Superhero Media: Miraculous - Season 3

Season one of Miraculous - The Adventures of Ladybug and Chat Noir was a basic twist on the "magical girl" formula of Anime, with a focus on "monster of the week" plots. The second season grew the cast and mythology, giving many of the main cast greater depth and hinting at more to come. Season three is almost wall-to-wall world-building, character developments and lore dumps. Everything escalates in this season on Miraculous, Marinette and Adrien draw closer together romantically, Hawkmoth ups the threat level and Master Wu trains Ladybug to be the new Guardian. I don't know if the writers of Miraculous make a conscious choice to really develop the programme, but I must confessed that I'm pretty hooked. Now I'm not really rooting all that hard for Marinette and Adrien, relationship-wise, but the fact that they have to strive to not learn each other's secret identities makes for some genuine struggle for the pair, and I have some empathy there. In fact, an episode that takes a glimpse into a possible future shows that everything will unravel and an evil Chat Noir (Chat Blanc) will destroy Paris and the Moon if he discovers that Ladybug is Marinette a particular way. 

The "Chat Blanc" episode is a bit of a treat for an number of reasons, not least of which are the many Dragonball Z references, thanks to Toei being involved in the production; but also because it finally answered my question, "what if the heroes found out what Hawkmoth's motivation is?" For my readers that don't watch Miraculous, the villain Hawkmoth is Adrien's father, and he seeks the Ladybug and Cat Miraculous because by combining them, he will be granted a single wish. Hawkmoth's wish? To bring his dead wife back to life and make his family complete again. That's a cool villain motive, not truly selfish, but easily twisted towards bad ends. However, using the Miraculous for a wish is kind of a "Monkey's Paw" deal, with unexpected consequences always coming back to haunt those who make the wish. When Adrien finds out that his father is Hawkmoth and what he wants to do (again, in an alternate future), it is the conflict between his desire to get his mother back and his love for Marinette that drives him over the edge to become Chat Blanc. It should surprise no one that "Chat Blanc" is generally considered one of the best Miraculous episodes by the online fandom. 

As Hawkmoth pushes his powers and that of his new off-sider, Mayura (holder of the Peacock Miraculous), Marinette is forced again and again to hand out Miraculous to her friends to help in the fight. I found most of these pretty disposable (like, why is the power of the Horse Miraculous to teleport?), but the Dragon powers are interesting as are the Monkey powers. Rather than just being monkey-ish powers, the Monkey Miraculous is actually more of a Sun-Wu Kong Miraculous, complete with magical staff and chaos powers; in fact, Master Wu is worried that no one can handle the powers physically until he finds Marinette's friend on the swim team. Hell, wonder why all the powers are given to teenagers in Miraculous? Especially because Season 3 specifically mentions that adults can typically use the powers better? Master Fu wants Marinette and Adrien to use the Miraculous because of their youthful optimism, and it gives them the time to learn their powers as they grow. It's honestly like the writing team were browsing fan forums after season two and wanted to address some stuff, only in a way that's pretty neat, rather than tiresome. 

Speaking of neat, the female/female queer couple get a lot of screen-time in this season, though the male/male couple never really appear and the American dub had a line that tries to downplay the relationship to a friendship, but given that Juleka and Rose are part of Marinette's group of friends and are typically included in the group shots of "couples", not to mention they snuggle and kiss a fair bit on-screen, it's pretty hard to ignore the intended message. I mean, the whole programme is pretty queer, even just for the costumes and focus on fashion. At the time of writing (April 2020), the initial broadcast of Season 4 of Miraculous is still at least six months away, which leaves me probably having to wait a year before I get to see any more. Yes, I'm hooked. Somehow, this 33 year old man is hyped to see more of this strangely compelling French animated series for tween girls. Back after watching the first season, I wasn't keen on finding Ladybug and Chat Noir miniatures, but now, yeah, I'd have them in a second to add to my Ultimate Alliance games.