Miraculous Ladybug / Tropes A to D

This page covers tropes in Miraculous Ladybug.

Tropes A To D | Tropes E to M | Tropes N to Z

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A

• Accent Adaptation: In the French dub, Jagged Stone has a pronounced American accent (By an American actor, no less). In the English version, the French characters speak with American accents, so Jagged Stone has a British accent instead.
• Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: In English, the word "miraculous" is typically pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable, and indeed the show does pronounce it as such when it comes up in dialogue. The theme song, though, puts the emphasis on the first syllable.
• Accidental Misnaming: Audrey Bourgeois never remembers anyone's name, even her own husband and daughter's. It just underlines how little she actually cares for anyone other than herself.
• The Adjectival Superhero: Miraculous Ladybug.
• Adults Are Useless:
  • Take your pick. There's Lieutenant Raincomprix, the epitome of Police Are Useless who sees nothing wrong with his daughter Sabrina being in an abusive friendship; Ms. Bustier and Principal Damocles, who leave Chloé's reign of terror unchecked for different reasons and are easily swayed by Lila's lies (and, alarmingly, don't even think to get her medical attention when she supposedly takes a nasty fall down the stairs); Mayor André Bourgeois, who spoils his daughter rotten (turning her into the Alpha Bitch she is today) and is shown several times to be a sleazy politician; and Gabriel Agreste and Nathalie, who — when they're not busy micromanaging Adrien's life and keeping him from having an actual childhood — terrorize Paris as Hawk Moth and Mayura, respectively. The only adults who actually do something are Wang Fu, and Miraculous holders from the future, but one's too old to stay in the battle and the others are from a different time period. And even Master Fu is often dangerously hands-off when it comes to the battle against Hawk Moth, usually relegated to simply holding on to the other Miraculous when Marinette needs to pick them up.
  • "Miraculous World: New York — United HeroeZ" reveals that America has many adult superheroes operating in it, who certainly aren't all useless...until every one of them gets afflicted from an akumatized villain which leaves it up to four young superheroes (well three, and a robot which acts as another superhero's daughter) to save the day.
• An Aesop:
  • Throughout the series, lying is presented as an awful flaw and that's why Lila is one of the most dangerous characters, and wastes little time becoming a full-blown villain. Well, as long as you don't lie to protect your secret identity as a super hero, of course. Subverted in season 4 where Marinette's constant lying is causing trouble with her life and relationships, and is clearly wearing on her - if remaining just as necessary.
  • Money apparently corrupts every time, with a few exceptions (Adrien and Jagged Stone who zig-zags between being sympathetic and The Prima Donna). The avaricious Bob Roth is one of the most unsympathetic characters and others wealthy characters are either villains (Gabriel) or rich bitches (Chloé and her mother).
  • The slightest act of selfishness coming from the heroes is immediately and severely punished, especially when their powers are used for personal gain. When Marinette changes into Ladybug to deliver a present to Adrien, it triggers the apocalypse and has to be undone via Time Travel. When she chooses Kagami over Chloé as a miraculous wielder to interrupt the date the first had with Adrien, Chloé turns against Ladybug. When Adrien tries to abuse the snake powers to woo Ladybug, he just fails to save her. It can concern others characters as well. Kagami knows that pursuing Adrien will cost her her only friend, Marinette, but she is ready to take the risk if it means having Adrien all for herself. They break up only three episodes later, Adrien not being at all the kind of boyfriend she had in mind. Kagami would have lost Marinette's friendship as well if it wasn't for the latter's good nature.
  • Expecting a "perfect solution" to your problems can hurt others. Gabriel wants the happy family he had back, but believes that the only solution is to bring his wife back from the dead with what is essentially a human sacrifice. This mentality is reflected in all his akuma victims, who become villains when they get caught up in a problem and think accepting superpowers in a deal with Hawk Moth is the only solution. However, Ladybug and Cat Noir usually help the villain come up with a more grounded solution after the fight is done, teaching viewers that what you can do is work with others to find a solution that, while not always perfect, is much more realistic and benefits everyone. In "Re-creation", Marinette ultimately spells this out to Gabriel when he asks her to make the wish, telling him that he should have just tried to appreciate what family he had left instead of chasing a wish that would have ultimately cost someone else their life.
• Aesop Amnesia: Chloé. Quite often it's her own actions that result in the Monster of the Week appearing, and she needs Ladybug and Cat Noir to save her. No matter how many times this happens she never seems to learn her lesson. One notable episode sees her literally begging for help and swearing to be nice forever, only to have her immediately rescind her vow to be nice once Ladybug saves her. Her attitude has a temporary upswing in Season 2, but by the end of Season 3 she's backslidden hard into her previous Alpha Bitch characterization.
  Chloé: [thrown through the air] Ah, I promise I'll be nice, be polite, just someone please save— ah! [Ladybug dives in and saves her at the last second] ...I didn't promise.
• Affectionate Nickname: Cat Noir likes to address his fighting partner Ladybug as "Milady". When she's feeling playful, Ladybug sometimes calls her partner chaton or minou – "Kitty" in the English dub.
• Age-Appropriate Angst: People targeted by Hawk Moth usually get akumatized over problems that are fitting for their age: adult characters face issues like losing their jobs unfairly or having their families frustrated with them, while little kids get upset at being denied toys or candy. For teenagers, the angst tends to revolve around romantic relationships.
• All Animals Are Dogs: Jagged Stone's pet crocodile acts exactly like a dog — wagging its tail when happy, lolling its tongue, rolling on its back for a belly rub, etc.
• All-CGI Cartoon: The entire cartoon is rendered in 3D CGI, to be precise. Only a few of the shorts, and a few fantasy sequences aren't in CGI.
• All Love Is Unrequited:
  • Adrien, being oblivious to his own crush on her (and her own words to him usually don't help), noticeably refers to Marinette as simply being his friend; and in an ironic twist, Ladybug doesn't reciprocate Cat Noir's advances.
  • Chloé constantly hits on Adrien, who gently rebuffs her advances since they're Just Friends and a few times she's pushed his buttons by being a Jerkass.
  • Nino and Nathaniel have developed crushes on Marinette in different episodes, but she doesn't reciprocate. Nino's quickly evaporates, especially when he starts dating Alya after going on a date with Marinette that an akuma interrupts.
  • Adrien also attracted Lila, who he finds hard to rebuff because she's so pushy and lies about being friends with Ladybug.
  • Subverted with Ivan and Mylène, who got together during the Origins episodes and have, chronologically, been dating throughout the whole show.
  • Kim gets rejected by Chloé in "Dark Cupid". In a later episode, he accidentally rejects Ondine's attraction before she could confess. By the end of this episode, Ondine and Kim do start dating.
  • Kagami also seems to have some attraction for Adrien, as she suggests he "changes target" after his latest rejection. She also says that she will be there when he's ready. They later become a short-lived couple, because Adrien can't give up his secret love of Ladybug.
  • Penny seems to have a thing for Jagged Stone, but while he values his assistant's work, there's no indication he's noticed this about her.
  • Nathalie seems to have romantic feelings for Gabriel, in spite of how he's a supervillain for the purpose of reviving his comatose wife that he won't let go of - or even, because of his determination to do this.
• All Myths Are True: There's implications that a lot of mythological or even famous historical figures just had a Miraculous. For example, Herakles had one and Joan of Arc had the Ladybug Miraculous. Also, Atlantis and dragons both used to exist but Plagg somehow managed to cause their total destruction. They can also neatly explain myths which aren't true - the Loch Ness Monster doesn't actually exist, because it was an illusion Trixx did for a prank.
• All There in the Manual:
  • Several kwamis' Trademark Favorite Foods were revealed in a set of fridge magnets before they appeared in the show proper. Wayzz likes lettuce, Duusu likes seeds, Longg likes dragonfruit, Mullo likes cheese, Nooroo likes either nectar or the whole flower, Pollen likes honeycomb, Sass likes gummi worms, and Xuppu likes bananas.
  • The Miraculous Secrets trading card game includes character facts that haven't come up in the show yet, such as Adrien's bodyguard's name being Placide I.T. and Zoe's friend in New York being Jessica Keynes. These facts include things that have since been confirmed in the show proper, like Gabriel's real name being Gabi Grassette and Lila's real name not being Lila.
• Almost Kiss:
  • Ladybug and Cat Noir go through a series of these moments in "Dark Cupid", as Cat Noir has been corrupted by the villain's Hate Plague and Ladybug is invoking True Love's Kiss to cure him. She finally manages to pin him down near the end.
  • Adrien and Marinette also have this moment when acting for a student film in "Horrificator".
• Alpha Bitch: Chloé is an exaggerated Type 1, but it's played-with in that even though she is powerful, she is also very unpopular. She is also responsible (directly or indirectly) for most of the akumatized villains.
  • Lila seems to be being set up as this as of the 3rd season, being a more deceitful example who is far more popular than Chloé and is actually being set up as Ladybug's nemesis, to the point where she purposefully re-akumatized herself for a second time.
• Alternate Continuity: The 2017 Adventures comics, the 2021 manga adaptation, and the 2022 Awakening film are standalone canon but are not canon to the TV show.^note United Heroez is an adaptation of a major plot from the comics, while the manga is a Pragmatic Adaptation of the first season, and the movie is a re-imagining of Origins.
• Always Identical Twins: The work has two pairs of identical twins: Alya's younger sisters Etta and Ella, and Adrien's Emilie and aunt Amelie. Following the latter, Amelie gave birth to a cousin, Félix, who very strongly resembles Adrien.
• Ambiguously Brown: Some of the darker-skinned supporting characters (such as Alya and Nino) are this in the show proper, with their ethnicities never being brought up. According to the creator, Alya's family is from Martinique while Nino's is from Morocco.
• Amateur Film-Making Plot:
  • "Horrificator" is set up by the students needing to put together a horror film, and scaredy-cat Mylène is turned into the titular Monster of the Week.
  • "Queen Banana" highly revolves around the class making a superhero film, with the aid of Astruc and Mayor Bourgeois.
• Anachronic Order: How the Season 1 storyline come off, because of each broadcaster airing in a different order. There is a timeline to the show that can be gleaned from minor details (e.g. dates on news broadcasts), but for the most part, the episodes are pretty self-contained except for relationship and Character Development between episodes. This is most apparent with Jagged Stone's appearances, as his last episode in Season 1 was presented as if it were his introduction despite him being akumatised one episode prior. The Christmas special is set somewhere in the middle of season 1, i.e. two months before the Valentine's Day episode. Nathalie mentions that it's Adrien's first Christmas without his mother, and the Origins episodes take place in September at the beginning of the school year. On Netflix, the episodes are placed in a rough chronological order with the Origins episodes now placed in the middle of Season 1. Season 2 seems to return to a more linear story order.
• Animalistic Abilities: A variant, in that the powers of the Miraculouses tend to be based on the symbolic meanings of the animals they represent, rather than abilities the animals actually possess. For example, the Ladybug Miraculous grants its wielder the power of good luck in the form of Lucky Charm, while the Black Cat Miraculous grants the power of bad luck in the form of Cataclysm.
• Animesque: Despite being a 3D-animated series, the visual humor and character designs emphasize large eyes and a cutesy aesthetic, indulging in many anime tropes, particularly Magical Girl tropes and general shoujo tropes.
• Antagonist Title: For the first four seasons, the majority of episodes are named after the week's Akuma or Sentimonster, and even Mayura and Félix are important antagonists of their respective episodes, if briefly in the former case. This convention is switched up for one-word concepts much like those of the kwamis in season five.
• Archnemesis Dad: In "The Collector", Gabriel is revealed to be Hawk Moth, making him this to Adrien/Cat Noir.
• Are We Getting This?: Alya Césaire is the living embodiment of this trope. Since she's running an amateur news blog, Alya is reporter and camerawoman at the same time, so she doesn't spell the trope out but has a knee-jerk reaction of go recording Akuma attacks. It's often at the cost of personal safety, even if she learns to be less reckless with time. In "The Pharaoh", she approaches the Monster of the Week to interview him for her viewer's sake. She's also very willing to continue her livestream and excitedly comments on the facts even as she's being kidnapped by the Akuma to be sacrificed.
• Artifact of Hope:
  • The Miraculous are a collection of magical accessories created by a Chinese mage five-thousand years in the past to allow kwamis to interact with humanity. Those who wear them can transform into an Animal-Themed Superbeing and use their powers for heroism. The Order of the Guardians were created in order to prevent the miraculous from falling into evil hands, something that becomes a grim reality when Gabriel Agreste uses the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous to terrorize Paris.
  • Taking the trope a step further, the Prodigious from "The Legend of Lady Dragon" is a magical necklace that harnesses the powers of the Renlings, a race of kwami-like beings who embody the virtues of justice, calmness, compassion, confidence, honor, patience, courage and discipline. The necklace allows the user to transform into a different animal that corresponds with each virtue, thus its user must be an Embodiment of Virtue to wield it to its fullest potential.
• Artistic License – Education: In-Universe, Damocles fears the Mayor’s reprisal if Chloé ever gets into trouble and thus bows to her will at every opportunity. In real life, the mayor doesn't have real power over the school. If he does something to the school, he can be ousted for corruption or it might cause a major scandal (which is actually brought up in "Malediktator", when Mayor Bourgeois tells his wife and daughter that the most he could do is close the school for a few days).
• Artistic License – Engineering: Everytime a video gets deleted from a smartphone, the characters and narrative great it as irretrievably lost. The notion that the videos could be restored from the trash folder never gets brought up. Especially egregious in Félix, wherein the titular character deletes a video that was sent by email, and could presumably be viewed in trash or resent.
• Artistic License – Geography: Although the Parisian landmarks and their surroundings are rather faithfully reproduced, their positions relative to one another can vary wildly depending on the needs of the plot.
  • The Ferris wheel that appears in some episodes, known as Roue de Paris, was actually in Paris only from 2000 to 2002. It has been traveling the world since then.
• Artistic License – Law:
  • Odd given that the show is made in France, but in Rogercop it's overlooked that (at least at the time the episode came out) the Mayor of Paris has absolutely no authority over the police (including, quite obviously, no power to fire them)... and as a Paris cop himself, Roger should be well aware of this. The Paris Police Prefecture, due to the city's importance as the nation's capital, are part of the National Police and answer to the Minister of the Interior.
  • D'Argencourt unsuccessfully challenged André Bourgeois in the mayoral elections, garnering the votes of only a small percentage of Parisians. In real life, however, Parisians don't vote for their mayor directly, and the Council of Paris instead elects the Mayor of Paris from among its members. Moreover, a prerequisite for sitting on the Council of Paris is being elected to an arrondissement (administrative district) council. There's no mention of D'Argencourt being a member of the Council of Paris or an arrondissement council, though, and him continuing to work as a P.E. and fencing teacher seems to outright refute that.
• Artistic License – Physics:
  • In "Robostus", Markov, Max's robot, gains the ability to take control of all machines in the city. This not only means controlling their actions, but giving them the power to move independently, float, or even fly despite lacking any means to do so.
  • In the Dark Owl episode, the villain apparently has a device capable of freezing the base of the Eiffel Tower to a temperature of -700 degrees. That's far below absolute zero, on any temperature scale! Then again, it is a bluff.
• Art Shift: "Copycat" has Marinette make a horrified Imagine Spot of Adrien managing to track his phone (that she stole to erase an embarrassing voice message she accidentally sent, causing her to fear she'll "...spend the rest of my life in jail and worse I'll never get to go to the movies with Adrien."), which goes beyond even Miraculous Ladybug's Animesque tendencies by being literally four black-and-white panels in a Shoujo manga style dropping down on the screen one after another.

B

• Bad "Bad Acting": The student film Marinette and her classmates try to make in "Horrificator" is rife with wooden acting and awkward movements.
• Bad Future: The episode "Cat Blanc" involves a future where Adrien learns Ladybug's identity, reveals his own to Hawk Moth in order to protect her, gets akumatized into the titular villain, and sets off a Cataclysm so powerful, it presumably killed the entire population of Paris, leaving him as its sole resident.
• Bad Powers, Good People: Cat Noir. Beyond his cat-themed abilities, his power set revolves around bad luck, destruction and decay. Definitely not the typical powers for a hero. His Cataclysm attack literally rots away the first thing he touches after triggering it. In "Dark Cupid", a brainwashed Cat Noir tries to touch a person, saying he always wondered what would happen if it is used on a living being. However, in "Dearest Family," it's shown that Tikki has such a dangerous addiction to sweets to the point that she creates gigantic galette as a Lucky Charm without a channeled user, which nearly destroys Paris. Platts explicitly states "there is a reason there is also a kwami of Destruction."
• Bait-and-Switch: Season 2 revealing that there are more Miraculous pieces beyond the main seven, but just based on the Chinese Zodiac seemed to kill fan theories of any Miraculouses outside of them, only for Season 3 to reveal that Master Fu's Miraculous Box is only one of many, the rest having been lost to time but returned to the present day within the same episode that this is revealed. The New York Special then revealed that at least one more Miraculous (in addition to the Butterfly and Peacock) has been lost throughout history.
• Balking Summoned Spirit: In the Season 5 Finale, Monarch manages to summon Gimmi, the Kwami of Reality. She immediately gripes about being summoned, noting that mortals always want something from her and it's always something big.
• Batman Gambit:
  • When one of Kung Food's minions, the Brainwashed and Crazy mayor, is about to steal Cat Noir's ring, Ladybug shows off several yo-yo moves and says the mayor can't do that. He takes up the challenge with a string of sausages, and brings a chandelier down on himself.
  • Ladybug defeats the Mime by projecting a poster for a show, the source of his anger, onto the Eiffel Tower, and getting him so worked up that he sliced it in half without thinking. He then had to use his abilities to stop the tower from falling on him, leaving him unable to stop her from snatching his akuma.
  • The Dark Owl's plan to take Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculouses revolved around the fact that they wouldn't allow any innocent creature, even a single kitten, to be harmed. He's completely right, and succeeds in making them use their special powers before maneuvering them into a Death Trap and demanding their Miraculous in exchange for their lives. He's ultimately foiled by the fact that he wasn't expecting Ladybug/Marinette to have a set of fake Miraculous with her, which she used to distract him while she and Cat fed their kwamis and re-transformed.
  • In Kwamibuster, Marinette's plan revolves around exploiting Cat Noir's blind trust in Ladybug to borrow his Miraculous, and Hawk Moth's ambition to get the Miraculous (and the Kwamis) at any cost to get all the Kwamis captured to reach Tikki and Plagg.
• Battle Butler: Nathalie. Especially when she is Mayura, Hawk Moth's helper.
• Battle Couple:
  • Played with by Marinette/Ladybug and Adrien/Cat Noir. They technically reciprocate each other's feelings in a Two-Person Love Triangle involving their own alter egos, but they're not an item. They do, however, trust each other unconditionally and take down akuma as a team (not to mention the prodigious amounts of Ship Tease from their fights). In-universe, they're widely assumed to be a couple already.
  • In Season 2, Nino and Alya become this when they transform into Carapace and Rena Rouge, respectively.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Adrien only wanted a birthday party like a normal boy, something his father wouldn't give him. Fortunately the Bubbler, being Nino, was willing to oblige Adrien, at the cost of taking his classmates hostage, forcing them to party, and banishing anyone that pulled a droopy face. Adrien regrets his Moment of Weakness in trying to enjoy the party before stopping the Bubbler as Cat Noir, though fortunately everything wrapped up in a positive note.
• Been There, Shaped History: Plagg was single-handedly responsible for the disappearance of Atlantis, the extinction of the dinosaurs and why the Leaning Tower of Pisa is leaning. He's later said to also be responsible for the extinction of dragons.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: The Miraculous have been around for thousands of years, and in the Origins we get a glimpse of some of their wielders, including St. George and Joan of Arc. Even the Egyptian exhibit had mention of them.
• Befriending the Bullied: "Origins" reveals that Marinette, who had been bullied by Chloe for years, was defended by new student Alya on the first day of 9th grade. The two became fast friends, and Alya ends up being the reason Marinette took up the Ladybug mantle in the first place.
• Beleaguered Assistant:
  • Nathalie, for Adrien's father. She's tasked with keeping an eye on Adrien and remembering to buy him a birthday gift. She was also Adrien's tutor before he went to school.
  • Penny to Jagged Stone. In "Troublemaker", the stress of the job is what gets her akumatized.
• Beta Bitch: Sabrina plays this role to Chloé.
• Beta Couple: Alya and Nino, the heroes' best friends, start dating early in the show and act as a foil to Marinette and Adrien with their relatively uncomplicated, long-lasting, and honest relationship.
• Betty and Veronica: There are two examples of this.
  • Marinette-Luka-Adrien Love Triangle. Marinette here is the Archie, Luka is Betty (just a typical French teenager) and Adrien is Veronica (in the "exotic" sense - he is a famous person).
  • Adrien-Marinette/Ladybug-Kagami - this Love Triangle has two different versions. In both cases Adrien is the Archie.
    • If Marinette is her civilian self, she's the Betty and Kagami is the Veronica (both in the "exotic" way and in the "Ice Queen" way, but only in the earlier episodes), however there is a slight Betty and Veronica Switch - Marinette sometimes is Cute and Psycho, and Kagami is the "nicer" girl.
    • If Marinette is Ladybug, she's the Veronica, and Kagami is Betty.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Gabriel Argeste, as Hawk Moth and later Shadow Moth and Monarch, appeared as the evil mastermind behind all of Paris's supernatural problems. Then he is joined by Lila Rossi, who deliberately helps him in his agenda to see her own goal to make Marinette (and Ladybug) suffer. But then Gabriel fires Lila and she plots against him in the second half of Season 5, escalating the conflict between the heroes and Gabriel in the process through her manipulation.
• Big Damn Kiss: Downplayed ans Played with as it happens in an overwhelmingly tearful mood instead of a rejoicing one. Marinette & Adrien have already started dating by this point, but their Parting Kiss is nonetheless displayed that way, with the camera endlessly spinning around them until the two get forcefuly separated and Adrien's father private jet takes off. Probably also counts as a Downplayed Now or Never Kiss.
• Big Fancy House: The Agreste mansion is huge, and it only houses Gabriel, Adrien, and their employees. Adrien feels suitably lonely and constrained in it. In fact, its emptiness and stark black, white, and gray design are deliberately contrasted with Marinette's smaller, brightly-colored home and loving family.
• Big "NO!": "Timebreaker" has quite a few, namely Timebreaker's response to the watch being broken the second time and Ladybug's response to Alya and Cat Noir being frozen in time.
• Bilingual Bonus: If you're watching the non-French dub, most of the text in the show is untranslated and offers little details non-French readers would miss.
• Bilingual Dialogue: "Kung Food" features Marinette's Chinese great-uncle, whose Mandarin is better than his French. Because Marinette can't speak it, Alya enlists Adrien to act as a translator. Ship Tease ensues.
• Birthday Episode:
  • "The Bubbler" is about Adrien's birthday and his lack of a party.
  • Several other episodes mention people's birthdays, mostly as a throw-away line, at least in the English dub. For instance, the Evillustrator asks Marinette out on a date for his birthday.
  • "Befana" is on Marinette's birthday, where her grandmother returns after a long time and doesn't realize how much she's grown.
  • "Zombizou" takes place of Miss Bustier's birthday. She gets akumatized when she fears one of her students is about to be the target (and Marinette almost was).
  • "Sandboy" takes place on Nooroo's birthday, who has turned 3500 cycles (which is explicitly different from years).
• A Birthday, Not a Break:
  • Ironically, because it's his birthday, Adrien's friend Nino gets turned into the Bubbler over righteous fury about Adrien not being allowed to have a party. Adrien takes it in stride until he realizes all of the party-goers are being coerced.
  • Nathaniel, Alix, and Ms. Bustier all got akumatised on their birthdays.
  • Marinette's grandmother Gina gets akumatised on Marinette's birthday.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: People corrupted by Hawk Moth's akuma take on the villain identity Hawk Moth gives them, declaring their former selves to be gone. Many of these victims often share similar traits through Mook Maker abilities.
  • The Pharaoh can convert people into loyal mummies.
  • Darkblade has the power to brainwash anyone with his sword and convert them into armored mooks.
  • Kung Food turns the people that ate his soup into mindless slaves, who pose a threat to Ladybug and Cat Noir.
  • Princess Fragrance can turn anyone into her servants if she sprays them with her perfume. They also speak in singsong.
  • Dark Cupid turns people's love into unquestionable hatred.
  • The Puppeteer can take control of anyone whose puppet she has. She briefly turns Alya, Nathaniel, and Officer Roger back into their respective akumatised forms, possesses Cat Noir and almost takes over Ladybug.
  • Simon Says has the power to make anyone do as he says, taking control of dozens of civilians.
  • Stoneheart doesn't come with this power, but due to his akuma not being purified when freed the first time, it multiplies and akumatises several civilians into matching, but frozen, copies. When Ivan is re-akumatised, all those clones come to life and follow his orders.
  • Befana could turn people she considered good into angelic servants.
  • Zombizou has a zombie-like power that whoever gets touched by her lipstick kiss becomes singularly obsessed with kissing anyone not already infected, which also spreads the power.
• Brand X: The main network, TV1, have a logo that look very much like the real-life main French network TF1◊ (which also runs the series in France).
• Brought Down to Normal: Whenever the Villain of the Week is de-akumatized by Ladybug at the end of the episode.
• Bruce Wayne Held Hostage:
  • "Gorizilla" has the akumatized bodyguard hold on to Adrien for most of the episode. This leads to a point where Adrien is falling off the roof and Hawk Moth expects Cat Noir to appear. In the end, he orders Gorizilla to release Ladybug so she can save Adrien. Note that Hawk Moth had begun to suspect Adrien was Cat Noir, so he was explicitly holding him to either force him to transform or have Cat Noir show up and definitively prove they were separate people.
  • Adrien is also the first victim of Style Queen, forcing Plagg to team up with Ladybug directly.
  • Marinette is imprisoned by her akumatized father in "Weredad" to try to protect her from a broken heart.
• Bugs Herald Evil: The akumas, butterflies corrupted by Hawk Moth, will seek out ailing people and evil-ize them.
• Building Swing: Ladybug gets around Paris in this fashion, along with Roof Hopping. So does Queen Bee, when she gets her powers.
• …But He Sounds Handsome: After sending a picture of her civilian self to Cat in "Evillustrator," Ladybug comments that she's "really cute, isn't she?" Inverted by Cat Noir in "Oni-chan", where he expresses his confusion that some girls are fighting over his civilian self instead of him.
• By the Power of Grayskull!: The Miraculouses requires a line to activate (and can also be deactivated early with a similar line). In the French, they are all "transforme-moi" ("détransformation" to change back)^note "Transform me" and "Detransformation," respectively. In the English dub, though, they each have a unique line:
  • Ladybug: "Tikki, spots on!"/"Spots off."
  • Cat: "Plagg, claws out!"/"Claws in."
  • Butterfly: "Nooroo, dark wings rise!"/"Dark wings fall."
  • Fox: "Trixx, let's pounce!"/"Let's rest."
  • Turtle: "Wayzz, shell on!"/"Shell off."
  • Bee: "Pollen, buzz on!"/"Buzz off."
  • Rabbit: "Fluff, clockwise!"/"Counterclockwise."
  • Dragon: "Longg, bring the storm!"/"Open sky."
  • Monkey: "Xuppu, showtime!"/"Nap time."
  • Peacock: "Duusu, spread my feathers!"/"Fall my feathers."
  • Snake: "Sass, scales slither!"/"Scales rest."
  • Horse: "Kaalki, full gallop!"/"Dismount."
  • Mouse: "Mullo, get squeaky!"/ "Unsqueak."
  • Eagle: "Liiri, wings of liberty!"/???
  • Pig: "Daizzi, rejoice!"/???
  • Tiger: "Roaar, stripes on!"/"Stripes off."
  • Dog: "Barkk, on the hunt!"/"Lay down."

C

• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Any time Ladybug or Cat Noir get Green-Eyed Monster and act on their jealousy, karma comes to bite them in the form of a new akuma.
• Casanova Wannabe: Cat Noir, in contrast to his civilian identity. Marinette explicitly tells Alya that Cat Noir is too much of a goofball to be Adrien when Alya notes some physical similarities, and she doesn't like Cat's Large Ham tendencies. Even Chloé, when Cat Noir was on bodyguard duty, didn't notice the benefits of having a hero around in a skintight catsuit; she merely bugged him to do her physics homework.
• Cassandra Truth: Marinette, whenever Lila is involved. It comes down to a combination of factors: Lila is such a talented, charismatic liar that she's able to keep her composure and easily alter her stories when confronted with with contradictory evidence; Marinette gets so angry that she quickly loses her composure and falls back into just screaming "She's lying! Why can't you see she's lying?!" which makes her seem irrational; and the people who know about Marinette and Lila's shared crush on Adrien (pretty much everyone but Adrien himself) attributes Marinette's behavior to jealousy.
• Cell Phones Are Useless:
  • Played straight in "Horrificator", the cell phones lose coverage when the building is covered in goo by Horrificator. Nino lampshades it as a common horror trope.
  • Inverted in "Lady Wifi", as the villain's powers are based on her cell phone's wifi abilities so it's necessary to figure out how to block the signal in order to stop her.
  • Played straight again in "Oblivio". Marinette and Adrien lose their memories and would be able to contact their friends for help if their cell phone batteries weren't almost dead, though the batteries hold out just enough for them to contact Master Fu and remember enough to handle the Villain of the Week themselves.
  • In the special Miraculous World: New York, Marinette tries to convince Adrien, who is compelled to leave for Paris, to stay. She wants to call him, but her battery is dead.
  • Averted in Optigami, where Marinette had for once enough in her battery to call for help as Adrien and her are stuck in an elevator.
• Central Theme: A fairly understated one is that keeping secrets is absolutely vital. Whenever one of the heroes’ secrets gets out, Hawk Moth attains some form of advantage that only makes things worse. It gets more pronounced in Cat Blanc and Ephemeral, where The Bad Guy Wins because Marinette and Adrien share their secrets.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Each subsequent season is darker in tone and more plot-focused than the last. Season 1 is almost entirely episodic and focuses on the main characters and their schoolmates' everyday troubles, with very little in the way of an ongoing Myth Arc. By season 5, villain plots regularly trend towards the genuinely manipulative and violent, themes of familial abuse and dysfunction are depicted much more explicitly, and even Breather Episodes tie into the ongoing storyline.
• Character Title: Besides the show's actual title, in the French and English versions each episode (save the first Origins Episode) is named after the villain fought in that episode. Up until season five that is.
• Chekhov's Army: Because any character that shows up is bound to be akumatized, everyone could be relevant for this.
• Chekhov's Lecture:
  • In "Dark Cupid," Miss Bustier talks about how True Love's Kiss often works as a curse-breaker in several fairy tales. Guess how Ladybug later cures Cat Noir of Dark Cupid's Hate Plague?
  • In "Princess Fragrance," Miss Mendeliev lectures the class on the flammability of Rose's perfume. Good thing Princess Fragrance unleashes her attack near a boat full of fireworks.
• Christmas Episode: "Santa Claws" is set at Christmas time, and features a Bad Santa as the Villain of the Week.
• Child Soldiers: Master Fu specifically says that the temple that kept the miraculous’ gave them entirely to children rather than adults, and he carries on the tradition in Paris. Deconstructed with his example since, ironically, the temple giving them to his young self caused their destruction for over a century because they handed the Peacock Miraculous to a boy that resented what he was put through for training.
• Clark Kenting:
  • Played straight with Marinette/Ladybug, as her only differences are lighter hair/eyes. Adrien's transformation puts more effort into it, changing his hairstyle and eye color (his sclera turn green!). It's also played straight with the more obvious villains of the week (eg. Lady Wifi), whom the heroes still have trouble recognizing.
  • Averted with Queen Bee. In her first episode, she transforms in front of a bunch of people, and later tells all of Paris her true identity.
• Climactic Battle:
  • In the 2-part "Heroes Day" finale of Season 2, Hawk Moth transforms into Scarlet Moth; Ladybug and Cat Noir enlist the help of Alya, Nino and Chloé, who help to fight Scarlet Moth as Rena Rouge, Carapace, and Queen Bee to save Paris.
  • Conformation (in Season Five) consists of Marinette having to fight Monarch all alone with both the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous while Adrien and Kagami are held in cells in London.
• Clingy Costume: When Lady Wifi attempts to unmask Ladybug, she finds that her mask is stuck to her face.
  Lady Wifi: Why won't it come off?!
  Ladybug: Uh... Because it's magic?
• Color-Coded Secret Identity: Downplayed. Marinette's colour scheme is mainly pink and blue, but her rolled up sleeves show polka dots and she wears red hair ties. Alya's hair and shirt are orange, the same as Rena Rouge's colour scheme. Chloé has blonde hair and wears a yellow jacket with black and white stripes on her shirt, referencing Queen Bee. Adrien wears a white shirt but has a black T-shirt with 4 stripes to go with his black cat costume.
• Color Motif: The Miraculouses, first seen with seven main kwami since the season 2 opening.
  • Tikki/Ladybug and Scarabella are red.
  • Plagg/Cat Noir is black.
  • Trixx/Rena Rouge is orange.
  • Pollen/Queen Bee and Vesperia are yellow.
  • Wayzz/Carapace is green.
  • Duusu/Mayura and Argos are blue.
  • While Nooroo/Hawk Moth is purple, Shadow Moth is indigo (due to using the Peacock Miraclous) and Monarch is purple with black (Reflecting the various Miraclouses in his possession).
• Cool Airship: In the PV, Hawk Moth goes around Paris in a giant blimp (with the butterfly motif, of course). No sign of it in the final product, where Hawk Moth/Monarch is a Non-Action Big Bad who seldom shows up in person.
• Combat Parkour: Pursuing akumas across Parisian rooftops has Ladybug and Cat Noir adapting their usual parkour into fighting.
• Comes Great Responsibility: Marinette gets hit with this hard when using her Lucky Charm to get the Alpha Bitch Chloé away from Adrien instead of using it to stop the titular villain in "The Bubbler". She loses energy on her transformation and has to power down to civilian form to recharge. Tikki calls her out for this, and for taking the time to pen her signature on a birthday gift to Adrien.
• Comically Missing the Point: Jagged Stone tells Ladybug about his stalker, who goes to all of his concerts, digs through his trash, and followed Jagged Stone's mother to her weekly poker game. She comments how creepy that is and he objects, thinking she means the poker game.
• Comic-Book Time: The passage of time is very inconsistent throughout the seasons. Holidays get referenced that would indicate the passage of a year or two, such as the celebration of Valentine's day in the season 1 episode, Dark Cupid," and the celebration of King's Day (January 6th) in the season 4 episode "Dear Family," but Marinette and Adrien only have one birthday each, the school year never seems to end, and season 5's references to Adrien's sheltered past state that he's only attended public school for a few months.
• Compulsive Liar: Lila Rossi, who is always telling lies to people, namely making her life more exciting and grandiose than it actually is, to make people like her. When Ladybug calls her out on it, instead of seeking to change this, she develops a grudge against her, along with anyone else who calls her a liar, no matter how gently they tell her off.
• Crash-Into Hello: How Ladybug and Cat Noir first meet; she was still trying out her powers when she crashed into him and accidentally got the two of them tangled in her yo-yo string.
• Create Your Own Villain: A recurring theme throughout and usually the case when Chloé isn't responsible for getting someone akumatised. Unlike most examples though, it's usually fixed by the end of the episode.
  • The most direct and permanent example of this is Lila Rossi. Before meeting Ladybug she was just a very convincing pathological liar, more of a nuisance than a real threat. After being outed as a liar by Ladybug though she willingly goes along with Hawk Moth and will actively seek out an akuma for the chance to take a shot at Ladybug. Possibly played even straighter with the implication that Lila is going to become Hawk Moth in the future.
• Creative Closing Credits: The end credits for "Santa Claws" have snowflakes falling in the foreground, with a seasonal arrangement of the theme tune.
• Credits Running Sequence: The end of the opening credits for the first season has the two heroes running, with the kwamis flying around.
• Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: Akumatized victims almost always have a red stained patch around their eyes. A handful of corner cases^note Catalyst and Chameleon (akumatized with consent rather than a Moment of Weakness) lack the eye patches, while Startrain (akumatized by accident, far outside Hawk Moth's range) has them, and Qilin gains them long before Shadow Moth decides to akumatize her suggest that this coloration represents their negative emotions.
• Crippling Overspecialization: The Guardians are trained in MiracKung Fu, a martial arts style designed specifically for ordinary humans to defeat Miraculous holders if they should become evil or go rogue. However, these techniques are wholly ineffectual against other kinds of superhumans, including Akumatized supervillains.
• Curse Cut Short: In "Horrificator", the show deliberately leaves out a couple of choice words from the "Smelly Wolf" song.
  Ladybug: Smelly wolf, smelly wolf, trapped in a stinky hut
  Everyone: Smelly wolf, smelly wolf, I'm going to kick your — [cuts to Rose clapping her garbage can lid-cymbals together]

D

• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: When Adrien is transformed into a gold statue and trapped inside an impervious shield by Style Queen and thus, depriving Ladybug of her partner, Plagg offers to take his place, only for Master Fu to forbid it, reminding Plagg of the disasters that happened each time Plagg used Cataclycsm personally. Apparently, a Kwami using their special power directly makes it many times more potent, hence the need for a human bearer, to soften the effect. But he comes to Ladybug's aid anyway and while the resulting Cataclysm blast does break the shield, it also cuts the Eiffel Tower in half, causing it to fall towards the city below. Streets and buildings continue to crack, the destruction spreading... Fortunately, Plagg had planned for Ladybug's Lucky Charm power to undo the damage he knew would result.
  • During "Kwamibuster," Marinette puts on every Miraculous in the miracle box to call out their kwamis as bait for the titular villain after losing Tikki. Master Fu tries to dissuade her, warning that using the power of so many Miraculous at once could drive her insane. Marinette placates him by telling him that she only intends to use one; however, she nearly collapses after transforming, suggesting that just wearing that many Miraculouses at once is having a negative effect. At the end of the episode, Master Fu comments that he has never heard of anyone wielding as many Miraculous as Marinette did in this episode and coming out unscathed.
• Dangerous Phlebotinum Interaction: While it is possible to wear and use more than one miraculous at once, it is seldom done because the sheer power of more than one miraculous can strain the wielder, eventually driving them mad. If more than one miraculous is wielded, it's usually only with one other in a procedure known as fusion. The fact that Marinette could wear as many as 7 at once and withstand any ill effects is noted by Master Fu to be remarkable. And Monarch developed a resistence to use about five additional Miraclous powers at a time.
• Dark Is Evil: Hawk Moth spends his time standing in a dark room, is decked out in a dark purple suit, and imbues his white butterflies with black and purple energy to corrupt them. As Monarch, his suit's coloring becomes dark purple and black.
• Dark Is Not Evil:
  • Cat Noir wears dark clothing and is also able to destroy stuff by touching it, but he is Ladybug's crime-fighting partner. A Grumpy Old Man later declares this to be confusing.
  • Ladybug's color theme (and also when you put the duo together) are red and black, classic villain colors.
• Dark Reprise: A darker rendition of the main theme plays when Hawk Moth's Transformation Sequence is revealed in "Gorizilla".
• Darker and Edgier:
  • Season 2 reveals a lot of details regarding the backstory of the Miraculouses and what would happen if Hawk Moth were to win. Neither are particularly pleasant.
  • Season 4 seems to border on a deconstruction, with Hawk Moth getting an upgrade into Shadow Moth and becoming a much more dangerous foe along with it, even coming close to finding out Marinette’s identity more than once.
  • Season 5 is arguably the darkest season yet, with Monarch being Nigh-Invulnerable and also explicitly slowly dying as a consequence of deliberately taking a Cataclysm from Cat Noir to escape a trap set for him by Ladybug, with it being made just as explicit that Nathalie is headed the same way due to the damage she did to herself by using the Peacock Miraculous when it was still broken, and the Akumas of the day being stronger as a result of having Miraculous powers transferred into them. The character focused episodes tend to be more dramatic, Chloé and Lila being at their worst with the former's history with Marinette revealed and the latter starting to act against Monarch for her own agenda.
• A Day in the Limelight: The Akumatizations serve as this for the minor characters; before they get Akumatized the audience generally learns something about their family lives, personalities, or motivations. "Antibug" is this for Chloé in particular in that she first gets tormented by the episode's first Akumatized person (who does not become Antibug), and in the second act becomes the title villain herself.
• Deadly Force Field: In the episode "Anansi", Nino - now Carapace via the Turtle Miraculous - activates the power "Shellter" for the first time to create a Beehive Barrier around him, Alya and Cat Noir, cutting through the webbing that has them all trapped.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Invoked in "The Bubbler." When the Bubbler traps Ladybug and Cat Noir in a bubble and goes on a Motive Rant about parents never being there for their kids, Ladybug, who has Good Parents, says that parents are only trying to protect their kids and love them. Cat Noir, whose father practices Parental Neglect, agrees with the Bubbler that not all parents are Good Parents, but that doesn't mean that you have to punish them all by default.
• Destroy the Villain's Weapon: Once per Episode, this is how the akumized villain is weakened before Ladybug de-evilizes them.
• Deus ex Machina: Invoked with Ladybug's Lucky Charm, which produces an item that will solve whatever crisis she's dealing with. Also Downplayed, as she has no idea what item will pop up and has to figure out how to put it to use (frequently with other things) to keep some dramatic tension instead of immediately fixing up the plot with the Lucky Charm. There are also times where she decides she has to waste it on less important tasks.
• Died in Ignorance: Gabriel/Hawk Moth/Monarch dies to the Equivalent Exchange of his wish without learning that his son Adrien was one of the superheroes who opposed him. (He had previously learned this two different times, but both times led to the destruction of the world followed by a Cosmic Retcon to undo the events that led to this discovery.) Also, he had no idea that Lila was plotting against him to get his Miraculous for herself and suceeded.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage:
  • Ladybug casually whistles the show's theme song after taking out four akumatized villains and a possessed Cat Noir single-handedly.
  • Jagged Stone's piece at the end of "Pixelator" is a piano rendition of the song that plays at the end of every episode, which is the instrumental of the theme tune.
  • Nightingale's music video is the theme song, this time with lyrics.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Most akuma victims pull this. Get told off by a police officer for feeding pigeons? Kidnap all of them and trap them in a cage. Get humiliated in class by the school bully? Send spinning razor blades at her. Celebrity ruins your chances on a game show? Brainwash him into jumping off the roof of a building.
  • Many of the villians are created as a result of Chloé's actions. The most noted are Lady Wifi as result of Chloé demanding Alya to be suspended for taking a picture of her open locker, Evillustrator when she hurt Nathaniel's feelings while insulting his artwork, Frightningale by having her father shut down a music video shoot simply because she didn't get her ideal part in Clara Nightinggale's music video, and Kung Food when Chloé sabotaged Master Wang Cheng's soup in competition for being insulted by his niece (and not liking soup).
  • Lila is a worse case even when not a Akumatized villian as she responds to Marinette refusing her offer of friendship by turning her friends against her at times with her scheme of getting her expelled by faking an injury being among the highlights.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • In "Oblivio", the Monster of the Week is actually Nino and Alya, who desired to make everyone forget after getting caught by their teacher sneaking away from a field trip to... play "Super Penguino", which is apparently a very fun game that just happens to require two people who are in synch with each other. Rose mentions that she and Juleka play it a lot. Sabrina also blurts that she and Chloe like to play it, but Chloe shushes her. Given that a flashback shows that Alya and Nino were found in a closet together, it's not hard to think that "Super Penguino" is code for something much more mature.
  • In "Perfection", Kagami believes she has no friends left at all, and upon receiving an offer from Monarch to "end [her] suffering", transforms into a ghostly cloud giant to cut off all interaction with everyone she knows, actively shunning their various attempts to communicate with her, and is only stopped from dissolving herself into thin air when all her friends gather to send her a sign in no uncertain terms that they all care about her. This all can be read as a group of friends staging an intervention to help someone with suicidal depression.
• Domestic Abuse: Audrey Bourgeois' treatment of her family, especially her husband, borders on this. The reason Chloé tries to emulate her in her own life is that she hopes that it will finally get her mother to treat her with some kind of love or affection.
• Domestic Appliance Disaster: Ladybug once used a microwave as a weapon, when she voluntarily put a metallic box in it in order for the waves to destroy a virtual padlock. It works, but not before the oven explodes.
• Domino Mask: Marinette and Adrien's costumes both include one. In "Lady Wifi," Ladybug's is shown to be bonded to her face, making unmasking her more difficult than it might appear. In fact, most Miraculous users have one except for Hawk Moth/Monarch, whose mask covers everything but his mouth. The only exception are those who use the Peacock Miraclous, though their skin turns blue with red eyes and blacked scelera.
• Double Standard:
  • Whenever a guy has a crush on Marinette or Ladybug, they tend to be a Nice Guy who at worse is misguided due to akuma corruption, namely Evillustrator, Copycat, Silencer and Truth. In contrast, whenever a girl crushes on Adrien, like Chloé or Lila, they tend to fall into the Alpha Bitch category. Justified in that Adrien as a fashion designer's son and model would attract Gold Diggers while Marinette attracts those who adore her sweet personality.
  • Many of the female characters' unhealthy and creepy obsessions/infatuations with male characters are Played for Laughs. Chloé and Lila invade Adrien's personal space quite often, along with Chloé's general behaviour. Rose is completely devoted to Prince Ali, and fantasizes becoming his princess, clinging to him after her akumatisation (of course that wasn't really her fault). Marinette is possibly the biggest example, as she has an entire schedule of Adrien's activities and otherwise stalks him (though she still interacts with him enough favorably for Adrien to consider her a valued friend).
  • Whenever Marinette and Adrien interact, Marinette can't bring herself to tell him how she actually feels. It's all her fault that Adrien still sees her as "just a friend", but it's all played to be funny and cute. When Cat Noir flirts with Ladybug, he's quickly rebuked, most frequently in season 1, and he's usually ridiculed. He does keep going and it's generally seen as funny, if annoying, but at least he's trying to be honest and direct.
    • In a similar vein, Marinette/Ladybug is frequently encouraged to give Cat Noir a chance, despite her affection for Adrien. Meanwhile, Cat Noir/Adrien remains certain that Ladybug will one day fall for him, a sentiment which is encouraged by other characters despite Ladybug making it very clear she's not interested and outright telling him on multiple occasions that she likes someone else. Some episodes even try to call her out for not reacting more favorably to his advances.
  • Marinette's jealous reactions over Adrien are actively addressed as a character flaw, and episodes that feature such moments often result in Marinette/Ladybug being called out or apologizing for her behavior. The show's third season even implemented a character arc of Marinette and Kagami putting aside their differences over their mutual affection for Adrien and becoming friends. By contrast, Cat Noir's jealous moments or possessive behavior over Ladybug are rarely portrayed in a negative light; such episodes are more likely to call Ladybug out for not being more receptive to his advances or simply ignore the issue altogether.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Cat Noir likes Ladybug, but he doesn't really notice Marinette. Ladybug likes Adrien, but doesn't seem to return Cat Noir's feelings. The show milks this for all its worth.
  • Alya is Cat Noir and Ladybug's biggest fan, chronicles their adventures for her blog, theorizes about their civilian identities... and has no idea that they're her friends Marinette and Adrien. Until Marinette tells her she's Ladybug in Season 4's "Gang of Secrets".
  • Chloé idolizes Ladybug and is none the wiser that she's actually Marinette, the girl she's been tormenting for years. She later renounces her admiration and grows to hate the superheroine, still unaware of her secret identity.
  • In Season 2, the audience learns that Hawk Moth is Gabriel Agreste, Adrien's father and one of Marinette's fashion idols, while the heroes remain unaware.
• Driven by Envy: Aurore is incredibly jealous of Mireille for beating her in a competition, hence her turning into Stormy Weather.

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