Arcane took everyone by surprise when it first came out in 2019. A video game adaption had no right being this well written and emotional, and critics across the board agreed that we were witness to a masterpiece in visual storytelling. What's happened with season 2 then is immensely disappointing, given the foundation, the expectations and the potential to achieve something truly remarkable that was lost. This is not a terrible season by any means, but the contrast to what came before is stark, leaving a bitter taste towards what could have been on of the greatest animated shows of all time.

Thankfully the visuals remain as glorious as when they started, up there at the pinnacle of what's possible. I'm proclaiming now that this is the best looking animated show ever made. It's rare I'll consider giving an 100 score, but for the visual dimension, this one comes close to perfection. It's like experiencing a painting that's come to life. The colors, the cinematography, the compositions, the details, the world design… it's jaw dropping, and I was in awe every single moment that unfolded in front of my eyes. It's so good that it actually feels impossible that animation like this could exist.

This time we get a world that's expanded upon well beyond the scope of S1, with more depth given to Zaun, and more splendor to Piltover. Grand landscapes and cityscapes are frequent, and as the magical and metaphysical elements of the story grew to their peak, so does the spectacular and visionary nature of the screenplay, with unique design and imagination that goes well beyond fantasy norms. Hextech takes on both a spiritual and destructive forms, sometimes dream like or transcendent, and sometimes more like an infection, and they did a really good job at bringing those diametric ideas together in the same visual language. Just take look at the gallery of images I have at the end of this review and remind yourself at how beautiful it looked.

The steam-punk identity which underpins all the details and conceptual design is strong as ever too, with ridiculously bespoke and polished outfits, architecture, props and interior design. You can see the artists thought deeply about every aspect to their world. Even the weapons buzz and fizzle with delight, and when the layers of VFX inject and infuse all the magic, smoke, water, steam, flashes and sparks into the world, the whole show comes alive in ways that make Arcane look and feel like nothing that's ever come before it.

To complete the visual masterclass, the animators do an amazing job ar bringing their characters to life. Everyone is filled with personality and individuality. There's fluidity to movement and fantastic detailing of facial expressions that creates likable characters that are also relatable in those moments when were asked to care. It has a swagger to it, which is only added to by impressive acting performances that permeate through the main cast and all the way down to its bit players. Jinx was my favorite character, and I could look at Hiermerdingers furry head for hours.

Unfortunately the writing this season was just awful, and a dramatic drop in quality from what we got in Season 1. What began as a grounded, character-driven narrative between Piltover and Zaun - told through the analogous relationship of Vi and Jinx - is now a rushed, bloated and often nonsensical spectacle that abandons all the poignancy and complexity it had established prior. The nuances that characterized two different worlds and relationships tangling together, and the role of technology within this, is gone, replaced instead with a generic hive-mind and multiverse story that no one asked for or wanted.

It was actually very disconnected from those developed arcs in S1, and often confusing. Viktor's evolution, The Black Rose, The Arcane, Singed's experiments, the timelines, and Ambessa's Coup all sort of clashed together awkwardly in an incoherent story that gave had no room for meaningful development and few moments to absorb what was happening. There was simply too much going on in too little time, leading to a whole series of downstream effects that saw forced character behaviors, plot contrivances and weak dialogue all as symptoms of a plot looking to move at warp speed towards an underwhelming conclusion.

Those aforementioned plot lines were not even the full picture. We also had Silco's power vacuum, Piltover's politics, Jinx as a symbolic hero, Vi as an enforcer, Cait as a dictator, Cait as Vi's lover, the return of Vander, Vi's parents backstory, Ekko's journey, and of course Vi and Jinx's relationship. All interesting plot points as standalone, but when compressed together much of it felt underdeveloped and buckled under scrutiny. It's a ridiculous amount for a 9 episode season and the writers unsurprisingly struggled to find the magic that seemed to come so easily to them previously.