This grabs your eyeballs before your brain catches up. It's one short burst of Lunar New Year red and gold, lantern light and firecracker smoke, built as a relay between 2:10 AM Animation and IDEOMOTOR so different stretches of the fight carry visibly different hands on the pencil. The premise is as old as the holiday itself: the beast comes every year, and every year somebody has to stand in the doorway between it and the celebration. Most League promo animation exists to sell you a skin line. This one sells you the ritual underneath it, honor the past, protect the future, then hit the monster. Watch it twice. Once for the choreography, once to catch the exact frames where the style changes owner and the whole thing keeps its footing anyway.

Every year, a legendary beast appears to menace the Lunar New Year festivities, and every year a group of heroes is selected to guard the celebration against it. The motto is to honor what came before and safeguard what lies ahead. A single-episode action fantasy short with supernatural elements, it was made as a collaborative animation for League of Legends together with 2:10 AM Animation and IDEOMOTOR.