Three years ago, the first season of Arcane hit Netflix and blew up the world of animated series with a level of artistry, narrative, and multi-faceted character development never before seen. Based on the world of Riot Games’ multiplayer online battle arena video game, League of Legends, and populated with some of its most popular champions, Arcane drew superlative praise from critics, players, and newcomers to Runeterra alike.
Still considered one of Netflix’s most successful animated series ever, Arcane was globally recognized as one of the Best TV Shows of 2021, winning four 2022 Primetime Emmy Awards, sweeping nine 2022 Annie Award categories, and being named Best Adaptation at the 2022 Game Awards.
Geek Girl Authority had the pleasure to speak with co-creator and executive producer, Christian Linke, via Zoom, about how huge the series has been and what elements have played a part in that.
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The following transcript has been edited for clarity.
Hoping for Everything
Diana Keng: Did you expect the reaction, the feedback, the accolades that Arcane Season 1 garnered?
Christian Linke: No. I mean I kinda try to approach things with the same mentality which is hope for everything but expect nothing. We knew that we’d made a good story but whether or not it really connects… There’s a lot of great stories out there that don’t really get the attention that [the creators] would’ve hoped for and so you just don’t know.
It’s amazing to see [the response]. We also didn’t know [if] the attention to detail that we put into this show… The crazy subtleties that you don’t usually find in animation. The drama. These long dialogue scenes and everything. You just don’t know if that’s going to translate and a lot of people told us it wouldn’t. So it was great to see that it did and it gives you confidence for what you want to do next. “Okay, we’re doing something right here.”
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DK: Season 1 was six years in the making, I believe?
CL: At this point, it’s been nine years. Arcane as a whole — Season 1 plus Season 2 — so far, for me, it’s been nine years in total.
Finding the Dream Middle
DK: The style of artistry and animation that you introduced in Arcane Season 1 and continue in Season 2 is something game-changing. Can you speak to the artistic elements that were brought together to create the look of Arcane?
CL: Well, Fortiche is just an awesome animation studio and it was a new challenge for them, too. The animators came from studios that would work on the Minion movies and Disney… Dreamworks… so the animation was more pushed. We wanted to find this middle where it is stylized but it’s still grounded enough that when a character gets punched, it hurts.
CL: And when they have to do difficult things, like travel through a vertical city, it’s really difficult, not too easy for them just because everything’s animated. So the weight, the gravity, the pain… I think we had to really figure that out so you feel that. And our animators weren’t necessarily used to that. But that was, for us, just the dream. That middle where it’s dramatic. It feels real, except it isn’t. It’s something that we wanted so we can take our audience seriously. Our audience takes animation and these characters and this IP seriously.
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The Importance of Being a Fan
DK: Where were your in-roads to League of Legends? Your animators, your writers, yourself. Were you League of Legends fanatics going in?
CL: Yeah, I mean, Alex [Yee] and I — Alex, the other creator of this show — we have been playing the game for fifteen years. We love the game. We’re hard-core players. We were part of the teams that made the characters for the game back then so we knew we could really trust ourselves. You’re right.
CL: And there were a lot of people also among Fortiche — would-be gamers — cause it was the right kind of age for these young people who step into professional worlds. It was absolutely irreplaceable, this authentic fandom that we all had because otherwise, it’s just not possible to really understand how the audience thinks about these characters. It was really, really vital to Arcane I would say for sure.
RELATED: Exciting Arcane Season 2 Soundtrack Details Revealed
DK: You chose to focus the story of Arcane: League of Legends on the sisters, on Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) and Jinx (Ella Purnell). Was there a conscious choice or did their story spring fully formed into mind?
CL: We definitely thought about it in the beginning. “Oh, like, who are the right characters?” I will say it was a pretty obvious choice for us. Because Alex and I had worked on them, they were so important to us. We made these big songs for them back then. Jinx had this music video with Fortiche that started the relationship between Fortiche and us. It was just like, “Yeah, it has to be them.” It was a choice, but it wasn’t: it was so obvious to us.
Vander’s Truth
DK: The backstory with Vander (JB Blanc) in Season 1, Act I and all the things that it foreshadows for your story moving forward in Season 2… I mean, the fanbase has picked apart every scene that you’ve released for Season 2. How did it feel to build towards this big reveal?
CL: It gave us a lot of confidence that we can be very subtle and our audience will pick it up. You’re right. What we call the “frame f*ckery” that goes on with any Arcane material is pretty staggering. People really pay attention and so we don’t have to boink you over the head with information. We can play it out like it’s very organic and subtle. That feels really good. If anything, it gives us confidence that okay, we can be this subtle. We can have this dramatic nuance that our players will actually, y’know, do the work for us, if you will.
The Perfect Cast
DK: You have a fantastic voice cast assembled for this production. Was there anyone you dreamed of getting that you didn’t think you’d get and then managed to land them or anyone that slipped the net?
CL: I don’t think we had anyone slip the net. It was just that we didn’t even know what we were looking for in a lot of cases ’cause I think we really wanted to have the casting process where you get surprised. All the characters we had to take from a video game voice to a real dramatic voice and that is a translation. It can’t stay the same.
In a video game, a character has to have a really clear read. If you have to stand out among 150 characters, you better be kind of one-note. Very clear about who you are. In a show like Arcane, you have to have many different layers, be much more nuanced. We knew that we had to find voices that captured the essence but take it further. You don’t always know what that ends up being like. Honestly, there’s not a single character where I feel like we didn’t end up with the perfect choice and I think that’s rare. I can’t imagine any other voices for them.
Arcane Season 2 Act I will premiere on Netflix on November 9 with Act II dropping on November 16 and the final Act arriving November 23. Arcane Season 1 is currently streaming on Netflix.
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