Soooo... Arcane: League of Legends kept popping up in people's lists. It wasn't even on my radar since I'm not a gamer and I would have gone right by it on Netflix.
So I'm discovering this show in 2025 but wow ... biggest surprise in a long time. I must've written dozens of posts over the years along the lines of "Don't try to reinvent the wheel, just try to make a really good wheel" -- this overlaps with
@MeatHookGekko 's "easy wins" although this being a newer property it's maybe more about stitching together well-worn tropes into something engaging rather than giving fans what they want? I'm not at all familiar with the game or its fans so I'm not sure where it lands on that front.
The animation is beautiful, and so far (I'm on S1 Ep8) the storytelling is tight and while the characters are well-worn archetypes I've seen dozens of times before, they've taken a number of unexpected turns -- Jinx's fall to the dark side is far more believable than Anakin's and that episode was a bit of a shocker.
I can certainly nitpick details here and there and Jinx is a little too Harley Quinn for my liking, but in terms of dropping me into a well-established fantasy world with minimal exposition, good pacing and characters I want to watch, I haven't been this entertained in a while. The tone is a little bit young at times but my inner 20-something is into it.
The show wears its influences on its sleeve but wears them well.
