Arcane is the “Best Animated Series” of the last decade.

Who are the real heroes??

The origins

Arcane is an animated series that takes its characters from the League of Legends pool of champions and its location is also taken from the lore of the videogame. It is probably one of the most famous videogames of the last decade.

The gameplay of the videogame has no real impact on the understanding of the story, so everyone can watch it even without knowing the existence of the videogame before.

A pleasure for the eyes

In this opera, the style, the colors, the graphics, special effects everything is curated in the minimum detail. Watching those 9 episodes is a joy for the eyes, thanks to the beautifulness of the scenario. Some frames could be pieces of art exposed in a museum.

Why is this product so good?

The easy answer is: “Because it is almost perfect”. Well, it is. From a technical point of view is probably impeccable, despite it being animated it’s like there is a movie camera that moves in the scene and from one scene to another.

The other reasons, which are the motivation because you are here right now, are even more interesting. This series can touch really important topics like the importance of technological progress and if it is a good thing or not, the social disparity in all forms, mental health problems, we aren’t real heroes in our reality.

Trauma, mental health

All the characters (the important ones) are deepened a lot in their psyche and behavior.

Especially powder (aka jinx) represents this kind of thing. Since she was a little child she had this little problem, she didn’t know who she was and she wasn’t good at anything unlike her sister or her friends. Growing up, after she lost her “father” and her sister, she goes under the control of Silco (the villain). He becomes like her new father and he let her completely free to express herself in any kind way, thanks to that we are given a brief description o all her personalities.

Jinx, the one who “jinxes” everything she does, is somehow really similar to Harley Quinn.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

One of its great virtues is to break the stereotypes to which “Hollywood” (and not only) has accustomed us. The characters do not reincarnate the stereotypes of the heroes and the villains at all.

Here the good ones are also bad, selfish, full of themselves, greedy. As well as the villain, who is initially presented to us as the worst person on the face of the universe, with the continuation of the story he also shows aspects of generosity and pure love towards his daughter.

This is because we, like them, are not stereotyped characters. The best person in the world is not just that, as well as the worst person. What they have in common, however, is the fact that they are humans, in continuous evolution, characterized by a thousand shades and unique peculiarities.

The most addicting modern drug

This animated series has the value to slap in our face some unkind truth, that we already know but hide under the mattress. The big question that comes up frequently watching it is: “Is technological progress a value for our society?”. The answer that comes out naturally is easy, yes, progress is the biggest success we can aspire to, in every kind of field.

But is it necessarily true?

Well no, because progress means that something changed from an initial state, and this change could have huge consequences that we couldn’t even think of.

Following the plot, Jayce, a 23yo student, wanted to recreate the magic-using some special blu stones. He made a lot of research to do it and he arrives to have the opportunity to talk to the council so to explain his big plan. He says that magic could positively change Piltover’s fate forever (Piltover is the city in which he lives). Heimerdinger, the scientist that resides in the council, warns him and all the council about all the problems that could become out from this kind of operation. He is also pretty accountable in his statements, as he lived for 300 years, he saw what magic is capable of and how easy it is to destroy cities with it.

Arcane makes us interrogate the fine line that divides good progress from the bad one, and it made me think also that maybe there isn’t good progress, because as we are finite humans are all different from one another, with different ethics and ECC… there will always be someone able to use some kind of progress to harm someone else.

Social disparity

Perhaps a somewhat obvious theme, but which Arcane masterfully portrays, is social disparity. The story is narrated within two cities, Zaun, the lower part, and Piltover the upper part.

The outcasts live in Zaun, those who have nothing, where the population lives in poor conditions in terms of livability and hygiene. It is a narrow, putrid, and degrading place. Crime rules everything and there seems to be no way out of this vicious circle.

On the other hand, rich people live in Piltover. It is the city of progress, crime is practically nil, and when there is it is caused by people from Piltover. it is a kind of “locus amoenus”.

The most interesting aspect is that we live this duality every day in our reality, who has everything and who has nothing, and many times the latter has done nothing to deserve that fate if not to be born. The difficulty to go from Zaun to Piltover is immense, and even once you get to a dignified situation you will always be seen as the one who lived in Zaun. The ghettoization of poverty, unloading all possible blame on their shoulders, when in reality, perhaps, it was precisely the wealth of Piltover that caused the poverty of Zaun.