Netflix‘s “Arcane” wraps up with Season 2, getting thematically darker and aesthetically more experimental, as it resolves the war between the utopian Piltover and oppressed Zaun, as well as the battle between rival sisters Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) and Jinx (Ella Purnell). The final chapter of the Emmy-winning animated series (the most expensive of all time at $250 million) streams in three parts, each with a trio of episodes: Act One (November 9), Act Two (November 16), and Act Three (November 23).
The acclaimed Riot video game adaptation looks even more dazzling, thanks to Paris animation studio Fortiche going totally bonkers with its mix of finely textured 3D characters, digitally hand-painted backgrounds, and 2D effects. “With Season 1, we certainly were chasing the quality bar of drama that we see in a lot of shows, pushing our animators to be more subtle in the acting,” co-creator Christian Linke told IndieWire. “The animators had to find their style: the cinematography, the camera work, the lighting.
“With Season 2, we could start dreaming bigger and more freely without technical limitations in our visuals and scene work,” he added. “That’s the superpower of Fortiche. You don’t typically see these long shots where there are long dialogue scenes. It’s always like quick, quick, quick, quick, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.”
It helped that all of the conflicts come to a head with visceral force after trying to avoid them in Season 1. “At the end of Season 1, everybody tries to do the right thing and they fail,” Linke said. “So now there’s this new situation for everybody where it no longer is possible to avoid it, and so you see all the threads of conflict coming into play.”
Each episode boasts a standout stylistic moment to showcase Fortiche’s fearless approach to animation, accompanied by an original song. The first episode (“Heavy Is the Crown”) kicks off with the funeral of Caitlyn’s (Katie Leung) mother, a prominent member of Piltover. While Caitlyn grieves in the foreground, recalling childhood memories in a flat, black-and-white background decorated with purple flowers, the gravity of her sorrow is underscored by “I Can’t Hear It Now” by Freya Rridings.
“It was very emotional,” Linke said. “Anyone who has ever lost a loved one knows what it feels like when you don’t know how to step forward, time kind of slows and you’re in this tunnel vision. And I think this illustrative style that Fortiche has chosen, the black-and-white, it feels like the world surrounding Caitlyn and Vi becomes really blurry and undefined and colorless. And the only thing really moving and living and breathing in these pictures is from the perspective of Caitlyn, seeing through her eyes at a much lower frame rate. And we have this 3D animation of Caitlyn and Vi in really harsh contrast to that. And the song from Freya, with just voice in lower register and piano, captures the weight that is on Caitlyn’s shoulders at the moment.”
The second episode (“Watch It All Burn”) opens with a scene that reveals the power vacuum on Zaun after the demise of gang leader Silco, with all of the crime lords (Chem-Barons) sitting around a table. A series of expressionistic shots surround the static figures, with Jinx at the center, punctuated by Fortiche’s signature use of flickering film scratches and cool 2D effects. It’s accompanied by the Marcus King song “Sucker,” about the pressure of this power vacuum.
“We wanted to create this moment that illustrates all these sycophants that are now interested in Silco’s throne, and the ambition is becoming bigger and more aggressive,” added Linke. “And it surrounds Jinx as she’s still trying to figure out who she is because now there is this vacuum for her too, this silence, and she can’t escape Silco.”
Stylistically, Jinx wanders through empty spaces in horizontal shots with different warring parties from the underground. “There are very bright colors also to kind of illustrate just how it feels with these explosions going off surrounding Jinx,” Linke continued. “It’s also a bit of a refresher because we haven’t seen these Chem-Barons for a while since Season 1. And so they’re all sitting at a table and, one by one, they’re getting picked off in the conflict. And so the question is: Who’s going to survive?”
At the climax of the third episode (“Finally Got the Name Right”), we get a fight between the two sisters that’s bigger than anything we’ve previously witnessed. It’s explosive, trippy, neon-lit, and filled with lots of atmospheric 2D effects. Topping it off is the rousing song “To Ashes and Blood” by Woodkid.
“It’s kind of otherworldly, really raw, and it feels like Woodkid’s voice is narrating the emotions of the characters,” Linke said. “You often see Jinx have fun when she fights, with some kind of flourish and bright colors, but this fight is unusually sober and grim. Here it’s just, ‘I just want to kill you.’ We get close to her face in a lot of these moments and you see this momentary hate between them, which we haven’t seen before.
“And the animation techniques that they throw out here is intercut with the introduction of much more abstract, Lovecraftian touches. You have these time warps and kaleidoscopic animation and the idea that the people at Fortiche had was to show what it feels like when the Arcane and the magic in this world is really starting to get manipulated and broken by the heavy use of Hextech.”
“Arcane” Season 2, Act One is now streaming on Netflix.
