I know *nothing* about The Witcher universe but I totally loved season 1. And was disappointed by season 2 a lot as well. It felt like an unmotivated filler without any tension. It failed to build up any tension for all major ground breaking events in the story.
So much this. Episode 1 was a blast!! With its very own little story arc and interesting characters.
I thought the timelines were really clever. The confusing part was that there were nearly no indications when the times changed, and to when and where. The latter is still a problem in season 2 for non-Witcher-veterans. But if you make it to the end, everything starts to make sense and I thought it was very rewarding
I liked Arcane by a lot as well. Even though, I disliked that the fights were pure show, like a wrestling match. They were logic bending as hell and the characters behaved unrational, both very obviously to keep the tension up.*
BUT HOW COOL IS JINX?!? I LOVE JINX SO MUCH! SHE IS CRAZY, BUT COOL, AND CUTE, BUT CRAZY AND COOL, and the ending was sooooooo gooood.
*What is up with that anyway, every anime seems to have millions of these disposable copy pasta people with the sole purpose to be slaughtered by a single person - every episode a couple hundreds more to keep the inflation of the tension at bay. I can't take the "military" or "police" seriously when they are beaten that easily, makes me question the entire background universe.