Text: Yan Jinyan

Before the second season of League of Legends: Two Cities launched, I thought it would be difficult to surpass or replicate the results of the first season. You must know that the first season is already the ceiling in the field of game adaptation animation: IMDB scored 9.0, breaking the Netflix premiere ratings record, winning the Emmy Award for Best Animated Program, Annie Award for Best Popular Animation, even if three years have passed, the Douban score has remained at 9.0......

Therefore, before going to the premiere of the second season of "Battle of Two Cities", I kept mentally building myself. After all, in the field of culture and creativity, the sequel to a good work always comes with a spell - even if it doesn't stretch, you shouldn't expect too much. Not to mention, this is still a game adaptation category that frequently overturns.

But after watching the first three episodes in one sitting, I found that Riot Games and French animation studio Fortiche had completely broken the spell. It can even be said that they are ambitious to prove one thing - you are the only one who can defeat you.

Let's take a look at the actual results first.

On November 9, the first three episodes of the second season of "Battle of Two Cities" were officially launched on the video platform, with a Douban score of 9.2 points, a Rotten Tomatoes index of 100%, and Tencent Video's playback popularity exceeded 20,000, topping the anime hit list. The number of broadcasts on station B exceeded 20 million in less than two days, and the score reached 9.8.

According to data from the third-party website FlixPortal, the second season of "Battle of Two Cities" topped the TV charts in 64 of the 90 countries and regions it counted on the second day after its launch. This has perfectly continued the glory of the previous one.

Many up masters of dramas or film and television areas have expressed their satisfaction, and even gave full marks. On station B, the players' hanging hearts have finally been put down.

Even, just like three years ago, the second season of the anime attracted a lot of non-League of Legends players.

In terms of specific production and performance, the second season of "Battle of Two Cities" has also made a lot of upgrades.

The first is its art and sense of quality. In the first season, "Battle of Two Cities" showed a movie-level quality performance, and the whole series was created with the combination of three shades and two techniques. In the behind-the-scenes documentary, Fortiche said that they used a lot of hand-drawn drawings to make the show look like a 2D flat art style, rather than overly strong 3D animation. This also makes "Two Cities" a departure from the usual animations of the past at first glance, and you will feel that it is more like a theatrical movie like "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse".

By the second season, the iteration at the art level was also intuitive. For example, when depicting the funeral of Caitlin's mother, the overall picture is painted in charcoal style;

When depicting battle scenes, it adds comic-style onomatopoeia subtitles to weapons, as well as more exaggerated performances;

And in the third episode, with the double-line narrative under the montage lens, the colorful and gorgeous visual effects are smashed in your face, which is undoubtedly a show off.

Of course, the second season of "Battle of Two Cities" is not only showing off special effects and visual effects, but I think it also handles the delicate emotional expression better than its predecessor.

As analyzed by the up master @LeviathanmY, taking the details of Caitlin's mother's funeral, Caitlyn was grief-stricken, but for her, who was about to inherit the leadership of the family, she couldn't show too much cowardice at the moment, so when someone around looked at Caitlin, she quickly put away her grief and replaced it with a hard shell.

At the premiere, Christian Linke, the producer and co-creator of "Battle of Two Cities", also said that in the second season, their production level has been improved, such as the portrayal of the characters' eyes, which can be better controlled.

At the same time, the lens language of the series is becoming more and more mature. Again, take Caitlyn as an example, when describing Caitlin's mood change, the intertwined light and dark scenes are full of metaphors. When she mentions hatred, the petals around her fall into the darkness, and the ground that was originally covered by petals is only sharp, and when she mentions Vi, the petals fall with the wind again, and the raised spikes on the ground are smoothed, which indicates that Vi may be Caitlin's inner salvation at this time.

A similar shot language may be short, only a second or two, but the effect is very obvious. Shots like this abound in the second season of "Battle of Two Cities", and the amount of information is overwhelming.

Secondly, in terms of the overall narrative, the second season is also more ambitious.

At the end of the first season, the story doesn't end up, but instead elevates the plot to a high point with a rocket fired by Jinx at the upper Leather City. I was worried about whether the second season would be able to handle this kind of plot twist and explain the inner transformation of each character. But in fact, the narrative of the second season of "Battle of Two Cities" is wilder than I thought.

If we say, the light and dark lines of the first season are still stuck in the two lines of the sister rebellion of Vi and Jinx, and the class struggle between the bottom and the top. Then the storyline of the second season has become more diverse on its basis.

For example, Jace, Heimerdinger, and Ike's exploration of arcane arts may lead to the background of the entire Rune Continent; Ambessa's joining the power struggle may be a metaphor for the undercurrent of many forces, such as Noxus and Black Rose; Caitlin's growth will produce more chemical reactions worth looking forward to in the deformed emotional relationship between Vi and Jinx herself; In addition, what kind of foreshadowing will be the mechanical ascension that Victor is about to usher in, and the Vanderle werewolf line at the end of each episode?

The arrangement of various narrative lines unfolds one by one in the first three episodes, which is extremely compact. If you don't pause and go to the bathroom, you may have missed a lot of key information when you come back.

Moreover, even if the second season has many narrative lines, it still follows the story concept of the first season - the essence of the plot is still an emotion that the public can understand, rather than a fan-oriented enclosure. For example, the first season discusses whether classes and relatives can understand each other, and the second season discusses people's inner redemption and struggles on this basis. Even if you are not a League of Legends player, I believe you can get the emotions that the plot wants to convey.

Of course, the narrative aspect of the plot is not unassailable. Judging from the first three episodes, it seems that there is too much content to unfold in the series, which makes the overall narrative pace very fast, which makes me a little worried about whether the plot can be contained later, and whether the audience's emotions can keep up with the development of the plot.

However, from the current point of view, the first three episodes have achieved a good effect. If the next few episodes can land smoothly, then the second season of "Two Cities" should be another success for Riot Games, and indeed in the field of game adaptation animation as a whole.

In fact, it can be seen from this announcement that "Battle of Two Cities" has become an extremely important part of Riot's exploration of IP.

With the launch of the second season, Riot's product matrix has poured out. League of Legends introduces a new Smash Bros. map, and a new hero, Ambesa. "Genting Game" and "Golden Shovel Battle" are about to update the theme season of the second season of the Battle of Two Cities. Even Valorant next door has launched a crossover collection skin for the second season of Two Cities.

In addition to the game, Eason Chan also sang the theme song of the second season "This is Good" again. Although it may not be as popular as "The Lonely Brave" back then, the resource level has been visibly full.

Under these vigorous promotions and joint operations, the popularity of "Battle of Two Cities" has naturally come to its peak. With the hard power of content, it has also conquered many people outside the gaming circle. This makes me feel that "Battle of Two Cities" has really become a milestone in the game industry - in the past few years, almost all big DAU games, or those products that claim to be national games, are desperately exploring IP, and "Battle of Two Cities" seems to have given everyone a sample, and at the same time, it is a little out of everyone's reach.

Previously, a practitioner who had participated in the construction of a super-large DAU game IP told me that domestic manufacturers are still far from IP exploration. One of the reasons is that the domestic environment tends to be impetuous and utilitarian, which leads to a lot of restrictions on IP creation. This is an area that takes time to accumulate and precipitate, just like Marvel and Disney are not achieved overnight, but most domestic products regard IP creation as a commercialization initiative, and in this process, everyone will become screwed.

For Riot, "Two Cities" is more like a return to its creative roots.

In the behind-the-scenes documentary, Christian said that when they first wanted to make Two Cities, the idea was simple: they wanted to see how the characters in the game would live and what kind of stories they would experience.

However, the idea was not initially accepted by the company, and Riot executives even tried to dissuade Christian. After all, there has been a lack of successful enough cases in the field of game adaptation animation, even if their MV and CG animation have been recognized by many players, but Riot at that time was far from being a large game company.

But Christian is very persistent, he continues to use the way of wool, get thousands to tens of thousands of funds from the company, form a small team, produce original paintings, animation demos, and finally use actual performance to make the company realize that this is a feasible thing. It is also because of their insistence on artistic creation that they found Fortiche, a treasure animation studio, and produced enough works together, and helped Fortiche grow from a few dozen people to a team of 100 people.

Watching the two seasons of "Battle of Two Cities" add up to nearly 10 years of production time, you should feel even more. Few companies in the industry are willing to spend so much time and cost creating in this field.

Alex Yee, co-creator of Two Cities, told me that Riot's decisions have always been about playing a safe card, and there are always risks involved, but it's important that they respect players and want to create content that players will find cool. They believe that when they live up to expectations and get the content right, money and rewards will follow.

After the season 2 premiere, Grape Jun communicated with Christian Linke and Alex Yee. Here's what has been compiled and organized:

Grape: There have been very few successful products in the field of game adaptation and animation, how will you review the first season?

Christian: In the past, in the field of game adaptations, it often happened that the team brought in really good writers and directors who would also work on the game, but they didn't really become the audience or the players. It's hard to do it well if you always do it from an outside perspective.

One of the most important things about Two Cities is that the team members, including us, are gamers, and we were also part of the League of Legends development team at the beginning, producing heroes such as Vi, Jinx, Jace, and Victor. We know how to convey the charm of the characters in the animation, and we know how the player wants us to treat them.

Grape: How did you restore and shape the characters, can you give some practical examples?

Christian: For example, in a fight animation, Wei will jump directly into the battlefield, which is actually very much in line with the player's perception, after all, in the game, Wei is usually a team character, rushes in and dies (laughs). Jinx, on the other hand, is an ADC, and she needs to keep her distance from her enemies, so in the anime, her fighting style is the same. We want to bring the player's feelings in the game to the animation.

Alex: Also, we don't limit our design to a character to a specific thing. For example, Vi's boxing gloves are her trademark, but she doesn't only have fists in the anime, she can also fight with her knees. The essence we want to convey is more about the character of a character.

Jinx is the same, in the teamfight of the game, if she gets a head, she will become crazy and crazy, she will suddenly get excited, and everything that stands in her way will be destroyed, which we think is the character's characteristic keyword. Therefore, how to create a sense of chaos for Jinx in the animation is the focus of our attention.

Grape King: How will the success of the first season affect your production of the second season?

Christian: When we were working on the first season, we always thought we were telling a story that we were proud of, and we filled each chapter with a lot of easter eggs, but we weren't sure if the details in the background would be noticed, and we just wanted the show not to be too bad.

Luckily, the results of the first season tell us that it worked. So, when we do the second season, we will be more confident and trust our judgment as gamers.

Alex: yes, we weren't sure if a lot of the content would be something that League of Legends players would like, and if a lot of the work would be in vain, but now we're more confident.

Of course, it also puts us under pressure, after all, in the first season, we were in a state where we had nothing to lose and could do whatever we loved, but in the second season, it became a bigger product, and everyone wanted it to be successful.

Grape: So on the production level, have you changed?

Christian: We haven't changed the concept and execution of the production, it's just that as the pressure mounts, we can get into some contradictions, such as being more sure of the quality and following our instincts.

The production time of the second season is about 4 years, which is faster than the 6 years of the first season, because we have accumulated a lot of characters and scene design. But there were also difficulties, during the epidemic time, we were unable to meet with the French Fortiche animation studio, and could only communicate through remote video calls. But in the end, we were able to overcome these problems.

Grape: Everyone thinks that the art style of Two Cities is very strong, how did you explore it?

Christian: A lot of that goes to Fortiche Studios. It has a strong sense of brushwork and a high-quality cinematic feel. At the same time, it doesn't lose fidelity by being too cartoonish. What we've been looking for is also these images that look like they can be rendered well on the big screen.

In addition, under Fortiche's brushstrokes, each character and scene is not perfect and gorgeous, it has some deliberately designed roughness, such as the edges and corners of the character's face will be slightly curved, as if breaking the perfect symmetry of the human face, but this is also the special feature of their painting style.

Grape King: Music is also the focus of "Battle of Two Cities", almost every episode will have original music, and even give people a sense of MV, often these clips will also become the highlight of the whole episode, how is this determined?

Christian: One of the earliest collaborations we had with Fortiche was when League of Legends released a music video for Jinx. At the beginning of Two Cities, we decided that there should be a scene in each episode where the music would be the focus, and then we would work with the music team to create the right music for a given moment.

Alex: Music is also an important element of storyboarding, and the music conveys emotions and helps to reinforce things that you can't see on screen.

Grape King: During the second season of the broadcast, "League of Legends" also introduced a new hero in the game, Ambesa, was she the original character of "Two Cities" in the first place? Is this an animation feeding back the game?

Christian: First of all, Abesa is really a hero who was designed for Two Cities.

We've always worked at Riot with the idea of creating an interactive experience where the characters you see in Two Cities can actually be played in the game. But in the first season, we weren't sure if the series would be a success or if it would be worth the team to dedicate a hero to it, but in the second season we were finally able to do so.

Alex: In the U.S., when a movie comes out, you can always see some of its materials at McDonald's or somewhere else, like toys and stuff. It will make you feel like the movie is more realistic.

This is also what we tried in the second season of "Two Cities". During the episode, there will be a big ripple effect of Riot's games, with each product introducing themed content that feels like stepping into the real life of each player. We hope it's going to be the best month for gamers to experience.

Grape King: Is it true that the overall cost of "Battle of Two Cities" is rumored to be $250 million?

Christian: This figure is certainly inaccurate, but if you take into account the production cycle of nearly 10 years, the increase in the overall personnel cost of the industry, and the peripheral marketing expenses, etc., the final cost is not low.

Alex: It's not uncommon for you to look at the production of large-scale animated films, which are actually very expensive because you have to create hundreds of minutes of high-quality content. And put it in an animated series with a longer content duration, the cost should be higher. It's just that in the past, if you wanted to do a project of this size, you would always find a way to save money.

But we really wanted to raise the bar for animation production as a whole, and we wanted to set the art trend so that every detail could appeal to the audience. So, I think it's not so much the high cost of Two Cities as the reason why the budget for past animation projects was so low.

Grape: Why did Riot dare to invest so much in its first animation adaptation project?

Christian: Actually, when we first came up with the idea for Two Cities, the company's first reaction was "no". But we still managed to explore the space in the process, and tried it in the lowest possible way, such as making some original art, building a 3D model of the character, and doing some small animation tests.

Slowly everyone will find out that this thing is really cool. Because in the past in League of Legends games, the characters seemed to only fight, and we never saw their lives. And after a long period of exploration, the final product gave the company the confidence that maybe we could really start making an animated series.

And with the success of Two Cities, we will continue to explore how the League of Legends IP will evolve in the future.

Alex: I think Riot is a risk-taking company, and from the very beginning, it didn't do things like security cards, such as investing heavily in esports, making commercial F2P products, and so on. We firmly believe that as long as you respect the wishes of your players and truly live up to expectations, you will always be rewarded.

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