Arcane is Incredible. No, Really.

this episode is sponsored by card fight vanguard overdress card fight vanguard overdress is a new anime animated by kinema citrus with original character designs by clamp that is airing right now it follows the story of 15 year old yuyu condo a shy young boy who discovers the training card game card fights vanguard for the first time through a charts encounter with megami okuda there he finds out about team blackout a group of players where he's invited to join and so starts yuyu kondo's journey into card fight vanguard where he learns how to play the game overcome his insecurities and take on other skilled players in the game this is a new anime perfect for any card game fans looking for a new show and well also if you already maybe play card fight vanguard actually i don't know if you'd be interested this sounds like the anime for you the second season is out right now episodes are available in japanese with english subtitles on the official card fight vanguard youtube channel with an english dub coming soon that's right you can watch the anime for free on the official card fight vanguard youtube channel as well as on other platforms so click the link in the description if you want to start watching today thank you to card 5 vanguard overdress and with that said on with the video want to hear a joke league of legends is good actually i kind of mean it for as long as i can remember league of legends has been the punching bag of the gaming community and beyond other gamers would make fun of league players anime fans would make fun of league players my technologically illiterate grandma would make fun of league players league players would make fun of league players league of legends was and still is the butt of every cheap joke because well imagine actually being a [ __ ] league of legends player says the league of legends player however as that [ __ ] league of legends player myself there's always been one thing i could wholeheartedly say was so cool about the game pretty much everything that didn't have to do with playing the game in the past i've made it pretty clear that i'm a pretty big fan of the esports scene but another thing that always went hard were the god damn cinematics [Music] i still get chills watching some of these man from the direction to the music to the cinematography league cinematics was so good they almost make the game look playable for the longest time a lot of us have even made jokes that riot should just go ahead and make their own anime i mean it's so anime that even hiroyuki sawano has done a soundtrack for them already you see the cinematics and you're like jesus this is giving me goosebumps and then you see kda you're like damn this is catchy as hell and then you watch the east wards you're like oh my god this is the hypest game ever and then you play the game and it's like are you goddamn [ __ ] kidding me oh yeah that's why it sucks to play league everything outside of the game would push me to play it and then everything in the game would push me to not at this point i don't even play league i just enjoy consuming league content so when riot games finally announced that they were making a league tv series i was excited finally something else to keep me occupied with league without actually having to play it all i wanted was some cool cinematic fan service for some of my favorite characters maybe some cool action scenes here and there to turn my brain off for some simple popcorn fun what i didn't expect was one of the best things i've watched all year arcane may just redefine what video game adaptations can be and so far i've only seen a few people outside of the gaming community talk about it when i feel this is something that everyone should be talking about so i'm gonna take that step i realize this is a bit out of my comfort zone and a lot of you are probably gonna be like but giggle this is isn't anime you're not allowed to talk about it oh yeah well what if i watched it on japanese netflix in japan like this you're just watching animation that comes from japan i'm in japan and watching animation we are not the same so first things first you do not need to know a single thing about league of legends to enjoy arcane i repeat you don't need to know [ __ ] all about league to enjoy this show the problem with so many video game adaptations is that the creators come in with the attitude of yeah we already know you know this guy and this guy you're just here to see them do the thing and if you know the game you're like oh they did the thing it's the thing and if you don't know the game you're like who the [ __ ] are any of these people arcane from the get-go doesn't seem to know anything about league or its world it goes you'll care about these characters because we're gonna make you care about these characters not because these are champions in a game oh and sometimes you also see them do the thing it's the thing welcome to piltover a glorious city celebrating progress and innovation fueled by the genius miners who pushed the boundaries of science arts and craftsmanship this is a place anyone would want to live in it's a steampunk paradise with mechanical blimps hoverboards and magical gates however sitting just below is the undercity the dark gritty netherworld where gangs rule the streets substance abuse is out of control and its inhabitants are on a daily fight for survival overlooked and ignored by those prospering above i love a series where it feels like the world is taking place in has existed far before the series starts and will continue to exist far after the story is finished being told and this is what i immediately felt as soon as the opening shots revealed just where this story was about to take place [Music] arcane drops you in this completely new world and instantly starts the gears turning you sense this attention to detail that makes it truly feel like you've been transported into a living breathing world you feel the fresh sunlight brush against your skin basking over piltover streets you smell the stench of fresh garbage walking down the alleyways of the undercity both sides have their own rules their own culture their own inhabitants this is a rich world that the story is not just told in it's lived in these aren't places built to service the characters we're about to follow these characters stories are the results of this world's foundations we follow various storylines surrounding the people living in this city a sister duo fighting to survive in the rough life of the undercity an ambitious young scientist bent on making the world a better place at any cost a divided city on the verge of war against itself when people try to sell you a show they normally try to boil it down to a sentence elevator pitch or one gripping plot hook but i can't really do that with arcane because it's not really a show that hurts you it's one that immerses you you have these different characters doing their own thing in the world individual storyline and plot threads that occasionally pass converge and eventually crash into each other i really hate using this comparison but if i dumb down the structure it's kind of like what game of thrones did all right there i said the thing what we have here is a character-driven conflict set in the backdrop of a world full of different elements it's not a story that's new or revolutionary but it doesn't need to be when it does what it does so [ __ ] well one thing i never really thought about when it came to adapting a video game is that i always thought that having a roster as wide and varied as league's one was would make it harder to focus on the people that mattered and create interesting characters that we could actually care about and take seriously if you weren't already a fan of the game turns out you can turn that into a strength when it comes to video game rosters one of the big challenges is being able to design unique characters that can be easily distinguished from each other which we've seen to varying degrees of success i mean just look at dragon ball fighters half this ross i swear to god it's just a [ __ ] goku nft and one thing i can actually compliment ligon is that despite having over 150 champions riot has done an excellent job in designing distinct characters that not only look different but play and feel thematically unique most of the time now in the video game what this means is that you have a bunch of wacky larger-than-life champions that are all actually very distinct in their characterization and personality and it just so happens that this is actually the perfect recipe to have an array of very interesting characters in your character-driven drama like in-game you've got someone like jinx he's just your basic t he xt i'm not like other girls whose basic characterization boils down to discount harley quinn with a gatling gun arcane took this basic concept and showed us an innocent girl who just wanted to be loved someone who wanted to help to be accepted but couldn't help but cursing everything she touches to the point where everyone she ever loves eventually dies or abandons her the more she tries the more she jinxes her own life and everyone around her and the further she slips away from the edge of sanity until eventually the young innocent girl who just wanted to be loved is no more and she's just one of the champions we find out the backstory of i'm not saying riot's done a bad job at characterization in their games there's just only so much you can do with a few voice lines and a wacky design so what i find so impressive about arcane is how it's able to take these champions with wacky larger-than-life elements and turn them into very human characters with compelling backstories there are a lot of video games out there that we don't realize have extremely cliche stories or characters because they're just there for the gameplay and hey if their design looks cool who the hell gives a crap i mean i didn't give a [ __ ] about league lore did you give a [ __ ] about league lore arcane goes that extra mile to really humanize its cast these are no longer archetypes these feel like real people i think one of the best things is that there's no real distinction between a champion in the game and a non-champion character in the series the same care and attention was put into every single person in the show so much so that i begin to question if some of these characters were actually going to turn into champions because some of them have equally interesting stories and riot how are you going to make me invested in all these people when i can't even play them or spend money on their skins they never felt like there was a pressure to give more attention to ex person or why person because they were a champion in the game and this really nailed down the feeling that all these champions just started off as normal people they aren't special or compelling because they're playable characters in a video game they're compelling characters because they are compelling characters which is why i feel that people who have zero knowledge about league might even enjoy this more because they can just appreciate the characters for what they are instead of subconsciously trying to figure out who is who or who is going to turn into who all right what's next [Music] oh yeah it looks [ __ ] great as a weeb a big reason into why i got enticed by anime is that i got bored of the animation industry shifting towards the same pixar ask 3d animation well that doesn't mean i can't appreciate when something like into the spider-verse comes along and i feel like arcane has done just that for a tv animated series this [ __ ] is movie level quality and beyond whether it just be during a normal scene or one of the kick-ass action scenes i might not have expected the amazing story but riot has already proved that they can do amazing action-packed cinematics but even with that high bar arcane took it even further i actually think it should be illegal for anything league related to go this [ __ ] hard combined with some of the fantastic music i'm pretty sure anyone with a nut allergy within a three-mile radius of me was in danger of going into anaphylactic shock because i nudded so hard everything about this production seems like it was given so much care and attention but by far the most exciting thing about all this is that this could just be the start arcane takes place in one tiny corner of league one little piece in its world looking at the different regions you have characters that come from a snow kingdom a pirate haven a kingdom of egyptian gods you've got ninjas and samurais and even a lovecraftian horror dimension i'm a sucker for fictional worlds that can successfully combine different fantastical elements into a coherent universe and the biggest thing that arcane has made me realize is that league has a really [ __ ] interesting universe piltover was already an incredibly interesting place and we've already foreshadowed the region of noxus but combined with the other regions we know out there exist there are so many possibilities for interesting stories in completely unique settings with distinct characters and on top of all that there's the possibility for all these different worlds to collide with each other it's one of the few places where a cinematic universe wouldn't just feel like a tacton element because the cinematic universe is basically what summoner's rift is right now arcane is i think not only the best video game adaptation of all time but has the potential to grow into one of the most exciting fictional franchises of the modern day right easily could have settled for making a quick cash grab and giving us some cheap fan service but what they've made here is an absolute master class it's hard enough to write a series with a single interesting story for a single interesting character but arcade manages to do that for multiple characters and manages to balance all these people without feeling like anyone was getting too much individual attention while weaving all their individual stories into a compelling overarching narrative it's not fast and it's not slow all nine episodes feel perfectly paced with twists and turns right until the end because holy [ __ ] there are only a few times when i finish a show and it leaves me speechless but that's exactly what happened when the credits rolled when the season ended arcane may just do something i thought could never happen make league of legends respected what ride have done here is nothing short of incredible and it deserves to be enjoyed by league fans gaming fans anime fans or just fans of good [ __ ] and i can't wait to see what comes next you know what maybe league of legends wasn't so bad after all all right league sucks again hey guys hope you enjoyed that video thank you very much to alpha sigma basil dysfunctional degenerate elephant aivito jeff levardos manopla payne patchett pony stark walto and everyone else my patreon for helping to make this video possible okay guys i swear i still watch anime i swear to god i know it's been a while since i've made like purely anime content on a single show but i swear to god i'm still watching anime alright there is definitely going to be an end of year video covering all the anime that i've watched that's why i haven't made so many videos on just singular shows because now's the end of the year and i've got to do my top 10 or top 20 or whatever i'm gonna do for the end of the year video so keep an eye out for that because it is december and that's the type of video that i work on in that month anyway though that's it from me no further updates today i've been gigguk and i'll see you all next time

Channel: Gigguk

Views: 2,595,259

Keywords: Anime Zone, Gigguk, Top Anime, OP, ED, Arcane, Arcane League of Legends, League of Legends, Arcane Review, Arcane Opening, Arcane Episode 1, Arcane AMazing

Id: GozQCpgJYMg

Length: 14min 50sec (890 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 30 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/raptearer]

Never thought I'd see Gigguk in this sub. So glad he enjoyed the show so much.

[u/S4d_Machin3]

Gigguk is now a westaboo weaboo.

[u/satellizerLB]

Now waiting for Scamboli to review Arcane.

[u/wait2late]

Really like Gigguk. He sometimes introduces me to some of the most underrated anime. Like Odd Taxi.

[u/zidboy21]

Isn't it funny that Riot made Arcane to attract more people to play League but most of the community tell those people to not play it.

[u/acllive]

Fucking gigguk is the king of anime reviewing this is massive in terms of getting more people into arcane

[u/poggersinthechatttt]

Can confirm

[u/lichbanelb]

Yo is that Grant from the abroad in japan podcast?

[u/[deleted]]

Make league of legends respected lol, Arcane gets a whole new generation of kids into tearing their hair out over playing league ;)

Riot should probably make a tutorial zone, completely chat free entirely new players can be in for their first 200 or so games