Miraculous, les aventures de Ladybug et Chat Noir

Miraculous, les aventures de Ladybug et Chat Noir is a –– -  created by Thomas Astruc and developed by Jeremy Zag for Zagtoon.

Plot
Miraculous, les aventures de Ladybug et Chat Noir centers on two Parisian teenagers, Marinette and Adrien, who transform into the superheroes Ladybug and Chat Noir, respectively, to protect the city from supervillains created by the evil Le Papillon.

Conception and creation
The series is based on an original concept created by French animator, Thomas Astruc, who was inspired by a meeting with a certain lady, Japanese anime, and "decades of comics binge reading". In an interview with Nolife, Astruc said he was working as an animator on the show W.I.T.C.H. when he met a woman wearing a T-shirt with a ladybug on it. They began to share drawings, some of which were ladybug-themed. Astruc also noted that Marinette's hair was styled after the woman. They also worked on the cartoon A.T.O.M. around 2004–05. Astruc first drew Ladybug on sticky notes and remarked about how strong the Ladybug character was. He had had a couple of memories of seeing ladybug-themed superheroes in comics.

Astruc had intended to make Ladybug a comic book series until he met Jeremy Zag, who loved the project and wanted to produce it as a cartoon; Zag was 25 at the time and not originally from the cartoon industry.

In developing Cat Noir, Astruc said that ladybugs represented good luck, so it was natural to partner her with a black cat character with bad luck powers. Cat Noir was a tribute to comic characters, like Catwoman. So it was like having Catwoman and Spider-Man in the same show but reversed genders, colors, and roles.

A character named Félix was originally going to have the role of Cat Noir, but he was later scrapped in favor of Adrien Agreste because the creative team felt that Félix was a cliché of a male anime protagonist and that Adrien would allow them to tell more interesting stories. In September 2015, Astruc indicated that he was open to revisiting the character of Félix, but he abandoned it by February 2016, writing that the character was a poor idea. Years later, in 2019, Félix was remade as Adrien's cousin and was renamed Félix Graham de Vanily.

Hiring companies
In 2010, the show was announced at Cannes' MIPCOM with French production groups Univergroup Pictures and Onyx Films heading the project and working with Method Animation and Zagtoon. Aton Soumache of Onyx and Method said that they want "to create a glamorous superhero character with a real European flair with Paris as [the] backdrop". The producers had also planned to animate it in stereoscopic 3D (currently the show is produced using CGI animation).

In the summer of June 2012, Toei Animation Co., Ltd., the famous animation studio branch owned & operated by Toei Company, Ltd. in Japan, was announced as a co-producer. Two years before 2012, Toei Animation had released a PreCure film that was set in Paris, France and was very interested in expanding their international audience. Even after the production moved to CGI animation, Toei still remained co-producer, with the executive producers from the company being credited.

On 21 November 2012, a memorandum of understanding between Zagtoon, Method Animation, SAMG Animation and SK Broadband was announced: together, the companies would invest $50 million USD through 2017 into five projects. The first of these projects was developed into Miraculous, which received an investment of $10 million. As a part of the deal, SK Broadband would have exclusive rights in South Korea for video on demand release, available to the subscribers of the company's IPTV platform B TV.

Animation
When Toei Animation joined as a co-producer in the summer of June 2012, it was also announced that the show would be drawn in a colourful manga-like style. Later in September, Zagtoon, Method, & Toei released a traditionally-animated promotional video for Miraculous Ladybug. The video featured Marinette (in different clothes similar to the clothes in the current series) as Ladybug, and a (now-scrapped, later Adrien's cousin) different character named Félix as Cat Noir, Marinette and Félix's Kwamis, Tikki and Plagg, Hawk Moth/Gabriel (without the mask and with a different outfit, look, and lair compared to the current series), and also the akumatized villains, The Mime and Mr. Pigeon. Their Miraculouses and their transformation sequences had a different look similar to the Miraculouses and the transformations in the current series. The demo song from the promotional music video was performed & composed by Noam, who would later compose music and sing the songs for the series.

The anime concept was a complete success; but there were concerns about the marketability of traditional 2D animation and the difficulty in animating Ladybug's costume of red with black spots, as it caused some strobing effects. Executive producer Jared Wolfson said that Zag wanted the animation to be cinematic and epic, unique and different, and said that they are continuing to partner with Toei as it brings in the Asian inspiration and that a 2D version of the show might be a potential product for future purposes.

The aforementioned problem with 2D animation was resolved by moving to CGI animation; the switch also allowed for easier implementation of mobile camera angles. SAMG Animation, a CGI animation studio located in South Korea which officially joined in the production in the fall of November 2012, produced modeling and animation. Zag latter recalled that SAMG was chosen for quality reasons in a video message he sent to a South Korean press conference held in 2015 by the Seoul-based company. Astruc and assistant director, Wilfried Pain, instructed the animators not to improvise scenes so that they could keep things consistent and understandable. Pain estimated about 350–400 shots are used in a typical 20-minute episode; with 10 panels per shot, that makes up to 4000 panels an episode. Wolfson said that the show's animation brings dynamic camera angles and texturing. A trailer with the new CGI-animated style was released in October 2013, a year later.

On 22 January 2018, Zag posted on Instagram that the crew was working on season 4 and season 5.

Themes, writing and process
The concept for the show originally dealt with political themes, geared towards teens and young adults. However, after failing to gain traction with networks, it was retooled for a younger target audience.:40 Astruc said that he is delighted that the show is able to reach younger and older people.

Each episode takes around 3 months to write, from scratch to final validation of broadcasters. Assistant director, Wilfried Pain, said that each episode is composed of two parts: a sitcom aspect where the characters have to speak for themselves, and an action element where the camera is always moving.

The music & songs was done by Noam Kaniel, who had also worked on action superhero shows such as X-Men, Code Lyoko, W.I.T.C.H., Fantastic Four, Power Rangers, Digimon Fusion, and Glitter Force. The theme song was written by Kaniel and Zag. The English lyrics were done by Alain Garcia and performed by Wendy Child and Cash Callaway. The French version was performed by Marily and Noam.

Broadcast
Prior to its debut in on  on TF1, the  was first shown in  on  on EBS1 with the Korean dub.

Cast

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Songs

 * "Miraculous Theme (Christmas Version)" is exclusive to the English version of the show.

International versions

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Trivia

 * Instead of being synced to the French version, a great majority of dubs are made based off the English dub’s audio and visuals. This isn't the case for the Catalan and Slovene dubs, though.