Arcane Is a Masterpiece and Here’s Why

arcane is a masterpiece and it might just be the best thing i've seen all year i do not say this slightly but from the presentation the writing the characters i think this is it folks this is that good shit it almost justifies league of legends existence almost now this video will have a ton of spoilers before i get into that let me just spend a few minutes trying to explain why i love this show and why it's up there with the spider-verse for me when it comes to animation i'm not a league of legends fanboy i never got into it so trust me when i say that anyone can watch this show so you absolutely should first we need to go over some basic essentials like how the gleaming city of piltover wouldn't be possible without demo creator yes right into it this product is for everyone that wants to start a blog gaming channel or just needs an all-in-one software for all your video making needs whether it's editing videos or recording them demo creator has got you covered because if you ever have tried to record anything on your screen then you should know all your built-in options are terrible with next to no room for error but with demo finally you can take control of your screen stop and start anytime you want highlight your mouse or draw because why not then when you're all done it immediately gets uploaded to demos video editor filled to the brim with all sorts of fun effects to play around with from stickers to facial effects this whole thing is a treat to dig into by far my favorite part of demo is its transitions as well it's got plenty of flashy moves for the creatives out there it also includes some simple but essential speed blurs that i had to make by hand for my own videos for you they're just custom built into the system and waiting for you to slap them on demo has captions filters a special effects store it's pretty much all the goodies you can ask for if you want a modern recording and editing software this is the place to start plus with an easy to use export system that lets you control the format and destination of your videos you can be on your way to becoming a youtube star in seconds so go ahead give it a try we got brand new black friday deals going right now so hurry up click the link down in the description and go get your own demo creator now netflix's arcane was a show i didn't have any opinion on till i watched it never play the game was kind of a bit salty the fact that this game cost me all my friends in high school so i had to go make new ones but i did learn a little bit about the lore just from hanging out with them so when i saw the trailer i still didn't care because it looked like the story was going to be about the harley quinn clone love harley quinn hate her imitators i even put off watching this show for a few days till a nice gray wednesday where i just sent my phone down to charge clicked our king kinda just out of obligation two hours later i finished the first three episodes and as those ending credits rolled i was left with literal chills and i realized i hadn't touched my phone once yeah it was that good arcane is a story of the sisters vi and jinx and the personal tragedies that forge them into who they are as civil unrest politics and good intentions all spin out of control tearing the girls and the very city apart while this is technically an origin story this show is first and foremost a tragedy i went into the show roughly knowing how it would end it had me crying wishing that i didn't unlike a lot of other origin stories that are so overly concerned with setting up stuff and overall plot points rk understands that it needs you to care first and foremost about the characters this isn't solo where everyone begins and ends the story exactly the same but with their iconic swag every character is different by the end of the story and it feels natural i think one of the worst things you can do in a prequel is trying to force a character into becoming their technical canonical cells when there isn't enough evidence to support a change like that i think the worst thing the star wars prequels ever did was building up anakin as his semi-flawed yeah he went on massacre one time but ultimately he was a heroic and good person 99 of the time that is how he was portrayed and that's how the movies got us to care about him so for his turn to the dark side to immediately begin with him [Music] massacring children i had to say hold up because they had three movies to build up a turn like this it's so jarring and how abrupt its main character turns evil that leaves anakin feeling more like a prop than a person with his own internal logic or motivation the characters were serving the needs of the plot and not the other way around and i know this is a problem with a lot of prequels they are so eager to make things how you remember them that they kind of disregard the characters that they have so that's why i am so happy with arcane that not a single character feels like they're acting because the plot needs them to they feel like real people doing their best in a bad situation and that doesn't always lead to a good outcome no one feels like just a trope they feel real sucking you deeper and deeper into the story as you wish for the best outcome for everyone you want almost everyone to be happy only to watch it all crumble it's compelling from a young scientist trying to change the world for the better to the father who's stuck between saving a city or protecting his kids you may not like all the people in here but you understand why they do the things that they do with the storytelling just continually hooking you and at no point do you want to let go this show was released in three acts three episodes each 40 minutes a piece and all builds to a climax that well abrupt to some people is just perfect it is gut wrenching and it just left me jonesing for that second season that's already been announced and it fucking deserves that season the story is great the character's compelling and the animation is calling it good would be a disservice like this feels like the next stage of 3d animation because for years there's been this divide between people who prefer 2d and those who like 3d you get this the worst in anime circles the problem with those 3d animes would be that they would just be used to replicate what they would normally do in 2d with the results of being awful because it's not playing to the strengths of the medium or otherwise just mashing the two together arcane is that next level shit it's the spider verse where the characters are 3d but also incorporates these beautiful 2d backgrounds and effects that are stylized but when you're watching it feels seamless certain characters like hymadinger i don't know what they're doing but rather making a big goofy cgi mustache they create a layer that was able to bend with the animation capturing that furry look without actually having to make him furry it's just stunning and every time i watch it i find more and more to love facial animation is something not a lot of people think about when they're watching but man do you feel the difference all the feeling and character being conveyed in subtle touches like the scene with jinx where we watch her go from a scared girl to the devious criminal mastermind who can barely contain her own laughter the budget for this show was allegedly millions higher than the average and you can feel that with just how the characters move and look arcane really is that good and honestly i can't recommend this show enough the action is intense but easy to follow the atmosphere is unmatched they use a lot of grey music in the show not all of it is to my taste but it nails what they're going for with the ending to episode 3 goodbye probably being my favorite if you have a pulse go check out the first three episodes and see if it's for you you really don't need to play league to enjoy this all right that's enough let's go into spoilers if you don't want to be spoiled now's your chance to jump off like share and sub come back and finish the rest later i'll still be here when you get back i promise and what do i have you're hot cupcake so what'll it be man or woman um all right let's talk spoilers in no discernible order and this will be mostly me gushing about the characters in full fanboy mode lost my like three critiques i think the strongest part of the show is its first act it's all amazing but the first act is legitimately like this should be used to teach classes we watch these kids succeed and fail and how it's not always a question of ability but simply how sometimes doing your best fucks over everyone else in your life it does the same thing that the rise of the plan the apes did giving up on overly complicated characters and twists instead korean characters who you understand within five seconds and then exploring why they're like that and the effect that they have on one another in rise you know that the ape with the scars is gonna be the villain but you love watching the frustration slowly build up inside before he snaps and does a thing that you knew he was going to do it's not surprising but thanks to the gray execution it is so satisfying the storytelling the characters are the thing that sucked me into this show as i understood all of them almost immediately you can see the traits that will make them a success but also how those traits can lead them astray character drives the plot of the story and i honestly wouldn't have it any other way this isn't a world of black and white good people can do bad things while bad people can do somewhat decent ones no one feels fully locked into a trope and they have their own personal motivations for why they do the things that they do the sheriff marcus is a great example of that starting out as his arrogant glory hound who never knows when to shut up when his deal with silko gets his partner killed he's overcome with regret and saves vi's life this comes at the cost of leaving powder to be taken by silko causing the child to believe that she was abandoned good intentions but with awful consequences and when marcus comes back he's now the chief of police and still working with selco not because he likes him or that he wants the money he does it because he's learned the cost of not playing ball with criminals he hated how the old sheriff worked with bander but now he sees she was right and that while it's against his morals it's a price he's willing to pay to keep the peace the only difference selko is a monster while vander wasn't we get why marcus is doing this and how he isn't just some crooked cop he has his own internal logic and we see that in every character vai resents piltover for how it treats her and her friends but because she can't do anything she's constantly pissed off and makes hasty decisions when she's angry vi nearly rescues vander but then jinx thought they needed help and ended up getting them all killed and we know that she shouldn't have hit powder but she just experienced that loss so you can't fully blame her you understand why she did it we even see her try and walk away to cool off that accidentally leaves her sister at the mercy of silko and jinx's journey in this early part of the story is honestly perfect he's asked the baby of the bun she is so desperate to prove herself but also suffers from not just being smaller than everyone else but the expectations she puts on herself and from others to be like vi she wants to be strong but the standards that the group judges her by cause her to always come up short later when we see jinx doing this insane shit we can tell that she's overcompensating when she raids jace's lab for crystals she does to prove her worth to silko that she is strong and to not abandon her and that mentality really starts early on with powder not when vi calls her jinx or silko raising her jinx came up believing that she was lacking and that only got worse as the story went on and what makes this so heartbreaking is how we can tell she is talented her bombs don't work now but later on even victor gives her props when she was at the arcade she was the best shot in the group but tech and gunsling weren't skills that the group valued so powder doesn't value them ruining her already bad self-esteem and to top it all off is how the story really shows that vander their surrogate father doesn't really build up powder as much as he probably should he's too busy trying to manage vi who is independent and more likely to cause trouble those life lessons he's giving by don't really trickle down to powder leaving her fragile to trauma and being raised by a psychopath which need to get this out of the way if i see one more silke was a great dad post i think i'll just blow myself up yes silko is a great character initially he's just a cold menacing villain who's obsessed with gaining power and making the underground its own country but thanks to the performance of kid flash from young justice and his relationship to jinx he comes out having a lot more nuance yes he is a murderous kingpin who could easily kill children but he's still capable of empathizing with other people like jinx as he knows what it feels like to be abandoned and hurt by family his willingness to care and protect jinx from the consequences of her own actions show off a paternal part of his nature i didn't expect to see he genuinely wants to help jinx overcome her past and visions by giving her a toxic river baptism like he did when jinx was dying the man threw everything out the window so that he could save her jinx ended up becoming his top priority which made him a lot more interesting of a character than the menacing one-dimensional villain act one made him out to be but and this is the big but silko is a terrible father yes even after getting killed by his daughter he didn't blame her and told her she was perfect that's pretty much not blaming your child for starting a fire after you gave them matches and covered the house in gasoline powder was a traumatized youth who never really got over what happened at the factory accidentally killing her family and seemingly getting abandoned by her sister silco's idea of helping was to give the girl a machine gun and infinite ammo to attack his enemies he taught her to use violence as an outlet for all of her issues even going so far as to control her perception of her old family constantly telling her how vander tried to kill him that he wasn't the person that she knew silke was a man who was able to overcome his own trauma by virtue of being way too petty to die believing that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger he's a terrible person but he is functional but him believing powder just needed the same treatment kept pushing her to be more and more reckless plus his blanket covering for her when she did fuck up jinx never fully considers the consequences of her actions is as far as she's concerned as long as she kept silco happy there were none she's a nutcase who needs help and telling her that she's perfect is an amazing way to go out it validates all of jinx's actions and behaviors so when i hear people say silke was a great dad i see what they mean in theory but when you look at the person jinx turned out to be that shit is on him more than anything else though i do love him as a character and was so happy that he wasn't grooming her all of us the sons and daughters of zone deserve more than their run-off that scene nearly gave me a heart attack like all the super touchy-feely scenes between them i just about died [Music] oh thank god great way to show off how slightly off their relationship is like it's a perversion of the father-daughter bond we saw between vine vander all this contributes though to building a character that i both hated and loved honestly what's so shocking is that he isn't even the best character in the show everyone is so well written like vander who i absolutely loved is just the perfect hybrid of doomed mentor in a man with a tortured past he's pretty much the best outcome you can hope for with whatever kratos is doing in dad of war vander was once a revolution with silke who wanted to create a nation independent of piltover kiltover being this great gleaming city of progress that can only exist because it's built on the exploitation of the inhabitants of the undercity so yeah capitalism boehner's dream for independence burns to the ground once he realizes the price needed to make that happen his inability to see them winning against piltover's superior military we first see him killing a man surrounded by dead bodies of his friends and two children staring at their dead parents this caused him to throw away his weapons and decide that independence wasn't worth it and he'd rather save their lives then risk giving them better ones so when we next meet him he's a de facto leader of the undercity keeping his people safe and standing up for the little guys vander is so firmly against fighting that he's willing to work with the people who oppress him if it means keeping his people safe and stopping any more conflicts from happening the man loves his kids and the fact that he toe-to-toe with a shimmered out thug shows off what a badass he is and in the end he's given the choice between saving by and revenge on silko he picked vai holding true to that lesson that he learned on the bridge not hurting what he hates but saving what he loves a great death to a great character and i don't want him to come back in season two yeah for those who don't know there's a character in league called warwick he's a cyborg werewolf with a connection to vi and jinx combine that with his nickname being the hound of the underground it's pretty much guaranteed that vayner is going to come back as warwick and i really don't want that the death was painful and traumatic for everyone involved and i kind of feel like just bringing him back would feel cheap that like it could be good but i see it just taking away more than whatever drama that can be gained from digging up his dead corpse honestly i think he just worked as a mundo standing this show though wouldn't have worked if they cramped in every champion that is technically connected to these cities like less is more and having to explain all these characters really wouldn't have done it any favors like singed being here only works because he is kept in the background and when he's relevant that's not the kind of restraint i'm used to seeing media these days so i would honestly be happy if they just didn't increase the cast too much in season two like two or three new characters maybe but everyone else can stay the same another high point the show was its ability to balance the tale of two cities angle zone and piltover are polar opposites that only exist because of each other piltover is great because it can exploit zone zone is filled with dangerous criminals and drug addicts because the absence of order made people desperate and willing to do anything to protect themselves each city has a completely different design and vibe to it both before and after the time skip before hextech hilltop was still a rich city but after it got richer buildings got taller all this gleaming arcane tech start appearing everywhere and you just feel how much better it is to be in this city in contrast zone things got worse under vander things were bad but the underground still felt solid you would get that real sense of community beneath it all with silko though in charge and the shimmer the city was more energized more high-tech advancements and neon lighting but you could feel the city running itself ragged with the camps of drug addicts showing off how unhealthy this city really is the push and pull between both city's leaders feels like it's a real world conflict i.e it's complicated and the anticipation of violence makes violence inevitable but like always it's always about people trying to do what they think is best in piltover we follow jace victor and mel as they struggle with the discovery of hextech and how to best utilize it and mel was honestly the standout to me she comes off as this ambitious conniving politician who you totally expect to be the one to take things too far while our good boy science guys get to keep their hands clean instead mel turned out to be one of the more interesting characters in the show a diplomat in all things who aspires to wealth and power but still cares for those she's close to we see that she truly wants what's best for the city rather than being a straight good guy she gets to act as both an inspiration and a corrupting influence on jace pushing him to loosen his morals to get things done and pushing him to take on more and more power which is fine at the start her telling him to continue with his hextech research is what allows them to advance the city in the first place later on when she's trying to guide him on how to be in the council actually causes trouble as we see him try and tighten his grip on the city nearly becoming a dictator culminating with him accidentally murdering a child mill wasn't the evil advisor who pushed him into this she just wanted to help him get from a to b only for him to take that lesson and jump all the way to x then her mom shows up to stir up shit and bang twinks and when we're not watching this descent into corruption we're watching victor going to extreme lengths to secure his legacy my initial read on victor was that he was going to be the resentful partner to jace who would snap as he realized jace was getting all the cred and attention and that so played out instead we watched a dying man struggle with his own mortality with his transition into being a cyborg being born out a genuine desire to help people only for him to fall to the temptation of fixing himself all at once causing him to kill his assistant and nearly taking his own life before jace returns the favor from all those years ago and that's just so perfect victor is so divorced from your typical petty overreaction you see in so many science villains there are upstanding members of society one second something goes wrong and they're wearing tights and screaming obscenities for the rest of their lives instead victor stays true to his character a scientist whose good intentions are corrupted by his own desperation and you think that keeping characters consistent would be a no-brainer but it's shocking how little it's done i also love how victor and jace come to conflict with heimerdinger heimerdinger is great he's a kooky grandpa scientist who's basically what if gandalf was a hobbit and i like him because he reveals the flaws of the wise old mentor character in lord of the rings if you disagree with gandalf you're either wrong or a villain heimerdinger is often right but he has his blind spots magic being the big one he lived through some war that was caused by magic and sees how dangerous it could be there's potential there sure but you've seen it go wrong and doesn't think it's worth risking unleashing those horrors again it makes him turn down jace's research but he was willing to admit that he was wrong till he sees how close they are to releasing chaos forcing him to put his foot down even if it means dooming victor to death revealing the pitfalls of being a near immortal advising mortal humans and how to live their lives the dude probably is going to keep living for centuries and thinks of science in a much longer time span than the humans he works with they may even be a little bit resentful of how he talks about how great it will be or the mark they'll leave behind when he gets to keep on living it caused him to come off as patronizing or worse or out of touch at best especially when it comes to suffering and zone in the story he's seen as the wise mentor but we also seem to be fallible and the fact that even the smartest of us can be wrong opens the floodgates to keep disagreeing with him even when he's definitely right so when jay snaps and forces him off the council you feel that but you also understand it and i can't wait to see him help echo build his time machine bs this show thrives on its characters and their interactions we understand who they are but we also have the fun of seeing how they affect each other put vine and caitlyn together and you get a buddy cop with sexual tension balancing each other out and making for an effective team also shipping video probably yes definitely you put vine jace together and their recklessness spurs them to act but did not consider the consequences of those actions meanwhile with victor and jace i just need to say this my actual gut reaction to both of them was the following oh aren't you a handsome man oh he's the guy that and as far as actual critiques with the show everything comes down to small adjustments little tweaks they could have made certain scenes nothing too major except this one echo doesn't feel like he should be in this season and i say that as someone who liked him he was good friends with bay and jinx as kids but he always felt like just the other guy even when he comes back in the present he kind of stands around and gives you generic you can't save her lines he has one fantastic scene on the bridge and helped teach heimendinger a moral but out of all the characters in the opening he's the only one who feels extremely underutilized echo feels like he's just here so they don't have to introduce him in season two the action scene with the watch was phenomenal it hints at his future time travel abilities in season one though don't expect too much from him as he does feel like his time gets cut short another small gripe is that the music videos they're great they're good the one where they're actually showing the band playing felt really out of place also this shot had me in tears it looks like he's singing the song and i just found that to be hilarious and that's about it like that is all my complaints for arcane i honestly think that this is a masterpiece and i'm so excited that we're actually getting another season the direction for this show is phenomenal the visuals can pull off stylized badassery or somber beauty and it may be my personal taste changing i found that right now i really enjoy tragic endings more than the typical happy ones both have their place but to me a tragedy just sticks with you so much longer it gnaws at you rewatching the show reminds you of all the dozens of small decisions that slowly tip the scales to this outcome from a simple hug between vine kate to silko grabbing the gun jinx nuking the council as they are about to give zhan everything it wants if just one thing had gone differently this outcome could have been prevented and that's just the beauty of it vai could have had a chance to help jinx deal with her grief or marcus could have revealed silko's treachery but no this was the ending one horrific act of violence made it beautiful by the direction and painful by the characters we're left wondering what could have been and nothing this year has come close to magic of this final scene arcane was a masterpiece it's as simple as that

Channel: Sarcastic Chorus

Views: 1,108,192

Keywords: arcane, leagueoflegends, arcanereview

Id: zy2pWAUpzQE

Length: 25min 21sec (1521 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 26 2021