Arcane, a great Netflix’s series about League of Legends

Arcane is a Netflix series set in League of Legends (LOL) video game. It explains the story of different characters of Piltover and Zaun, two districts of LOL universe. Zaun is a suburban born between the valleys and canyons connected to Piltover, the rich part of the valley. The two districts are separated because of some controversies, but before they were united.

The two main characters are two sisters called Vi and Powder. They grow as an orphaned sisters and then they start separated lives as an adults. Later, Powder becomes a killing machine called Jinx, from the Zaun district, so the sisters will start a fight between them. We also have two more characters, the scientists Viktor and Jayce, one wants to help people of the Undercity (Zaun) and the other wants to do the right things. Among them, there’s an invention called “Hextech” a new technology which combines magic and science, but this has consequences for their relationship and the two “cities”.

What I like the most of Arcane are the graphics and the art style. I’m not used of watching animation series so when they suggest me to watch it, I was like “I don’t like this type of series” but, the fact was that I didn’t watch any of them before. Arcane is related to “steampunk”, a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retro futuristic technology and some things related to the Industrial Revolution and its machinery. So, the artistic part is incredible, because it is all set in that era and specifically in London in that historic period, we have some references in the series, such as, the two districts are divided by a river, and the bridge that unites them is similar from the “Tower Bridge” of the UK’s capital.

The creators, though that if the city was divided into two parts, they should create different aesthetics in every district, so if Piltover is the rich part, with empowered people, culture and well-known citizens, they should represent it like that, as the future. On the other hand, Zaun, the Undercity, has the aesthetic part of the Steampunk, with neon lights and some graffiti around all the town, inspired a little bit by nature. Arcane is full of artwork, which makes it more visual and interesting, with an amazing aesthetics.

I don’t like the fact that even if they are trying to not sexualize women’s bodies, they’re a little bit sexualized and although the series may seem LGBT-friendly, there’s a feminist disempowerment, because between the relation of Catylin and Vi, as love evolves, they will start losing their professional goals. To understand this, it’s better to watch the series by yourself because it’s quite tricky to explain it, because some people can be more comfortable than others and can have different points of view about that. But I think that nowadays, the film industry, with the increase of LGBT rights, is trying to fit in with society, although it has always been quite discriminatory. Even if this can cause a debate, it’s always nice to see that film industry is evolving and the new generations are making the way easier.

 

I recommend you a lot to watch it, even if you don’t know anything about LOL (as I), because it discovers you a new world, but with some similarities with our world, like the difference between social status and how humans (we) always want power even if we destroy each other.

Release: 2021 | Netflix
Genre: Action, adventure, animation, fantasy, steampunk, videogame
Creators: Christian Linke and Alex Yee

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REFERENCES:

• Zaun – Regiones – El universo de League of Legends. (n.d.). Leagueoflegends.com. Retrieved 31 October 2022, from https://universe.leagueoflegends.com/es_ES/region/zaun/

PICTURE’S CREDITS:

Pictures are taken by me from the series, all rights are from Netflix

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