The Miraculous Headquarters

[Killix]

The place I watch Miraculous has put up to episode 18 of season 5, so that's where I'm caught up to now.

My thoughts:

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This show has become such a soap opera and I'm not really diggin' the hyper focus on Marinette and Adrian as a couple over all of the important superhero stuff. X'D
There are a few nuggets of interesting plot in there, but it's been buried under a bunch of pointless romance waffling.

I thought they were a cute couple in the early seasons, but it's dragged on through the mud for so long that I'm just kinda sick of it. X'D The sheer amount of progress resetting going on in just their relationship alone is tiring, especially when half the episodes in a season are dedicated to that as a plot.

Even Zoe's single episode confession felt more impactful and emotional than anything Marinette and Adrien have done the whole season. XP
(Can we have an AU where Marinette and Zoe are together instead of going in endless circles with Adrian for 10 seasons? Cool, thanks.)

Marinette's new backstory in Derision is... uh. Seems like it wasn't planned from the beginning, and then thrown in without much thought to explain away certain aspects of her behaviour that have been fumbled. XP
It doesn't hit the mark. Makes little sense for the characters involved, and it's very inconsistent with what we've seen from season 1.

Anyway...
Now I'm even more convinced now that Felix and Adrian (and Kagami?) are all Sentimonsters. I'm expecting at least one of them to die by the end of the series. XP

Gabriel Agreste is also going to die, I feel. He's only dying very slowly 'cause he was cataclysm'd while donning super powers, but uh... it doesn't seem like the plot is setting up for this to be survivable. (Unless they shocking-swerve the ending and he wins and is suddenly completely fine after making a wish. That'd be disappointing, though... XD)

[Carolyn]

Which are the newest episodes? It dawned on me that I've been meaning to catch up and I don't think I did? xD

[Killix]

Jun 25, 2023 18:37:27 GMT -5 Carolyn said:

Which are the newest episodes? It dawned on me that I've been meaning to catch up and I don't think I did? xD

Right now it seems everything up to episode 18 "Emotion" are the latest episodes to air in English (dub). (Though, availability of these episodes might vary depending on platform/country.)
I listed all of the episodes in season 5 by number and title on the previous page if you need a reference!

If you're watching the French version with subs, uhh, I'm not sure what the latest eps are, though I'd expect that version to be slightly ahead of the dub.

[Rasaiu]

Last week I watched Revolution (episode 23?). I'm not going to talk about the ending - in 3 minutes it had all possible cliches a romantic movie can offer and that's it. Yes, Miraculous is full of cliches but I'm enjoying the way villains move the plot by discovering something, planning, putting info pieces together, trying new approaches. Till the end of season 4 Nathalie did a great job. In season 5 Lila (finally) is giving a nice push to the plot.

I wanted to talk about the climax in Revolution 

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when Ladybug and Cat Noir upgraded their powers so they don't transform back after using their special powers.

This scene reminded me of one trilogy. The story was about two kids who went on a magical adventure. In the third book both kids woke up one morning and author said: "And now they are youth". Apparently they looked at each other and realized they are in love although there was no signs of romance. Instant outburst of puberty.

In Miraculous you can see how villains slowly are getting stronger and smarter but for good guys a climax happens and we just have to accept that without magic potions, faerie dust or radioactive spiders "now they are grownups". I rewatched few episodes from previous seasons. We could argue that somehow they were moving towards Revolution's climax (

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In the season 1 they had about 5 minutes before changing back but later seasons Ladybug managed to get several Miraculouses back, check if no one is following her and then change back.

) but I think the show just 'ignored' the rules just for the convenience.

Just watched (the next episode?) Representation. Did the previous episodes climax change anything? Ha! As if!

About Lila. I didn't like her till this season. She was useless. Utterly useless. From time to time she appeared, did her mean girl thing and disappeared (supposedly deceiving others somewhere else. Yeah, right). In season 5 her actions are leading to a revenge. And that got me really excited 

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until I read spoilers. My expectations were cataclysmed.

[downrightdude]

I think Season 5 is being added onto Disney+ Canada next month.

[Liou]

Trying to keep up with this show is kind of like... watching some people pull out a beautiful, well crafted chess set with original designs for the pieces and an interesting aesthetic. And then they just start smacking the pieces around the board like they're playing with action figures.

[Killix]

Caught up to all of the currently released episodes (up to 27) of season 5.

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wat.

Special note on episode 27 "Action"

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They say the word "plastic" a total of 74 times.

Also, this episode is painfully out of order. XD

[downrightdude]

Last Friday I was able to watch the Ladybug movie on Netflix:

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It was okay. The pacing felt a bit rushed at times, and I don't think the movie was a superb summary of the main series.

I also didn't care for the songs.

[Killix]

Hey, I also recently watched the Miraculous movie!

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I liked:

- The animation looked great, and the visuals were high quality with nice character models and nice textures.

- I felt that Chloe was handled much better in this than in the main show. (She's mean, but she's not this unrealistic unstoppable force of malicious will that even adult characters have no agency over.)

No Thanks:
- Poor pacing, including not enough time setting up the two leads as a team (It's just sorta handwaved in a timeskip). This made the whole thing feel rushed, and what should've been a really impactful ending was just kinda... meh. (Would've been far more effective as the ending to a second movie, after the first one sets everything up.)

- The songs felt generic and forgettable. The only one I thought was fitting was Tikki's exposition on Miraculous to Marinette, but the rest didn't really land. Would've preferred if they'd used the time spent on songs to spend on better pacing instead.

- What did they do to you, Plagg??
Reduced to nothing but a big fart joke. C'mawn, you can't just do that to my fav kwami.