Breaking Down Arcane: League of Legend's Incredible Animation | Studio Spotlight

[@matthieuzglurg6015]

There's something really cool about how Arcane came to be : It should have never been there in the first place. The reason? Christian Linke. Linke showed up at the Riot Games Europe HQ in Berlin in like 2010 or something. He had no experience to speak of, but he was there to work for Riot, anything as long as he was working for the company that made his favourite game. Riot looked at him, said "okay dude" and he was sent to customer service. For months, Linke replied to players that had technical issues with their accounts, or a bug, or something like that. A little while later, the colleagues of Linke discovered that he had a Punk / Rock music group with a few friends of his, making music about characters of League. When he saw that actual important employees of Riot were a little bit interested, he pushed them to include his music in the waiting screens. People at Riot were hesitant, but as Linke was persistant in his efforts, they finally accepted. People loved it. They commissionned him to do a few more tracks for them. In 2013, the new champion is ready to get out : Jinx. People have been working on that for a few months, everybody knows what this is about. Linke even wrote a music for her, and begs the Riot execs to delay the release of the character for him to complete a little project he had : with a few artists and friends of his, they made a music (Get Jinxed) and since his friends were from a french animation studio, they made a music video to go along with it (Linke got in contact and became friends with the fortiche staff after he saw what they did for the gorrilaz music videos by the way). Everybody at Riot was pissed off that the new very important champion was delayed for that... music clip stuff that no one cared about Except it was a total hit, and it really got people excited. At this point, Linke was totally removed from his position of tech support to fully work on League, and that him, and his friends from Fortiche that got the idea for a TV show less than a year later, that they pitched in 2014 and began production in 2015. Without that dude that straight out spawn in front of Riot's doorstep we would not have Arcane on our screens today.

[@TheDarkstar3601]

Goddamm, damn damn damn. Linke you are an angel from the heavens. Also im glad riot saw Linke's potential, imagine if this was blizzard tho.

[@mst201]

Christian Linke* Thank you for this

[@habodakido4231]

Thankyou I never heard of dis before or linke where did u find this

[@theschnoozler465]

God bless Linke holy shit

[@leonardohenrique5172]

Holy shit thank God for Christopher Linke, he's a legends himself! Thanks for sharing this too btw :D

[@heywhat6676]

This show is literally the saying, 'Every frame a painting' brought to life

[@WwZa7]

It's literally just a texture on 3D models... and Arcane is not the first one to do this style. Apex already did it in their cinematic. Clone Wars started this style and did it way better.

[@BudderChezMC]

I remember watching star wars clone wars! Great show! But just because they paved the way to this type of 3D style doesn't mean Arcane's style is not equally great!

[@Jhitch19]

@@WwZa7 how did clone wars do it better, comparing scenes I don't see that at all.

[@WwZa7]

@@Jhitch19 faces are more varied, instantly represent each character's personality, (Arcane even almost suffers from same face issue, which is surprising given that none of their previous cinematics nor in game representations had this issue), the paintbrush texture was much more subtle yet still visible, facial animations were much more unique, each character had their own pallette of expressions instead of literally every single character in Arcane having the exact same face during certain expressions. Animations were better paced overall in Clone Wars, and in later seasons just better. Much more complex choreography, effects, scenery combat arenas, in Arcane you could barely see what the hell was going on, and these 2D effects felt completely out of place, like some amateurish edit (again, something that was quite good in previous cinematics and failed here). If any of these do change in later episodes, I don't know, I couldn't watch Arcane beyond first few episodes, and all what I didn't saw I know only from some gifs and images I saw people share.

[@Elidec]

lol clonewars..that minecraft lookin ass show. Stop coping... saying clonewars was better but nobody talking about it like how people are praising arcane. So much opinion but no facts to back it ..how sad

[@ldvl2782]

Arcane also shows that there's actually a lot of diversity in terms of animation styles in the west. People are just so used to watch American animated movies from Pixar and Disney, or adult cartoons like family guy and Futurama that they think everything looks the same. I'm glad that this show was animated by a French Studio with a unique art style, I hope we can see other studios in the future from various countries prove their worth. Hell even in the US I'm sure there's a lot of creative small studios who just want to get a chance. And white collars need to draw the right lessons from this success : Good writing, enough time and let the animation studio express their creativity. Wanneroy mentioned in his interview that Riot was just giving them broad guidelines for each episode or scenes, everything else was up to them when it comes to details or artistic direction.

[@demonseed360]

The funniest part of all is that when the show succeeds, they'll take the wrong lessons from it. There will be copycats that focus on the superficial reasons for Arcane being good. If you're familiar with Dark souls, it's a similar phenomenon. Developers make some generic dark fantasy RPG, and call it a souls-like, many of them completely missing the point of what made Dark Souls so good. If the show failed, then whoever was behind it will blame superficial reasons for the show failing, and say things like "video game shows/movies just don't work" as if there's some invisible force preventing them from making quality content.

[@PrimarchRoboleonFrenchyman]

To be fair, Riot is working with Fortiche since years (Get Jinxed was the first one I think) and EVERYTHING that they made has been extremelly well received by Riot's fanbase

[@mango-float]

I was also shocked people actually thought that the Ekko vs Jinx fight with the different animation style was because they ran out of budget for it when they literally animated the scene twice

[@HelloOnepiece]

I kinda hate how in the general concensus animation became the monopoly of Pixar and disney, and trying people to get into viewing other animations is kinda hard. France is the biggest standing bastion of european animation, but there are still many more

[@spring3281]

This show unironically restored my faith in Western animation.

[@SchmitzCinemaStudies]

I've been dying for more behind the scene details about Fortiche and making Arcane so thanks for making this.

[@Nata-ch2bk]

Then you also need to see the interview of Alexis Wanneroy here on youtube

[@TheCanipaEffect]

@@Nata-ch2bk As soon as I watched that, I rewrote like 60% of this video. Definitely recommend!

[@neilhannan7525]

@@TheCanipaEffect This is only me but this reminds of The Clone Wars S7 Animation like Arcane

[@parry111]

@@neilhannan7525 Their 3d models definitely have some similarities. Like I could see s7 ahsoka fitting in almost perfectly with a few adjustments, but that's also where the similarities end lol

[@Dilligff]

I said it in another post elsewhere, and I'll repeat it here. Arcane was the success it was because all the usual people whom tended to insert themselves in the creative process, didn't. It was a middle finger to the 'industry' and drives home the point that the 'suits' need to allow their artists to do what they do best, and that is make ART. Also, for those interested, you should look up the Annie: Origins cinematic and how it was made as it is very much a spiritual predecessor to Arcane and possibly influenced production of the latter given it came out roughly around the same time production on Arcane began.

[@caseyjp1]

The Annie cinematic was brilliant.

[@j.f.fisher5318]

Yes, but also all suits don't have the same interests in a project. Gameas and movies are direct competitors for consumers and as early as the 90s the game industry had already largely strangled an entire genre of low budget action movies because FPS games are a better medium for consumers to enjoy that kind of action. That the pattern has continued con be seen in industry statistics showing that a decade ago the game industry made as much money as movies and music put together and these days its making as much as movies + music + tv put together. So do we really expect Hollywood types to have the best interests of game IP at heart? I'd argue Arcane was good because the writers and directors were from Riot instead of trusting Hollywood types. Similarly CDPRs animated works were made with a lot of involvement from the studio unstead of just selling the movie rights to Hollywood and letting them sabotage the property.

[@EyeZayUhArt]

I really liked how all of the smoke effects were 2d. They didnt have to do that but it works. I thought that was neat

[@yaesu3080]

i remember the animation studio did same 2d smoke/debris effects for kda! the combination of both styles really makes it look unique

[@procrastinator99]

If you look closely, everything that isn't a solid is hand drawn. All gas and water are hand drawn. Its just beautiful.

[@sungvin]

Yeah it’s Fortiche’s shtick

[@WhyIsYoutubeSoTerrible]

Between this and the Mushoku Tensei video you made I see some real parallels for why they are so successful (really long pre-production time to assemble the right team and make sure everything is perfect, someone with money letting the project take the years it needs to grow etc). Great video, Arcane was unbelievably good

[@SmokesKwazukii]

the visual storytelling is unparalleled in Arcane. Every single fight scene and interaction is so perfectly character driven, so many details in the characters motion and actions and subtle choices provide loads of information to the viewer with no words at all. God its beautiful.

[@colpul2103]

TLDR: to call this show a 'masterpiece' is a gross understatement, had this show been live action the director, cinematographer and editor would hands down win Oscars, and you cannot understand exactly how good it is on the first watch. Now please indulge me if you are inclined as I indulge myself: I cannot rate this show on a scale of 1-10 because there's nothing really to compare it to. Saying 10/10 does it a disservice as it implies its the same as other great 10/10 things I've watched. If Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, and the first four seasons of Game of Throwns are S tier Arcane is S+ tier. You can rightly find layman and experts raving about the animation, the pacing, the sound design, the voice acting,… all, every bit of it just two hand chef's kiss. And the writing is so next level from dialog that at times is Shakespearean to 'telling not showing' to a rich narrative that is so deeply complex and efficient. Those things are obviously hallmarks of a Masterpiece. But they are not the most amazing things about Arcane. I want to talk about a couple cinema things that are less talked about so I'm going to write a little essay here about how this show isn't simply amazing animation but rather amazing cinema. Bear with me as I totally geek on this. My two passions are cinema, and story telling through the scifi-fantasy medium. I read text books and watch documentaries about this shit. Half of what makes this show so good is its cinema aspects, half of what makes it so emotional and gripping isn't what's 'filmed' but HOW it's filmed. From a cinematography and editing standpoint had a great live action director like the Coen Brothers, Stanley Kubrick, Kurosawa, David Fincher, et al filmed this live action it would be considered their magnum opus. You don't realize while watching but cinematography and editing are half of what a film makes you feel and half of world and character building. Film language is a language we understand without knowing we speak it, or rather that it is speaking to us because it is so ingrained in our viewing experience from childhood. In Arcane the use of things whole film school classes teach; negative space, color and shadow, cuts, transitions, framing… are just next level. Let me give examples; In the Viktor runs scene notice how when Viktor starts he's slight off-centre right framed as the camera starts to move with his movement, then when he stumbles he falls behind the camera's pace, then upon recovering how he catches the camera then slightly overshoots it. That adds so much emotional weight to the scene. It also is an example of parallels when child Viktor can't catch his boat but running Viktor passes the boats in a brilliant example of using negative space to tell a story. Another is the scene when Jayce tells Mel Viktor is dying. Notice how it does not show their facial reaction, only a closeup of Mel's hand, painter's trowel, and the canvice. Mel inner journey from mad to listening to sympathy with a close up of her painting trowel strokes. Her painting strokes communicate her inner workings better than any other framing of the scene could have because visually in character she's hiding how much it affected her in her voice and by extension assumed body language. She sounds miffed then understanding but the painting strokes say she's angry and hurt then 'oh you weren't ditching me' then to caring sympathy. Notice how you are set up for the animation change for the Ekko-Jinx fight with the cold open for the Firelights using the same art style so it isn't so jarring it takes you out of the immersion when that different art style clicks in at that pivotal moment. I mean that whole fight is set up so well with visual story telling on top earlier of dialog, Powder's picture being on the wall of lost loved ones for one. And I mean Ekko's entrance first with him not being there between Vi and Cait then a cut to black and boom there he is full on, I got no words for just how perfectly that was done. Notice that in Jayce's cold open the mage's opening his hand reaching out to reveal the light of the Hextech crystal matches perfectly with Jayce reaching up and symbolically grasping the same light from the Hextech Gate later in the show. You could run them as a single sequence opening and closing of a hand around the magic and all the symbolism of it. Cuts all have reasons for their placement. Notice first that they don't just cut on movement but also on beat. Tap your foot to the sound track and notice cuts happen in rhythm on tempo. Notice how scene cuts tell you instantly where you are. There are match cuts the likes of which great directors are thought genus for, every episode of Arcane has two or more on the level of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey match cut from thrown bone club to space craft, or David Lean's struck match to desert sun in Lawrence of Arabia. Jinx shooting the spinning plate on the punching machine match cuts to the sign for the Last Drop as an example. Or Vi going down a tube match cut to a bullet entering a chamber setting up the bridge blockade in ep 7. Oh and the Vi to bullet chamber match cut was also a wipe cut; a frigg'n wipe match cut, the only one in the whole show. Why? Because it was the perfect cut thematically there but not elsewhere. Plus the double down on it cutting back to Cait following Vi down the tube, which was again match cut but slightly different in that it pulls back to a wider shot of a gun being chambered, right on point. The cut explains itself in the narrative and the narrative explains the cut. As someone who studies this it was a WTF moment; not flashy just stylish and oh so F'n good when we've been taught it shouldn't work, I guess no told them they couldn't do it. And, in fairness it probably would not have worked live action, but still how do you think of something like that and then execute it so flawlessly? I could go on and on but in short this should be THE primer for all film schools. Editing and framing is the reason you feel every muscle when Vi parkours, why the punches have 'impact' to them, why you can feel the rain. That feeling of impact, weight, and texture are manufactured by shot composition, framing, and editing. And am really about to wax awestruck on camera effects like lens flares and focal lengths, lens choice and focus shifts in an animated show? I could but I'll save you. Haven't even touched on the brilliant use of shadows or color that rival the greatest film noir and neo-noir. The reason you can pause this on any frame at random literally, print screen and stick it on your wall isn't just the painstaking drawing but the composition and framing of that picture. This isn't a great beautifully rendered cartoon, this is an unbelievable display of capital C Cinema. Like I said I'm a total geek for this cinema stuff and while I've seen bits and pieces this good in some of the greatest films of all time I do not think I've ever seen its equal in total across a single piece of cinema. Arcane could not have this dense, rich, and powerful a narrative, or have this level of tight pacing, world and character building without this level of genus visual story telling. Even if you don't think this is the 'best thing' you've ever scene the cinema aspects of it are the best this cinephile has ever seen. And this was accomplished not by a Hollywood Legend or renowned auteur but a couple dudes at Riot Games and a small start up indi animation studio with an epic passion for the story they were telling. Perhaps only people who don't know what's actually possible can pull off the impossible. If you have taken the time read my ramblings to the end thank you for indulgence. For now I've just run out adjective. So how do I rate this show as an avid passionate cinephile? I for one cannot compare Arcane to anything else I've watched or analyzed, but I will compare everything else I watch to Arcane. Rating I guess is 'peerless- equal not found'.

[@sunflowerice]

please start your own yt channel, I would love to have lenghty explainations on all of it :3

[@3numa3llis]

I would like some of your textbooks and videos for reference, so I too can learn.

[@colpul2103]

@@3numa3llis A couple of my favorites: Cinematography: 'Theory and Practice' by Blaine Brown 'The Filmmaker's Eye: Learning the Rules of Cinematic Composition' by Gustavo Mercado 'Masters of Light, Conversations with Contemporary Cinematographers' by Dennis Schaefer Cinematography: 'Theory and Practice: Image Making for Cinematographers and Directors' by Blain Brown And of course: Every Frame a Painting here on KZbin. You can also look for film schools close to you, most universities have one, and look for seminars, workshops, and guest lecurers. I'm currently reading 'Painting with Light' by John Alton

[@3numa3llis]

​@@colpul2103 Thank you so much! If you have any other place where we can discuss and talk about framing and storytelling through cinema, I would love to continue the conversation. I'm currently studying for 3D animation, but I'm more into themes and narratives, with a special interest in sociology.

[@Andrerc0]

What a great read this comment was

[@drawinglikeasir]

Loved the in-depth behind the scenes look and talk about 3d as an animation medium in general! Though I would've loved to hear more about the technical side of things :)

[@cloudy7971]

omg its you

[@verskarton]

I really hope Arcane will shine some light on French (and European) animation. The talent is there but it always stays a bit out of view. Atleast to me.

[@nifixer7026]

French animation has always been famous, at least those animators who are very numerous in the big American companies (Dreamworks, Disney, Pixar... in some Dreamworks movies there were more French animators than American for example) because France has some of the best animation schools in the world like "l'école des Gobelins". The animation studio Illumation is also French although owned by an American company (Despicable Me, Minions, Sing...)

[@dkzVirtual]

Oh the soviet animation

[@TheDarkstar3601]

They've been doing that shit for years now in their cinematics. The current 2022 league cinematic is from france and the latest worlds cinematic is from europe.

[@Gladissims]

@@TheDarkstar3601 France…. Is in Europe? You’re not saying a lot by stating something “is from Europe” you know…

[@SmokesKwazukii]

@@Gladissims woosh

[@Maxicwastaken]

I agree with you. Arcane is by far the best TV show I've ever seen. I still get goosebumps after rewatching some scenes for the 15th time. Thx Fortiche for such an amazing show❤

[@Sturzfaktor2]

Same feelings here. Never before have I felt inclined to rewatch a show multiple times right after the first time. 💙

[@Avarn388]

Look forward to this. Arcane was phenomenal and one of my favorite pieces of media of last year. A lot of hard work went into it and it shows.

[@hablahei1]

The animation in Arcane is just so much above anything else it's absolutely insane. But that's not all, the atmosphere, the music and sound production, it is all just perfect. Never have I seen such a good show, absolutely brilliant. The story and characters are deep, and it is just incredibly satisfying from start to finish.

[@WwZa7]

You should watch Clone Wars than. They made simmilar paint brush texturing, and made it leagues better. Early few seasons are slow, but later ones really shine with scale, animation and presentation.

[@justanaveragedragon831]

@@WwZa7 I seen clone wars since its first season and it's last season and I have to say why are comparing texturing between these two shows and calling clone wars better?, The clone wars has a more semi-grounded and realistic texturing while arcane has fully stylistic texturing, as someone who much prefers style over realism I leagues prefer arcanes texturing and animation in general over clone wars, and in terms of writting I also leagues prefer arcane over clone, while I do agree clone wars is a great show to me it just doesn't hold a candle to the emotions I get from arcane.

[@SmokesKwazukii]

@@WwZa7 bro im sorry but arcane is so far beyond clone wars in every single aspect of filmmaking

[@SmokesKwazukii]

Arcane genuinely sets a new and very high bar for western animation. its insanely perfect

[@WwZa7]

@@SmokesKwazukii that wasn't a high bar in the first place. And it's your subjective opinion. You can't tell me they didn't fucked up Ekko vs Jinx fight when it was a perfect opportunity to make something cool and they did this cringy ass stuff. *Oh but hurr durr he is a time boy and look they are young because time and...* that's not how it works... And I loved Ekko since his very first trailer in League. And than you have the origin story for Jinx's name. Legit some random mofo told it to her and this rebel who lives her own life accepted it XD "perfect in every aspect of filmmaking" Meanwhile Clone Wars through 7 seasons transformed one mediocre scene in episode 3 into the most meaningful and heartbreaking scene in all over star wars just through their characters, filmmaking, thrill and drama. It gave perfect and powerful ending to this entire saga, and it made us care for literal clones. For each one and all of them. And I still can't give a shit about any of the Arcane characters, even whnr I know their Lore from the old times when I played that shitty game league of legends.

[@CelShadedMusicTheory]

It's been probably over a decade since I've been this excited about a television show in any medium. Arcane is stunning on every level of production top to bottom and never once dips in quality during its extensive runtime. The music is the best I've heard in any show on Netflix by a landslide as well, both the pop songs and the orchestral score.

[@echocalderon2853]

Well this just shows that when creativity is let loose with no strict rules, it will eventually lead to a masterpiece.

[@ChillPillMiouzik]

Fortiche is a French slang word meaning "pretty darn good"

[@jessip8654]

Amazing to think that Wheel of Time and Arcane had about the same budget. But where wheel of Time feels cheap and rushed, Arcane is a feast for the eyes. The story is much better too.

[@darthtace]

I understand the pessimism, but I really do think this year will be a turning point for animation. Arcane has made waves in the West, proving that an adult-targeted animated show can not only be good, but profitable. In Japan, we have Mushoku Tensei, which, coupled with Arcane, shows what a dedicated, passionate studio with time on their hands can produce. And we have their counterpoint, the abject failures that were Ex-Arm and Cowboy Bebop (the live action, obviously). No clue on Ex-Arm's budget, but considering it was a Crunchyroll Original, I bet it wasn't much less than Mushoku Tensei's, and it's been reported that both Arcane and CB had $10 million per episode. The point being, is that studios have a very obvious, very easy example of the fact that money spent on a bad show is money wasted, and money spent on a good show is money made. The main thing that needs to happen, now, is that animation studios need to take advantage of that and one other factor, which was mentioned in this video: there aren't enough animation studios. Basic economics dictates that when supply of a good falls behind demand, the price of the good should rise. Animation studios have to leverage that, point to the successes and failures, and pick their projects on their own terms, or at least with more favorable ones than there are currently. Much as the employment situation during the pandemic has upset the power balance between employee and employer in the U.S., granting the employee more bargaining power, animation studios have to do the same. Whether studios take advantage of this opportunity or not, though, is hard to say. I think Western studios will, since Arcane has probably had more impact here, but the general attitude of Japanese culture tends to be one of perseverance and acceptance of hardship when in a subservient role. As long as animation studios see themselves as subservient to their producers, and not partners, they probably won't try to change things. As an aside, it's also worth giving credit to Netflix for being a vanguard for non-Disney (including DreamWorks, etc.) animation in the West, despite their... questionable localization practices. Voltron, She-Ra, Trollhunters, Castlevania, Bojack, Green Eggs and Ham (it's a masterpiece, fuck you, fight me), Dragon Prince, and I'm probably forgetting some others. They've been quietly making and distributing fantastic animated shows for years now, and deserve to be recognized for it.

[@TheCanipaEffect]

I haven't seen a reliable source on Arcane having $10mil an episode outside of someone saying "It looks like it cost 10mil an episode"

[@darthtace]

@@TheCanipaEffect Check "Arcane: un petit studio français derrière la série d’animation la plus chère du monde" from Le Figaro. 60-80 million Euros, which is $68-91 million. I think it's an anonymous source (my French is awful, so I could be mistaken), but it is France's oldest national newspaper, so I expect they did their due diligence.

[@blondiefox2781]

Didn't Voltron went down the shitter?

[@darthtace]

@@blondiefox2781 Depends on who you ask. It definitely gets less universally acclaimed around season six, and the final season wasn't as satisfying as a lot of people hoped, but let's be honest, how many TV shows that go on for more than three seasons have a satisfying ending? Only ones I can think of off the top of my head are M*A*S*H*, Breaking Bad, and The Wire, though I'm probably forgetting/don't know some of them. I didn't think Season 8 of Voltron was too bad. It certainly didn't pull a Game of Thrones or How I Met Your Mother, at the very least.

[@sauravthegreat]

@@darthtace Did they say animation budget? It could include the budget for the songs too.

[@ClockMonsterLA]

The real test is to see if future Netflix streaming shows can deliver the kind of quality that Arcane has. Because Netflix has the money and patience to make it happen, whereas traditional television networks/studios do not.

[@porksterbob]

Netflix didn't do this though. Netflix was just the distributor. It's like expecting your Doordash guy to cook you an amazing meal. He brought one to your house before but he didn't cook it.

[@terranborn56]

Fortiche produced over 6 hours of animation plus music score, for just under 100 million USD. That's considerable less than the cost of a single 90 minute feature from Disney or Pixar. Pretty incredible.

[@a.p.5342]

Arcane is a phenomenal masterpiece and I’ve been just watching videos nonstop related to Arcane. I can’t wait for Season 2! The wait is already excruciating!

[@Sturzfaktor2]

Arcane's art style is so beautiful that when I watch it I keep pausing and rewinding for certain scenes. So many details, unbelievable expressiveness in the character animations. ❤ Not to mention the beautiful story. I hope they get enough time for season 2 (but not too much time 😉).

[@SCharlesDennicon]

Great video, mate, keep up the good work. Arcane is totally worth that kind of work. I hadn't watched so many videos and read so many articles about a TV show in... years. Years.

[@thomaseasley2938]

It looks like a piece of splashart come to life

[@badconnection4383]

What makes the show as special as it is that it brings every scene to life, even the mundane scenes. In most shows when there is a mundane scene of two characters walking around or doing something else normal, the animation quality would drop because nothing interesting is happening but with Arcane every scene is eyecatching to the point where even an exposition drop would get your attention.

[@fen1x_64]

He should really do a video on Wit Studio given their nearly spotless track record of superbly animated shows

[@TheCanipaEffect]

The Attack on Titan video covers WIT and their philosophy pretty thoroughly

[@TSignature]

Spiderverse was actually made in Canada! Sony’s animation studio is in Vancouver

[@TheCanipaEffect]

Oops! Thanks for telling me, didn't know that!

[@TSignature]

@@TheCanipaEffect a lot of western animation is done in BC or Quebec in Canada or overseas in Europe/Australia, there is a growing industry and animators from around the world (including the US) are trying to move to Canada to get into the industry here. I got a friend who worked in Sony animation for some of their feature films, thankfully Canadian animators are paid properly for their work! Riot is one of the highest paying in the industry, with lots of ex-Disney employees

[@SmokesKwazukii]

Spiderverse and Arcane also have HUGE budgets well beyond the scope of Anime

[@mangc_hing]

I was just waiting for your spotlight video

[@szlendak1368]

god im proud to be french when i see things like this

[@AndrewLWilson]

I keep hearing people say "This might be the best show of the year" And I keep thinking "What do you mean "Might"?!?!? and what do you mean "Of the Year"?!?!?

[@champadevi2581]

This was the best Spotlight video ever imo. I was hesitant to watch this cuz I still hadn't watched the final episode but thanks God there were no spoilers. Truly beautiful information all about the bts of studio and show. Thanks Canipa for this lovely treat.

[@Grudgebearer47]

2021 was really western animation’s time to shine. Lots of innovative and interesting cartoons this year with shows like Invincible, masters of the universe revelations, Dota dragon blood, Castlevania season 4, Star Wars the bad batch, inside job, what if, summit of the gods, and Harley Quinn. Plus Arcane to round things off with a bang. Especially surprising compared to how barren anime was in terms of quality shows. The only good anime I’ve seen this year was Oddtaxi. That being said, I think 2022 will be the year of anime just because I can’t think of any western shows that will be better than the likes of jigokuraku, chainsaw man, Uzumaki, summertime render, ranking of kings, and spy x family. I mean chainsaw man alone has the potential to beat every single animated show this year if Mappa doesn’t screw up the production like they did with attack on Titan.

[@darthtace]

Not saying that aggregate review scores are the best metric of quality, but there were 32 anime with a score of 8.0 or higher last year. Definitely the most out of any year of anime, though many of them were sequels. But for non-sequels I'd highly recommend 86, Fumetsu no Anata e, and Vivy. Horimiya was good too, though a bit rushed. As for this coming year, the only one on your list I'm really apprehensive about is Uzumaki. Yes, it's a good studio and the right director for the job (Aku no Hana and Mushishi? Yes please). But I'm not convinced it's possible to animate Junji Ito's art style, or to even do anything close to justice to it. I hope I'm proven wrong though!

[@carlosdanielcalderonmontoy3723]

Well🤔, if you say that the only good anime you watched in 2021 was Odd Taxi then I don't think you watched a lot of them. 2021 was one of the best years in history for anime. But if you watched more anime last year, *I totally disagree with you* but I respect that in your opinion there was only one good anime last year👍🏼, opinions are opinions. On the other hand, Arcane and Invincible were excellent imo, and Arcane's animation was beautiful.

[@Grudgebearer47]

@@darthtace I’ve seen To your Eternity and it gets really bad later on, both in terms of the animation and the story. I’ve heard enough mixed opinions on the other three to determine that they aren’t at all worth watching. Most aggregate sites for anime are complete jokes ran by weebs for weebs

[@debodatta7398]

i like how you snuck Dota dragon blood, on there like it wasn't generic trash

[@ronak5695]

i do think that Odd Taxi was the best show that came out last year but saying that anime was barren is just objectively wrong. there were soo many widely beloved shows released last year for all sorts of genres and tastes, whether you personally liked them or not doesn't count

[@asyrafhaiqal7405]

Arcane had what many shows didnt have,time

[@yelv]

I’ve been waiting for this video. Loved Arcane’s animation so I knew instantly when watching that you’d cover it

[@Zahlen0]

Fortiche's Composition & Texture work are without equals imo. With their textures, they implement their matte painting style into 3d very well to the point it doesn’t look awkward and the 2d and 3d assets all blends perfectly. There’s no “haha, that rock is going to break because it’s coloured differently." It all meshes seamlessly. In terms of composition, not only is every frame just wallpaper material, but animated series can easily have 3d and 2d fall apart. Both strengths allows them to blend assets perfectly. Also, never heard the term Vendor Studio :o

[@3lH4ck3rC0mf0r7]

I believe the shader they're using isn't so special. It looks like fairly standard pixel illumination with a lot of ambient light, Pixar-style. They also decided against framedropping and used standard, handmade 3D animation. For me, it's the texturework. Those textures were drawn with extreme care, manually painting in some of the more nuanced highlights on a scene-by-scene basis. They're rough-looking but not bad, and the ability to see every brush stroke, the fact that they were not blended in, not hidden, is what makes every frame look like a painting. A really rough painting look where every brush stroke is raw, and plainly visible to the eye, that's part of the artstyle, and can be seen in the backgrounds and effects as well. And while we're at it, the lighting and the 2D effects and backgrounds are also all perfect. A single mistake in how any one of those 3 elements were combined and layered together and the whole thing could've fallen apart, but no. Absolutely flawless. The composition & post-processing team had an impossible job in their hands, blending in so many different types of asset, and they did it beautifully.

[@Zahlen0]

@@3lH4ck3rC0mf0r7 my apologies, texture is the word I meant. I use them back and forth a lot. The comment has been edited for this clarification

[@soysource3218]

Because they had the paintings mapped as normal maps onto the mesh, so their shader would react with the brushstrokes, a simple idea but genius execution. They’ve used normal maps for realistic texturing for many years but few have thought of this idea.

[@LosfrogerX]

Wake up babe! Another banger video by The Canipa Effect!

[@achronos178]

Arance is an animation masterpiece

[@silasjohnson9596]

Love this style because it allows for so much detail. And I'd consider myself a very a meticulous person so it's very satisfying

[@ZetaStriker0000]

Finally finished the show and watched this. Awesome video as always, and I especially appreciate Tesla Note getting dumped on as an added bonus.

[@frickinfrick8488]

I’m so tired of this “writing is the only thing that matters” attitude. Some people act like animation and cinematography are just shallow window dressing to look pretty and sell the product which is so incredibly disrespectful to these art forms.

[@awesome_aye]

I really hope they don't rush season 2 of arcane

[@KillerTacos54]

Such beautiful animation in this show

[@art_by_darney]

Thank you so much for this video. I feel like I learned a lot. Arcane is one of my favourite shows of all time. With Vi being the character I connect to the most. From, the story and Charcaters, animation, voice acting and soundtrack. I will stand by the claim that I believe it’s a masterpiece in media. As an anime fan myself, I also found myself being drawn to the new age of animation that has occurred in the west. Shows like Arcane, Love Death and Robots and Into the Spider-verse have really truly captured me so much. I remember last year after coming out of a screening of Across the Spider-verse, I mentioned to a friend who also happens to be anime fan that once Japanese animation finds its grounds and experiments more, it’ll be groundbreaking. I admire that you mentioning the anime industries time constraints with how demanding studios are with deadlines. Also, the way the Japanese industry treats their animators is a whole another conversation worth having. And I would love to hear your perspective on that too. I found myself really dissatisfied at this. Until a show pop up on Netflix called The Blue Eye Samurai. I watched this and was so freaking hooked. It also crawled into my heart and is now a show I hold dear. Although, a western animated production, its Japanese story and influence really give me high hopes for the potential anime could have one day with more experimenting. As an aspiring Animator and Voice Actor, I hope to create and be apart of something as amazing as Arcane. The show has truly left an impact on me. Thank you so much for this video, appreciate your analysis🙏🏽✨

[@danielmugisha3725]

This show was so good.

[@desrtsku]

I totally agree with the sentiment. If modern Berserk got the same loose schedule as Koike's Redline, I also do believe it could have been phenomenal. Other than the good stuff occasionally produced by Orange, the most visually impressive 3D anime style Japanese TV show I've watched all my life was in my opinion Etotama (or at least the 3D parts of it). And that was an obscure show produced half a decade ago by an incredibly obscure team who was just passionate about it. So the potential is indeed there. They really just can't tap into it.

[@qk2168]

8:35 feels like how would I put into words why I overall stopped watching anime since 2017. The anime industry has shifted so much into producing a lot of shows yet imo, nothing worth mentioning at all. It might be because I'm growing tired of anime as I've been watching this said medium since 2000s but I feel like the quantity over quality point contributes in a way to why I rarely even watch anime nor read manga. I still really like animation as medium in general but more often than not there isn't much else to look towards to besides anime and western cartoons and both feels like a tired medium at this point imo this is why I feel like Arcane(and Spiderverse by extension) feels like a breath of fresh air in pushing the boundaries on what is possible with the general animation medium.

[@iapetes1]

Despite some hand wringing I think riot still deserves a lot of props for trusting their artists and working collaboratively with them. And the fact that it was done with a budget below an animated movie a third it's length is astounding

[@ynotflemis9121]

yes, i was waiting for this video, thank you for this

[@victorialecocq2610]

I think another reason why arcane is so successful is also because it has what a lot of animation lacks off: attention to details. everything was thought out so profoundly, I'm not sure how to put it all into words, but they cared about every aspect, the animation, dialogue, the music, not one thing was left on the side. they cared and worked on even the smallest detail, and that's why it works. It's deep, profound, on pratically every level. That's not easy to find these days. to me at least. That's also what I like to see. You can see the passion and dedication that the creators put in something, and in the case of arcane, you see it perfectly.

[@arnavranjan3411]

I never played league of legends and I probably never will. But I can say this for sure that I absolutely love Arcane.

[@franciscomagalhaes7457]

Just watched it. Don't play LoL, tried it a few years ago, not for me. This show, though... I couldn't believe it wasn't motion captured when I watched the making of. From the overall visual and musical art to the most minute details, the dialogue, the characters and their motivations and growth, and just everything in between, it is a masterpiece that I'll hold dear forever. One of those things that makes me glad I'm alive to witness.

[@Bem-0]

I realised in the scene of jinx acting calm while figuring out the hextech gem she is sweating puddles but i never noticed it till now

[@cracktoon_powerscaling]

You should make a video on flying bark productions They worked on Monkie Kid, Rise of TMNT,Glitch Techs and Marvel's What If, of wich all are highly regarded when it comes to their animation and fight scenes, at least within western animation

[@ackermanlol]

Apparently after the media posted about the allegations against Riot the situation got better. It's not like Activision/Blizzard mess fortunately.

[@Thulgore]

Arcane is the single greatest show I have ever seen. I am absolutely obsessed.

[@edsonsengo2684]

Arcane and Castlevania are two animated series that truly shows that the west has the potential to make some really great animated shows(on par with anime in my opinion).

[@alecboco8809]

Yeah sadly most talented people there are stuck making cartoons for kids

[@Vasharan]

Yeah, there is a huge social stigma against animation in the West. When I tell my friends to watch _Arcane,_ and they find out it's animated, they lose interest. When I tell my friends to watch _Attack on Titan_ and they find out it's animated, they lose interest. When I tell my friends to watch _Undone,_ and they find out it's animated, they lose interest. When I tell my friends to watch _Invincible,_ and, well, you get the idea. Hopefully, the breakout success of _Arcane_ will help overcome this subconscious prejudice in audiences, and pave the way for more artists who use this medium as a creative device.

[@justanaveragedragon831]

@@Vasharan agree, hopefully arcane can prove that super talented western animators don't have to be restrictive to kids stuff and allow there full potential to shine through.

[@tracark2255]

“Potential” “on par with anime” anime isn’t as good as you think dude

[@champadevi2581]

Pure godly video just so much enjoyable. The one needing spotlight now is you my friend

[@XBloodyBaneX]

Tron: Uprising also had a similarly fantastic animation style, where you could literally stop any ANY MOMENT and make that a a wallpaper.

[@superjboy16]

Should be a Textbook example of Quality over Quantity. Give the artists enough time to make it, and have the patience for it and you will surely be rewarded for it.

[@julio1148]

8:20 to be fair, it is extremely difficult to find artists (or any subject matter expert on ANY field) that has the skill to manage operations efficiently, not any professional can tell you where to cut or add resources, only a person with experience in their field truly knows what the implications of resource allocation are for each department. Creativity Inc., a book on Pixar production, outlines solutions to this. Believe or not, Pixar is cost efficient relative to their high production value. None of their tools or processes are cheap, but they know how to use them - and their people - to the fullest. Really recommend that book to production/animation fans.

[@Bem-0]

Love death + robots Has a ep called tall grass I believe with a similar art style too Arcane

[@joshuathomas512]

This channel needs MORE

[@UseTheLess00]

Having the Houseki no Kuni playing on the background was a good touch for a video talking about the best animated series

[@vlusky_husky]

You mentioned something about "what could've been" if the CG Anime studios you've mentioned has a more ~Arcane~ like production. I feel like once in a blue moon, something like that kinda happens and it immediately shows what the studio is capable of. I always thought of Polygon Pictures as one of the "mediocre" ones. Their renders don't look that pleasing to me. Until they partnered with Blur Studios in Love Death + Robots for Volume 3 of their anthology. The very base idea for Love Death + Robots is to let the studio loose on the creative idea. I feel like this is one of the very few moments where they indeed are given enough time and resources to do their job and the result speaks for itself. It's absolutely gorgeous. To an extent, I think SANZIGEN has one of these moments too but it's a longer game they play with Bushiroad. They picked SANZIGEN up to animate some of BanG Dream!'s music video's and I think that lets them experiment with the style a little. But since I presume Bandori is a tough style to nail they don't really get it at first. And I think it's still the issue of too tight deadlines. But Bushiroad stuck with them and it allows them to develop that style even more. Their later works just keeps getting better. And I have a game theory that this leads up to them animating D4DJ and D_CIDE which is also Bushiroad's IP.

[@Revanxbone]

The sting meme is very good!

[@afterpasthours7504]

Arcane is not only proof that shows or movies based on video games CAN be good but that mature animated media can be more than Family Guy or Rick and Morty derivatives, which more often that not become just an animated show that has adult themes reused to death.

[@__Ryoto__]

I was waiting for your video for so long. Thank you for your hard work!!!

[@Billy-mj9jf]

"Fuck you riot" Also "Thank you Riot" The dichotomy of the League player.

[@JayD001]

Wait....they didn't use motion capture? Like that's fucking impressive, here's why motion capture usually makes for easier choreographed fight sequences but instead they animated it themselves without that as a guide. For example Vi used boxing as a basis for her fighting style and she moves just like a real boxer should and would. Normally they would have had a stunts person in mocap making those moves accurate because they are trained experts but instead they were able to pull that off perfectly without it. I was already impressed by the show anyway but holy cow that shows just how talented their team is.

[@mossy1476]

I have a BIG problem of starting a show or book and not finishing it. Arcane is one of the first shows I have finished in years (the only other ones are Shera and Voltron, yeah I know, gimme the L for that last one lmao). I apparently had seen screenshots of the show before my friend told me about it. so I looked it up and started watching it. I then realised "omg, that wasnt fanart, that were screenshots, HOW DID THEY DO THIS??!!!" the style is so amazing. it feels like they took 3d models of everything, gave them flat colours but handpainted every single shadow, effect, lighting and other little quirks over top on a frame by frame basis. it feels like they created some magical way to turn a painting into a live picture. its so incredible. something I also loved is how SMOOTH the movement feels. every single little movement feels both deliberate and very natural. the action scenes are beautiful. the writing is amazing, I LOVED the entire powder/jinx/vi arc, even as heartwrenching and tearjerking as it was. I was SOBBING at the end of the 3rd episode and had to resolve to watching it in 3 episode batches, with a couple days in between to process it all haha. I am so stocked to know that a season 2 is already (seemingly) greenlit, but also fairly scared that its going to be pushed with a deadline that will ultimately harm the show, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see (and keep making noise so that the CEO's of Riot hopefully realise NOT to do that)

[@davidwebb2568]

This is how you make a KZbin video! Zero waffle with a purpose. Excellent job!

[@stinesrensen1133]

Hands down, the best productions I have worked on were the ones where the director trusted the animators and was open to their input and ideas. (animator)

[@fixylieberus2925]

if you want an anime feel in arcane, i heard the Japanese dub is quite good.

[@mackielunkey2205]

I hate how despite how amazing it is, it’s been almost snubbed by major reviewing outlets (like Rolling Stone or AV Club).

[@Animegold2856]

No doubt this is one of the best films period. It was absolutely wonderful.

[@kieranking7173]

Really wanna watch Arcane, but I'm worried there will never be another series like this in our lifetimes.

[@AHylianWarrior]

It's getting a second season if anything

[@Nata-ch2bk]

Yeah there are so many different factors and circumstances that need to be met to create something like Arcane, and if one element is missing then you can end up with something much less memorable. You'd need : • Talent • Money • Time • Creative freedom • Good Writing • Passion -> this one is often overlooked and is *very* important, in my opinion. The people who work on it need to be passionate about the source material and what they're creating, and not doing this just for money because it was an order for a big company. That's where that "partnership" vibe comes in place with Riot-Fortiche. From all the interviews I've seen, including french interviews of the founders of Fortiche about Arcane, the Fortiche people are really passionate about the whole Arcane project. Also something that helps : • A rich source material (here the world of Runeterra and its characters). Although I'd say you can also create a good show literally from scratch but it can be more difficult depending on the scale of the universe you want to create. For now, I don't see any other company than Riot that will provide such circumstances for an animation studio. A lot of production companies are only about money and never about passion for their art, so it will never come from those. I'm not saying Riot is never about the money, obviously, but you have to agree that for Arcane in particular they weren't about the money but about making something good. But we'll see.

[@jordanmcglotten3499]

YES MORE ARCANE CONTENT FROM MY FAVORITE ANIMATION BREAKDOWN CHANNEL!

[@julio1148]

7:30 I REALLY recommend that podcast to animation and arcane fans

[@cloud9296]

It's amazing they used their own lore team rather than hire out some tv writers. Just such an excellent decision

[@derJ03]

Absolutly the right lesson to take home for the future 👍

[@that1goldenguy453]

Honestly wasn’t expecting houseki no kuni to be mentioned but I’m glad it was.

[@EdwynSMOrc]

6:04 basically my feelings towards riot games. I love the universe and stories made by those who love their work, but hate their leadership.

[@Legacy0901]

At some point you just have to live with the hypocrisy of unethical consumption under capitalism. Almost everything you consume in your daily life has been tainted by an evil source - the food you eat was probably harvested by exploited immigrants, your phone and clothes were made in sweatshops overseas where they put nets outside of windows so the workers have a harder time killing themselves, and the entertainment you watch was made was produced by a company whose executives are sexual abusers. At least in the recent case of Riot, there was SOME justice done with the class action lawsuit being settled the way it did and I rationalize enjoying Arcane guilt free by considering it as a Fortiche animation project with Riot's label on it.

[@kaeb11]

I have always loved Anime. So while I don’t know the game (not a gamer) but this got storey telling right. It doesn’t insult your intelligence but you get it. My favourite scene is in boy saviour the fight between ekko and powder /jinx. So good. A great show. Also the politics and human themes are well presented!

[@aden_zhao3359]

i absolutely loved arcane and cannot wait to see what happens next

[@iswallowappleseeds927]

14:14 FINALLY SOME SHIROGUMI APPRECIATION FOR ONCE!!! I've been aggressively showing Etotama clips to everyone i know.

[@DemonCute14]

yes! i been waiting for you bro!

[@Scorpia260]

I want to start by saying that this is in no way defending the abuses and inequality that took place at Riot. It was disgusting and rightfully blew up as one of the first in this current wave of reckonings for toxic game studios. Riot has by all accounts made great strides since the then to improve both policy, practice, and behavior at the company. There are many reports from current employees, who were personally affected or part of an affected group, that the changes and reforms have had a significant positive change on the company culture.

[@WwZa7]

Or they managed to not let all the scummy things go out. From what I know things are better but still not good. People still are abused, and don't even get me started on prevalent systemic discrimination they employ.

[@debodatta7398]

> Riot has by all accounts made great strides since the then to improve both policy, practice, and behavior at the company. Want to explain how they did this while also keeping on the dude (in a upper managerial position too) who literally groped a male employees crotch for fun in front of other coworkers? I would love to hear it

[@angelerror4086]

@@WwZa7 oh don't even get me started on this once bad, always bad thing. It's considerably better for riot to completely cease it or try their best to improve it, if another incident got out they're fucking dead, then more people won't work at riot and employees leaving, basically turn into another blizzard, and it would be stupid to fix or at least try to fix the problems after experiencing the backlash first hand, you make it sound like the people who run the company are sadistic idiots who don't know anything about handling problems like this, sure there's a chance you're right and I'm totally wrong but then the people at riot would be fucking stupid.

[@WwZa7]

@@angelerror4086 Well, some people say they did improved, maybe they did, but the discrimination is still there, systemic might I add. It's really fucked up when you don't employ certain race or sexuality beyond a set threshold. So "better" does not have to mean "good" already.

[@angelerror4086]

@@WwZa7 well sorry if I came off as an asshole but I'm tired of people saying what if they didn't change so I can't help it, some people even compare it to blizzard's level of bad. I do agree with you, and also I recommend reading this letter from riot's ceo or watch a video about it, I would say they're marginally better than they were back then

[@XHunter442]

Great video, seeing you understand the way i feel about anime an animation! Can't wait for season 2! Also never played the game but love the story!

[@SystemBD]

Something tells me this man likes animation.

[@PrettyTranslatorSarahMoon]

I usually don't notice or appreciate good animation and such, but yeah. 😳

[@rnoip]

We're the same. Never cared for the game, but this show is mind-blowingly good.

[@bedivere2217]

What could have been if Ufotables's knowledge of cgi backgrounds and special effects is combined with that of Arcane's beautiful painterly animation and backgrounds. Arcane is already perfect as it is but I just can't get this "what if" out of my mind lol

[@caiuscosades362]

Any other company and this show would have been dropped years ago. Tencent is the arm of Chinese international media. They are not bound by quarterly cycles and that gives them an enormous advantage in the kinds of risks they can take. if a show is going to take 8 years to be done right, then that’s what they’re going to do.

[@julio1148]

1:45 Lol I thought you were going for "they don't have the money"

[@joshwew9551]

Arcane became Netflix's number 1 on mid-November, dethroning Squid Games, which I think held the throne from Late September. Kinda nuts what Arcane was able to do.

[@PrimarchRoboleonFrenchyman]

Unlucky for Squid Games, if not for Arcane, they would have own the spot for much longer

[@_stqki_]

Fortiche is literally just Ufotable but reversed Fortiche uses 3d with 2d effects and Ufotable uses 2d with 3d backgrounds

[@HPblu3]

I mean, Ufotable does good with anime but comparing Fortiche to them it's doing a huge diservice, some of the best talent in the world works there(veterans from Pixar, DreamWorks etc.) and they have big budgets thanks to Riot. Ufo will never achieve this kind of quality nor do they want to most likely.

[@shippuden1322]

Not tranna hate but Ufotable dont come close to Fortiche comparing the two is like comparing a elephant to a ant

[@_stqki_]

@@shippuden1322 Not really trying to compare the two I'm just talking about the animation style not the quality

[@theobsessor11294]

Could you do an Animator Spotlight for Jujutsu Kaisen? The animation on that show is incredible to see!

[@bdariamihaela]

You should check out Wolfwalkers, it's my favorite animation movie and is one of the best 2d animation I ever saw