Netflix Arcane Series creators explain why Jinx and V are stars

The creators of the Arcane series explain their choice of Jinx and V as stars – a completely logical choice that opens up huge possibilities.

Sisters Jinx and Vi are at the heart of the Netflix series Hit Arcane. And they were chosen from over 150 champions present in the League of Legends game on which the series is based. How to explain such a choice? Arcane creators Christian Linke and Alex Yi look at this process.

Arcane creators explain their choice of Jinx and V as stars

According to the duo, the stars really couldn’t be any different than in the game’s lore. For nearly a decade, Christian Linke and Alex Yi have been grooming Jinx and V for such roles on the show, even though they didn’t actually do it. I know it from the very beginning. In December 2012, V made his debut in the game, becoming the first champion to qualify for a full login screen with an original song.

Jinx appeared the following year with the very first character-focused cinematic and a very energetic music video, Get Jinxed. Christian Linke and Alex Yi worked on these releases on both story and music.

The cinematic film “Jinx”also marked the first collaboration with Fortiche Production, the studio to which we owe the animation style of the Arcane series. Christian Linke explained to Engadget: “We needed to think about characters that we could stay with for a few years ahead. And the answer was pretty obvious.”For Alex Yi, “I think both events were a milestone in our time at Riot.”

In the game, Jinx and V are enemy sisters, although this aspect disappears somewhat in action. It’s true that it’s hard for a MOBA to show knowledge in games, but Riot tries hard, which many players appreciate. So much so that today the studio is the center of creative development of a variety of media.

Arcane is the most ambitious project to bring the game to the general public, and Jinx and V carry the story, along with Caitlin, Jace, and Victor, among others. The two sisters have always intrigued Christian Linke and Alex Yi, much more rooted in the game, ultimately with deeper personalities, inexplicable rivalries, as Christian Linke summarizes: “If you imagine these two characters together in the same scene, no matter where, no matter what they talk about – like what they’re going to eat tonight or what movie they’re going to watch – it’s bound to be funny because there will always be two very different points of view.”This is an inherent aspect of Jinx and V, and one wonders what made them go in such an opposite direction. Arcane asks this question and slowly answers it.

A perfectly logical choice that opens up huge possibilities

In the series, Christian Linke and Alex Yi are unable to focus on some of the details of the two characters, such as the microexpressions on their faces. Fortiche Production also played a big role in this regard. The animators had a lot of freedom to express themselves through the characters, and the result was a unique visual style very similar to what could be achieved with motion capture.

After almost 10 years of game development and various lore projects, Jinx and V still manage to surprise Christian Linke and Alex Yi. In Arcane, for example, League of Legends champions speak with their mouths moving for the first time. “You know, we’ve never seen their mouths move in a game. It was another step,” explains Alex Yi.

And with the success of the Arcane series on Netflix, both among League of Legends fans and those unfamiliar with the game, there is no doubt that there will still be many characters and aspects of the story to explore. Season 2 is currently in development.