Miraculous World: Shanghai, The Legend of Ladydragon
Well, Athena and I have now seen the Miraculous Shanghai special for the fifth time since it got uploaded to Disney+ Thursday night, and I think I'm ready to write a review of it now.
Where to begin? It was great, of course. We were a little sad that it had less of Adrien/Chat Noir than, say, the New York special, but what we did get to see of him was great! I really loved seeing all of his internal conflict in United Heroez, but when he's not so stressed out, we get more of the fun-loving Chat Noir, and I adore his sing-song voice. When Ladybug called him and he answered, "Meow, My Lady♪" that was like the best thing ever. Also when he said mi-hao instead of ni-hao. (Although we do have to wonder if mi-hao is an actual Chinese word...)
The one friend we have that we can talk about Miraculous with is in the "Marinette is a creepy stalker" camp (although she won't say it in so many words, because she knows we like Marinette), so I do feel the need to stand up for her motives. I mean, we agree that it's abnormally impulsive to up and fly to China to chase a boy. But we've actually done a similar thing, although on a smaller scale (we had three weeks before we left). We found out about a Noragami art exhibit in Tokyo, so we talked it over with lyschan and decided to go. It was...not the best for our finances, but it turned out to be one of the best experiences we've had so far, so we have no regrets.
I do think she was a little disingenuous to her parents, but she was a good sport with her uncle, and when he was showing her pictures of the family, she even put her phone away. I like to think that Sabine may have suspected Marinette's true motives, too, but she decided not to let it bother her because whatever gets Marinette interested in her family is good enough. Oh, but Tom was so excited about it! I'm sad that they didn't get to take the trip as a family, but I'm sure there will be other opportunities.
This is where my thoughts will probably start jumping around. The Street Vigilantes were super cute. They reminded us of Hayner and his gang in Kingdom Hearts for some reason. Cash was a great villain in that he was very easy to hate, and his voice actor did an awesome job (we think; we don't actually know French, so we could be missing some nuance, but the overall emotions were great).
Bastille! Adrien went up to the sink where Bastille was washing dishes and did not have a sneezing fit. We've been noticing his feather allergy has been less of a thing since season three, and since they made sure to point it out in Style Queen, it seems less likely that this is just because the writers forgot about it. With Time Tagger, when Ladybug and Chat Noir had to fight Mr. Pigeon twenty-four times, we explained it to ourselves that, maybe, by the twenty-third time, Adrien had figured out that he needs to just stay on the allergy meds for a while. And in Miraculer, they managed to have Chat Noir away from the feathers most of the time, and he was already dying pretty well when he was in hand-to-hand combat with Mayura, so maybe his body decided it had more important things to deal with (and maybe her costume would have synthetic feathers, because Nathalie would be concerned about Adrien).
But in this, there's just a bird hanging around, not causing any allergic reactions. Maybe Adrien's outgrowing his allergy? Is that a thing? Or maybe that kind of bird is hypoallergenic. There are hypoallergenic cats, so maybe there are hypoallergenic birds, too. Or maaaaaaybe his allergy was somehow tied to the Peacock Miraculous and his parents' involvement with it, and now that Nathalie's using it, and especially now that they've fixed it, his allergy is miraculously cured?
Which brings us to another point. Gabriel talks about his quest for the Prodigious as the thing he started fifteen years ago. It's been pretty clear that Gabriel was already looking for Miraculouses and other magic jewelry since before he donned the Hawk Moth costume. Is the Prodigious the first one he found out about? Is it related to the magic(?) rings he and Emilie were wearing as wedding rings? So many questions!
I haven't talked about Fei at all. She's very pretty, and she looks awesome while doing all the kung-fu moves. I got a little frustrated with her constantly pulling Marinette back and saying, "No! Only I can protect you!" I mean, I know she doesn't know that Marinette is actually a superhero, but since I do know that...
Marinette was amazing in this special, despite her playing her parents the way she did. ...And despite her cluelessness at the pawn shop. Oh my goodness, she just kept talking and I kept thinking, "Shut up shut up shut up!" Doesn't she realize that the more valuable he knows those earrings are to her, the more he'll charge her for them!? But I think it came from her hope in humanity, and a belief that if someone sees someone else in need, they, like her and all the other Chinese people she'd talked to, will take pity on that person and do what they can to help.
I thought it was really sweet when Fei pulled Marinette out of the pawn shop and handed her her earrings, and Marinette was like, "But we can't steal them!" I feel like Athena and I would have reacted the same way...and at first I thought we'd probably be more suspicious of Cash, but then I thought about how we're like, "It's not like our manga publishers don't want to give us a raise. They just can't, because the pirates are hurting their profit margins so badly."
When Marinette found out that Fei was the thief and she got mad at Fei, I was like, "But surely Marinette of all people is smart enough to see that Fei has at least had a change of heart," since she stole the earrings back for her. But then the akuma had to show up and ruin the conversation. So I was glad when Marinette acknowledged that Fei did what she had to do.
Speaking of that scene! ...Or rather, the scene leading up to it. Gabriel Agreste saw Marinette in Shanghai and overheard her having a conversation about very important earrings very soon before Ladybug showed up. The show was very careful not to show us his reaction to this, but surely Gabriel Agreste would not have let these little details go unnoticed. This is the man who suspected his own son of being Chat Noir just because he wears a similarly shaped ring on the same finger. But it's also possible that he was too busy working on his Prodigious plan, so it's good that the show left some room for him to not pursue that line of reasoning. I guess we'll find out when we get to see season four!
Ladydragon is a really cool superhero. I wonder if she came up with her name because she's just not that good at naming stuff, so since she'd just heard the name Ladybug, it was in her head and she was like, "Hey, it works." I really liked that they made a distinction between revenge and justice.
And I think those are all the main thoughts...except for two things we wanted to point out that were the best (in addition to "Meow, My Lady♪"). First, the look on Ladybug's face when she got Chat Noir's message. She liiiiiiikes him♥♥♥♥ And second, the look on Adrien's face when Marinette was narrating at the end and said she got a new Chinese teacher. Awwwww! ...And the accordion. Accordions are awesome. That is all.
...No it's not! I wanted to mention...dangit, I don't remember his name. I'll call him Yama, because that's a name I can remember (it comes up in manga a fair amount). The giant supervillain. He was literally vaporizing people. Can you imagine the horror Hawk Moth must have felt as he watched himself turn to dust? And if Adrien knew that was his dad, he would have been traumatized! ...On the other hand, we weren't that shaken up when it happened to Chat Noir. We kind of saw it coming when he rushed out to use Cataclysm (there's no way that was going to work at this point in the episode), and besides, it wasn't the first time he'd been wiped out of existence, and it probably won't be the last. (But of course, we're glad he's back!)
Okay, for real, I think that's all now.
And there you have it.
Today I'm thankful for all the amazing details in Miraculous specials, getting to try some s'mores cookies from Lofthouse, watermelon cranberry juice, finally getting some pics of Ho-Oh in Pokemon Snap, and also finally getting some good pics of Talonflame.
Where to begin? It was great, of course. We were a little sad that it had less of Adrien/Chat Noir than, say, the New York special, but what we did get to see of him was great! I really loved seeing all of his internal conflict in United Heroez, but when he's not so stressed out, we get more of the fun-loving Chat Noir, and I adore his sing-song voice. When Ladybug called him and he answered, "Meow, My Lady♪" that was like the best thing ever. Also when he said mi-hao instead of ni-hao. (Although we do have to wonder if mi-hao is an actual Chinese word...)
The one friend we have that we can talk about Miraculous with is in the "Marinette is a creepy stalker" camp (although she won't say it in so many words, because she knows we like Marinette), so I do feel the need to stand up for her motives. I mean, we agree that it's abnormally impulsive to up and fly to China to chase a boy. But we've actually done a similar thing, although on a smaller scale (we had three weeks before we left). We found out about a Noragami art exhibit in Tokyo, so we talked it over with lyschan and decided to go. It was...not the best for our finances, but it turned out to be one of the best experiences we've had so far, so we have no regrets.
I do think she was a little disingenuous to her parents, but she was a good sport with her uncle, and when he was showing her pictures of the family, she even put her phone away. I like to think that Sabine may have suspected Marinette's true motives, too, but she decided not to let it bother her because whatever gets Marinette interested in her family is good enough. Oh, but Tom was so excited about it! I'm sad that they didn't get to take the trip as a family, but I'm sure there will be other opportunities.
This is where my thoughts will probably start jumping around. The Street Vigilantes were super cute. They reminded us of Hayner and his gang in Kingdom Hearts for some reason. Cash was a great villain in that he was very easy to hate, and his voice actor did an awesome job (we think; we don't actually know French, so we could be missing some nuance, but the overall emotions were great).
Bastille! Adrien went up to the sink where Bastille was washing dishes and did not have a sneezing fit. We've been noticing his feather allergy has been less of a thing since season three, and since they made sure to point it out in Style Queen, it seems less likely that this is just because the writers forgot about it. With Time Tagger, when Ladybug and Chat Noir had to fight Mr. Pigeon twenty-four times, we explained it to ourselves that, maybe, by the twenty-third time, Adrien had figured out that he needs to just stay on the allergy meds for a while. And in Miraculer, they managed to have Chat Noir away from the feathers most of the time, and he was already dying pretty well when he was in hand-to-hand combat with Mayura, so maybe his body decided it had more important things to deal with (and maybe her costume would have synthetic feathers, because Nathalie would be concerned about Adrien).
But in this, there's just a bird hanging around, not causing any allergic reactions. Maybe Adrien's outgrowing his allergy? Is that a thing? Or maybe that kind of bird is hypoallergenic. There are hypoallergenic cats, so maybe there are hypoallergenic birds, too. Or maaaaaaybe his allergy was somehow tied to the Peacock Miraculous and his parents' involvement with it, and now that Nathalie's using it, and especially now that they've fixed it, his allergy is miraculously cured?
Which brings us to another point. Gabriel talks about his quest for the Prodigious as the thing he started fifteen years ago. It's been pretty clear that Gabriel was already looking for Miraculouses and other magic jewelry since before he donned the Hawk Moth costume. Is the Prodigious the first one he found out about? Is it related to the magic(?) rings he and Emilie were wearing as wedding rings? So many questions!
I haven't talked about Fei at all. She's very pretty, and she looks awesome while doing all the kung-fu moves. I got a little frustrated with her constantly pulling Marinette back and saying, "No! Only I can protect you!" I mean, I know she doesn't know that Marinette is actually a superhero, but since I do know that...
Marinette was amazing in this special, despite her playing her parents the way she did. ...And despite her cluelessness at the pawn shop. Oh my goodness, she just kept talking and I kept thinking, "Shut up shut up shut up!" Doesn't she realize that the more valuable he knows those earrings are to her, the more he'll charge her for them!? But I think it came from her hope in humanity, and a belief that if someone sees someone else in need, they, like her and all the other Chinese people she'd talked to, will take pity on that person and do what they can to help.
I thought it was really sweet when Fei pulled Marinette out of the pawn shop and handed her her earrings, and Marinette was like, "But we can't steal them!" I feel like Athena and I would have reacted the same way...and at first I thought we'd probably be more suspicious of Cash, but then I thought about how we're like, "It's not like our manga publishers don't want to give us a raise. They just can't, because the pirates are hurting their profit margins so badly."
When Marinette found out that Fei was the thief and she got mad at Fei, I was like, "But surely Marinette of all people is smart enough to see that Fei has at least had a change of heart," since she stole the earrings back for her. But then the akuma had to show up and ruin the conversation. So I was glad when Marinette acknowledged that Fei did what she had to do.
Speaking of that scene! ...Or rather, the scene leading up to it. Gabriel Agreste saw Marinette in Shanghai and overheard her having a conversation about very important earrings very soon before Ladybug showed up. The show was very careful not to show us his reaction to this, but surely Gabriel Agreste would not have let these little details go unnoticed. This is the man who suspected his own son of being Chat Noir just because he wears a similarly shaped ring on the same finger. But it's also possible that he was too busy working on his Prodigious plan, so it's good that the show left some room for him to not pursue that line of reasoning. I guess we'll find out when we get to see season four!
Ladydragon is a really cool superhero. I wonder if she came up with her name because she's just not that good at naming stuff, so since she'd just heard the name Ladybug, it was in her head and she was like, "Hey, it works." I really liked that they made a distinction between revenge and justice.
And I think those are all the main thoughts...except for two things we wanted to point out that were the best (in addition to "Meow, My Lady♪"). First, the look on Ladybug's face when she got Chat Noir's message. She liiiiiiikes him♥♥♥♥ And second, the look on Adrien's face when Marinette was narrating at the end and said she got a new Chinese teacher. Awwwww! ...And the accordion. Accordions are awesome. That is all.
...No it's not! I wanted to mention...dangit, I don't remember his name. I'll call him Yama, because that's a name I can remember (it comes up in manga a fair amount). The giant supervillain. He was literally vaporizing people. Can you imagine the horror Hawk Moth must have felt as he watched himself turn to dust? And if Adrien knew that was his dad, he would have been traumatized! ...On the other hand, we weren't that shaken up when it happened to Chat Noir. We kind of saw it coming when he rushed out to use Cataclysm (there's no way that was going to work at this point in the episode), and besides, it wasn't the first time he'd been wiped out of existence, and it probably won't be the last. (But of course, we're glad he's back!)
Okay, for real, I think that's all now.
And there you have it.
Today I'm thankful for all the amazing details in Miraculous specials, getting to try some s'mores cookies from Lofthouse, watermelon cranberry juice, finally getting some pics of Ho-Oh in Pokemon Snap, and also finally getting some good pics of Talonflame.