Full spoilers for Arcane season 1.

I was trying to write about Arcane's pacing (perhaps a cursed word in commentary), but it ended up going all over the place, being more about storytelling in general and feeling simply wrong to an extent. So instead, I thought I would list the points I had in a less formal way. Hopefully, I can get people's feelings about those and spark a discussion or two.

The initial feeling

In short, my point would be that Arcane has a good and frantic pacing, which it uses alongside the setting and storytelling tools to make itself better, beyond its recognizable qualities in visuals, music, writing and acting.

About the pacing itself

• Arcane events happen fast, one after the other, they start and devolve in a matter of hours or a few days.
• There is little time to breathe, little time to process, no time to notice issues.
• The speed and way in which the events happen matter to characters: Vi has no time to process things and is unable to help Powder/Jinx (in episode 3 and again in 9); Jayce is pressured and feels the need to act quickly, ending up making rash decisions and flip-flopping.
• Episode 1, 2 and 4 do some build-up so they are slower, but even still they remain pretty intense. Episode 3 is one big climax, and the whole episode 5 through 9 is a frenzy.
• There is pretty much no padding. Almost every line and scene is important and has purpose.

About the setting, which is helped by the pacing

• Arcane makes use of its setting which is a jumble of the many things that spawned with the LoL champion design (basically rule of cool). That's a pain to build a coherent identity and to avoid absurdities, but it's a fertile ground for creativity and extravagance. You have crazy things all around but you don't need much explanation. As Jinx nicely put it: "It's all these runes. They form some kind of math-y, magic-y gateway. To the realm of heebie-jeebies.". As long as the story flows and that there is enough to stay invested and immersed, the whole thing stays believable and enjoyable.

About cool stuff the show does with storytelling

• Parallel storylines with little interactions but many shared themes.
• Basically no traditional lengthy exposition, using environment visuals and natural dialogue to inform the watcher organically instead. For example, the opening scene on the bridge and the talk between Silco and Vander.
• The juxtaposition of opposites: war glorification (Vi and Jayce roll in with hype music) and war horrors (Jayce kills a kid); comfort (Vi and Caitlyn talking on the bed) and distress (Jinx basically being tortured as she is healed with shimmer).
• The structure: regular flashbacks, intertwined storylines, the time skip, quickly switching scenes (episode 3) but also drawn-out moments (dinner scene), short timespans.
• Transitions (is artistic transition a cliché now? I don't know) and music integration. Everybody will mention Ekko vs Jinx. I enjoy Enemy in episode 5 a lot, with the quick and consecutive switches between Vi, Sevika, Marcus, Mel, Viktor and Jayce, then back to Vi.

About the issues raised by the pacing

• The scenes from the Enemy clip are critical to showing who Vi, Powder and Ekko were as kids. Their equivalent is simply not in the show. Notably kid Powder and Ekko pretty much don't interact at all.
• There is some ambiguity due to the absence of interaction between Marcus and Silco regarding Vi's fate. The council archives hint that Marcus tried to keep her hidden and to protect her. However, that's extra content and why would he do it anyway? (Marcus, for all the hate he gets, could actually be just as interesting as the other characters but he does not get the spotlight.)
• Events happen in the span of hours, at most one or two days, with several explicit statements about it: Caitlyn about the prisoner, "He should have been sent today"; Jayce and Marcus "You've been counselor for a day." "Two.". Caitlyn is caught in an explosion and visibly hurt, then goes off right away as if she's just fine. Some of the character progression can feel rushed.
• Vi and Caitlyn grow trusting and close very quickly, when they are set up to hate each other. Both of them are understanding and have empathy, but they also have deep rooted preconceptions. I'm 100% shipping but I always prefer slow burn romance to mystical love at first sight.
• Vi abandons working with Piltover and pushes away Caitlyn after only failing to convince the council in one quick meeting. When her sister's life and war are in the balance, I would expect her to try every option. However, Vi is about expedient solutions so it makes sense for her to go directly on the attack. Yet, why would she reject Caitlyn in that case?
• Jayce is flip-flopping in his decisions. That's definitely a thing in real life so not really a negative in my opinion, but with the quick pacing it almost gets jarring.

Some other remarks

• Re-watching, it's quite difficult to appreciate the pacing. It feels slower now than at first. However, I do believe there is some underlying tension and suspense which builds up and down, notably in episodes 1 and 2 which I remember as having a lighter tone. For example, you expect episode 1 to end on the Vi and Powder uplifting moment, instead you fade to the ominous scene with Silco and shimmer.
• Would they keep a similar pacing and structure for season 2? Should they? Can they?