Miraculous Rewatch Where I Overanalyze Everything: Stormy Weather
Hoo boy, this one's a doozy! I almost hit the image limit! Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe this was the first episode produced, so some of the things I'm gonna talk about are gonna be early installment weirdness.
To start off, with: Alya is so good with kids and it's precious and amazing and adorable! This is one of my little fanfic note things, since I'm planning on doing a KittyBella AU, where Alya and her relationship with her family is going to be a major plot point. She is just so able to understand Manon and so caring with her, but still respects her (not just letting her win the clapping game for example). I wish this came up more in fanfic. If you have Rena Rouge on the team, I feel like she should be the best member at dealing with kids and the first to think of them and comfort them during a crisis situation. Like, to the degree that it's shocking to their teammates.
Continued under the cut:
Even though Alya is great with kids, Manon is so very attached to Marinette and I think that's so sweet, but I also wonder why that is. I mean, the obvious reason is that kids are clingy and don't like strangers and Marinette is her regular babysitter, but I do also think Manon likes how indulgent Marinette is with her. The whole "I can't say no to the babydoll eyes" thing is probably a big deal for Manon, who doesn't get a whole lot of attention from her very busy single mother. Just food for thought.
Alright everybody, place your bets now! Does Gabriel own Kidz+ and did he hire Alec specifically for this purpose? Is he actively encouraging Alec to lean into the cruel TV personality? Or is he just taking advantage of a rude person? Either way, I think that if you want to establish a proper rogues gallery for Miraculous that has more recurring baddies, Alec and Bob Roth are both great places to start. They'd absolutely willingly work with a supervillain, and I can totally see them getting akumatized multiple times.
Holy horror movie vibes Batman! This looks like something straight out of Arachnophobia! The score doesn't help at all, it's got the classic *reet reet reet* slasher violins! And the way that her umbrella doesn't turn black right away like it does in later episodes and instead slowly seeps with it! The flickering lights in the elevator that have NO explanation for happening without Gabe's influence somehow? The experience of getting akumatized was WAY scarier in this first episode, and I honestly wish they kept that vibe. It makes Hawkmoth seem a lot more threatening and a lot less silly.
This whole first season actually consists of Mothman (no I will not stop on the derogatory nicknames for Gabe) being way more outright villainous. Especially in this episode, he has extremely creepy undertones from his obsession with actual children. I'm positive this is because we didn't know he was Adrien's dad yet, so he didn't have to come off as sympathetic ever. He could just be evil. I do a love a good sympathetic and redeemable Gabe who's only doing this out of extreme grief (that's NOT what we got in the season 5 finale btw, that was just nonsense), but MAN if season 1 doesn't make me yearn for an uncomplicated Disney Renaissance Villain version of him.
Hey, why does Stormy Weather SERVE so hard?! She is doing a full on catwalk strut in this scene! This is why Aurore needs to be a more prominent background/recurring character. I know she's akumatized, but that is just SO MUCH personality! Let her be an unhinged theatre kid in more scenes please!
I do love that even when Marinette is being brave and heroic as a civilian, she does NOT have the enhanced physical capability of the Miraculous. She's not being at all clumsy in this scene, she's showing her inner Ladybug! But she also can't just jump the bench, she has to climb over it by straddling it like the rest of us regular schmucks.
Time for another Plagg highlight! I actually forgot about this running gag/character trait in season 1. Plagg is extremely lazy and never actually wants to transform. He's always either hiding or complaining when Adrien needs him. It's something that kind of disappeared with seasonal decay as the series got more complicated, which is a real shame. Not only is it funny every time, but it's also kind of important if you're going to let Plagg fulfill his TRUE role of being Adrien's mentor. Adrien already knows how to work hard and sacrifice for those he loves. He does it every day. Plagg encouraging him to be selifsh and lazy is HEALTHY for him.
Can we talk about the power level in this yo-yo? Both times, it didn't even have that much force---it just kinda accidentally fell and bopped the heroes on the head. But it's still a magical weapon, so obviously it hurts extremely bad. I'm gonna start keeping track of if civilians ever get hit with this, because I'm almost positive they do, and that's GOT to be a bigger deal than the show makes of it.
Also, we need to talk about how, even with the physical enhancements, Marinette isn't always the best at controlling her yo-yo. Before I started this rewatch, one of the things that frustrated me was that Marinette, a walking disaster in her regular life, suddenly becomes extremely physically competent as Ladybug. But I'm starting to realize that's not true. She actually struggles a lot more than Adrien does. Even in the sound design, Marinette tends to have more effort grunts when they're doing acrobatics than Adrien does. We'll get to another example in a moment!
Another stealthy hello from our favorite cat boy! He fully just climbed that fence without making a single sound! LET HIM BE SNEAKY AND CREEPY! I am BEGGING ya'll!
I'm gonna highlight these moments here to say that, for all Marinette gets annoyed with Chat's flirting (image 3), she flirts back plenty too. I didn't quite capture it in that second screenshot, but she *winks* at him when she says she'd rather he stick to the catsuit (instead of a swimsuit). During the fandom's Salt Fic Era, one of the things the salters targeted was that Chat is supposedly constantly pressuring Ladybug into a relationship even though she continually rejects him. But the joking flirting and teasing was honestly just a part of their dynamic for a long time. It just occasionally gets awkward because Chat is genuine about it while LB isn't (also LB tends to ease off when they're in the middle of serious moments while Chat continues to be goofy to lighten the mood, which irritates her and is something they should both probably work on).
I've seen a lot of discussion about whether this whole weather girl competition was rigged or not. The evidence used tends to be that Mirielle winning by half a million votes is actually bonkers and highly unlikely, and that there only seems to be merch for her and none for Aurore. While it's a fine theory, I'm not sure that second point holds water. All the Mirielle balloons and banners we see are being sold after the competition, and there are figures of Aurore around too, so it's plenty likely they just kept Aurore's merch boxed up. Also, both their faces are on this bus that she throws at the heroes:
In general, we gotta talk about how Aurore is an akuma who's fighting skills and murderous rage go really hard for someone who's supposedly just an average teen. Like, I think this is worse than the general upgrade in bloodthirstiness that comes from akumatization. It makes me wonder about what kind of issues she has in her personal life. Because even if she is just generally kind of angry and violent and there's no other reason, that's gotta make her a pain to be around.
Welcome to my personal hell where I attempt to figure out the timeline of these episodes! Stormy says that she's giving the summer forecast and canceling summer vacation in this episode, which implies to me that it's towards the end of the school year. But if we're to believe that all the episodes take place within a single year (which I've heard is canon but that I have no source for), then that can't be right because other important stuff happens after this. And it can't be during the summer vacation before the school year because it has to take place after Origins. I'm gonna go ahead and do as most of the fandom does and call BS on the "this all happens in one school year" thing. French school starts in September and ends in June or July, so I'm gonna say this episode happens sometime in May, which means it chronologically takes place after both the Bubbler and Mr. Pigeon. I'm also going to guess that Mr. Pigeon takes place after the Bubbler.
By the way, shoutout to these poor firemen who keep valiantly attempting to cut Alya and Manon free from their ice cube! I like when the civilians aren't just useless targets to get hit by the akuma and are actually attempting to help and keep themselves and everyone around them safe.
EEEEEWWW why is his voice clip for using cataclysm different in this episode? I mean, it's probably the same in French, but my guess is that they redubbed the English clip after this episode, because it sounds like he was going to say another word here and then got cut off (also he just sounds better in French anyway).
Chat Noir is so cool you guys. This is what I meant when I said that Marinette tends to struggle with the physical side of heroism in a way that Adrien doesn't, because he is more physically inclined than she is. Chat is capable of effortlessly dodging around all of Stormy's rapid-fire shots and doing complex acrobatics to cataclysm the billboard. It's just extremely impressive. This rewatch is making me remember how much I love most of the fight scenes! They're just so cool!
Here we see an extremely rare instance of Tikki encouraging Marinette to shirk her responsibilities in exchange for fun! She says Mari has totally earned the treat after saving the whole city, which I think is at odds with later seasons Tikki who tends to big on personal suffering for the greater good. Gonna have to see if this is a one-off, a case of seasonal change in character, or if I'm misremembering the later seasons.
That photographer is absolutely correct in adding Manon to the scene. I would be absolutely cooing over a magazine cover that had a teen model posing with an adorable little girl. I would not give a darn if it was a teenage model with a teenage girl. Sorry Marinette, the professional knows his stuff.
