Things Only Adults Notice in Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir - Looper (2023)

Throughby Claire Mulker/Jan. 22., 2021 15:25 Uhr EST

During the day, shy teenager Marinette Dupain-Cheng has a secret crush on the dreamy Adrien Agreste, but he's barely aware of her existence. At night, Marinette fights crime as the cool and confident superhero Ladybug, alongside her sidekick, the quintessentially clumsy Cat Noir. Cat Noir has a not-so-secret crush on Ladybug, but she doesn't care about this goober. Also, her heart belongs to Adrien. But Marinette doesn't know that Adrien also has a secret - himisBlack cat.

This is the premise of the French TV seriesMiraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir, a story for helpless romantics of all ages. And although it's clearly written for young children,Wunderhas a surprising amount of hidden depth for geeky adults to dig into. There is an enormously complex mythology surrounding the Miraculous, the items that give our heroes their powers, the Kwamis, the magical guardians of these items, and the villainous Hawk Moth, who can turn ordinary Parisians into powerful super villains through his use magical akumas.

As a result, there are things that only adults noticeWunder, and we're here to analyze and critique all the little details on this show that you probably shouldn't think too much about. After all,WunderIt's about feelings, not logic. It urges you to turn off your brain and enjoy the ride. But we can't because we're adults now, so we turn on our brains and start thinking about itWunderway too hard.

Imagine the streets of Paris on a sunny afternoon. What's on your mind right now? Probably pavement cafes, charming little boutiques and tree lined walkways. The highly idealized and colorful version of Paris that we seeWunderdoes indeed have all of those things, but there's also one detail that's consistently missing - people.

WheneverWunderdepicts an outdoor scene on the streets of Paris, our main characters are often the only people around, walking along completely empty sidewalks, with only an occasional car driving past in the background. We assume that the main reason for this is most likely a technical one. It would take an enormous amount of time and money to model and animate a hundred viewers when the characters go outside. That being said, the end result of the completely lifeless version of Paris we get on this show is almost post-apocalyptic.

Adding even more to the sense that not that many people live in Paris is the remarkably consistent cast of minor recurring characters. Rather than rescuing complete strangers from Hawk Moth's forces every week, Ladybug randomly crosses paths with the same characters over and over again, like rock star Jagged Stone, news anchor Nadja Chamack, and Mayor André Bourgeois. Not that we mind seeing the same characters over and over again, but it's just further proof that this world's Paris has only a few dozen residents and is otherwise completely empty.

In many ways, Marinette and Adrien are portrayed as total opposites. Adrien is popular and famous due to his famous father and his own career as an aspiring model. Marinette, on the other hand, is said to be an absolute nobody sitting at the very bottom of the high school hierarchy. But here's the dirty little secret the show is trying to hide from you. Marinette is also very popular, just as popular with her peers as Adrien and maybe just as famous.

Marinette's secret rise to stardom is largely due to the events of the episode "Pixelator". In this episode, Marinette befriends world-famous rock star Jagged Stone. And this isn't just a passing acquaintance either. In a later episode, Jagged asks Marinette to design the cover art for one of his albums, which eventually becomes a chart bestseller. Because of this, she even appears on the covers of magazines and on television. As if that wasn't enough, Marinette's best friend is a popular blogger, she babysits the child of a famous news anchor, and she's even the granddaughter of the world's most famous chef.

If you look closely, you'll see that even within her own group of peers, Marinette is a total social butterfly. Already in the fourth episode of the series, we learn that her entire class is overjoyed to see her when she arrives to hang out after school, and Adrien even winks at her. Despite Marinette's continued insistence that she's just a clumsy loser who doesn't stand a chance with Adrien, if you really pay attention to the events of the show, you'll see that Marinette's supposed "unpopularity" only exists in her head.

Ladybug's most impressive superpower is without a doubt her Miraculous Ladybugs. Whenever our heroine defeats one of Hawk Moth's creations and purifies her Akuma, she unleashes a swarm of magical ladybugs that repair any negative effects caused by this villain's superpowers. Because of this handy plot device, the entire city of Paris can be completely devastated on a weekly basis, and as long as Ladybug defeats the monster of the week, we know everything will be fine.

But in case you haven't noticed, there's one particular Parisian landmark that the show loves to destroy whenever it gets the chance -the Eiffel Tower. This famous monument has been torn down countless times throughout the series' history, so we won't name them all, but let's list a few of our favorites.

The tower is first destroyed in episode 13 when the mime artist cuts it in half with a giant invisible sword. Thekaiju-sized baby Gigantitan also knocks over the Eiffel Tower while throwing a tantrum. The Collector - the akumatized form of Gabriel Agreste - even steals the tower and enters it in his spell book. And in the episode "Style Queen" it's not even a villain who destroys the tower. Instead, Plagg, Cat Noir's kwami, topples it himself with his Cataclysm ability.

While younger viewers might not even realize how badly this show treats the Eiffel Tower, if you're an adult fan of the show, we recommend making it a drinking game.

Although queer portrayals in children's shows are now becoming the norm in America, France seems to be a step behind in this regard, as there are no confirmed LGBTQ+ charactersWunder, at least not in the show's canon text. In the subtext, however, it's a whole different story.Wundercontains several minor supporting characters who are pretty clearly destined to be in same-sex relationships, even if the show never comes out and explicitly says so.

The first major gay relationship on the show is between shy goth Juleka Couffaine and vivacious blonde Rose Lavillant. Despite being polar opposites in many ways, the two characters are clearly very close. They are often shown holding hands, leaning on one another, or comforting one another, and the two are even said to kiss in the episodes "Zombizou" and "Reflekdoll," though it's somewhat obscure both times.

The other subtextually queer pairingWunderis the one between Marc Anciel and Nathaniel Kurtzberg. These two artistic kids are practically inseparable, and Marc is undeniably destined to be read as queer. Not only does he have visible makeup, rainbow clothing and queer-coded mannerisms, even his name, Marc Anciel, is a pun on the French term for rainbow.rainbow." Series creator Thomas Astruc evenhalf confirmedMark's queerness as he revealed the character is based on a friend of his, bisexual gender fluid artist Hope Morphin.

Even thoughWunderis a show very much aimed at an international audience, some of the jokes still end very French. And in these cases, younger English-speaking viewers may not understand exactly what they mean.

The most common place this shows up is with characters whose names are puns in the French languages. For example, Alya's cunning superhero personality, Rena Rouge, is based on the phrase "renarde rouge," meaning red fox. And the bread villain Bakerix is ​​a nod to the popular French comic book characterAsterix.

beyond puns,Wundersometimes also contains jokes that require specific knowledge of French culture to be understood, as in the episode "Cat Blanc" where Marinette wants to buy a gift for Adrien's "fifth name day". Confused? We'll break that down for you. In France, most common names have a corresponding day of the year, a practice that grew out of the Catholic tradition of saints having annual feast days. So in France you can not only buy someone a birthday present, but also aname daycurrently.

The joke here is that Adrien apparently has at least five names — his first name and at least four middle names — and that Marinette has such a crush on him that not only does she know all five of his names, but she'd buy him a gift to go with his fifth name day. It's a great joke, but it must seem utterly impenetrable to younger English-speaking viewers.

Marinette loves Adrien and Adrien loves ladybugs. If only there were a third party who knew their identities, they could just tell our two heroes the nature of this ridiculous predicament they're in, and Adrien and Marinette could finally be together. Oh wait, there totally is. In the episode "The Dark Owl", Tikki learns that Cat Noir is Adrien and Plagg learns that Marinette is Ladybug, yet both kwamis refuse to tell the truth to their owners.

To be fair, Plagg says in the episode "Sandboy" that kwamis are unable to say the names of their current owners, but there is no such ban on saying the name of themAnotherWonderful holder. After all, Tikki says Adrien's name many times throughout the show, both before and after she learns his secret. Also, in the episode "Cat Blanc" Marinette travels to an alternate future where the world is basically destroyed and in that timeline she and Cat Noir know each other's identities but the end of the world is not directly caused by that knowledge. Our heroes could completely avoid the bad fate of this other timeline by making better choices.

As proof that something like thatcanWhen you're done, check out Nino and Alya aka Carapace and Rena Rouge, two Miraculous owners who are also dating. By the end of season two, they learn each other's identities and all is well. In fact, they can now even obtain alibis, which arguably makes it harder to reveal their identities to the world at large. Tikki and Plagg are just idiots. Why do you hate love, you weird little bug?

We know it's a small detail to focus on, and yet the one thing our party-pooper adult brains can't shut up about when we watch this show is why no one knows the secret identities of Ladybug and Cat Noir found out. So similarGreen Lanternor the Incredibles, Ladybug and Cat Noir have opted for a... "minimalist" approach when it comes to their disguises. Yes, we know those tiny little domino masks are just a part of superhero fiction, and we dowantYou want to accept that, but the series doesn't stop rubbing it in our faces. In the episode "The Pharaoh", Alya finds Ladybug's history book and realizes that the superhero must be one of her classmates. When you get to this point, how difficult is it to put those final pieces together? Alya, besides your best friend, are there really that many other girls in your grade with blue-black hair in twin braids?

There's even a popular oneFan Theorywhich offers a possible solution to this problem. What if our heroes surround themselves with a magical aura that makes it literally impossible for people who know them to recognize them? This means that if you were one of Marinette's friends and saw Ladybug, you would still be able to see all of her facial features, but you would suffer from a type of acute face blindness that would prevent you from associating those features with anyone you know . It's a cool theory, and we'd love for the series to confirm it someday, mostly so we can get over that distracting obsession and just enjoy the show again.

If you're a superhero who magically transforms into your alter ego, there's something important you need to decide ASAP, right next to your costume and your name - your transformation set. Whether you choose "shazam," "henshin," or "by the power of Grayskull," a good catchphrase is paramount. Ladybug and Cat Noir definitely have this covered. Ladybug's "Tikki, spots on" and Cat Noir's "Plagg, claws out" are up there with "it's morphin' time" when it comes to top-notch mantras. They are short, expressive and memorable.

Unfortunately, it's pretty clear that the writers - or maybe just the translators - quickly ran out of breath after coming up with those first two catchphrases, because pretty much every other Miraculous owner we meet has a morphing phrase that either is extremely verbose, nonsensical, or both. Viperion is stuck with the awkward "Sass, scales, slither" tongue twister, and Multimouse has the cringe-worthy "Mullo, get squeaky". Just try saying one of these out loud and with a straight face, we're challenging you. Perhaps even worse, Carapace has "Wayzz, shell on" and Queen Bee has "Pollen, buzz on," both of which are basically just copies of Ladybug's phrase.

When you move on to the villains, things don't get any better. Mayura has the wordy "Duusu, spread my feathers" and Hawk Moth has the equally captioned "Nooroo, dark wings rise". It's possible that all of these phrases sound absolutely gorgeous in French, and there's a tremendous amount of subtle puns sailing over all of our heads here. But as of today, we think pretty much all of the transformation phrases, with the exception of our two leads, could have used another round of editing.

There's a big problem at the heart ofWunder. You see, the romantic tension between Marinette and Adrien is arguably the most compelling part of the show. We want to support that relationship, and most of the time we can. But every once in a while, Adrien crosses a line. To be honest, despite the show's attempts to portray Adrien's crush on Ladybug as cute and endearing, he sometimes exhibits obsessive, borderline, stalker-esque attitudes and behaviors.

When appearing as Cat Noir, Adrien continually professes his love for Ladybug, forcing her to endlessly reject his affections, sometimes even doing so in the midst of their supervillain battles. There's even a bit in the episode "Animan" when he tries to secretly smell her without her noticing. As you can imagine, she notices and is not very pleased. Since he's still a teenager, we're ready to loosen the boy up a bit, but enough is enough. Seriously dude, don't keep hitting someone who's already gunned you down, especially while they're at work.

On the other hand, there was that time in the episode "Cat Blanc" when Marinette was sneaking through Adrien's bedroom while he wasn't home and she was touching all his stuff and sniffing his pillow, so maybe a reversal is fair game? Uh, you decide. Is Adrien unforgivably creepy, or do these two freaks absolutely deserve each other?

Like many superhero storiesWunderdraws a lot of inspiration from older TV shows and comics and doesn't try to hide those influences. However, two of the more obvious influences are onWundercould be so long ago at this point that some of the smaller kids in the audience might not recognize her. Oh dear, we're getting old, aren't we?

The first obvious precursor ofWunderisSailor Moon.Sailor Moonstars a romance between a teenage superheroine, the eponymous Sailor Moon, and a masked mystery man who serves as her sidekick, Tuxedo Mask. Also, both Ladybug and Sailor Moon transform into their superhero costumes through the use of magical items, and both have talking animal pals.

Oddly enough, another famous superhero with many striking similarities to Ladybug is Spider-Man. Both Peter Parker and Marinette are teenagers in Red Bug costumes. Also, both show great agility and a penchant for swinging travel - using web shooters and a magical yoyo respectively. Like Marinette, Peter is constantly forced to balance the needs of his personal life with his superhero life, even though Spidey's primary interest is romantic in most of his incarnationsMary Jane, He also sometimes has some relationship with a cat-themed superhero of his own. She even has the same name as Cat Noir, albeit translated into English - Felicia Hardy, the black cat.