The Illustrhater (Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir)

The Illustrhater
"I think I'm afraid. I don't really know how to behave as a loving couple. I'm afraid of messing things up so I try to control everything but I'm just ruining everything"
Part of Season: 6 Episode Number: 2 Air Date: January 25, 2025 (USA) January 24, 2025 (Brazil) Running Time: 22 minutes

"The Illustrhater" is a season 6 episode of the series Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir. Based on the series' production order specifically, "The Illustrhater" is the 2nd written and produced episode of season 6. It is also the 133rd written and produced episode of the series overall.  

Synopsis

While Marinette struggles with her controlling instincts, Ladybug and her team face a villain full of imagination.

Why It's Miraculous Again!

1. The animation is a huge step up, and while the old animation was good, the old animation did have it's problems, flaws and errors. The new animation is much better and has much more smoother movements and is a lot less stiff, and is more polished as well.
2. The voice acting is good as usual.
3. Marinette and Adrien make a decent couple, and weren't awkward like they were in season 5. Plus, they actually go to movies again like they did in the series.
4. Speaking of, Marinette is no longer flanderized into a stalker (even though she did it once in the season, at least it wasn't Adrien this time)
5. The new outfits look cool, and the hairstyles look better than expected.
6. The writing massively improved as well as it doesn't look like the writing was in recent seasons.

Not-So-Miraculous Qualities

1. The animation, while more smoother and detailed than Seasons 3-5, this is Dwarf's first time animating for the series, so it can get a while for you to get used to.
2. Nino and Aliyah's subplot doesn’t add much as the identity of the new Hawk Moth was already figured out by viewers of the show and their investigation goes nowhere.
3. Like in the previous seasons, Adrien and Plagg are underutilized in this episode and don’t contribute a lot.
4. Marinette ditching Adrian repeatedly gets annoying after a while, especially considering how much their romance was built up.

Trivia

• Not counting trailers, this is the first released piece of Miraculous media that doesn't include the old animation style at all.
  • Besides the new animation, the 2D animation used for calls, messages, long range communications and imagination sequences was replaced by the one used for Miraculous Chibi.
• It is shown that Ladybug had allowed all of her superhero friends to use their Miraculous to help people on their own as long as it is not to fight against an akumatized villain.
  • It is also revealed that some of Ladybug's superhero friends have already unlocked their ability to use their powers infinitely as well, as shown when Carapace used his twice in a short period of time.
• Nooroo now has black wings and Cerise paralyzes him whenever she writes down her secrets in one of her notebooks.
  • It's unknown if that is Nooroo's new character design or a result of his strict treatment by Cerise.
• Cerise's akumatization process is shown:
  • After her Ultrakuma akumatizes her target's object, she and her target appear in a purple void within the target's mind. Cerise calls them by name (showing that the Butterfly Miraculous is capable of revealing this information) and tempts them into accepting the akuma.
    • That means Gabriel also knew the names of the victims he akumatized but like himself, he also encouraged his victims to throw their old names away to symbolize their new ones.
  • Her victims are the ones to come up with their villain name, after which they transform. She lets them choose their own name to give them the illusion that they are in control and that she only wants to help them.
  • When she manifests in her victims' minds to talk to them, she appears as a blank silhouette with no distinctive male or female features and speaks in a combination of both male and female voices, so that the victims are unable to discover her gender.
  • She makes sure that her akumatized villains do not share details about her with any member of the French Miraculous superhero team by threatening to remove their powers. This is to further leave the Miraculous team in the dark about her true goal, which is indeed to take the Ladybug and Cat Miraculouses to make a wish, as shown in "Miraculous London".
    • It is shown that she can partially eject an Ultrakuma from the object it was placed in, to further scare her victims into submission.
  • This means that the akumatization process can often vary between Butterfly Miraculous holders.
• According to Marinette, during Gabriel's time as the Butterfly Miraculous holder, he has been able to akumatize 212 people, including the akumatizations in the "New York" and "Shanghai" specials.
  • Individually, the actual number of different people he akumatized is 76 (including himself).
  • By counting all the re-akumatizations, the number adds up to 212 people. With "Mr. Pigeon 72", Xavier Ramier alone was akumatized 72 times (most of them off-screen).
  • This also excludes akumatizations the team was unaware of, such as:
    • Nathalie's akumatizations into Catalyst in the eponymous episode and "Ladybug".
    • Gabriel's self-akumatization into The Collector in "Dearest Family".
    • Both Adrien's akumatization into Ephemeral in the eponymous episode and A.D.A.'s numerous akumatizations into Bugfighter in "Intuition" but both were erased by Second Chance.
  • This also excludes the kamikotized heroes from "Miraculous Paris" since they were empowered by Betterfly and meant for good.

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