"Akumatization is like ice cream — once you've tasted it, you always come back for more. Fly away, my evil akuma, and bring me back two scoops of despair!"
—Shadow Moth
When they're voted "Couple of the Year", Cat Noir finally realizes afterwards how much Ladybug finds these false rumours of them being together and his flirtatious behavior a nuisance. Cat Noir decides to change this for her benefit, leading him into a depressive spiral. Kagami notices this from Adrien and encourages Marinette to tell him how she feels and suggests finding someone to help her practice who she has no romantic attachment to whatsoever. Enter Cat Noir.
Tropes:
- Advice Backfire: Kagami's advice to Marinette (based on a shojo manga she read) is to find someone she could never fall in love with to practice confessing to Adrien. Problem is, she didn't read it all the way to the end, which says that the person making the confession is likely to fall for their never-in-a-million-years person. Which in Marinette's case, is pretty accurate.
- Alternate Animal Affection: Watching Sharktank vs. Mechatiger, Cat Noir lampshades how the titular characters supposed to kiss when they don't have lips. From what we hear, they just bump their metallic faces together despite that.
- Atrocious Alias: While Marinette practices her love confession with Cat Noir, since she doesn't want him to know her crush's real name, she refers to him by the codename "Buttercup". Cat thinks this is ridiculous and can't help but burst out laughing in the middle of Marinette's confession.
- Bait-and-Switch: Shadow Moth readies an akuma when he senses immense sadness and guilt... only to realize that it's Adrien who's feeling so awful. He immediately detransforms and, as Gabriel, calls the Gorilla to chew him out for not driving Adrien straight back home, as an excuse to get Adrien home so he can offer a sympathetic ear.
- Breaking Old Trends: Not to a huge noticeable degree, but Glaciator (who is defeated in the space of two minutes) seems shoehorned into the plot for the need of an antagonist instead of having a major focus. Instead, this episode focuses more on development of Marinette and Cat Noir and their romantic dilemmas.
- But I Read a Book About It: Kagami has no idea about love confessions, so she read a book before advising Marinette on how to proceed with Adrien. This "book" turns out to be a Shojo manga, and she didn't read it all the way through.
- Call-Back:
- Marinette doesn't want to tell Cat Noir who it is she's in love with, so she refers to the boy as "Buttercup". That's the same codeword that she and her friends used to refer to Adrien in "Gigantitan".
- Marinette's love speech claims that she fell in Love at First Sight, but near the end of the episode, as she opens up to Cat Noir more, she freely admits that this is not true; she initially thought of "Buttercup" as "conceited and superficial" and only fell for him once she realized she was wrong. She's describing the events of the origin's episodes.
- Ladybug's saying that romantic movies aren't realistic to Cat Noir again, just as Marinette and in a more heartfelt manner and a far less humorously ranty one this time around. They end up annoying a moviegoer again, but only just the one sitting behind them.
- Casual Danger Dialog: During the first fight with Glaciator, all the civilians are more interested in discussing the heros' love life than getting somewhere safe away from the villain.
- Character Development: Two instances:
- Cat Noir decides to stop with his incessant flirting with Ladybug and instead decides to show her who he truly is as a person.
- Adrien learns that Marinette is in love with someone. However, he isn't aware who it is.
- Comically Missing the Point: Marinette's attempt at practicing a love-confession on Cat Noir is constantly derailed by Cat Noir by not understanding what she is saying, not taking it seriously enough, laughing at her codename for Adrien and so on.
- Complexity Addiction: Cat Noir points out that Marinette's various romantic gestures and the Large Ham poetic platitudes in her confession are getting in the way of her message.
- Continuity Cavalcade: Photos of Ladybug and Cat Noir together are taken from various previous episodes, most prominently their kiss from "Oblivio".
- Continuity Nod: Ladybug picks apart the photos of her and Cat Noir kissing by explaining the context of each kiss. Such as kissing Cat Noir to break off an akuma's spell ("Dark Cupid") and how their memories were manipulated by a villain, and they don't remember what happened ("Oblivio"). Not remembering what happened in the latter situation doesn't really help Ladybug's argument, however.
- Cool Car: The Lucky Charm of the Week turns out to be a Lamborghini that the heroes take turns with driving.
- Crazy-Prepared: In addition to having prepared presents each of Adrien's birthdays for many years in her room's chest, apparently Marinette has an entire stash of gift-wrapped presents to give to Adrien for specific occasions in there as well.
- Dark Reprise: An instrumental version of the theme song in a minor key plays under Adrien's depression at fencing to his crying in the park.
- Despair Event Horizon: Adrien hits this when Ladybug confronts him over his constant flirtation as Cat Noir compounded by Paris magazine naming them "Couple of the Year". It even gets the attention of Shadow Moth, though he drops this plan when he realizes that it's Adrien.
- Dramatic Irony:
- Ladybug's harsh chewing out of Cat Noir for his incessant flirting causes him to realize that his behavior is bugging her, which leads him to promise he will find a way to stop it, but also drives him to despair. Enter Marinette, who sees Adrien crying and exclaims that it's the perfect opportunity to get closer to him.
- Kagami suggests that Marinette should practice her confession of love to Adrien on someone she has no feelings for and who also has no chance of developing feelings for her. Who does Marinette pick? Cat Noir, of course!
- Adrien swears he won't be like his father, attached to someone who isn't around anymore. He immediately transforms and jumps around the city destroying the Lady-Cat billboards, not considering or listening how tired Plagg is. Sounds familiar.
- Marinette asks Cat Noir to help her practice confessing to a boy who is actually him underneath the mask. Fittingly, though she doesn't know it, Marinette is afflicted with a similar Motor Mouth syndrome while asking Cat Noir this and confuses him with her words much like how it is when she talks to Adrien.
- André's second akumatization of the episode is because he predicted that Ladybug and Cat Noir were the perfect couple and is frustrated that he seems to be dating Marinette instead. Not only are the two actually hanging out as friends, not dating, but Marinette is Ladybug.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Gabriel may be a masked terrorist who manipulates innocent people at their weakest, but even he isn't cruel enough to akumatize his own son for his nefarious schemes. Not this time anyway...
- Everyone Can See It: All of Paris can see that there's something between Ladybug and Cat Noir, despite the former's frequent and vehement statements to the contrary, with the two of them making the news as Paris' couple of the year. There even billboards of them kissing all over the city.
- Fight Unscene: The opening fight between a furious Ladybug and Glaciator cuts to Cat Noir who spectates the scene from a trash bin.
- He Is Not My Boyfriend: Of course, this has been the dramatically ironic norm for the series, but it is center to the plot of this episode that, contrary to public perception, Ladybug and Cat Noir are not a couple.
- Heroes Gone Fishing: While the titular villain appears twice in the episode, he only appears at the beginning and the climax. The rest of the episode focuses entirely on Marinette, Adrien and their Two-Person Love Triangle.
- I Am Not My Father: Adrien vows to not be like his father, clinging to mementos of a lost love and hurting the people around him.
- Innocently Insensitive:
- After many episodes of being tirelessly flirty and pushy with Ladybug, Cat Noir had that coming. He promises to stop and actually put effort into finding a way to be less bothersome with Ladybug.
- Marinette, in comparison, unsuccessfully tries to cheer Adrien up, but she doesn't actually know what's bothering him and just makes things worse (complete with her tossing her unsuccessful gift in the trash, declaring "...the garbage can is the perfect place for useless stuff that you should just forget about!" when she threw Cat Noir in a garbage can for flirting with her five minutes ago). During the confession training, she half admits her feelings are the important ones in the practice, not Cat Noir's (aka Adrien).
- It's All About Me: When Marinette sees Adrien sad, she is happy because it means another opportunity for her to try to win him over. She even accidentally lets it slip out that she thinks it's "amazing" that he is sad. Also, when she is practicing her love confession to Cat Noir, she tells him that it's her feelings that matter, not his.
- Loony Fan: Glaciator calls himself Ladybug and Cat Noir’s number one fan while attacking them.
- Never Trust a Title: An In-Universe example. Sharktank vs. Mechatiger sounds like an action movie judging from the title, but in actuality is a romance movie between the titular characters.
- Motor Mouth: Marinette gets this again while she asks Cat Noir to practice with her for confessing to the boy she's in love with by saying way too much and overcomplicating it even when she sits him down for it, though this time it's not because she knows she's talking to Adrien (while, of course, she actually is right now).
- No Hero Discount: Averted while also Downplayed - Cat Noir realizes he doesn't have money to pay for a bus ticket while he's transformed after stepping on the bus, but the bus driver says it's free for him this time what with the repeatedly-saving-Paris. Of course, it's only just one bus ticket which is hardly a difficult concession.
- Not What It Looks Like: André ends up akumatized again after seeing Marinette and Cat Noir together and assuming that they're in love with each other.
- Oblivious to Their Own Description: Marinette describes her first meeting with Adrien in just vague enough terms that Cat Noir doesn't make the connection.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- Since Cat Noir has always joked around that him and Ladybug are a couple when they're not and is now fully aware at how much it annoys her in this episode, he decides to find a way to stop that kind of behavior. And it drives him into a depressed state. Which is very out of character for Adrien.
- Not only does Gabriel not attempt to akumatize Adrien when he realizes who he's targeting, he actually makes an effort to make himself available to Adrien if he wishes to talk. Plagg notes that it's a rarity to see Gabriel string three sentences together when speaking to Adrien, much less in such a context.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Kagami is worried that someone else besides her is winning against Adrien, who clearly isn't at his best.
- Pet the Dog: After sensing Adrien's despair, Gabriel invites his son to his atelier, asks him if everything is alright with him, and tells him that he can always come talk to him when he's troubled. Unfortunately, it's too little, too late; Gabriel has been aloof for so long that Adrien doesn't even consider opening up to his father.
- Purple Prose: What Marinette's written out for practicing confessing her love at first is...flowery. It takes Cat Noir trying to say it out and acting appropriately (and then watching a movie and fighting Glaciator...) to make her realize it might have been a bit much as well as being another continuation of her preference for overcomplicating her romantic feelings instead of being honest). Stating how she got her feelings for her love in plainer terms has Cat Noir say her declaration was beautiful.
- Rage Against the Reflection: A variation. Post-despair breakdown Cat Noir goes on a Cataclysm spree, destroying all the posters of him and Ladybug kissing.
- Rage Breaking Point: The public speculation that Ladybug and Cat Noir are a couple has reached a peak with Paris electing them the number one couple. Ladybug's rage over this presumption has also peaked, and she takes it out on anyone asserting they're a couple, especially Glaciator, who she takes out herself after ranting at him.
- Running Gag: Remember all of the Adrien the fragrance billboards that were all over Paris? Well, he's still on billboards all over Paris again, just no one knows that it's still him since the billboards depict Cat Noir and Ladybug kissing instead.
- The unnamed hamster joke returns twice for this episode, just by Adrien telling Marinette that he actually would like a hamster wheel (obviously for taking care of a hamster) and Marinette Lampshading to Cat Noir about her tendency to mention owning a hamster together in her grandiose romantic dreams (unbeknownst to him, of being with Adrien) which causes Cat Noir to reply that he likes hamsters too.
- Self-Proclaimed Love Interest: Marinette calls Adrien her boyfriend — and while she has the self-awareness to acknowledge that they're not dating yet, she does treat it as an inevitability, even as she complains about how she's too awkward to string two sentences together with him.
- Serious Business: After Alya deletes all the Ladynoir photos on her blog per Marinette's request, Nadia makes an instant news report about the missing photos.
- Shipper on Deck: Kagami reiterates her belief that Adrien and Marinette are made for each other and offers Marinette advice on how to approach Adrien. André was akumatized twice because of how certain he is that Ladybug and Cat Noir are made for each other.
- Socially Awkward Hero: Marinette admits that telling some that you love them makes fighting supervillains look easy in comparison (or at least she comes as close as she can to admitting it without revealing she's Ladybug).
- Status Quo Is God: Downplayed - no, Marinette hasn't confessed to Adrien and Adrien hasn't moved past his love for Ladybug that she doesn't reciprocate, but Adrien at least seems certain that he shouldn't be constantly unsuccessfully flirting with her like before and he should see how trying to be himself with her will go instead.
- Swiss-Army Weapon: Cat Noir's staff comes equipped with an umbrella.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Averted - Cat Noir telling Ladybug excessively that he is just her friend that he is not in love with at all when they meet to fight Glaciator for the second time in the episode causes her ask if he's mocking her, but he's just overcompensating with trying to act differently around her.
- This Cannot Be!: What gets André akumatized for the second time in this episode. He sees Cat Noir having a pleasant afternoon with Marinette and proclaims that this cannot be because Cat Noir is supposed to love Ladybug.
- This Is Reality: Marinette points out romantic movies just can't match how real-life attempts at romance actually are because life doesn't have the certainty of being written out by someone. Cat Noir agrees, having tried repeatedly to Ladybug and failed.
- Throwing Out the Script: After many attempts to practice her Love Confession on Cat Noir, Marinette throws away overly pretentious notes and gives a much more natural and honest speech.
- Worst News Judgment Ever: Apparently it was a slow day because moments after Marinette gets Alya to delete all of the seemingly romantic photos of Ladybug and Cat Noir on the Ladyblog, Nadia is announcing their absence from the Ladyblog in a news report.
- Zany Scheme: Kagami's plan to bring Marinette and Adrien together is worthy of Marinette's zaniest plans, even though it sounds reasonable at first. Marinette herself lampshades this, telling Kagami that she should spend more time with her and the girls.
