Something about the first season of Ladybug hooked me
in. There were a lot of things I found fault with - I liked the character
designs for the main characters and the antagonist, but a lot of the minor
characters looked iffy and generally the show's movements are still in that
floaty, clunky area so common in weekly computer animation. The villain-of-the-week
plotting got tedious and the 'Lucky Charm' gimmick removed quite a bit of
tension from the set-ups. Yet still I found myself wanting to watch more and
more. And I spelled it out in my impressions of season 1 - what kept me coming
back was the slow-burning but adorable romance where our heroine is in love
with the boy in her class, but he is in love with her superhero form, and
neither knows the other's secret identity. Marinette and Adrien are absolutely
one of the cutest pairs I can ever remember being in Western animation, and I
really do want to know how it all unfolds.
So this was the problem the writers have for season 2 -
people are coming back to look for developments in that relationship drama,
which is absolutely the heart and soul of this show. But if they just outright
jump forward to the pair finding out they're in love with one another in
different forms, there's not much else to keep the show going. And goodness
knows having that kind of drama actually play out often backfires - having Aang
and Katara actually get together in Avatar or Yuugo confess to Amalia even
though he's stuck in a body that never ages just ended up sloppy. And yes, this
relationship drama is much more natural than those were and there can't be many
fans of the show at this point hoping those two don't get together (even if I
personally could totally buy both of them realizing they actually prefer their
own gender in the end, in the Korra vein), but essentially the writers had two
choices - bring the relationship drama to a head while setting up a more epic
and all-consuming plotline that would keep people coming back for more no
matter what the relationship is doing (the route the aforementioned shows took)
or to slowly, slowly tease out more nuggets of intrigue in the relationship
story while sticking with the villain-of-the-week format.
They went for the latter route, and it just about
works. Just about. But certainly at times things get stretched thin. A lot of
the villains of the week are insipid, and it's only at the very end that
Papillon mixes things up and almost wins after trying the same old nonsense way
too many times. I couldn't bring myself to care about the heroes getting new
powers like being able to operate underwater or on ice, nor about their friends
getting to try out being superpowered for a while.
The way every single minor character, from the rock
musician's assistant to the brothers and sisters of tritagonists, has to get a
villain form gets a bit silly, and I guess at some point we have to find out
why the akumatisations happen only in the vicinity of the heroes, even in their
supposedly hidden identities. The fact that the accidental transformation of a
baby actually makes for one of the show's more memorable villains this season
just speaks to how uninteresting most of them are.
So the show lives and dies on the strength of that
central relationship. Does it work? Just about. By the skin of the writer's
teeth, there's enough for me to say this season was a success. But it really is
just barely short of being too much filler with far too little killer.
Yes, it’s worth sitting through an episode where the manservant
becomes a teddy bear if there’s a slow dance between everyone’s OTP. Sure, it’s
worth a battle with a stupid ice cream giant when you can have an adorable
scene where Chat Noir prepares a candlelit dinner for Ladybug, gets stood up
and then unloads to Marinette. An episode about the headmaster trying to be an
owl-themed superhero becomes genuinely exciting when the two superheroes are
forced to turn back into their regular selves right in front of one another,
only their shared trust stopping them from finding out who their counterpart
is. Sure, the monster of the week being the henchman turning into a King Kong
type with a name that seems embarrassingly not to realise the name ‘Godzilla’
already came from the word ‘Gorilla’ (plus ‘Kujira’, whale), but look –
Marinette and Adrien basically dating and watching a movie that’s
super-important to Adrien! Plus Papillon’s idea that Adrien might be Chat Noir
gets shut down.
Some episodes are just good concepts with good villains
and fun relationship drama together, usually when the writers play with the
formula a little. The season opener where Gabriel cleverly gets himself
akumatized to throw the scent off him is both clever and humanising for the
antagonist, whose somewhat Nox-like motivations are becoming clearer as the
show goes on. While the villain of the week being a random TV host was a bit of
a stretch, confronting the two heroes with scandalous pictures really ramped up
the shipping drama for a very enjoyable episode. Similarly, Adrien and
Marinette just happening to end up having to portray Chat Noir and Ladybug for
a TV show was a whole lot of fun. The season finale, while perhaps not pushing
things quite as far as I’d hoped, at least showed Papillon and his sidekick-assistant
try something new when the same plan had failed several dozen times in a row. I
also really liked the introduction of Marc, an adorable and very feminine boy (going
by synopses, at least – the character could well be revealed not to identify as
male) and how the show seems quite happy to have a gay couple and a lesbian
couple in the school, even if it’s only in the background. It’s also fun that
the show enjoys having its characters act contrary to their usual selves, be it
evil Ladybug, scardey Chat Noir, weird horror movie twitching nightmare Adrien
or sensitive, vulnerable Chloe. Oh, and, uh, if you wanna see Chat Noir tied up
cruciform, blindfolded, scared and with a round object in his mouth for no
reason at all (it could totally have been in his hand), yeaaah, the show has
you covered there too.
Typically, there’s also a love rival introduced for
both characters. I didn’t much like Luka but I could see why Marinette would,
and Kagami is a likeable character and it’s amusing they’re hinting at Adrien
having yellow fever, but they’re both basically being set up to fail and their
episodes weren’t the strongest, including when they were brought together for
skating. It’s a nice touch of realism that the characters might have other possible
love interests instead of only one true soulmate 4eva, but at least for now they
just feel like plot elements rather than actual characters.
Once again, the show was released in a wild schedule
all around the world. Fans found and posted the episodes where possible, but I
don’t think the whole season has aired anywhere in the world yet. Some episodes
came out first in France, others England, Canada, Spain, Switzerland, even
Brazil! It’s a bit bizarre but I suppose it means we got episodes early, even
if I had to watch some dubbed!
I am still hooked on this show and definitely want
more. Preferably more episodes where there’s a solid plot and the monster just
appears peripherally while proper plot development builds. I don’t need more
sidekicks or superhero versions of classmates. I’d much prefer a sustained
storyline where the emotional content can keep building. But in all honestly, I’ll
lap up whatever I get. Well, weird dialogue-free chibi-style mini-episodes don’t
count. So bring it on – in however many years it will take for the next season
to come out.
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