I've played League of Legends on and off for a good 10 years now, so i was looking forward to this. While i love the gameplay, i never really got warm with the lore. And that continues with the animated series.
The major point to make is: The visuals are fantastic. The designs are brilliant, the animations are detailed and close to flawless and the backgrounds something to marvel at. The general art design of this series even outshines the game art. Fortiche, the animation studio responsible, outdid themselves once again in spectacular fashion, standing easily head to head with the genre-champion "Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse".
That said, i was very underwhelmed by the screenplay. The story takes place in a stereotypical arrogant aristocrats versus dirty peasants scenario, which in itself isn't a bad thing. It rides on the ideas of Charles Dickens, and if you're looking for inspiration, the best is a good place to look for. Alas, the characters are written in a very kitschy way, superficial at times and their actions feel forced and often hard to understand.
This is a problem of the general writing, as scenes feel often written more for effect than necessity. Finesse is overruled by intensity on pretty every occasion, in contrast to the fine art style it's shown in. Plotpoints, characters and events jump at you out of nowhere, not because they make sense, but because they look cool. Style over substance. As such character development often falls short, either by developing too much (for background characters) or too little (for the protagonists). And don't even start me on Hextech, the worst macguffin i've seen in a while.
It's obvious the authors were going for "Game of Thrones" epicness, but lack the writing skills of a George R. R. Martin. This is especially painful in how they tackle mature topics like politics, sex and crime. Those often come across immature, pushed onto the viewer in a weird serious but not really serious manner. For example the brothel scene somewhere in the later episodes is neither outright romanticized as in "Moulin Rouge" nor as gritty as a real brothel. Just raunchy enough to say we're doing grown up stuff, not explicite enough to tackle the implications of prostitution in a horribly rigid, conservative society. It all just can't hold a candle the sophistication of the visuals, which is a major bummer.
As such I'm puzzled of the hype this series gets. My best guess is that it's mostly seen by a "Hunger Games"-audience, young adults, that sympathize with the troubles these teens go through and therefore easier forgive the shortcomings of the story. And that's the audience i'd recommend this wholeheartly! Sadly it wasn't working for me, i was left disappointed.
The major point to make is: The visuals are fantastic. The designs are brilliant, the animations are detailed and close to flawless and the backgrounds something to marvel at. The general art design of this series even outshines the game art. Fortiche, the animation studio responsible, outdid themselves once again in spectacular fashion, standing easily head to head with the genre-champion "Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse".
That said, i was very underwhelmed by the screenplay. The story takes place in a stereotypical arrogant aristocrats versus dirty peasants scenario, which in itself isn't a bad thing. It rides on the ideas of Charles Dickens, and if you're looking for inspiration, the best is a good place to look for. Alas, the characters are written in a very kitschy way, superficial at times and their actions feel forced and often hard to understand.
This is a problem of the general writing, as scenes feel often written more for effect than necessity. Finesse is overruled by intensity on pretty every occasion, in contrast to the fine art style it's shown in. Plotpoints, characters and events jump at you out of nowhere, not because they make sense, but because they look cool. Style over substance. As such character development often falls short, either by developing too much (for background characters) or too little (for the protagonists). And don't even start me on Hextech, the worst macguffin i've seen in a while.
It's obvious the authors were going for "Game of Thrones" epicness, but lack the writing skills of a George R. R. Martin. This is especially painful in how they tackle mature topics like politics, sex and crime. Those often come across immature, pushed onto the viewer in a weird serious but not really serious manner. For example the brothel scene somewhere in the later episodes is neither outright romanticized as in "Moulin Rouge" nor as gritty as a real brothel. Just raunchy enough to say we're doing grown up stuff, not explicite enough to tackle the implications of prostitution in a horribly rigid, conservative society. It all just can't hold a candle the sophistication of the visuals, which is a major bummer.
As such I'm puzzled of the hype this series gets. My best guess is that it's mostly seen by a "Hunger Games"-audience, young adults, that sympathize with the troubles these teens go through and therefore easier forgive the shortcomings of the story. And that's the audience i'd recommend this wholeheartly! Sadly it wasn't working for me, i was left disappointed.