Miraculous: Tales Of Ladybug & Cat Noir (Blu-ray Review)
Get ready to bug out with two new super heroes! The exciting new 3D CGI animated TVseries Miraculous™: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir is coming to DVD on May 3, 2016, from Shout! Kids, in collaboration with ZAG. The release features seven incredible episodes, bonus features, and a French language track – très bon! Wildly successful on Nickelodeon, its legions of fans worldwide know that Miraculous™: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir is superhero super fun. Marinette and Adrien, two seemingly normal kids live what appears to be an ordinary teen life in Paris with daily encounters that create amusing circumstances in school, with friends, family, and even with strangers. But when the evil Hawk Moth threatens their beloved city of Paris, they transform into the superheroes Ladybug and Cat Noir using super powers gained with the help of their magical friends. Hawk Moth is using his evil energy to transform normal people into super villains, so our two heroes need to use all their skills to defeat him.
Show 
Becoming Ladybug is a complicated process. First, Marinette needs a “Kwami,” which is a tiny magical assistant (called Tikki). She also needs a “Miraculous,” which is a magical accessory (her special pair of earrings). Tikki uses the Miraculous to transform Marinette, but her Ladybug super powers only work for a limited time!
It is a good thing that she gets a little help from her superhero partner, Cat Noir even though she insists she doesn’t need him. If only she knew Cat Noir’s true identity – her school crush, Adrien! It will take a lot – friendship, teamwork and skill – to outwit Hawk Moth. Will Ladybug and Cat Noir be able to balance their double lives and keep Paris safe? Will they ever find out each other’s true identity? Until then – there is a whole city of baddies to defeat…SPOTS ON, CLAWS OUT!
I can’t say I’m familiar with these tales regarding Ladybug and Cat Noir that are given the exulted title of being known as Miraculous. My kids watch a good lump of Nickelodeon and I’ve not even caught wind of its existence until this DVD review. Its a rather new show, having started in 2015. This collection features seven episodes from the first season. And in a weird way, presented not in the order that they aired or the order that they are supposed to appear in.
While the show has its foot in some very child-friendly territory, I still found it quite charming and enjoyable. There is a lot of originality and creativity on display. This is basically a CG Anime show as its style shares a lot of traits and tropes. I was also getting a big Mega Man vibe with everything too, which was interesting. Particularly it came with the villains and their costumes, weapons and design. When it comes to the outfits and characters, its all fluid and nothing feels ridiculous or forced. And the show’s big bad actually looks like the guy from The Collector movies. Kinda odd coincidence.
What it came down to here for me to gauge it was how my kids enjoyed it. And for the most part, they were digging it quite a bit. They’ve gone through this DVD many many times already in the week I’ve had it for review. I may have to just find it and DVR so they can see the other episodes and/or catch the next season when it begins.
Episodes
“The Bubbler”
“Mr. Pigeon”
“Stormy Weather”
“Timebreaker”
“Copycat”
“The Pharaoh”
“Lady Wi-Fi”
Video
Encoding: MPEG-2 NTSC
Resolution: 480i
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Clarity/Detail: Luckily here, being a DVD isn’t such a burden since this is animated. For the given format, this is top notch and about as good as it goes. Details come through rather fluidly and the image is as sharp as things can go.
Depth: Its rather on the flat end of things with smooth movements that blur a bit depending on the given speed.
Black Levels: Its animated, blacks are black. They help with defining images and sharpening. Shading is solid here, too.
Color Reproduction: Colors are pretty vivid and pop good. Red and blues jump out, but honestly every color is full and rich.
Flesh Tones: N/A
Noise/Artifacts: Typical DVD compression issues and the like.
Audio
Audio Format(s): English 5.1 Dolby Digital, French 5.1 Dolby Digital
Subtitles: English
Dynamics: I have to say I’m pretty impressed with this 5.1 track. They could have just put a stereo track on here, or done the bare minimum for a 5.1. However, they actually have a 5.1 mix worthy of being a 5.1 mix. Sounds are flushed out, layered and every environment is realized in a 360 degree arena.
Low Frequency Extension: Some of the magical powers and primarily all of the action scenes impressively boom on your subwoofer.
Surround Sound Presentation: Ladybug invades your ears from all five channels. This show has itself a fun and pretty well realized 5 channel track. It correctly depicts the onscreen action and has some fun with its rear channels as well.
Dialogue Reproduction: Dialogue is loud, clean and clear.
Extras
Miraculous Sing-Along (SD, 2:02) – A sing-along video for the shows opening titles song.
Interviews with the Creators (SD, 5:19) – With English subtitles, the creators talk about crafting the story of an “American girl with Japanese powers.” Features sketches, comic panels, early animations and the like.
Selected Scene Animatics (SD, 18:07)
Summary
If the show doesn’t catch and stick with you, the theme song sure will. This is a very original, solid and creative little show that is good for the young ones, but I think older folks (Especially those super into Anime) may find some enjoyment in it as well. This DVD has the show both looking and sound as something could on the DVD format. The extras are brief but decent. And the price point here is really hard to beat if you’re someone who is curious or somewhat interested.
Very Nice Review!!