#studying stuff that sucks is sometimes productive if you aren't just hate-consuming it

[loveandlegacy]

i keep seeing people on the subreddit express like pretty intense anxiety that s2 will be really bad and i don't want to make a whole post on the subreddit to say this given that i think it wouldn't be super well received so. i'm saying it here on my blog instead. but i think in general the people who feel this way would benefit from remembering that at its core, before it is anything else, arcane is currently a 10 and soon to be 20 episode long advertisement for league of legends. i don't mean this to detract from the very real artistry that has gone into the show and i sincerely believe that the whole project has helped reset and shape what people imagine is even possible for feature-production level animation in the west. i am very glad it exists and i cannot wait to see what ripple effects it has on the animated film and tv landscape in the coming years.

but. but! at the end of the day this creative project is owned by one of the most powerful studios in games and its existence is guided primarily by how much value it will bring to riot and tencent as entities. you can see this even in the fact that people are already referring to the trailer to predict what ambessa's kit will look like and what new skins jinx and vi are likely to get — to say nothing of all the teasing around viktor's VGU.

i don't want to be a debbie downer and say that all good storytelling is inherently incompatible with capital interests because i think there's plenty of evidence to contradict that, but i do feel like a helpful reality-check sometimes is to just remember that things like production budget, episode count, and even character presentation are at least partially dictated by a room full of people whose primary interest is a return on investment. so yes, there's a decently strong chance the season could be bad story-wise, but like. whatever. it will probably still be very visually influential and instructive as a work of animation. and regardless of s2 there's plenty to enjoy and learn from and appreciate about season 1, or we wouldn't all be here. sometimes it's about the journey or whatever they say y'know?