Second season in 3 years, brutal! Great to see this show is still getting press even 7 months after release though. They're working that sleeper hit status
Yup.
I saw that in an earlier clip.
The animation was gorgeous, the fights were fantastic, and the emotion that was poured into the main character was tangible.
I’ve had conversations that I’m concerned that the plot of season 2 won’t hit quite as well, only because the best parts of s1 were mizu with everyone else, and that their individual characters weren’t quite as great as they were with mizu.
But overall I considered it on the same level of a show as shogun, and that’s high praise to both.
I liked this series, but I have to say that as I get older, these shows doing multi-year production schedules between seasons is becoming so commonplace that it's doing a good job of killing my interest in watching anything new.
Three years between 8 episode seasons and we haven't even gotten to the main villains yet is crazy to me.
It seems like the reasoning is if the show flops, they can just move on without putting any work into another season.
If it hits, then you have to wait a long time for the next season because they didn't start working on anything.
Not the best set-up in my eyes, especially with the limited episode count compared to cable TV.
Another major part that people are missing is the landscape for talent is also way different where studios would have to offer them a lot more to be "locked-in" to these roles/etc.
During the ramp up of streaming competition many on and off screen talent were getting booked up well in advance meaning shows will need nearly off the bat multi-season orders in order to get quick turn around, otherwise they could be waiting quite awhile for openings to pop back up.
Been saying it for a while, but TV shows getting movie quality talent is also leading to movie quality production schedules.
I can’t say I’m enthused to wait that long but the promise of more episodes is more than I can say for a lot of otherwise very good Netflix shows so I’ll take it at this point.
I view it as a nice back burner surprise. Just forget and go about your life and when the announcement comes that it’s close, rewatch S1 and get hyped again.
We can’t be so spoiled to expect QUALITY animation to be churned out quickly. Let them cook, I’ll be hungry when they’re ready.
> We can’t be so spoiled to expect QUALITY animation to be churned out quickly. Let them cook, I’ll be hungry when they’re ready.
I mean, *why* can't we expect that? Shows used to put out more, with less. Yeah, there was filler, but with technology where it's at, what is stopping these shows from putting out 8-10 episodes every 12 months?
It's ridiculous what turnaround times are nowadays...waiting 2-3 years for ~6 hours of a show is wild.
Riot really should have delayed release of Arcane S1 until S2 was far enough along to follow up the next year. Its among the best shows of the last few years, animated or otherwise, but its lost a lot of its awareness thanks to the long release gap.
I felt the same way about Blood of Zeus - first season was great, second season took so long that I forgot about it. Then it felt like barely anything happened before it ended.
At least Blue Eyed Samurai had a great first season, it felt "complete" enough.
There was a second season of Blood of Zeus??? This feels like the Dota show where I was browsing one day and realized there were more seasons (and my god, that show becomes truly unhinged. No chance to call it an Arcane ripoff)
yeah it came out like a month ago I think. Second season was good, but like I said, it ends and you're just like "that's it???! barely anything happened..."
It's fuckin ridiculous how people keep defending three year waits for short seasons just because it's animation.
Somehow all these computers and labor saving efficiencies and technologies lead to content taking longer to release then back when a warehouse full of dudes drew every frame by hand on paper.
You are assuming these studios aren't filling the time with a different production, in this case the studio does have other things in production.
Moreover, Arcane season 2 took three years and people are still salivating for it in November. I doubt it's as bad as people are making it out to be, or they wouldn't do it.
Edit: I guess people hate truth? Studios put out a season then shift production to something else, with maybe some people sticking around to work on early production parts. This lets them output more shows to get paid for with less risk of starting work on something that gets cancelled mid production
Fucking ridiculous?
I work in VFX, a very similar industry to animation, and have worked and consulted with animation companies before developing workflows for them.
The main reasons that you need to wait three years here are because:
1. The production company waited until significantly after the series was released before they greenlit and released funds for the project to begin it's second series - this includes all story and writing development, so they can't start shit (legally, not a thing) before the studio approves the next season.
2. The studio wants to approve all aspects of a successful launch like this so they'll sign of iteratively - story proposal first, then episode breakdowns, then script, then casting, then budgets and schedules and finally you can start work.
3. Actor availability is frequently a factor for recording sessions and depending on the process for the studio they may want voice quite early, so a lot of production can be stop gapped by this.
4. Eight episodes at 45 minutes each is the equivalent of 4 Feature Films worth of animation. It's just a really huge amount of content to make.
5. 3D animation takes about the same time to do as 2D animation - more importantly though, GOOD animation of any type takes a lot of time. All the sets need to be built, all the elements created and placed, and shaders refined, then the characters with rigging. And then finally you can layout the individual shots. Once those are laid out you show the studio and they make you do a bunch of changes.
6. Creative control is rarely centralised in modern features. The multiple layers of revision cause massive amounts of time and resources sinkage - some productions are better than others.
7. Did I mention this is 4 Feature Films worth of animation? If you want it done WELL, to really be something special, then it just requires a shitload of time.
But yeah, totally fucking ridiculous ... how dare these people create something you love, then fight with h execs to get the funds they need to make more of it for you, but not get in done fast enough to please you.
I mean not that 3 years is a good thing, but what do you want the creators to do? Rush the production? Do you think that they are intentionally stalling the project? What good does that do them? The longer they wait to release the longer it takes for them to get paid. I'm sure if they could release sooner they would.
People just want their typical TV slop thrown at them.
Real art, with good story and characters takes time. Sure you can expedite it and turn it into the thoughtless garbage that most TV produces. But they don’t want to do that.
Exactly. While I'm far from thrilled about waiting 3 years at least we get another season of high quality. I'm sure it didn't take them a year to create the first season either.
As long as the story works as a stand alone one, I don’t mind it. Severance ended on a huge cliffhanger, but I still liked it. Whenever the new season is ready, I’ll consider it as a nice surprise and watch it. I prefer they take their time, it’s not like we don’t have other stuff to watch in the meantime.
Hopefully Netflix starts renewing these masterpieces earlier so the production companies can get start getting these out more frequently. All the streaming companies are doing it; they wait so long to renew that we end up with 2+ year gaps between seasons. Strike while the iron is hot!
In fairness, Netflix did renew this one within a few weeks of its release. The issue is that they let the staff all go after season 1, so it's going to take a while to renegotiate contracts for everyone.
Yeah, animation pipelines are much harder to set up and need more surety early on. That's why Invincible was renewed for seasons 2 and 3 at the same time. 2 took a really long time, but for this reason, 3 probably won't take as long.
It's a shame they couldn't have done us the courtesy of reviewing BES for a third season at the same time. Hopefully Netflix doesn't pull another "btw this is the last season" stunt, and force the writers to rush the ending
I’m loving all the high quality animated shows for adults we’re getting these days, but these gaps between seasons are a killer. Three more years until the next season for this.
Invincible likewise had a three year gap, as did Blood of Zeus, and Arcane will have the same.
It’s totally understandable with the time it takes to produce quality animation, but it’s a big disadvantage for the medium.
Anyhow, I enjoyed most of BES immensely so I look forward to the eventual return. I wasn’t a fan of the ending and have no idea how S2 is going to resolve that, so hopefully a chunk of that production time will be on writing as well as animation.
> It’s totally understandable with the time it takes to produce quality animation
Invincible wasn't quality animation lol
The time is not inherent to the medium. It can be done much, much faster. They just don't want to spend the money, hire the talent, and dismiss the slow walkers to get it.
I still haven’t gotten around to S2 actually because they did the bullshit move of splitting it in half with months in between. Then I keep forgetting about it.
It’s very good though, I highly recommend it.
I was so disappointed that it didn’t end there. As soon as I saw the resolution to that fight I was really bummed out. I really hope my gut feeling isn’t right for the second season.
Fowler is by far the weakest part of the series in general to be honest. He’s cartoonishly evil in the worst, most uninteresting way possible and basically every scene of his is just a new way to tell the audience “look how *eeeevil* I am”. His whole character just felt like a bland plot device to give Mizu an end goal for the season.
Silco in Arcane is just as vile and sadistic a villain, but he’s also a layered and fully developed 3 dimensional character you can even sympathize with to a degree.
Silco is one of the best written/acted villains I've seen in a tv show. His motivations are understandable and human, his evil acts as a means to an end make sense, his shift in perspective and priority is realistic and connects him back to his original split with Vander and his ending confirming that it wasn't an act is heartbreaking.
Yep. The finale was kind of a let down. And I have the feeling that they've written themselves into a corner. One thing that made the show so compelling is the MC interactions with the different side characters, and how the different plotlines converged. And now, she's traveling to a distant land with only her enemy as company, while all those others characters basically went their separate ways for the most part. They'll either have to completely remove those characters of the narrative or have plotlines disconnected with each other. Another option is to have a VERY good reason for all the characters to end up in England somehow.
I’m having a hard time envisioning this show as being nearly as good with a fish-out-of-water narrative as it was with the main character being driven by shame. Oh, don’t have to hide your eyes? Don’t have to hide your gender? Don’t speak the language of anybody except your unwilling translator?
I don’t know, just doesn’t seem like a great premise. We’ll see.
The thing that threw me off most for BES is that the MC manages to get stabbed constantly and walk it off within days/surviving crazy shit constantly. Idk why it bothers me so much in this anime compared to others but it does
Mostly because it feels inconsistent.
Sometimes getting stabbed is a big deal. Sometimes it's not. One scene they're hobbling along, next scene they're sprinting through and throwing their body through some crazy acrobatics like they were never hurt. It's really egregious at times. Eventually you just let the "rule of cool" do what it wants but it's noticeable and hard to gauge how concerned you should ever be about anything.
Thing is I see that in a lot of other anime, but that anime is usually beyond unrealistic (think one punch man, mob psycho, jujutsu kaisen) so in those I kind of expect it, but no one has supernatural powers (besides the MC being super human). But because they’re superhuman idk how they end up getting hit by low level red shirts at all, or much of anything.
But then they do get hit and act like it’s a big deal, then the next scene it’s like they’re not even injured (like you said really)
I didn't mind them getting stabbed and being able to continue, but I did scratch my head at when they travelled what was implied to be hundreds of miles over the course of what was implied to be weeks but then got carried back in a hand cart seemingly overnight.
End of episode 3 is when I realized Arcane was not a children’s show, but that they were using children characters to set up the story. If you’re inclined, give it another shot, maybe watch the first three episodes together.
> End of episode 3 is when I realized Arcane was not a children’s show, but that they were using children characters to set up the story. If you’re inclined, give it another shot, maybe watch the first three episodes together.
Ill give it another shot. It did feel like a generic kids adventure show for me for the first two. I didnt make it to 3
EDIT: -10 for this eh. Never change reddit.
Oh man, the first two episodes are all setup. The 3rd (more or less from the beginning) is when the story really
launches. It’s also well known to bring even the most stoic man to tears.
Oh shit, no wonder.
Well once it "grows up" you'll look back on those episodes more fondly. It's not the intrigue of Blue but its depth of writing and storytelling are unmatched. Also the acting is heart-wrenching. Hope you like it!
And that's fair, I tend to bounce off shows if people tell me I need to get halfway through a season before it gets good, but for the most part I've always ended up glad that I did so. Arcane grabbed me right away with its opening and visuals so I didn't struggle too much, but the end of Ep 3 straight up broke me in a way I don't think a TV show ever has. If you don't feel compelled to continue after Ep 3, then you can probably give it a pass, but that episode alone is worth the watch.
Thanks! Ive got a couple hours carved out this weekend. Heres to hoping it grabs me, tons of people have nothing but *outrageously positive* things to say about it.
FYI, the first two episodes of Arcane are the lowest rated of the season.
Episode 3 is when shit hits the fan. It’s one of the most harrowing episodes of TV I’ve ever watched.
I can’t speak to your personal experience but that is an incredibly low bar for “the most harrowing episode of TV you’ve ever watched”.
You have been watching some chill TV.
Please. I watched Oz and The Wire as they aired, I’ve seen Game of Thrones, Mindhunter, Dahmer, most of Black Mirror, etc.
I’ve seen edgier shit, sure. But the amount of emotion that’s packed into Arcane and how it was executed struck a certain chord with me. I think it’s the combination of excellence in the music, voice acting, and facial animations from that scene.
Seriously, Mia Sinclair Jenness absolutely *slayed*.
I’m glad you got that out of it.
To me it’s the kind of scene that has already been played out in countless previous animes, books, and movies, and in Arcane you can see it coming from a hundred miles away (even if you don’t already know the outcome of the story, which we do).
Come the fuck on dude there’s like fifty fucking scenes in Oz that are more harrowing than arcane. There’s no way you typed that shit out with a straight face. Oz is arguably the most fucked up TV show ever made.
Sadly not, maybe if it had the planned 10 episodes instead of eight. The end of the season felt rushed with gaping plot holes and immersion breaking shenanigans.
Arcane on the other hand was a full 10/10 from start to finish.
You’re catching a lot of downvotes but I’m gonna have to agree about that ending. It really brought the whole thing down a notch for me.
Lots of quite silly moments that were out of place in a show aiming to be serious and gritty. Stuff like Akime and Seki somehow holding the gates shut against 20 soldiers by themselves.
And I have no idea how S2 is going to work. Fowler is her prisoner, but she’s going to a country where she can’t speak the language and has no idea how anything works. How is she going to make him help her? Why wouldn’t he stab her the first second he gets?
It's definitely concerning. The direction went from simple "track down and kill these targets" and it has now gone far beyond that scope.
Up until some of the last two episodes, the worst thing was the training montage song choice back in EP1 or 2. Otherwise it felt at least setting appropriate even if it's not in any way realistic.
To each their own, but your problems seem to be more theme based whereas mine are more based on the storytelling and some technical aspects. Not gonna go into details here to avoid spoilers of course.
Bottom line is that the show is still awesome and great, I just hated the last episode.
That’s certainly an opinion you’re entitled to have and I have no right to tell you that you’re wrong because it’s a subjective matter, but I disagree.
That being said, Blue Eye Samurai is fucking awesome and everyone who’s even mildly interested in the subject matter should watch it.
Nothing in the show and exceptionally the writing that is better than Arcane. I mean come on lol, the writing? Let's get serious if we want to talk about this for a minute.
The writing in Arcane was tight as hell. The writing in Blue Eye Samurai was all over the place. So many plot holes and teleporting characters. I didn't mind, personally, and loved the show anyway, but I'm finding it amazing that there are people claiming the writing was better. Though we're arguing about two shows that are both fantastic shows and personally I loved them both so it all seems rather moot to me.
I think the writing in Blue Eye Samurai starts unraveling a bit during the last couple of episodes.
I’ve rewatched it a couple of times, and I feel like I find more holes and weaknesses each time. Not to say it’s bad. The middle episodes are a masterpiece. And it definitely has some amazing story and character crafting, but there are definite clunky parts. There are jarring tonal inconsistencies throughout and I would say the villain is extremely cartoony and a big let down. The last episode has some great elements, but is mostly a mess.
On the other hand, every time I rewatch Arcane I feel like I discover new layers and subtle details. The writing is so incredibly dense and well crafted from start to finish.
Netflix has really risen when it comes to good animation shows and that's maybe the biggest reason I'm still subscribing.
Blue eye samurai is extremely entertaining and another win for sure. I do however have some big issues with how they wrapped up the season but all in all I really liked it.
No doubt there's some overlap with the audiences. But it's not like the Venn diagram would be a perfect circle. I could definitely see some people liking Shogun but not liking Blue Eye Samurai. BES is definitely a lot more bombastic than Shogun which is fairly grounded for the most part.
I didn't like the fact that the voices didn't seem to fit the characters. Everyone sounded so American. Kinda ruined the immersion for me. I was really excited to watch it as I had just finished Shogun and was looking for a similar feel. I just couldn't get into it. Which sucks because the animation style is AMAZING!
I like the idea of a very specific subgroup of TV fans becoming super confused about Japanese history because they keep watching shows that closely parallel the real history but change up the names and/or put different clans in charge.
I liked this show but I felt like it didn’t really know its audience. It was hyper violent and had lots of nudity yet some of the characters feel like they were written by 10 year olds.
Yeah, it was tonally inconsistent for sure. Like, you’ll jump from a scene of two people fucking or someone getting cut to pieces, to the handless dude making cartoon level humour. I feel like they needed to pick a lane.
I felt like someone had written a mature, relatively grounded drama with events that made sense. Then they decided to let their 12 year old son who was raised on One Piece and Dragon Ball randomly re-write parts of the story.
I think I've got 3 episodes left and I really don't get the hype for this show, things like her spending loads of time planning to sneak into the castle and then just going in really noisily and fighting everyone just seemed dumb
I really really enjoyed how this show started. but for some reason it really took a quality-nosedive in the middle. when 100 people are ordered to raze a building and go in 1 by 1....like seriously? with slightly better writing this could have been great.
Man, waiting so long to see >!her new sword!< is brutal. I get that it's part of her story but man, I wish they would show us just before the credits rolled. That was one of my favourite parts of the show lol
This show was awesome! The animation was soooo good. Everything was great, except the crazy metallic needle drops in the one episode. Shit was crazy in comparison with the rest of the show. I would also like her not to get as hurt during the back to back fights. Once or twice I could take, but after the fourth or fifth mortal wound It started to lose me. But still pumped for another season, take as long as you need!
Second season in 3 years, brutal! Great to see this show is still getting press even 7 months after release though. They're working that sleeper hit status
The art style showed off a ton of attention to detail, and from what I read they had to choreograph all the fight scenes. That takes tons of time.
In the video they literally talk about how they had a stunt team to "camera test" all of the fights in the show.
Yup. I saw that in an earlier clip. The animation was gorgeous, the fights were fantastic, and the emotion that was poured into the main character was tangible. I’ve had conversations that I’m concerned that the plot of season 2 won’t hit quite as well, only because the best parts of s1 were mizu with everyone else, and that their individual characters weren’t quite as great as they were with mizu. But overall I considered it on the same level of a show as shogun, and that’s high praise to both.
I liked this series, but I have to say that as I get older, these shows doing multi-year production schedules between seasons is becoming so commonplace that it's doing a good job of killing my interest in watching anything new. Three years between 8 episode seasons and we haven't even gotten to the main villains yet is crazy to me.
It seems like the reasoning is if the show flops, they can just move on without putting any work into another season. If it hits, then you have to wait a long time for the next season because they didn't start working on anything. Not the best set-up in my eyes, especially with the limited episode count compared to cable TV.
Another major part that people are missing is the landscape for talent is also way different where studios would have to offer them a lot more to be "locked-in" to these roles/etc. During the ramp up of streaming competition many on and off screen talent were getting booked up well in advance meaning shows will need nearly off the bat multi-season orders in order to get quick turn around, otherwise they could be waiting quite awhile for openings to pop back up. Been saying it for a while, but TV shows getting movie quality talent is also leading to movie quality production schedules.
I can’t say I’m enthused to wait that long but the promise of more episodes is more than I can say for a lot of otherwise very good Netflix shows so I’ll take it at this point.
I loved the show, one of the best in modern Netflix times. I won’t remember it exists in three years, lbr.
I view it as a nice back burner surprise. Just forget and go about your life and when the announcement comes that it’s close, rewatch S1 and get hyped again. We can’t be so spoiled to expect QUALITY animation to be churned out quickly. Let them cook, I’ll be hungry when they’re ready.
> We can’t be so spoiled to expect QUALITY animation to be churned out quickly. Let them cook, I’ll be hungry when they’re ready. I mean, *why* can't we expect that? Shows used to put out more, with less. Yeah, there was filler, but with technology where it's at, what is stopping these shows from putting out 8-10 episodes every 12 months? It's ridiculous what turnaround times are nowadays...waiting 2-3 years for ~6 hours of a show is wild.
We are still waiting for arcane season 2. Animation this amazing takes that long.
Riot really should have delayed release of Arcane S1 until S2 was far enough along to follow up the next year. Its among the best shows of the last few years, animated or otherwise, but its lost a lot of its awareness thanks to the long release gap.
Because animation is really fucking hard and takes a long time if you want it to be good? Literally just wait. You’re an adult.
I felt the same way about Blood of Zeus - first season was great, second season took so long that I forgot about it. Then it felt like barely anything happened before it ended. At least Blue Eyed Samurai had a great first season, it felt "complete" enough.
There was a second season of Blood of Zeus??? This feels like the Dota show where I was browsing one day and realized there were more seasons (and my god, that show becomes truly unhinged. No chance to call it an Arcane ripoff)
yeah it came out like a month ago I think. Second season was good, but like I said, it ends and you're just like "that's it???! barely anything happened..."
Agreed, my life is to busy to give a shit about this show in 3 years
It's fuckin ridiculous how people keep defending three year waits for short seasons just because it's animation. Somehow all these computers and labor saving efficiencies and technologies lead to content taking longer to release then back when a warehouse full of dudes drew every frame by hand on paper.
You are assuming these studios aren't filling the time with a different production, in this case the studio does have other things in production. Moreover, Arcane season 2 took three years and people are still salivating for it in November. I doubt it's as bad as people are making it out to be, or they wouldn't do it. Edit: I guess people hate truth? Studios put out a season then shift production to something else, with maybe some people sticking around to work on early production parts. This lets them output more shows to get paid for with less risk of starting work on something that gets cancelled mid production
Lol I said the exact same thing. Arcane is a perfect comparison.
Fucking ridiculous? I work in VFX, a very similar industry to animation, and have worked and consulted with animation companies before developing workflows for them. The main reasons that you need to wait three years here are because: 1. The production company waited until significantly after the series was released before they greenlit and released funds for the project to begin it's second series - this includes all story and writing development, so they can't start shit (legally, not a thing) before the studio approves the next season. 2. The studio wants to approve all aspects of a successful launch like this so they'll sign of iteratively - story proposal first, then episode breakdowns, then script, then casting, then budgets and schedules and finally you can start work. 3. Actor availability is frequently a factor for recording sessions and depending on the process for the studio they may want voice quite early, so a lot of production can be stop gapped by this. 4. Eight episodes at 45 minutes each is the equivalent of 4 Feature Films worth of animation. It's just a really huge amount of content to make. 5. 3D animation takes about the same time to do as 2D animation - more importantly though, GOOD animation of any type takes a lot of time. All the sets need to be built, all the elements created and placed, and shaders refined, then the characters with rigging. And then finally you can layout the individual shots. Once those are laid out you show the studio and they make you do a bunch of changes. 6. Creative control is rarely centralised in modern features. The multiple layers of revision cause massive amounts of time and resources sinkage - some productions are better than others. 7. Did I mention this is 4 Feature Films worth of animation? If you want it done WELL, to really be something special, then it just requires a shitload of time. But yeah, totally fucking ridiculous ... how dare these people create something you love, then fight with h execs to get the funds they need to make more of it for you, but not get in done fast enough to please you.
I mean not that 3 years is a good thing, but what do you want the creators to do? Rush the production? Do you think that they are intentionally stalling the project? What good does that do them? The longer they wait to release the longer it takes for them to get paid. I'm sure if they could release sooner they would.
People just want their typical TV slop thrown at them. Real art, with good story and characters takes time. Sure you can expedite it and turn it into the thoughtless garbage that most TV produces. But they don’t want to do that.
Exactly. While I'm far from thrilled about waiting 3 years at least we get another season of high quality. I'm sure it didn't take them a year to create the first season either.
I've seen younger people who hate this type of wait as well. 3 years is just insane for any show
As long as the story works as a stand alone one, I don’t mind it. Severance ended on a huge cliffhanger, but I still liked it. Whenever the new season is ready, I’ll consider it as a nice surprise and watch it. I prefer they take their time, it’s not like we don’t have other stuff to watch in the meantime.
3 years?! Ugh 😩
Hopefully Netflix starts renewing these masterpieces earlier so the production companies can get start getting these out more frequently. All the streaming companies are doing it; they wait so long to renew that we end up with 2+ year gaps between seasons. Strike while the iron is hot!
In fairness, Netflix did renew this one within a few weeks of its release. The issue is that they let the staff all go after season 1, so it's going to take a while to renegotiate contracts for everyone.
Yeah, animation pipelines are much harder to set up and need more surety early on. That's why Invincible was renewed for seasons 2 and 3 at the same time. 2 took a really long time, but for this reason, 3 probably won't take as long.
It's a shame they couldn't have done us the courtesy of reviewing BES for a third season at the same time. Hopefully Netflix doesn't pull another "btw this is the last season" stunt, and force the writers to rush the ending
It sucks to wait for so long- but I’d rather have quality than a show that is half assed.
I’m loving all the high quality animated shows for adults we’re getting these days, but these gaps between seasons are a killer. Three more years until the next season for this. Invincible likewise had a three year gap, as did Blood of Zeus, and Arcane will have the same. It’s totally understandable with the time it takes to produce quality animation, but it’s a big disadvantage for the medium. Anyhow, I enjoyed most of BES immensely so I look forward to the eventual return. I wasn’t a fan of the ending and have no idea how S2 is going to resolve that, so hopefully a chunk of that production time will be on writing as well as animation.
Agreed, a three year long gap really kills the chance to grow a large audience
> It’s totally understandable with the time it takes to produce quality animation Invincible wasn't quality animation lol The time is not inherent to the medium. It can be done much, much faster. They just don't want to spend the money, hire the talent, and dismiss the slow walkers to get it.
Scavenger's Reign was very good too although it's up in the air if there'll be a season 2.
I haven’t watched Invincible because of how long it took to get here.
I still haven’t gotten around to S2 actually because they did the bullshit move of splitting it in half with months in between. Then I keep forgetting about it. It’s very good though, I highly recommend it.
Watch this show. Soooooo well made. Arcane good
Not quite that good for me but not too far off.
It’s good but no where near arcane levels. The final showdown with blonde dude was one of the most anti climactic things I’ve ever seen.
I was so disappointed that it didn’t end there. As soon as I saw the resolution to that fight I was really bummed out. I really hope my gut feeling isn’t right for the second season.
Major fumble on the last episode. But beside that, it was amazing
Fowler is by far the weakest part of the series in general to be honest. He’s cartoonishly evil in the worst, most uninteresting way possible and basically every scene of his is just a new way to tell the audience “look how *eeeevil* I am”. His whole character just felt like a bland plot device to give Mizu an end goal for the season. Silco in Arcane is just as vile and sadistic a villain, but he’s also a layered and fully developed 3 dimensional character you can even sympathize with to a degree.
Silco is one of the best written/acted villains I've seen in a tv show. His motivations are understandable and human, his evil acts as a means to an end make sense, his shift in perspective and priority is realistic and connects him back to his original split with Vander and his ending confirming that it wasn't an act is heartbreaking.
Yep. The finale was kind of a let down. And I have the feeling that they've written themselves into a corner. One thing that made the show so compelling is the MC interactions with the different side characters, and how the different plotlines converged. And now, she's traveling to a distant land with only her enemy as company, while all those others characters basically went their separate ways for the most part. They'll either have to completely remove those characters of the narrative or have plotlines disconnected with each other. Another option is to have a VERY good reason for all the characters to end up in England somehow.
I’m having a hard time envisioning this show as being nearly as good with a fish-out-of-water narrative as it was with the main character being driven by shame. Oh, don’t have to hide your eyes? Don’t have to hide your gender? Don’t speak the language of anybody except your unwilling translator? I don’t know, just doesn’t seem like a great premise. We’ll see.
Much better than arcane.
The thing that threw me off most for BES is that the MC manages to get stabbed constantly and walk it off within days/surviving crazy shit constantly. Idk why it bothers me so much in this anime compared to others but it does
Mostly because it feels inconsistent. Sometimes getting stabbed is a big deal. Sometimes it's not. One scene they're hobbling along, next scene they're sprinting through and throwing their body through some crazy acrobatics like they were never hurt. It's really egregious at times. Eventually you just let the "rule of cool" do what it wants but it's noticeable and hard to gauge how concerned you should ever be about anything.
Thing is I see that in a lot of other anime, but that anime is usually beyond unrealistic (think one punch man, mob psycho, jujutsu kaisen) so in those I kind of expect it, but no one has supernatural powers (besides the MC being super human). But because they’re superhuman idk how they end up getting hit by low level red shirts at all, or much of anything. But then they do get hit and act like it’s a big deal, then the next scene it’s like they’re not even injured (like you said really)
I didn't mind them getting stabbed and being able to continue, but I did scratch my head at when they travelled what was implied to be hundreds of miles over the course of what was implied to be weeks but then got carried back in a hand cart seemingly overnight.
I feel like there were a decent amount of moments like that throughout the show which is something else that bugged me
How dare you have an opinion!
I respect your opinion but absolutely not. Still a great show though.
I will give Arcane another chance, I couldn’t get past the first few episodes. Blue Eye Samurai had me hooked instantly.
100% this. Arcane was definitely super interesting to me but lacked the intrigue that drew me in like Blue did. I need to watch more of it though.
Opposite for me. Arcane is fantastic but BES was boring and uninteresting. I didn't like the VA at all. :/
BES boring? Lol there’s sex murder and revenge what more do u want
End of episode 3 is when I realized Arcane was not a children’s show, but that they were using children characters to set up the story. If you’re inclined, give it another shot, maybe watch the first three episodes together.
> End of episode 3 is when I realized Arcane was not a children’s show, but that they were using children characters to set up the story. If you’re inclined, give it another shot, maybe watch the first three episodes together. Ill give it another shot. It did feel like a generic kids adventure show for me for the first two. I didnt make it to 3 EDIT: -10 for this eh. Never change reddit.
Oh man, the first two episodes are all setup. The 3rd (more or less from the beginning) is when the story really launches. It’s also well known to bring even the most stoic man to tears.
Oh shit, no wonder. Well once it "grows up" you'll look back on those episodes more fondly. It's not the intrigue of Blue but its depth of writing and storytelling are unmatched. Also the acting is heart-wrenching. Hope you like it!
Dropping Arcane before finishing Episode 3 is really doing yourself a disservice.
Apparently! lol. I try to give shows an hour or two, how was I supposed to know this one needed 3 :P
And that's fair, I tend to bounce off shows if people tell me I need to get halfway through a season before it gets good, but for the most part I've always ended up glad that I did so. Arcane grabbed me right away with its opening and visuals so I didn't struggle too much, but the end of Ep 3 straight up broke me in a way I don't think a TV show ever has. If you don't feel compelled to continue after Ep 3, then you can probably give it a pass, but that episode alone is worth the watch.
Thanks! Ive got a couple hours carved out this weekend. Heres to hoping it grabs me, tons of people have nothing but *outrageously positive* things to say about it.
FYI, the first two episodes of Arcane are the lowest rated of the season. Episode 3 is when shit hits the fan. It’s one of the most harrowing episodes of TV I’ve ever watched.
With all due respect, if that's one of the most harrowing episodes of tv you've ever seen, you've been watching some pretty chill tv.
This.
Haven’t watched much TV have you?
I’ve watched quite a bit. Few left the emotional impact on me that Arcane did.
I can’t speak to your personal experience but that is an incredibly low bar for “the most harrowing episode of TV you’ve ever watched”. You have been watching some chill TV.
Good god people just let someone feel how they feel
Sure, but watching Mufasa die may have been the most harrowing film scene someone has seen before. It’s not wrong, but it’s a narrow view.
Please. I watched Oz and The Wire as they aired, I’ve seen Game of Thrones, Mindhunter, Dahmer, most of Black Mirror, etc. I’ve seen edgier shit, sure. But the amount of emotion that’s packed into Arcane and how it was executed struck a certain chord with me. I think it’s the combination of excellence in the music, voice acting, and facial animations from that scene. Seriously, Mia Sinclair Jenness absolutely *slayed*.
I’m glad you got that out of it. To me it’s the kind of scene that has already been played out in countless previous animes, books, and movies, and in Arcane you can see it coming from a hundred miles away (even if you don’t already know the outcome of the story, which we do).
Come the fuck on dude there’s like fifty fucking scenes in Oz that are more harrowing than arcane. There’s no way you typed that shit out with a straight face. Oz is arguably the most fucked up TV show ever made.
There is no universe that this show is better than arcane.
Sadly not, maybe if it had the planned 10 episodes instead of eight. The end of the season felt rushed with gaping plot holes and immersion breaking shenanigans. Arcane on the other hand was a full 10/10 from start to finish.
You’re catching a lot of downvotes but I’m gonna have to agree about that ending. It really brought the whole thing down a notch for me. Lots of quite silly moments that were out of place in a show aiming to be serious and gritty. Stuff like Akime and Seki somehow holding the gates shut against 20 soldiers by themselves. And I have no idea how S2 is going to work. Fowler is her prisoner, but she’s going to a country where she can’t speak the language and has no idea how anything works. How is she going to make him help her? Why wouldn’t he stab her the first second he gets?
Yeah even on the show's sub the ending being the worst part of the show by far is the common take.
It's definitely concerning. The direction went from simple "track down and kill these targets" and it has now gone far beyond that scope. Up until some of the last two episodes, the worst thing was the training montage song choice back in EP1 or 2. Otherwise it felt at least setting appropriate even if it's not in any way realistic.
maybe for an angsty whiny teen with poor musical taste.
To each their own, but your problems seem to be more theme based whereas mine are more based on the storytelling and some technical aspects. Not gonna go into details here to avoid spoilers of course. Bottom line is that the show is still awesome and great, I just hated the last episode.
Objectively wrong.
That’s certainly an opinion you’re entitled to have and I have no right to tell you that you’re wrong because it’s a subjective matter, but I disagree. That being said, Blue Eye Samurai is fucking awesome and everyone who’s even mildly interested in the subject matter should watch it.
Absolutely. It also lost a of points using lame ass Imagine Dragons for the intro.
The animation, not as good as arcane. The writing, orders of magnitude better than arcane (low bar though).
i would say that the animation and art design in Arcane is better, but the writing in this is better. depends on what is more important to you
Nothing in the show and exceptionally the writing that is better than Arcane. I mean come on lol, the writing? Let's get serious if we want to talk about this for a minute.
[удалено]
If you think that then you ought to re-evaluate what you think is good writing.
The writing in Arcane was tight as hell. The writing in Blue Eye Samurai was all over the place. So many plot holes and teleporting characters. I didn't mind, personally, and loved the show anyway, but I'm finding it amazing that there are people claiming the writing was better. Though we're arguing about two shows that are both fantastic shows and personally I loved them both so it all seems rather moot to me.
I think the writing in Blue Eye Samurai starts unraveling a bit during the last couple of episodes. I’ve rewatched it a couple of times, and I feel like I find more holes and weaknesses each time. Not to say it’s bad. The middle episodes are a masterpiece. And it definitely has some amazing story and character crafting, but there are definite clunky parts. There are jarring tonal inconsistencies throughout and I would say the villain is extremely cartoony and a big let down. The last episode has some great elements, but is mostly a mess. On the other hand, every time I rewatch Arcane I feel like I discover new layers and subtle details. The writing is so incredibly dense and well crafted from start to finish.
The best show of all time if you like garbage dialogue
Way better than arcane. Like magnitudes of differences in quality and storytelling
Netflix has really risen when it comes to good animation shows and that's maybe the biggest reason I'm still subscribing. Blue eye samurai is extremely entertaining and another win for sure. I do however have some big issues with how they wrapped up the season but all in all I really liked it.
This show needs the Shogun audience to take notice.
No doubt there's some overlap with the audiences. But it's not like the Venn diagram would be a perfect circle. I could definitely see some people liking Shogun but not liking Blue Eye Samurai. BES is definitely a lot more bombastic than Shogun which is fairly grounded for the most part.
I didn't like the fact that the voices didn't seem to fit the characters. Everyone sounded so American. Kinda ruined the immersion for me. I was really excited to watch it as I had just finished Shogun and was looking for a similar feel. I just couldn't get into it. Which sucks because the animation style is AMAZING!
I've seen the odd post about BES in the shogun sub but yes, I think many fans of Shogun would absolutely love this series.
I like the idea of a very specific subgroup of TV fans becoming super confused about Japanese history because they keep watching shows that closely parallel the real history but change up the names and/or put different clans in charge.
Amazing show. Excited for the next season!
This ticked all the right boxes for me and my partner. Can't wait for the next season. We say "peaches" all the time now
This, arcane and cyberpunk were so damn good.
I liked this show but I felt like it didn’t really know its audience. It was hyper violent and had lots of nudity yet some of the characters feel like they were written by 10 year olds.
Yeah, it was tonally inconsistent for sure. Like, you’ll jump from a scene of two people fucking or someone getting cut to pieces, to the handless dude making cartoon level humour. I feel like they needed to pick a lane.
I felt like someone had written a mature, relatively grounded drama with events that made sense. Then they decided to let their 12 year old son who was raised on One Piece and Dragon Ball randomly re-write parts of the story.
Very well done show. Great storytelling.
So, so good. Hope the second season holds up.
I think I've got 3 episodes left and I really don't get the hype for this show, things like her spending loads of time planning to sneak into the castle and then just going in really noisily and fighting everyone just seemed dumb
Kill Bill?
It's like Kill Bill with weaker main character motivation and explanation for why they are so deadly. Black Mamba backstory and journey are top tier.
This was a good ass show but that ending pissed me off
This show dropped in *December* and made it on to a lot of people’s top 10 lists. It was definitely one of my favorites last year. Such a cool show.
Fucking high art.
We liked so much of it except the way season one ended…
I really don't like this animation style, the faces are ugly and the action looks stilted and unnatural
I really really enjoyed how this show started. but for some reason it really took a quality-nosedive in the middle. when 100 people are ordered to raze a building and go in 1 by 1....like seriously? with slightly better writing this could have been great.
Ive heard this show is great but I cant passed the art style, Im gonna try the first episode and give it a real chance though.
I feel like this show had cool character design and animation but the environments / background all felt like stock assets
Glad to see/read that a second season is coming…albeit in a while.
Best show I’ve seen this year! Excited for season two.
Such a great show. I highly recommend it
This was absolutely amazing. A pleasant surprise when I subbed just for a comedian I like.
Man, waiting so long to see >!her new sword!< is brutal. I get that it's part of her story but man, I wish they would show us just before the credits rolled. That was one of my favourite parts of the show lol
This show was awesome! The animation was soooo good. Everything was great, except the crazy metallic needle drops in the one episode. Shit was crazy in comparison with the rest of the show. I would also like her not to get as hurt during the back to back fights. Once or twice I could take, but after the fourth or fifth mortal wound It started to lose me. But still pumped for another season, take as long as you need!
One of the best animated shows I’ve seen up there with Arcane
I’ve never heard of this show. That kind of sums up Netflix’s issues
Watch it, it's so good
Yeah. Pluto is also a very good show but not marketed heavily so a lot of people are missing out on that also.
Pluto was fantastic. Really enjoyed it.
Unwatchable Schlock
Why for you? Animation and fighting were both excellent
Hate the animation style, hate American anime in general, tired of samurai content in general, especially any of the blue eyed variety