m kind of not wanting to watch Act 2 in case it falls short and because then I’ll be one step closer to not having any more to watch.

If I have any reservations, they’re that I worry we’re going to see this brilliant start morph slowly into stasis because these characters have, eventually, to conform to who they’re supposed to be in the game.

Rating? 9 street rats out of 10

Stewart Hotston