IF YOU LIKED · TV SHOW
If you liked Arcane
Seven picks for after Arcane, from Spider-Verse and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners to Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Castlevania, Dishonored and Mistborn.
Arcane proved that a show based on a video game could be one of the best animated series ever made. Its painterly style, half hand-painted and half 3D, looks like nothing else, and its story of two sisters on opposite sides of a divided city lands with real tragedy.
The picks below follow its three strengths: animation that breaks the rules, siblings caught in a conflict bigger than them, and cities split between the rich above and the poor below.
WHAT WE MATCHED ON
Three things Arcane does well
- Animation that breaks the rulesBold styles, painted-looking frames and action you could not get from live action.
- Siblings on opposite sidesFamily love tested by war, trauma and different choices.
- A divided cityA gleaming upper city, an oppressed underclass, and technology that changes the balance.
THE PICKS
7 things to try next
Across movies, TV shows, anime, games, books. Each pick says which of the three it matches, what it does differently, and one thing to know before you start. Save any of them to a list, no account needed.
01 / Movie · 2018 · Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Matches: Animation that breaks the rules
Teenager Miles Morales becomes Spider-Man and meets Spider-People from other dimensions, in a film that looks like a comic book come alive.
Spider-Verse and Arcane together changed what audiences expect from Western animation. Both mix techniques, frame rates and hand-painted details, so every shot looks made by hand. Spider-Verse is lighter and funnier, and it won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
The visuals are dense and fast. Some viewers need a few minutes to adjust.
02 / Anime · 2022
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
Matches: A divided city
A street kid in a brutal futuristic city gets his hands on military-grade implants and joins a crew of mercenaries.
Like Arcane, Edgerunners is a video game adaptation that became a hit on its own merits, and it shares Arcane's city of glittering towers and desperate streets. Studio Trigger's style is wilder and more colorful, and the ten-episode story is a complete tragedy.
Graphic violence and sexual content, and the ending is devastating.
03 / Anime · 2009
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Matches: Siblings on opposite sides
Two brothers who lost their bodies in a forbidden experiment search for a way to get them back, uncovering a conspiracy at the heart of their country.
Brotherhood shares Arcane's siblings at the center, its fascination with science that comes at a terrible cost, and its slow reveal of a powerful elite exploiting everyone below. It also tells its whole story and ends it well, which long anime often fail to do.
64 episodes, though it moves fast. Start with Brotherhood, not the 2003 series.
04 / TV show · 2012
The Legend of Korra
Matches: A divided city
In a 1920s-style industrial city, a new Avatar faces a revolutionary movement of people without powers who want to overthrow those who have them.
Korra's Republic City is the closest thing in animation to Piltover: a modern city of inventors and industrialists with an angry underclass. Its villains have real arguments, as Arcane's do, and its action is beautifully animated.
Watching Avatar: The Last Airbender first helps, and the second season is the weakest.
05 / TV show · 2017
Castlevania
Matches: Animation that breaks the rules
After his wife is burned as a witch, Dracula declares war on humanity, and a disgraced monster hunter is the only one who might stop him.
Castlevania was the show that first proved a video game adaptation could be great adult animation, a few years before Arcane. Its fight scenes are some of the best animated, and its villains are as sympathetic as its heroes.
Very violent and profane, and the first season is only four episodes.
06 / Video game · 2012
Dishonored
Matches: A divided city
A royal bodyguard framed for murder uses supernatural powers to take revenge in a plague-ridden industrial city, with or without killing anyone.
Dunwall, with its whale-oil technology, class divide and plague, feels like Zaun turned into a playable city. Every mission can be completed in many ways, and your choices change how the city treats you. Arkane, its studio, has no connection to Arcane beyond the near-identical name.
Stealth-focused; if you want pure action, it can feel slow.
07 / Book · 2006 · Brandon Sanderson
Mistborn: The Final Empire
Matches: A divided city
In a world where ash falls from the sky and a god-emperor rules, a street thief joins a crew planning the ultimate heist: overthrowing him.
Mistborn has Arcane's oppressed underclass and an elite living in luxury, plus a magic system with clear rules, like Hextech. Its heroine Vin, a street kid learning to trust a found family, would fit right in Zaun.
It is long and takes a while to get going, but the payoff is worth it.
Where to start
For another animation landmark, watch Into the Spider-Verse. For a complete story to binge, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. For something long, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.
Whatever you pick, give it a fair start: the first half hour of a film, two episodes of a show, the opening chapters of a book or the first hour of a game. Then decide.
How we chose
Prepared by OmniTrackr and reviewed by the site owner before publishing. We started from what makes Arcane work for the people who love it, then looked for titles that share at least one of those qualities, deliberately across formats, because a game or a book can carry the same feeling in a different way. Facts were checked against public sources; the comparisons and caveats are editorial opinion.
These picks are not rankings, sponsored placements or anyone's private ratings. Running times, episode counts and availability vary by edition and region. Links go to OmniTrackr title pages, not shops.
First published October 16, 2026. Checked October 16, 2026. Suggest a pick or send a correction · Editorial standards · Pick for me