Thomas Astruc: “Everyone will be stunned by Miraculous season 4”

Thomas Astruc and some Miraculous Ladybug crew members had an interview with Le Figaro earlier today. This interview was done in french but was put into Google Translate (made more clear by me and Saezeliae). You will find the questions and answers below.

What was the general idea of this season 3 of Miraculous?

Mélanie DUVAL – Very familiarly, we wrote the episodes telling us that Marinette was going to drool. She begins her school year by losing her place in the class. She already had Chloe as an enemy, she ended up with a second, Lila. The love of her life is coveted by another … She is overwhelmed!

Thomas ASTRUC. – It was a season focused on Master Fu (the guardian of the miraculous) as well as a test of Marinette. To pull our characters up, you have to know how to make them fall very low. Many things unfolded, jostled and ended in the finale. The series could have stopped there with this bitter-sweet ending. Nothing is predictable in Miraculous .

Is there a real chronology to respect when watching the episodes?

Sebastien THIBAUDEAU. – Each story is an entry point, we give back all the necessary information for a non-initiate to the universe of Miraculous to understand.

Thomas ASTRUC. – There are seasonal chronologies. The stories of the first season must precede those of the second, which themselves must be before the third. But each season has a particular taste with, in its first episode, an inventory. In the middle, a set that can be viewed in almost any order where each episode will bring new information. And in the end, a last episode where all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. This is one series that you can watch many times, and you will always discover something new.

Sebastien THIBAUDEAU. – In the first season, we tested things like showing Chloe playing with Ladybug. This started the development of her character. Gradually, we began to sow elements that made sense later.

How did you come up with the idea of ​​the episode called Chat Blanc that shows what would happen in the future if the two heroes fell in love with each other?

Thomas ASTRUC. – This is an episode that required a year of writing work and we finally see little bits of what we had originally imagined. The TV channels had validated the first version (TF1 in France, Disney Channel in the United States and Gloob in Brazil, etc.) but we had decided to review our copy. It is extremely rare for authors to make this kind of decision, but for us it was not good enough. We still did not have enough control over the world of our characters to be able to write it correctly; we had to take our time.

Sebastien THIBAUDEAU. – We wrote flashbacks that I did not believe fit. They did not fit the mentality of our characters. We stopped everything to start from scratch with the original idea: what would happen if Marinette and Adrien were together and if Adrien knew that Marinette was hiding from her that she was Ladybug? It took us an extra week. Once this work was done, we were able to focus on the present of the heroes and disseminate plots of our flashbacks. We still have scenes that we loved but were not used for lack of space. Initially, Chat Blanc was a season 2 episode but it finally took place at the end of season 3.

Does the story of Chat Blanc annihilate the possibility of a love relationship between Marinette and Adrien?

Thomas ASTRUC. – The Chat Blanc episode does not close the possibility of a relationship between them but it shows how delicate it would be. These are the two heroes, the villain wants to steal their miraculous so a romantic relationship would be dynamite. It is to be handled with care, it could not happen anyhow or anytime. As long as a villain is in search of their miraculous, it will be complicated… Since the beginning, we knew that if they know their respective secret identities, it would be enough that one or the other has a negative emotion to be akumatized and would give Hawkmoth what he wants. With the episode Chat Blanc, you now know what would happen if they went out together.

In the Timetagger episode , you gave us another projection of the future of Ladybug and Chat Noir…

Thomas ASTRUC. – The future is not fixed, that’s what the episode Chat Blanc could demonstrate. But we can afford to assert certain things because we have a very long-term vision of the series and we know where we want to bring it. Time travel is often double-edged. A child will consider this phenomenon for the first time while a teenager or an adult will have other references like Terminator, Back to the Future, Doctor Who and be more critical. Paradoxically, a child will understand things more naturally.

Frédéric LENOIR. – We mastered the universe of the series so it’s easy to play with our characters and to confront them to different situations. We seek above all to build stories that are interesting and understandable.

Thomas ASTRUC. – We think that what children do not know, they learn. When they are confronted with new things in Miraculous , we become their first explanation. It does not matter if they do not immediately understand some winks, they can understand them later. The names of the protagonists, the costumes of the superheroes, the places… There are a multitude of small clues to dig which are full of cultural information. For example, the story of Master Fu’s girlfriend in Backwarder is a tribute to the grandmother of our screenwriter Frédéric Lenoir, who is a former resistance fighter. We called her Marianne Lenoir.

What values do you wish to convey through the episodes of Miraculous?

Mélanie DUVAL. – We are sensitive to the impact of pop culture on young people. We are very careful not to show things that could have a bad influence on their imagination in the series. I remember having hated this figure given here or there to the class-nerd abused by his comrades. In Miraculous, we have the sportsman, the intellectual, the good girlfriend, the plague… But no one is mistreated. We show a kind of ideal where the big sporty can be the best friend of the intellectual. And in the face of a negative character like Chloe, the question is not going to be how to make her nice, but rather how to react to her. Her girlfriend Sabrina is abused but she did not say her last word.

Thomas ASTRUC. – This degree of submission to the wrong person is something that one has to deal with. But to achieve this, we must first establish the basics and show the facts and behaviors. Sabrina’s problem requires time to be effectively settled.

Frédéric LENOIR. – If you approach and solve a problem too quickly, you may treat it too mechanically and theoretically. Our principle is to approach each theme in a constructive and rewarding way. We go over what we should not do because we believe strongly in what to do. Our characters also believe in it. We always try to go to the light.

Sebastien THIBAUDEAU. – We are careful to show things that are right, to convey good values and this leads us to have long philosophical debates during our writing workshops. You can spend a whole day thinking about the meaning of an episode. When we meet parents who tell us that what we tell their child is good, we are really flattered.

What will we receive in the fourth season of Miraculous?

Mélanie DUVAL. – This is the season when the characters really take control of the series.

Thomas ASTRUC. – In season 3, Marinette suffered and in season 4, it will be a bomb each episode. This is the equivalent of the impact of a Chat Blanc in each episode. Everyone will be flabbergasted. She has new responsibilities and she is maturing. At the site level, after the Grévin museum and the Saint-Martin canal, we will visit the Swan Island.

Sebastien THIBAUDEAU. – Season 4 is the one that surprised us the most. All your certainties will be upset. And it will also be the season of the episode 100, it will be necessary to watch it. And a special episode will keep you waiting until the airing of Season 4. Many events will occur in the year 2020.

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Thomas Astruc answers questions at Lucca Comic conference in Italy

This was at the same conference where we received new concept images for season 4. @MiraculousItaly on Twitter was present at the conference and @MiraculousINTL on Twitter translated the Q&A. The English translations can be found below.

According to Miraculous World Network, “Thomas is not sure when S4 will be broadcasted, but they are aiming to make the hiatus smaller than that of S1 and S2. Storyboard and scripts have already been written for S4, they are only missing the animation on the episodes.”

“Which is your favorite episode in the show?”

“My favorite episode is always the last one we have written, for we always try to improve the level. We think in making every episode better than the last.”

Thomas Astruc

Information on Chloe

“If you have seen the S3 ending, you have to understand WHY Chloé does things. She doesn’t do good things to be altruistic, but to receive recognition. This unfortunately does not cancel all the bad things she has done just because she did one good thing (only to be flattered). What message would it send kids? We try to explain why she is that way, but understanding is not the same as forgiving. Maybe Chloe can improve, but it will require a lot of work.”

Thomas Astruc

“What do you think about Lila? And why is she Italian?”

“What makes you think she’s Italian? She’s a liar, maybe she made up that too…”

Thomas Astruc

“What type of relationship do Adrien and Kagami have?”

“It’s interesting because they share many things and that’s why they understand each other profoundly. Kagami means “mirror” [In Japanese], and in fact, she’s a mirror to Marinette and Adrien, in a way. Adrien can’t speak about his life with Ladybug, so it’s easier to approach Kagami instead. But, is it really love? Who knows… nothing is sure about love, it’s a feeling with different meanings.”

Thomas Astruc

“Why did you replace Felix with Adrien?”

“Felix is a character that is mysterious and evil. When I tried to imagine Marinette reacting to him, I couldn’t imagine why she’d love someone like him, so that’s how I came up with Adrien.”

Thomas Astruc

“What’s the relationship between Gabriel and Nathalie?”

“It’s complicated. We had actually written a comic involving the events BEFORE Miraculous: when Gabriel was a teen and when he met Emilie and Nathalie, etc… We hope we can release this comic!”

Thomas Astruc

“What’s your favorite ship?”

“I like all of them, it’s hard to choose, but the most complex to create but also most interesting, is the one between Nathaniel and Marc.”

Thomas Astruc

“What is the relationship between Marinette and Luka?”

“Similar to that between Adrien and Kagami. Luka is kind, handsome and… attainable, as opposed to Adrien who is locked up. So it’s easier for her to be with Luka but also: is it love? Is it something else? Who knows.”

Thomas Astruc

“The mother Adrien loves so much… Why did she never let him go to school or let him be free?”

“All the answers are in this comic I have mentioned (the Gabriel story), so I can’t tell you, it’d be a spoiler.”

Thomas Astruc

“Is it true there’ll be a movie about the series?”

“Yes. Jeremy Zag wrote it and is directing it. I think it will be interesting, since it will show a completely different vision of the universe. It also has songs, so I’m happy.”

Thomas Astruc

“Why do you enjoy making us suffer!?”

“Because I know you like it”

Thomas Astruc

This is all we have at the moment, however it was said that there were more questions asked. An updated post will be released when more information is available.

All translations can be found at @MiraculousINTL‘s Twitter page.