Arcane animators reveal heartbreaking scene had whole studio ‘in tears’

As the Arcane Season 2 release date fast approaches, the animation studio Fortiche has looked back on one of the Netflix show’s most emotional scenes – and it wasn’t just viewers at home who were left crying. 

Dexerto attended the In Motion London festival on Friday, October 11, where Fortiche creative directors Barthelemy Maunoury and Gilad Carmel broke down the process of creating the animation for Arcane Season 1. 

The League of Legends adaptation was a resounding success, centering on champs Vi and Jinx, the two sisters who end up on opposing sides amid a looming war between Piltover and Zaun.

Arcane Season 2 Part 1 lands on Netflix on November 9, while Part 2 and Part 3 drop on November 16 and 23, respectively. 

Although Maunory and Carmel teased that the second chapter is even “more ambitious,” the animation pros focused mostly on bringing the first installment to life. 

There was one scene in particular that they felt the pressure to create: the moment Vi abandons Jinx, who was Powder at that moment in time. 

It starts off with Powder wanting to help Vi, Vander, Mylo, and Claggor in their battle against Silco and his shimmer monsters. She does this by unleashing a makeshift monkey bomb, but this inadvertently kills Vander, Mylo, and Claggor in the process. 

As Vi takes in the devastation, Powder excitedly runs over, thinking she’s saved them and exclaiming that her monkey bomb finally worked. “You did this?” says Vi, at which point Powder sees Vander’s dead. 

Vi takes her anger and frustration out on Powder, who’s crying and trying to explain that she was only trying to help. “Why did you leave me?” she begs, to which Vi replies, “Because you’re a jinx. Do you hear me?”

Vi walks away as Powder screams and cries for her to come back. It’s one of the most heart-wrenching scenes in the entire season, and for the animators, it was a lot of pressure to get it right. 

Netflix

After showing the storyboard for this sequence, Carmel said, “What are the things that we really pay attention to? Choosing the shots, and giving them emotion.”

This was no mean feat, as when they received the audio recording for this scene from the young Powder voice actress, the LA studio told them, “Just before you listen, just know that when we recorded it, everybody cried in the studio.”

“And then they said, ‘No pressure,’” joked Maunoury, to which Carmel added, “You know, but everybody has to cry. And this is like the end of the first trilogy. It’s a really important moment.”

In the end, the studio did a standout job bringing this sequence to life, as did Mia Sinclair Jenness, who voiced Powder before she grew up into Jinx (voiced by Ella Purnell). 

And we can expect plenty more where that came from in Arcane Season 2. Until then, here’s everything we know about Stranger Things Season 5, The Sandman Season 2, and Squid Game Season 2.