‘Arcane’ Returns with a Vengeance: The Netflix Show’s Leads Discuss the Powerful Final Season

 

The word “outlier” might quickly come to mind when thinking about Arcane. No one quite expected the series to transform into the runaway hit that it’s become; a phenomenon, even, with surprisingly strong demand for its Annecy preview showing and rabid fans camping out just to get a peek at the new and final season. Video games have long had a dicey relationship with screen adaptations — though perhaps faring better in animation — and the real delight of Arcane was seeing it not only fly over this historical hurdle but also deliver a thoughtful, patient and mature take on its source material, with stylish verve to spare. We recently spoke over Zoom to co-showrunner Christian Linke (the other is Alex Yee — a creative designer at Riot Games) about the series.

When asked about what made Arcane stand out, Linke first highlights that they wanted a writers’ room more attuned to dramatic long form. “We definitely started Arcane at a time where there wasn’t a lot of precedent for this approach,” he says. “People told us, ‘Hey, you can’t have 40-minute episodes in animation; that’s insane.’ And I think there was just this dream of, ‘Well, we think you can.’ I think, really, the drama, the long pauses and silences between two characters — those are things that have been very unusual, at least in Western animation.”

Linke acknowledges that Arcane came about through unique circumstances. “We were also just really lucky that we were able to have a higher budget for an animated series, because we were an IP [intellectual property] by Riot. We were able to really put art first. You don’t often get that opportunity.”

Other Stories to Tell

Pascal Charrue, who works alongside Arnaud Delord as series director, concurred that the series is a “UFO in the animation industry,” something which they capitalized on by pushing to experiment as much as they could. With such an unprecedented opportunity, one might ask, “Then, why only two seasons?”

Both Charrue and Linke say this was always the plan, with the former emphasizing the sheer time commitment. “We spent nine years at this point on these 11 or so characters,” says Charrue. “So there’s also something about wanting to make sure that we are able to tell the stories of other characters that we’re also really passionate about.” To drive the point home, Linke adds, “There’s people who were single when they started on Arcane and now they’re married and have kids in school.”

‘Hopefully, other studios and IPs will see that bigger-budget animation, animated series and expressive animation can be really amazing, and there will just be simply more. I think that’s what everyone in our circles likes to see.’

— Co-showrunner Christian Linke

 

Though some of the team members have lived with this show as long as they have with their burgeoning families, Linke and Charrue wanted to not just rely on the mutual understanding of their unit but also elevate fresh voices. “The first season was directed by the founders of Fortiche, who were really the original visionaries of the whole studio,” says Linke. “Season 2 had a bunch of new episode directors who came from being storyboarders on Arcane Season 1, so we can grow and have also fresh voices. So, I think that was a big part of what we could do on Season 2, which just wasn’t possible before because [it was] still growing as a small project and small studio.” Charrue says the upcoming movie Penelope of Sparta is also being done with a small team, but Arcane’s longevity meant more chances to hire outside talent.

Besides those hires, there’s also a sense of continuity, with Fortiche staff moving into new roles. Charrue continued, “The animation director on Season 1, Barth Maunoury, now co-directs with us on Season 2. He’s a very talented artist, very good animator. There is also the team of storyboard, and particularly the supervisor, Simon Andriveau, and our art director, Julien Georgel. I’ve known him for a long, long time.”

These moves also mean new directors stepping up to the plate. As Linke says, “I think no one has ever made a great thing by not taking bets. I think it’s just if you have the right team, you will have the quality and it’ll be great, but you need to take bets. And I think we just were really, based on the work that the people had done that’s so wonderful on Season 1, we knew that we wanted see, ‘Hey, what would you do with more, if you can have your voice amplified and louder?’ I think it’s sometimes really just genuine desire to see what would that person do if given the power.”

And it seems with that power came more visual experiments. “There’s a lot of little improvements over time: The first episodes of Arcane’s first season don’t have the trademark anime eye flicker. That starts to happen halfway through the season because we just hadn’t figured it out. Hair simulation gets better, all that stuff. And so I think by the end of the first season there was technical achievement, and then you transcend that, really think about style over technical quality. So Season 2 definitely has a lot of crazy bets and visual ideas that has Fortiche really pushing the envelope of what they can do.”

Charrue expands a little on how the team has developed a better handle on textures: Season 2 moved more efficiently thanks to trial and error in Season 1. “There is, I think, one graphic experimentation per episode. I know that in the first episode you will see a black-and-white sequence where the art direction is linked to the emotion of the characters. It’s a mix of traditional and digital art, and it’s a nice one.” Charrue says they simply refer to these moments as “special sequences” and that they have a team dedicated to them. He says, “Sometimes it’s very easy and sometimes it takes time just because we have to adjust our pipeline and workflow to build these sequences.”

Such sequences are often built around music, and Arcane’s musicality links back to the history of Fortiche Animation and its start in music videos, and even Linke’s own past in music (as a composer at Riot, but also in a band). “The band was called Panic,” he says, “which you think sounds very cool when you’re 14 years old!”

It’s key to the series’ DNA. Charrue says that although Arcane’s graphic style feels in vogue with current animation trends, it goes back to a music video they worked on in 2012. “‘La Gaviota’ from the band Limousine, if I remember, was the first music video that we have produced by ourselves, and it was a one-shot sequence. It had been directed by Jérôme, one of my associates, and the art director of Arcane, Julien Georgel, was also on this project.”

Embracing Musical Beats

Charrue says it was this music video that caught Linke’s attention. Linke himself traces Arcane’s concept back to those roots. “The idea of Arcane started with us going, ‘It feels [like] you could watch this on a bigger screen for a longer duration, and you wouldn’t be bored.’ So, we always wanted to have moments where music really takes over.” Linke also said that animation affords more refined control over movement, something the music-driven sequences take advantage of. “We can lock in specific beats and movements of characters to very exact timing, which in live action is much harder because there’s just a certain give in human motion.”

Perhaps that intertwining of sound and motion has inspired Linke as he considers what’s next for him. (Fortiche is moving on to direct Penelope of Sparta.) “There are things that I certainly have on my bucket list,” he says. “People will walk to places with this [sound bite] that I won’t be able to control, but someday I want us to make a musical.” Charrue also wants to expand his horizons, with the director noting a desire to explore more genres and styles, such as noir.

As for what they’re leaving behind, Linke and Charrue hope that Arcane’s popularity is reflected in other work. Linke longs for a situation where a rising tide lifts all ships, “where, hopefully, other studios and IPs will see, ‘Hey, bigger budget animation, animated series and expressive animation can be really amazing,’ and there will just be simply more.” He adds, “I think that’s what everyone in our circles likes to see. So, I hope Arcane can help with that.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if the show’s budget, creative freedom and the space it had to explore became the rule not the exception?

 

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Arcane Season 2 will release on Netflix in three parts, with Act One premiering on November 9, Act Two on Nov. 16 and Act Three on Nov. 23. Watch the new series music video for “Blood, Sweat & Tears” by Sheryl Lee Ralph below and find the previously released trailer here.