Aleezah Farooqi

I used to like this show a lot. It showed the darker aspects of life while remaining appropriate for kids. However, watching the latest season, it has become incredibly repetitive. There is no plot development whatsoever, and whatever plot they had originally made has downgraded to there being almost no real plot at all. Whatever character development that was made was thrown away, and the brushing off of canon LGBT couples was severely disappointing. While I do understand many people don't believe LGBT couples are something to be presented in a kids show, the brushing off of them and calling them 'close friends' was... to put plainly, quite upsetting. Character design was also a bit shabby to say the least, though overall it is not quite bad. However, viewing all of this, I do think the show has severely run-down from its original glory and lost a lot of potential, what with so many plot holes and random bomb shells which are really so random and more often than not have nothing to do with what's going on in the episode. I used to like this show a lot, but the latest season has really diminished my opinions of it. There is also the fact of pushing Adrienette to be endgame while, as the show progresses, they become increasingly toxic for each other. Ladybug constantly reprimanding Chat Noir, and Marinette's obsessive behaviour towards Adrien incredibly becoming more uncomfortable for viewers to watch. There is another factor of Adrien's constant 'I won't take no for an answer' approach to Ladybug, which I find quite annoying. No one would do that for so long, leaving a bit of a mysogynistic feel for their love issue. Also, the creators make it seem that Marinette's worth is only determined by her skill of talking to a boy, which is her "main struggle" in the show. She is shown to be independent, reckless, messy, wise and determined when not around Adrien, but when she is with him she is shown to be dependent, selfish, and again, annoying. Almost everyone in the classroom has had to make a pair for them to be noticed as characters. Another issue is diversity! There is quite a bit and for that I am grateful, grateful for something that's not those predominantly white shows with white main characters and white side characters and everything based around white people. The issue here is that Marinette is a biracial character, but the creators stripped her of everything that makes her half-Chinese, even removing her ability to speak Chinese. There is nothing about her that shows she is a biracial character, making her seem, as always, the usual white female. The characters around also have more light-skinned people than not. When Alya and Max transform, their skin turns lighter, a fact other viewers and I also find a bit disturbing, conforming again to that pattern of light-skinned heroes. Overall, I have many issues with this show. I feel it has lost a lot of potential in portraying the characters in a very wrong sense and leaving too many holes in the plot to count. I wouldn't recommend this show to anyone, really.