Arcane Vs The Mighty Nein

Before Christmas, I watched two animated fantasy TV series. I've been meaning to write something about them both ever since but somehow the post kept getting pushed down the list. Now, when I've found a slot for it, I discover I can't remember enough about either of them to make the kind of detailed analysis I would have liked. 

Lucky break! 

I guess I'll just have to go with whatever impressions have stuck, which is probably a more reliable and useful way of appraising the long-term value of any experience. Some things are very much meant to be "in the moment" but that's often more to do with sensation than any kind of cultural or academic appreciation.

The two shows were Arcane and The Mighty Nein. Both were first seasons, although there's also a Season Two of Arcane. I just haven't watched it yet. 

Both are also spin-offs, Arcane from League of Legends and The Mighty Nein from The Legend of Vox Machina, which itself is a spin-off from Critical Role. I have never played LoL and never watched Critical Role, although I did watch Vox Machina. 

The LoL connection actively put me off watching Arcane, which is why it's taken me so long to get around to giving it a try. Conversely, since I liked Vox Machina, I was keen to start The Mighty Nein as soon as it turned up on Prime Video.

And I was very happy with it, too. At least until I started watching Arcana, half way through the run.

It's Prime's own fault for staggering the release of TM9 in such an irritating fashion. If they'd let me watch the whole season in one go, I'd never have been in a position to make unfavorable comparisons. Three episodes dropped at the start and then it was a drip-feed of one a week. It was while I was tired of waiting for the next one that I started looking for something to fill the gap. In came Arcane.

I knew Arcane had been very well received and reviewed. My friend had raved about it at the time, too, so I even had a personal recommendation. She also assured me it was entirely independent of the video game, which she'd never played either. And still I wasn't keen.

Well, that was my mistake. Arcane is one of the best animated shows I've ever seen. It's been out for far too long for it to be worth my reviewing it properly, so I'll just say if for any reason you've been avoiding watching it you should do yourself a favor and start. Today, preferably.

Even if you aren't interested in the magitech world-building and fantasy plotline, something that seems exceedingly unlikely given what I know about the readership of this blog, it's worth seeing just for the visuals. If I've ever seen a better-animated show I can't immediately bring it to mind. 

The whole thing looks extremely expensive, as if a very great deal of money has been spent on producing animation far, far more lush and rich than any television show should have. It would be impressive for a movie, let alone a TV series. You could freeze-frame it and explore the individual images for hours although that would lose the enthralling, mesmerizing camera-work that makes the whole thing so astonishingly and thrillingly kinetic.

All of which stands in stark contrast to The Mighty Nein. Even before I had Arcane for comparison I was surprised by how flat and static the newer show looked. The first episode made me wonder if they were intentionally aiming for the look and feel of an 'eighties Sarturday Morning Cartoon. 

After a couple episodes I attuned to the look of TM9 and began to appreciate the way the show was doing more with less but then I started watching Arcane and TM9 went back to looking stiff and unfinished. It didn't put me off carrying on watching it but it was hard not to notice how perfunctory a lot of the imagery appeared in comparison.

Looks aren't everything, of course. Substance over style can be a mantra that works. Except that in this case Arcane has orders of magnitude more substance as well. 

I wouldn't attempt to precis the plot of either show. They're both quite twisty. Arcane, though, is truly complex while TM9 is mostly just complicated. One's a pantomime romp, the other's a greek tragedy. 

Each show relies on a good deal of character work as part of the narrative, with multiple characters appearing to be one thing and then turning out to be something else instead. In Arcane that feels like genuine character development. In TM9 it can have a whiff of Plot Logic.

I found Arcane to be quite an emotional experience. The characters are introduced and presented in a way that makes them feel like people you know. When things happen to them, there's a resonance. In TM9 they're more like performers you watch. When things happen to them, you're entertained.

The two approaches both work. I enjoyed both shows. The difference is in how much it feels like anything I saw mattered. Arcane operates much more on the lines of classical drama, working towards a catharsis. TM9 is more like a blockbuster movie, albeit one that's been put together on a very limited budget.

Characterization is strong in both but again in very different ways. TM9 relies very heavily on the well-rehearsed talents of a troupe of actors very much used to working together. There can be a sense of people "doing their turn", sometimes. The voice acting in Arcane feels much more individual, with a uniformly high level of skill but an absence of too-easy familiarity.

Of the two, there's no doubt which I preferred or which I thought was better-realized. Arcane not only aims much, much higher, it also hits the target bang in the middle. TM9 rolls along very cheerily but there were multiple occasions when things didn't quite seem to fit together or follow through and the whole affair had a very slightly ramshackle feel to it, now and again.

 

But it was very entertaining. The Mighty Nein is frequently funny, occasionally exciting and almost always fun to watch. I enjoyed it a good deal and will be very happy to watch the second season, currently in production.

Arcane, on the other hand, was a lot. I was exhausted by the end. Without giving anything away, it has a fantastic ending that I actually couldn't believe was the ending. I had to google it to make sure there wasn't another episode to come.

I found it completely satisfying and absolutely enthralling. But I finished it almost a month ago and I haven't started the second season yet. 

This is the thing: the two shows are ostensibly working the same end of the market but they're serving very different purposes. You need to be aware of the commitment levels each requires, which are radically different.

I mostly watch TV shows late in the evening. Usually, I'm looking for something relaxing that will see me asleep almost as soon as it ends. I'm not really in the market for thought-provoking art that's going to keep me awake for another hour, pondering the implications.

When I start the second season of Arcane, I'll be sure to have something lighter ready to follow it each evening. A kind of decompression show that'll clear my mind for sleep. So far, I haven't come up with one but I'm sure there's something out there. 

I very much doubt it's going to be that other show I know I ought to be watching. That other video-game spin-off that also had stellar reviews when it came out and that I've also been avoiding ever since. The one that just started a new season. The one that's currently #1 on Prime in the UK. The one you're watching. Yes, that one.

Oh, and while I'm on the subject, I did finally get around to watching KPop Demon Hunters. And I loved it. Now, that would be an ideal show to wind down at the end of an evening. 

Unfortunately, it's not a show. It's a short movie. And the sequel, which will also be a short movie, won't be here until 2029.

Any suggestions what I could watch until then?