Ex-Childhood Favorite: Miraculous Ladybug

An opinion by Lorena

In this day and age, Miraculous complaints have become very common -- especially all over Youtube. I’m here to join in on that trend, speaking as an ex-Miraculous stan. I used to be extremely involved with that show, I’d get hyped over new episodes, talk about it with friends, and even spam the ship names as if the two main ships didn’t consist of the same two people. I was also your average Chloe anti and wanted to be Ladybug on Halloween. 

I have to admit that Miraculous has a very interesting premise. It’s a children’s superhero cartoon following Marinette Dupain-Cheng in Paris, as she runs late to class and is extremely clumsy (as her biggest flaw). Marinette wants to be a fashion designer and not-very secretly crushes on this teen modeling sensation Adrian Agreste. Due to his father, Adrian lives as a shut-in from the world, until recently he’s allowed to go to Marinette’s school. They’re both being average together, or as average as a supermodel guy can be, until Marinette gets approached by a little ladybug. The ladybug is a kwami and can give Marinette superpowers to transform her into a hero, so she can fight evil entities spawned by Hawkmoth. Hawk-moth is an angsty villain whose on-screen presence consists mostly of angry grunts and bad life choices. 

Marinette as a superhero becomes Ladybug, a pretty straightforward name.

Surprise, surprise -- Adrian also gets a cool cat ring and a cat that turns him into a real-life cat boy. But this cat boy has magical abilities, so he fights alongside Ladybug. And when they become their alter egos, they’re apparently unable to recognize each other. 

Now we have a wacky love dynamic consisting of 

• Marinette who likes Adrian

• Adrian likes Ladybug

And this gets strange because when Marinette and Chat Noir are together, it’s intense friend-zoning. When it’s Ladybug and Chat Noir, it’s actually kind of interesting but also a lot of rejection. Marinette and Adrian is a dynamic that is usually very cringy to watch. 

Anyway, I’m going to dump my review again when I haven’t watched the show in months. Everything is from my memory because I don’t feel like watching so many seasons of Miraculous for this. 

I liked this show originally because I was a kid, and it was fun to watch them fight crime. Again, the premise is interesting, but as the story progresses, the show becomes annoying. I don’t know when, but I started to hate Marinette. You’ve probably heard it before, but her behavior toward Adrian did become stalkery at some point, and her whole world ended up revolving around him. The show also glorified this, as characters all around Marinette would be like, “Go, girl,” and condone this concerning behavior. 

I mentioned it earlier, but Marinette is the exact definition of a Mary Sue. Her biggest flaw was being clumsy, and she’s written to seem so quirky. I feel like as a kids’ show, this is a safe bet on how to make a decent role model. But as most people seem to agree, Adrian is the more interesting character. 

A significant turning point in the show that detoured my interest was definitely the Chat Blanc episode. The context is that Chat Noir gets akumatized, meaning Hawk-moth turns him into a villain. It had a lot of potential as a premise, and I was especially excited to see it play out. However, I feel like it ended up very underwhelming.

Especially since, in Chat Blanc, the characters reveal their secret identities to each other. As a result of this, they begin a relationship, one that’s very cheesy and predictable. At least from the clip shown, where the two protagonists call each other and share pet names. But for me, it was like seeing what I always assumed was the end point of Miraculous -- they’d reveal their identities in a dramatic moment. The moment didn’t deliver the hype I thought it would, though, which turned me away from the show.

The way Miraculous is written also makes it extremely repetitive, and to fight this, the creators added a lot of plot points, excess characters, and lore. The issue with this is that one of these consisted of offering Chloe a redemption arc before scrapping it completely. Even though there’s another villain, Lila, that’s introduced, they still choose to keep Chloe as one, though it’s sudden and betrays all her development. 

They invested a lot of time building up her family and her relationship with her neglectful mother. Chloe’s also given the opportunity to be a hero, which she always talks about striving to be. And what happens? From what I remember, in the end, she snaps and throws it all away. 

I do hate Lila so much, though, and I feel like that’s what most people agree on. No matter what we all think, we’re all united by our intolerance for Lila, I guess. 

I also remembered the episode where Chat Noir and Ladybug had to swap costumes due to some conflict. The whole time, Marinette was being obnoxiously rude to Adrian and making comments like, “My shoulders feel so much lighter.” It’s true that Marinette holds more responsibility, with the lucky charm and having contact with Master Fu, but it just feels so…unnecessary and icky. Like she’s taking it out on her partner when he’s not the one deciding the power delegation.

Anyway, this is moreover an overview written from my scrambled memory but Miraculous has genuinely gotten awful in recent seasons. I don’t know what else to expect from a show dragged on for that long, though.

• Lorena