Posted in: DVD/Blu-ray, Netflix, Preview, streaming, TV | Tagged: Arcane, netflix, Season 1, season 2

Arcane S01: GKIDS Announces Global Digital, Physical Media Partners

GKIDS is working with Anime Ltd. & Plaion Pictures, Plain Archive, Shout! Studios, and Sugoi to release the first season of Arcane globally.

With Christian Linke & Alex Yee and Riot Games' Ella Purnell and Hailee Steinfeld-starring Arcane set to wrap up its run with its second and final season this November, we have an update on where things stand regarding the first season. Early in June of this year, we learned that indie distributor GKIDS had acquired the global digital download-to-own and physical home media rights. Now, we're getting a clear picture of who will be working with GKIDS to go global with its plans. The Emmy Award-winning animated series will be released on digital download-to-own and physical home entertainment in Europe, South Korea, and Australia/New Zealand by Anime Ltd. & Plaion Pictures, Plain Archive, and Sugoi, respectively. In Latin America, the first season will be released on digital download-to-own platforms by Shout! Studios – with Shout! Studios also working alongside GKIDS in terms of handling physical product distribution for North America. More details on what will be available will be arriving soon, but a 4K version exclusive to the home entertainment release was teased in the press release.

"'Arcane' is just the beginning of our larger storytelling journey and partnership with the wonderful animation studio that is Fortiche," Linke shared during a League Dev Update last month. "From the very beginning, since we started working on this project, we had a very specific ending in mind, which means the story of 'Arcane' wraps up with this second season. But 'Arcane' is just the first of many stories that we want to tell in Runeterra."

Netflix's Arcane: The Road to Season 2

"I just watched the third episode of season 2 before my flight, so we're making progress on it. It is not ready yet, and there's two reasons for that. One, we want quality. We just don't want to rush," Riot Games CEO Nicolo Laurent shared in early 2023. And then there's the matter of the show's success, the level of which caught everyone by surprise. "Honestly, we didn't know if season 1 was gonna be a success. […] If I had known, we could have started season 2 way earlier. But we didn't know, so we kind of waited a bit. Now, we're paying the price. So, it's unfortunately not going to be this year," Laurent added. Nearly two months after winning the Emmy Award for Best Animated Program and with production on the second season underway, the Arcane team honored the one-year anniversary of the hit animated series with a message to the fans:

Linke was in attendance during the September ceremony to receive their Emmy Award. "Thank you for this. It's a big deal for us as we come from video games. It's been amazing to see the world embrace our characters and our stories, so thanks to Netflix, who believed in us from the beginning; thanks to Riot Games, who worked on the whole IP… and to all the people that have been with our game and League of Legends for the last 12 years or so who helped make it as big as it is now," Linke said.

Netflix's Arcane dives into the delicate balance between the rich city of Piltover and the seedy underbelly of Zaun. Tensions between these city-states boil over with the creation of hextech — a way for any person to control magical energy – in Piltover, and in Zaun, a new drug called shimmer transforms humans into monsters. The rivalry between the cities splits families and friends as Arcane brings life to the relationships that shape some of League of Legends' famous champions, including Vi, Jinx, Caitlyn, Jayce, and Viktor. Based on the world behind the game League of Legends, the animated event series features a complex world filled with moral decisions, breathtaking animation, and suspenseful storytelling. Animated by Fortiche Productions, Arcane also stars Katie Leung as Caitlyn Kiramman, Elsa Davoine as Caitlyn, Reed Shannon as Ekko, Kevin Alejandro as Jayce, Brett Tucker as Singed, Mick Wingert as Heimerdinger, and Harry Lloyd as Viktor.

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