King of Anime
I'm watching the English dub on the Disney Now app. Don't know whe new episodes are gonna start airing here in America though so that sucks.
In previous seasons I was watching episodes as soon as they aired.
But I haven't really been keeping track this time for some reason.
It's good to know there are only 6 episodes left to air. Once they all air and Netflix gets it or something I'll watch all of S4 at once.
Although this discussion on the merits of the insanity of some of the episodes of ML makes me wonder if week by week might be the better option to watch it.
"But if that happened, Melia might actually be happy. We can't have that." - Handsome Rob
Apparently February will air in English last 4 episodes leaving only season finale.
no give it to me now
Huh, looks like unless some other release dates drop, we might be getting a couple of the new episodes in English first, which we haven't really had this season other than Wishmaker.
"Let’s see who’s stronger: someone that has something to protect, or someone that has nothing to lose."
I'm excited. The plot thread of Adrien feeling slowly left out again seems like it will come to a head.
Still rewatching episodes. The first Felix episode got me thinking back to that conversation we keep having every few pages about Chloe, Lila, etc and character roles getting shifted around. While it comes up in those that they may have at first thought of doing a sympathetic arc then changed their minds (which I still think is part of it), I'm starting to wonder if another, maybe even a bigger reason was because the show wanted to cut down on the number of its moving parts.
Like, Lila was - for better or for worse - an independent villain with her own threat base in the story separate from Hawkmoth. Chloe's development meant she was a character who wasn't Marinette going through a character arc. Natalie and Gabriel had their own subplot going on. The show was setting up a super team of increasingly recurring other heroes, two of which had their won relationship. Etc.
And then all of this resets. Lila mostly disappears from the story. Chloe isn't just reset back to being a jerk, but notably the introduction of Zoe also pushes her back into being more of a side character. Hawkmoth no longer needs Natalie to use Amok. Most of the other super heroes are literally incapable of recurring right now, putting most of them back into their original supporting cast role as well and forcing Marinette to seek new ones. All of this pushes the story very solidly back onto strictly Marinette, Adrien and Gabriel.
Not to say there aren't character arcs and moving parts now, but they're distinct from whatever happened before and much more... tightened. Alya is now introduced as another protag, through the fact that she's Marinette's best friend and now can be Marinette's Foil. The non-Marinette character who has a plot arc is Adrien. And the reason the Felix episode made me think of this was noticing that something similar happened to him that happened to Lila: Felix, as introduced originally, is a generally malevolent character who impacts basically everyone, has his own goals, and promises to be back yadda yadda. Felix, in his next appearance this season, has his antagonism rewritten to be solidly focused on Gabriel specifically.
All in all, it kind of feels like a soft reset. As if maybe, what happened was that at some point the writers room figured out an interesting new direction for the show (IE, what they're doing now) and decided to thus either stop the subplots they were doing at the time or simply minimize them.
With the other characters getting Miraculous, in particular, I can understand it. Seeing as they're clearly not about to stop until practically everyone in Marinette's class has a matching Miraculous, there's a case to be made that they set up the superteam too early. They might be taking a mulligan so they can do another "the heroes all assemble" plot with fresh eyes.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 14th 2022 at 12:07:21 PM
"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.
I'm still convinced that changing the show from 5 to 7 seasons really messed up writers' plans with "Dearest Family" being my prime evidence.
One note though, actually Ladybug goes back to using all the old heroes (except Queen Bee, of course) despite Moth knowing their I Ds. There is some insane irony that Chloe was driven (back) to villainy because Ladybug thought it was too risky to hand her Miraculous, then she ruined secret identity for all LB's allies only for her to retire that rule immediately after Chloe's attack.
More rewatching episodes.
Gone completely non-commented on is the fact that Gamer 2.0 establishes that there's a global organization of AI (of which Markov is a part) dedicated to solving the world's problems. As an avid fan of Schlock Mercenary, this is extremely funny.
I kind of wish Max's game would've make cameos later on. Like, in random slice of life scenes you could see the cast playing it. Also, it's interesting that Gamer 2.0's powers didn't affect Gabriel. Mother of Grodd, Hawkmoth is actually capable of learning from his mistakes.
- Oh, wait. No he's not. Because he didn't stop Simpleman from affecting him later. Never mind.
Wishmaster (I'm not watching these in any particular order, and I'm probably not going to do the whole series or anything) is another "embrace the madness" episode, in the best way. The Cucumber Man cutaway caught me by surprise again and is still the biggest belly laugh this show has ever give me. Also, it's fun how the villain-victim in this one basically ends the episode by becoming his akumatized self, but as a good guy. It's sweet.
It got me watching more Luka episodes and... like... this dude's focus episodes are all really good. His whole "everyone's big brother" archetype bounces surprisingly well off of basically everyone in the cast. In a show where the core cast was capable of growing beyond two people, he probably would've shined as a primary character.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 18th 2022 at 12:36:03 PM
"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.
They never really showed us Max' game but I suppose it could just look literally like Gamer 2.0's tournament. Man, I remember when this episode came out fandom was all over it, there was even hashtag trending to make it into a real game. Fun times. Too bad LB so far has nothing more complicated that endless runner phone game.
TBH I can't really think of a cartoon that had a good video game attached to it (unless said piece of animation was based on a game)
Goku Black
Widely held as amazing.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
The Steven Universe RPGs (Attack the Light, Save the Light, Unleash the Light) were pretty fun.
Trans rights are human rights.
Like reflections in the glass!
There is also Kingdom Hearts and Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA, along with various gachas like F/GO and MR. But granted only the first is technically applicable (unless you broaden it to animation in general for the gachas).
There is also Epic Mickey
Edited by MorningStar1337 on Jan 18th 2022 at 10:29:27 AM
The Capcom Disney Afternoon shows - particularly Ducktales - were pretty good.
Anywho, more rewatches. I'd forgotten how much I liked Troublemaker. It's a good example of how to make a villain with simpler, less flashly powers just as great and exciting: ramp up the fight choreography. And Jagged, as always, is a delightful character. It's also kind of a shame we never saw her again: Troublemaker's powers are in that sweet spot of action & utility that make her a perfect pick for a villain team-up episode.
Though, granted, this show's formula means that the villain team up episodes it does have aren't able to do as much other shows' episodes like that tend to be, so meh.
Not much to say about Reflekdoll. Not because it's not good, but for the opposite. Reflekta episodes are pretty much always good, even if her powers are completely useless for what Hawkmoth actually wants to do (he's an idiot, what can you do), because Juleka's and Reflekta are one of the show's stronger victim-villain pairs. With the way she's written and used, she's with Alix (either as hero or villain) on my list of characters that I suspect were like Felix: that is, part of the Astruc's original concept in some way but heavily modified for the new series.
Watching Reverser, and then I think my rewatch spree is over. Marc's design is fun. You can tell someone in character design said "okay, I want this guy to be as adorable as humanly possible!" I wish the show did more with its cast like what this episode did with Alix: have one of them pop in with a stake in the story partway through and have a role, even if they're not one of the primary characters of the story (a la, Ladybug, CN, the villain, the villain's target, Hawk Moth). Y'know, make stronger use of the supporting cast and all.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 18th 2022 at 11:33:29 AM
"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.
A fun observation, but I noticed that while some akumatizations transform the victims into the villains outright, that's not always the case. Sometimes the villain gets akumatized and the villain getup comes off as more of a costume than a transformation.
You can see this with Glaciator in his second one, where the heroes remove the ice cream monster stuff before deakumatizing him, resulting in Glaciator still looking like Andre for a few seconds.
You can also see it in Troublemaker, there Penny gets akumatized and then activates the purple goop into her Troublemaker suit herself. There's a couple other villains who do that too, but Troublemaker is the freshest in my head.
I would actually really dig an episode where everyone thinks a character has been deakumatized in like the first couple minutes, but the actual threat of the episode is that the villain is still in control and is just pretending to go about the character's normal life. Like if they do another one where the akuma gets away before Ladybug can nab it.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 18th 2022 at 7:46:45 AM
"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.
I could see Lila do that. Her Chameleon form was literally her regular look.
I dunno if it'd work of Lila, since she's basically working with Hawkmoth already, and - while Marinette doesn't know that - she does know that she's evil.
For the plot to really work, it'd have to be a character Marinette or the others would never suspect of wrongdoing, and whom the audience would know is Not Himself, like Rose or Juleka or Nino.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 19th 2022 at 3:24:09 AM
"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.
From what I can tell, originally the show was going to have only 5 seasons. Do you think that they will stretch the story for 2 more or will seasons 6 and 7 act as Post-Script Seasons?
TBH I hope for post-script seasons. We certainly have enough hints that there are threats other than Hawkmoth which could be interesting for Ladybug and Chat Noir, and it would help the series keep momentum such as it is.
The show has shown pretty strongly that it's not willing to act too far outside of its formula, so I don't think postscript seasons are particularly likely.
The most likely course is that they simply extended the finale longer than they were originally intending after the show got renewed, like what happened with Kim Possible and So The Drama, or HIMYM.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Jan 22nd 2022 at 1:26:25 AM
"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.
The sleepiest good boi
My hope is that we finally get the reveal at the end of this season and the next few focus on the two's new dynamic and a new Big Bad.
Disney100 Marathon | DreamWorks Marathon
I think post script seasons could be really cool.
Especially if they ended 5 with Hawkmoth defeated, and the Love Square finally concluded.
I doubt it though.
Maybe Hawkmoth will be defeated, but no way they settle the love square.
"But if that happened, Melia might actually be happy. We can't have that." - Handsome Rob
Currently, every episode released anywhere has its English dub released too. That's gonna change in about two weeks when Kuro Neko gets its Brazilian Portuguese dub.
Don't know where y'all are watching it, we're using a completely legitimate site that we aren't going to mention for no reason at all. There's also Disney+, if we recall?
Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.