As Arcane showrunners protest that their $250 million budget is quite cheap for 18 episodes, 1 anime director points out that its costs 25 times more per episode than his show

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Arcane is great, but think of how many shows could have been funded with its budget

Arcane
(Image credit: Riot Games)

By now, you've probably heard that Arcane's two seasons cost $250 million to make, and one anime creator claims just one season of the League of Legends spin-off show would have paid for 25 seasons of his own.

Thomas Astruc, creator and director of Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir, took to Twitter to write that "one season of Arcane costs 25 seasons of Miraculous." 

One fan asked, "what would you do differently if we gave you an Arcane level budget, and no limits on what the script would be like?" Astruc's reply appears to take a jab at the overall length of Arcane. He writes, "You do the best you can with what you're given. With $250M budget, Miraculous would probably be very different. But still, I think I would do more than 2 seasons only. Somehow, I wouldn't feel comfortable to pour such insane amount of money in so few episodes."

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The Arcane showrunners have explained why they've decided to call it quits after season 2 already. Some of the team have been working on it for nine years, it's time to move on.

Altruc also shed some light on the animation industry. "Miraculous has a very high budget compared to a japanese series, a high budget compared to french series, and a very low budget compared to a US series," he explains. "And any US series has a very low budget compared to Arcane, apparently."

One person replied that the difference is passion and quality, but Altruc had a response for that, too. "All animation workers are passionate and want to do quality stuff," he says. "The only difference is the time you give them and the workload. These two factors are determined by the budget."

Showrunner Alex Yee shares this view. "You have artists who we wanted to have time to really be able to put in their touches and to have so many different disciplines in this really be able to do their best and show what they could do," he tells GamesRadar. "In a lot of ways, the money is just a reflection of the amount of effort that was put into this."

If you've already watched all the Arcane episodes out now, why not check out some of the best anime series you could watch right now. 

Issy van der Velde
Issy van der Velde
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I'm Issy, a freelancer who you'll now occasionally see over here covering news on GamesRadar. I've always had a passion for playing games, but I learned how to write about them while doing my Film and TV degrees at the University of Warwick and contributing to the student paper, The Boar. After university I worked at TheGamer before heading up the news section at Dot Esports. Now you'll find me freelancing for Rolling Stone, NME, Inverse, and many more places. I love all things horror, narrative-driven, and indie, and I mainly play on my PS5. I'm currently clearing my backlog and loving Dishonored 2.