Proper order of Miraculous Ladybug

Hey y’all, happy holidays. Today, I’m talking about Miraculous Ladybug, a French cartoon about superheroes, Ladybug, and Chat Noir, who are in love with each other but don’t know it.

Intro to Miraculous

Have you ever tried to watch Miraculous Ladybug and get confused about the release order? I feel you, I’ve been there. So I want to help as someone who loves this show. I created a timeline (or two). It’s not perfect but generally, this should be okay.

General Guidelines

My general guidelines were any 2 part episodes are automatically back to back episodes (Troublemaker should not have broken up Style Queen/ Queen Wasp). After that, I tried to look for things that would make an episode after other episodes. For example, I knew Reverser would be after Evillustrator and Captain Hardrock. I also tried to make character arcs in order. Jagged Stone’s, for example, is Pixelator then Guitar Villain, Kung Food, Troublemaker. All have to happen before Style Queen. I’ll admit this was a messy process.

My First Timeline for the First Arc

Originally I tried to do a method where I took notes on all of the episodes for seasons 1, 2 part 1, and 2 part 2 of Miraculous Ladybug and physically made a timeline with string, post-it notes, and paper clips. When taking notes I pretended to watch it for the first time and noted what you would have learned if you watched the show in the original order. My notes had lots of different things and this is the result:

1. Origins 1 and 2
2. The Pharaoh
3. Timebreaker
4. Pixelator
5. Guitar Villain
6. Frighteningale
7. Stormy Weather
8. Rogercop
9. Glaciater 
10. Lady Wifi
11. Bubbler
12. DarkBlade
13. Gamer
14. Dark Cupid
15. Evillustrator
16. Giganitcan
17. Animan
18. Horrificator
19. Princess Fragrance
20. Kung Food 
21. Troublemaker
22. Antibug
23. Reflekta
24. Despair Bear
25. Zombizou
26. Prime Queen
27. Puppeteer
28. Simon Says
29. Gorzilla
30. Befana
31. Mr Pidgeon
32. The Queen’s Battle 1 & 2
33. Malediktator
34. Sandboy
35. Volpina
36. Sapotis
37. Collector
38. Robustus
39. Dark Owl
40. Syren
41. Anatsi
42. Hard rock
43. Reverser
44. Reposte
45. Frozer
46. Catalyst Part 1 & 2

Using the timeline method previously mentioned, it turned into a small mess in my living room I had to clean up so I decided to do something different for season 3 part 1 and 2. I decided to be very intentional about my notes for those but then I went back and re-wrote my timeline for the first arc of the show. (The first 51 episodes). I decided this time, every season would have the same amount of episodes so it would feel even. I would try to follow a similar logic to sort season 3 part 1 and 2.

Notice how there are no breaks in the episodes for the seasons? Ugh. I promise there’s a sense of logic here. Anyway here’s my new and improved one:

New Season 1 for Miraculous

1. Origins part 1
2. Origins part 2
3. Bubbler
4. Gigantican (originally Mari’s gal pals find out much later = unrealistic)
5. Pharaoh
6. Mime
7. Stormy Weather
8. Copycat
9. Lady Wifi
10. Horrificator 
11. Pixelator
12. Rogercop  
13. Animan
14. Darkblade
15. Princess Fragrance
16. Despair Bear
17. Glaciator

Mild Explanation for my Season 1 of Miraculous

Some of these are strange placements but in my timeline, season 1 is mostly introductions. In the original timeline, some of the introduction episodes come after they are mentioned or in the background (Jagged and Andre the Ice Cream Man, for example). It does end on a satisfying note of Ladybug can’t love chat because she’s in love with someone else and Chat may have gotten rejected, but he’s not going to give up on the love of his life. You know most of the crew because of origins and you know Marinette’s support group which I thought was important. You still get to see Gabriel (Gabe) be a crappy dad but not too much. 

New Season 2 Part 1 for Miraculous

1. Timebreaker
2. Guitar Villain
3. Evillustrator
4. Dark Cupid
5. Gamer
6. Kung Food
7. Reflekta
8. Simon Says
9. Gorzilla
10. Anitbug
11. Zombizou
12. Befana
13. Prime Queen
14. Puppeteer
15. Mr. Pigeon
16. Style Queen 
17. Queen Wasp

Mild Explanation for Season 2 Part 1

For this one, I wanted to finish up having all the classmates akumatized and watch a slow progression of Marinette and Adrien’s relationship. Marinette is compared to Chloe quite a bit so I figured that would be a good arc for this season. You watch Chloe and Marinette’s relationship reach the pits and Marinette must decide if she’s going to be better than Chloe or stoop to her level. You also have Hawk Moth trying to confirm if Adrien is Chat Noir and watching him get gradually more and more frustrated. 

New Season 2 Part 2 for Miraculous

1. Malediktator
2. Sandboy
3. Robustus
4. Dark Owl
5. Reposte
6. TroubleMaker
7. Volpina
8. Collector
9. Sapotis
10. Syren
11. Frightningale
12. Captain Hardrock
13. Reverser
14. Frozer 
15. Anatsi
16. Catalyst part 1
17. Catalyst part 2

Mild Explanation for Season 2 Part 2

This one picks up where season 2 part 1 left off. You meet some new characters. Then enter Lila. She originally appears in season 1, but to me, it doesn’t make sense to introduce a character and then not use her. So I have all my Lila episodes in the same season to give her a proper introduction. Catalyst wraps up the arc nicely with an Avengers-style of battle. Hawk Moth diverted suspicion from his secret identity and all is relatively well.

Miraculous movie in New York

It’s not bad, my hope is that when season 4 comes out, they don’t completely disregard the “growth” that happened. It has to be after Frozer because of the rose thing. The dolls sold in Shanghai were a mistake according to the creator and were supposed to be of Sparrow. However, it still comes before Shanghai, in my opinion, because it’s the first time we see the transformation into Astro cat and Cosmo bug as well as hear the aforementioned names. Alya describes them as brand new transformations.

Miraculous movie in Shanghai

I put it after Kung Food since her uncle is in it. They have the space suits but none of their other friends are mentioned. It has to be after Befana because of the necklace given to Mari by Tikki. Marinette asks about Adrien’s 5th namesake which will be important for season 3 part 2. Marinette and Adrien still clearly like each other too so… It feels like a good setup for season 3 even if, to my knowledge, it doesn’t contain references to part 1.

New Season 3 Part 1 for Miraculous

1. Animaestro
2. Stormy Weather 2
3. Bakerix
4. Chameleon
5. StarTrain
6. Chris Master
7. TimeTagger
8. Silencer
9. Desperada
10. Oblivio
11. Kwamibuster
12. Backwarder
13. Feast
14. Miraculeur

Mild Explanation for Season 3 Part 1

Although Animaestro may seem like an odd start, so many episodes have references to Thomas Astruc and thus rely on this episode. In the last season, you would have learned that Kwamis can get water and ice and other elemental powers. In this season, I have you collecting new members of the Miraculous squad. You have an episode in there to really hype things up and give you some backstory. It ends with what I call the Chloe conversation. Chloe is left understanding but ready to hop back into the action.

New Season 3 Part 2 for Miraculous

1. Weredad
2. Gamer 2.0
3. Puppeteer 2
4. Reflekdoll
5. Party Crasher
6. Onichan
7. Ikari Gozen
8. Cat Blanc
9. Felix
10. Ladybug
11. Heart Hunter
12. Miracle Queen

Mild Explanation for Season 3 Part 2

In this season, I have Adrien and Marinette slowly falling out of love with each other while also progressing Marinette’s study to become the next guardian. This was foreshadowed in season 3 part 1. Going forward, we now have a kick-butt team, new villains, and a ### ####### all nice and ready for whatever comes way in season 4. As for the Christmas musical episode, it fits in nicely during or after season 2 part 2. 

More on the movies…

So Hawkmoth has been suffering a lot of losses lately. In my mind, it makes sense for him to start exploring more opportunities for success after Feast. With Natalie’s health declining, it makes sense she’s not involved in either of the movies so far. They have to be before season 3 part 2 because Adrien and Mari still have feelings for each other. Lila is in one movie but not the other one but to be fair, Shanghai is less about France and more about Shanghai. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was turned into a spin-off series.

New Timeline Method

In this new, less messy method, I wrote all of my notes on a whiteboard with notes of what I was looking for. Then, I counted the episodes, divided up the number of episodes so each season would be even length, categorized important episodes, and then numbered each of the episodes. Here are my notes from all the seasons:

Season 4 Explanation + Predictions

So this season is far from over and I promise to reveal my order for the episodes once they are all out but I think I can help piece together the overarching story of the season. This season is all about revealing how the ladybug/cat noir reveals cannot happen and roughly the character development that needs to happen. Back in Chat Blanc, we learned Adrien can’t find out first because dating Mari is what lead to becoming akumatized. Now we know that Mari can’t find out right now because as long as Gabe is Shadowmoth it won’t work for very similar reasons.

So where does that leave us?

Throughout the episodes we have so far the show seems to be laying down a foundation for healthy relationships. Truth, Lies, Guiltrip, Crocoduel, Glacciator2, Rocketear, Wishmaker, Dearest Family, Sole Crusher, and Ephermeral, all have common themes of secrets, misunderstandings, and relationships. To me, the show is implying that eventually, everyone on the miraculous team will know at least one of the main identities and the relationship between Adrien and Mari can’t happen until after they know each other’s secrets. (Look at Alya and Nino). A lot of the episodes mentioned earlier deal with coming-of-age themes which makes me think Adrien and Mari need to be secure in their identities before the reveal too.

Superheroes

From what I’ve noticed on TikTok and other Miraculous news, most of us don’t care for Alya becoming more of a main character. I think the hardest part for me is Ladybug got a cool new ability on top of being the guardian at the beginning of the season and her charming companion got nothing on top of not communicating well with chat. That’s why I think Su-Han is going to teach chat to fight with Mirakung Fu and how to resist akumas. I also think he’s going to tell Nino his secret and Kagami will find out the identity of both Ladybug and Cat since this show loves parallels but I guess we’ll have to see.

Superheroes Left to Reveal

• Stompp – the Ox superhero
• Fluff – Bunnyx orgins
• Ziggy – the Goat superhero
• Orikko – the Rooster superhero
• Barkk – the Dog superhero

Final Thoughts

Honestly, this isn’t a bad show, I really like this show. However, this isn’t the kind of show you watch over and over again. I know the second time around, I was less thrilled about it. If that scares you, don’t worry, the episodes do get better. There’s a reason Miraculous has a semi-strong following.

Thank you for reading my new timeline of Miraculous Ladybug. Comment below if you like this show and if you think the timeline I made was good or not. If you like the content I make, consider subscribing to my mailing list and if you like this, check out a similar post here. If you want a printable version of my ranking, click here. See you in the next post!