Season 1 of Arcane easily gets an A+. It was so good that my wife and I watched it again before watching season 2. But, it didn’t help us follow the story because in season 2 the plot and character motivations are all over the map. In the end I stopped trying to figure out who wanted what from who and just went with it. Even if the story has become unhinged, the animation style is still some of the best I’ve ever seen. I’d rate this animation better than the Spiderman animations.
I feel that the writers tried to do too much in this season. If they had simplified and focused on one or two threads, then this could have been a great season. There were certainly some interesting ideas presented, but what each character wanted was sometimes unclear to me.
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Acting
In animations, we usually talk about how good the voice acting is, which by the way, is exceptional in Arcane, but that’s nothing compared to the animation acting. In every episode, there are a handful of scenes with great dialog and characters who resist verbal responses but instead rely on facial expressions or gesticulations. There were number of times that I rewatched a scene to see how one character delivered their dialog, while the other character simply raised their eyebrow in the right way to say everything we needed to know. Sometimes it’s even funny. The writers got so good at it that they created a character who couldn’t speak and only relied on expressions.
In a world where good writing is in short supply, I applaud the writers for the dialog in this show. There may be problems with the plot, but they make up for it with great dialog. It seems like every episode, either my wife or I say, “Wow, great line.”
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I’ve been using RunPee for a few years now and it’s basically a requirement of going to the movies for me. The best part of course are the “pee times” that give you cues, synopses and times for when you can pee without missing the most important parts of the movie. There is also information about the credits- length, extras and if there are any extra scenes at the wayyy end. Super helpful to just know that it is or isn’t worth staying. There is a timer function that will buzz your phone when it’s a good time to pee. I also appreciate that the app is very conscientious about it being an app you use in a theater- dark background, all silent alarms etc. I will always enjoy the experience of the theater even if I could watch things at home- but I’ve even used it at home to check for things like after credit scenes or other information too.
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My only advice to the writers would be to simplify and add focus in season 3 of Arcane, and you’ll be back on track.
Grade: B-
Creator and developer of the RunPee app. When something doesn’t work right in the app it’s pretty much his fault. 🙂
Aspiring author. Would like to finish his “Zombie Revelations” trilogy if he could break away for working on RunPee and the cottage he’s building for RunPee Mom.