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Ever since the first season of Arcane hit Netflix in 2021, it was clear this wasn't just any animated series. Combining the lore of League of Legends with unique aesthetics mixing 2D and 3D animation techniques, Arcane managed to captivate the attention of viewers all around the world, even non-LoL fans.
Co-created by Riot employees Alex Yee and Christian Linke, getting Arcane to the world was not an easy feat. All in all, the journey took almost a decade. Between season 1 and season 2, the series went through a three-year gap to allow French studio Fortiche to not only complete the animations but really take them to the next level.
The wait was worth it: shortly after the premiere of the first act of Arcane season 2 on November 9, the series shot up to Netflix's global top 10 English TV in 91 countries, where it has remained ever since.
Focused on the story of LoL champions Jinx (voiced by Ella Purnell) and Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) — who are, for the first time, revealed to be canonically sisters in Arcane — the show deals with an ever-expanding range of themes, covering everything from grief and sisterhood to tyranny and everything in between.
Before season 2 premiered, Yee and Linke made it clear Arcane would end with season two, which made some people raise their brows, given the success of the show. However, the cinematic venture into League of Legends lore has only just started. Below, Teen Vogue sits down with Arcane co-creator Christian Linke to ask him all your pressing questions about the season 2 finale and what to expect next.
Christian Linke: I wish there was one general answer I could give you on that one. You really just have to play with the little impressions that you can create. I mean, our audiences, they're used to [this]. They like to look at details and deduce things and really pay attention and hunt for clues, so we can never give too much because literally everything, they'll just understand everything that will happen. It's like, “Damn.” I don't think that there's a moment we were like, "Oh wow, they really missed this." No, they notice everything. And so, you have to be careful. You have to kind of iterate.
CL: Yeah. I mean, it was cool. I think there was just shape language that I think that translated pretty well.
CL: I don't really want to speak to that yet. We're just two or three days after the release, so, I'll leave it there.
CL: Yeah, this is how we wanted to say it. Life isn't always so perfectly buttoned up. War is messy. Fighting is messy. I really don't want to say anything more about it, but it is something where we want people to add two plus two and really think about all the different sides of how we set things.
CL: Yeah, totally. The debates!
CL: Arcane is a pretty serious show, and so what's nice about Heimerdinger is that he allows us an opportunity to explore some of the brighter tonality. I think that's really the thing that's always fun to explore with him. He can have fun. He's just part of the whimsy in our IP, so I think that's really, really cool.
CL: We really wanted to add this new experience for Jinx. For the first time, she has to experience what it's like to be the big sister and the responsibility to look out for someone. So it was really that the concept of growth for Jinx, and it really changes her character when for the first time, she has to worry about someone else's life, as she has this really big character.
CL: It was a very natural step, I would say, because we started the relationship between Fortiche and us with music. We made music videos together. So it's something that honestly, we just kind of said from the beginning, "Hey, can we find a moment in every episode where music is really the star?" That's really what it was.
CL: I think it was natural for us. It was just like, “Hey, every episode, we just kind of look for where music made sense.” And that's just kind of where those spots ended up. So it wasn't so much of a big decision. A lot of these things you just have to, with just organic what feels right, you lean into what you want to do. So yeah, I would say it came out of this relationship that we've had with Fortiche.
CL: It starts with the moment and storyboarding and the animatic. You kind of look for [things], like, “Okay, what's the thing that you want to say or the thing you want to evoke?” And then you go from, "Okay, here's the emotion. What kind of artists could hit this?" And then we have a music team. Then they reach out to art, and they think about, "Oh, what kind of artist could make sense?" They reach out to people? "Hey, would you be interested?" And you take it from there. So, it really starts with the creative and the concept of the moment.
CL: I can't say because then the Arcane Horde will shake their fists at the artist or something, but yes.
CL: Exactly.
CL: I mean, yes, there are some. Our audience is very [attentive], so there are not many. The Teemo [reference], I mean, you just want to have kind of fun with some characters that are known as these, I don't know, legends. We had the Kindred mask in the first season, where people have heard the tales. There are some small ones, but most of them, it doesn't take long for the audience to find them.
CL: We had a very personal connection to the characters, so it was very obvious for us. We loved these characters since the beginning, since they were made, so honestly, there wasn't even a question for Alex and I. It was just like: Yeah, they're the characters that we want to focus on and tell the story with the question, what happened between them as sisters? What could create these sisters? What could turn them into these enemies?" It was just so wild. That was the central question, and everything kind of grew from there.
CL: Well, honestly, we love a lot of different characters, and so there are certain big stories in our IP that our audience rallies around for good reasons, and we also want to tell those stories. Look, whenever I say specifics, this is going to just be a wildfire where people are like, "This is just a specific story that will happen." And you're like, "Cool. That's not what I said." So let's just say that we're listening to our audience, and we know which stories they want to hear and see.
CL: Ehm…
CL: I don't know about that, but we'll see. I mean, there is stuff happening in our games, and we're taking the stories further. We just announced that Noxus is going to be the theme for this first season. So the story continues, for sure.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
