miraculousladybug.com is live Miraculous Ladybug - Zag looks like they are finally trying to do a coordinated launch
looks like the property is taking off in Japan... new official Miraculous Manga to start (hopefully this will last longer than the comic book) it can only be a good thing for the property to do well in Japan because it might trickle down to the anime fans who haven't caught on to it yet in the States
Miraculous Box I guess this thing is like a loot crate (or even the Zag Box seen on the zagstore.com) but I wonder how much of the stuff you would get is truly unique
Astruc's sketch of President Camilla Hombee (that's an anagram of Michelle Obama) one wonders how that works, having a superhero be the President of the United States... Do other world leaders dare call her out or cross swords with her? Are there other countries whose leaders are super-powered or is America sort of the outlier (as was implied) with superheroes coming out of the woodwork everywhere?
Well, hey, maybe that's where the President of France is in the Miraculous universe - off being a superhero! You'd think that'd be important information to at least reference once or twice but given this show only does world building as necessary for the given plot...
gettin dressed up for Halloween! it's kinda funny she looks like a little old granny with those glasses and overabundance of jewelry I guess the latest news is the Shanghai special is airing around March 2021 and a newly announced Rio special sometime in late 2021... season 4 still on tap for Sept 2021
Wow September... I never dreamed they were that Incompetant or that Disney would let them be that incompetant - what exactly would their brand merchandise affiliates think of them being told they'd have season 4 reasonably soon and only to find it delayed by 11 months over the initial release date. I thought they might get away with March for season 4 and have the Shanghai Special out in December. What did they all do go hire a cruise ship or something and go on a round the world cruise for an entire year - they went from "we finished the show" bar the dubbing to - and 11 month delay. LIKE WOW ZAG really does suck, and even more so when they still can't even be bothered to finish or release Ghostforce or even seemingly start Pixiegirl either. I guess it's nice to know that there is someone out there even more incompetant with a key brand than CBS though. But seriously is anyone going to be left in this fandom when it will be 2 years with no new season and only a couple of specials in the meantime. Can someone give them some sort of reward for gross incompetance or something ? ------- Anway speaking of incompetance - I got my Playmates Marinette (which am I suddenly thinking of Bunnyx in Lingerie) today anyway & I am surprised to say I like the old Bandai Figure better. 1st off she's SHORT like REALLY REALLY REALLY short. The original figure is 14cm dead the new one is 12.2cm & a lot slimmer in build. Her hair is VERY blue too like aquabug kinda blue where as the old Marinette was raven's wing blue/black. OK Improvements 1st before I get to the ranting. Her jacket is the proper colour it's grey not black Her face is slightly more accurate to the show She has some additional paint on her cuffs with pink spots included. She has double elbows and double knees and rotating and tilting ankles & a modest waist joint she has ball jointed hips (oddly the splay is identical to the old bandai figure at about 60 degrees) but you do get a little bit of useful wiggle from them. I'll have a better idea how she scales when Cat Noir arrived tommorow - if I need to rant about scale or not. But I'd say she doesn't really scale ideally with the previous Bandai figures.. unless you don't mind Chloe or Adrien towering over her. Now for the negatives or elements that are inferior to the previous figure She's kinda flat chested and skinny it makes her look like an 11 year old wearing to much make up because they put a very thick line under her eyes. Her arms are a little long too - they are the same length as the old figure despite her being smaller. I was hoping they'd add a ball jointed neck but they didn't it's still a swivel unfortunately Her Pigtails are a bit truncated to allow her head to turn & her stray hair strands are barely visible moulded on top, also they didn't paint her hair ties unfortunately. Articulation is decent overall ; except for one huge problem she has no upper arm swivel at all so she can't be placed in many of the posses you want to place her in - she likely needed a swivel at the cuff to allow her hand to rotate and to retain the old bandai upper arm joint - even at the cost of the 2nd elbow joint as it makes her really hard to usefully pose - and feels weird expecially when she has so many joints in her legs. They didn't paint the top of her feet making them look like part of her shoes. & the lower legs are a little shapless so it looks like she's wearing socks. She still can't sit at 90 degree's but she can sit a little better than the Bandai one. She doesn't even have earrings moulded into her ears either let alone have them painted like the bandai one does and her ears are not covered by hair making the lack more noticable. So overall I'd say she's OK - but not fantastic, bit skinny and has some issues with the articulation being sort of less than ideal. I'll post some pics once it's not raining and once Cat Noir's arrived tommorow.
i don't get why they're making another special instead of moving up season 4 episodes that are done...it isn't like they haven't had huge gaps within a season before...maybe they are trying to hold off till the movie gets done so they can have a huge leadup to the film but it does leave fandom gasping for anything within a long hiatus... wish they made the playmates figures available now in the States...it isn't doing them any favors to grow the license when the merchandise is non-existent...didn't realize the figures were smaller than the bandai ones as they looked larger in the promo pics...
They did look bigger as test shots didn't they.. Hopefully Cat Noir (and maybe one day Hawkmoth if we are lucky) will be much bigger so there is some sort of scale to them. Some comparison pics from Twitter : I hope they put that upper arm swivel back in too in later figures - the ball jointed neck is going to make it harder to pose ladybug too. even something as simple as having Bunnyx rest her umbrella on her should would be harder to do. That said she does do some poses well like she can rest her head on her hands (in a mooning over Adrien pose) quite well -hands on hips looks good too. She can almost do her "spazzying out" pose too (I hate that word but it's what everyone calls it so I'll reluctantly use it too - even though it's an offensive word in the UK) as I if I say freaking out that sound like she's disco dancing or something. I will be interested to see what is wave 2 or if we get a refresh wave instead (since Queen Bee is supposed to be due too) I hope they have enough sense to realise there is desire for male heroes and civilian forms too though. I really would want a Civilian Lila, & Alya for example. Which is why I hope for some sort of "transformation 2 packs" to get made. You could have some real fun with that like put Marinette in her PJ's and include Cosmobug as the thing she turns into (with a different head to whatever one they might potentially make as a single carded figure). Hopefully they have enough sense to not make a bunch of nonsense LB's (like often happens with Batman toys) and instead just churn through her various power-ups and fusion forms as that wave's requisite Ladybug offering. Not that I don't mind some of that sort of stuff from time to time some of the old Bandai fashion doll outfits were pretty cool looking to be honest. Though speaking of the fashion dolls I wish they'd moulded the hands in the proper colour of the outfit - Though it doesn't look to bad on Queen bee as her outfit actually included fingerless glove looking effect (so pale hands don't look as out of place). I'm very tempted to order that Rena Rouge fashion doll - I really like the structure of the outfit and her hair. But I might wait and see if they do a transformation 2 pack first.
wow she really is tiny compared to the bandai version i see bunnyx fashion doll on amazon but no action figure per se...don't think that'll be coming for awhile and pegasus and monkey king are like almost impossible to expect given the line's focus
That Reflectdoll image does show how much more buff Mister Bug is than Lady Noire. so perhaps Playmates should have made their male figures a bit more buff. I think the likelyhood of getting around to making akuma or King Monkey or Viperion as 12-14cm figures, likely depends on how many waves per year Playmates plan to make and if they plan to do giftsets or not too. I would like to hope that Viperion, Ryuko, & Carapace are on their "to do list" due to what they put on their promotional posters including those characters. I think the "wise" thing to do is avoid making "made up" characters like Bandai did with their doll line. I hope they don't go to nuts and make every wave have two LB varients in it too, I'm not going to cry to much if say wave 2 was Queen Bee (carry over) and Bunnyx, New Costume "Level Up" Ladybug, and one of the heroes. or perhaps ditch the Queen Bee refresh and put in Multi-Mouse or Ice Bug or Aqua Noir instead. I think it might make a degree of sense to spread out the fusion forms and power ups a bit. The problem is that they have so many characters that they could EASILY produce 6 waves a year - but I think 4 is about as many as we can realistically expect and maybe even 3. Now I don't mind reduced wave numbers if they compensate with giftsets. But I do have a serious concern that reduced waves would mean lower likelyhood of getting around to doing Akuma and Hawkmoth and Miyura. But I would rather like any akuma who has been in more than one episode who doesn't already have a figure... so it wouldn't be a wise idea to do their own take on Puppeteer, Stormyweather, or Lady Wi Fi yet. Or to perhaps to do Miracle Queen instead of Queen Wasp or Anti-Bug would be wise. But the ones I think would work (and pushing male characters to the side a bit) would be Refelkta, & Princess Fragrance. But i'd be happy with Prime Queen or even Style Queen too. Episodic Boxsets seem like a really clever way to go if they can resist over stacking them with reissues. The only downside to giftsets like that is that if they included akuma minions then you'd have a rather impractical way to get them. But lets be honest - how else are they ever going to release civilian characters if not in episode gift sets ? I really can't see them putting Chloe's Butler Jean (whatever) on a single card even if it did come with a tiny dispair bear. But you can easily justify doing things like Roger Cop or Pharoah with such a way of doing it - or even making a scowling Ladybug as "Nightmare bug" in a sandboy set. or Angry Cat Noir with black lips in a Dark Cupid set. A Set for Star Train could provide Chloe in winter garb & Pegasus or they could even do a really big set for Partycrasher and include 'Mario' & King Monkey, Kwamibuster could provide say Multi-fox & Multi-Bug perhaps a few Multi-Mouse minifigures, and a few kwami... I think this would make a lot of sense as with such a way of selling the figures they'd have an excuse to make things like Civilian Nino or even Marinette in her PJ's The Parents, Gabriel, Nathalie and so on they'd otherwise never get around to making. I have even thought they could do a few bigger toys like The Catbug Mech, or a T-Rex too or perhaps a Glaciator hollow figure with Andre the Icrecream maker which fits inside. Though when I got thinking about what Hawkmoth calls "his Titans" or various senti-monsters I got to thinking about simply 5poa or 7poa 12" vinals as being appropriate to make the likes of Horrificator, Gigantitan, The Gamer Mech, Refelktdoll, the Moth Senti Monster, Cat Bug & Gorizilla. I guess it is partly down to how many new moulds they are prepared to make. But I know if they only do carded figures i'm just not going to get that Civilian Alya figure in a hurry and even Akuma would be a hope. [edit] Some more Playmates toys 12cm Figure pics Say if anyone hears when 12cm Queen Bee is supposed to be out give me a hollar !
zag promoting the upcoming movie (supposed to be at the end of 2021) the character model of Marinette is...different...kinda reminds me more of the Disney Princess mold, but maybe can't make a true determination based on just one pic
I'm Guessing J wanted people to not confuse the movie and the show - the problem he might have is people might reject it as it's not the show. Also if by some miracle they manage to finish it on time it will be kinda distracting having them promote season 4 and the Movie at the same time - but even if it gets put back a year it will likely end up having that problem with later seasons too. Oh and yes the art design is a bit peculiar - almost like some dreamworks or Disney Movie (I wonder if Disney made them change it or If Jeremy wanted them to change it - to does make the characters look very young (for the 3 females (4 if you count LB) I've seen so far) & gabriel kinda looks like a German Officer from a World War II movie more than he does Gabriel. Of course the biggest questions is who is the Movie actually for ? ---------- Anyway I've been thinking about Packaging design on the playmates figures and various promotional images and how they associate colours with characters - and as the playmates figures have different coloured packets by characters -I wonder if that indicates they are actually going to make those "rainbow" or characters and I can actually hold out some hope for at least a Ryuko, Carapace & Viperion. I suspect that hooded cloak Rena comes with is some sort of stealth power up we won't see for months now. It's really weird to get an accessory that we won't see be used until the end of next year. ------------- [EDIT] P.S. Playmates' 12cm Rena Rouge is also out now.
