Netflix’s ‘Arcane’ Is First Streaming Series To Win Animated Program Emmy

Riot Games and Fortiche Production’s League of Legends adaptation Arcane won the Emmy for best animated program on Saturday, becoming the first Netflix original series to take that honor. In fact, Arcane is the first streaming-native program to ever top the category, as well as the first video game adaptation. (Two other Netflix original shows, BoJack Horseman and Bigmouth, had been nominated in previous years.)

Arcane’s dominance of the animation Emmys is hardly surprising. Just last month, artists who worked on Arcane picked up an impressive hat trick of juried Emmys: color script artist Anne-Laure To for the episode “The Boy Savior,” art director Julien Georgel for the episode “Happy Progress Day,” and background designer Bruno Couchinho for “When These Walls Come Tumbling Down.”

Accepting the latest Emmy on Saturday, Arcane co-creator Christian Linke said:

This is 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.

Arcane was released by Netflix in two parts back in November of 2021 and quickly became a viral sensation. The series won nine Annie Awards last March.

In the short-form animated program category, Netflix’s Love, Death + Robots won for the third time in four years. This year’s winning short, “Jibaro,” was directed by Alberto Mielgo, who also won the Oscar earlier this year for The Windshield Wiper. Mielgo also won a personal juried Emmy last month for his character design work on “Jibaro.”

A historic first also happened in the television movie category, with the hybrid production Chip ‘n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers winning the category against a slate of live-action productions. It marks the first time in the history of the category, which has been presented since the 1960s, that a production with animated leads has won the award. The animation for the film was produced by MPC.

Here is the complete list of animation-related winners from the 2022 Creative Arts Emmys.

Animated Program

• Arcane, “When These Walls Come Tumbling Down” — Netflix — A Riot Games and Fortiche Production

Short-Form Animated Program

• Love, Death + Robots, “Jibaro” — Netflix — Blur Studio

Television Movie

• Chip ‘n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers — Disney+

Character Voice-Over Performance

• Chadwick Boseman as Star Lord T’Challa — What If…?, “What If… T’Challa Became A Star-Lord?” — Disney+

Special Visual Effects in a Season or a Movie

• The Book Of Boba Fett — Disney+ — Lucasfilm Ltd.

Special Visual Effects in a Single Episode

• Squid Game, “VIPS” — Netflix — Siren Pictures

Main Title Design

• Severance — Apple TV+ — Endeavor Content/Red Hour Productions in association with Apple