Review: Miraculous World - London - At The Edge of Time

This morning, a new Miraculous Ladybug special aired on Disney Channel in France, entitled Miraculous World: London - At the Edge of Time. This special is going to air on Disney Channel in America over Thanksgiving break, but I was able to watch it early, so here's my review of the special!

The special is set after the events of Miraculous Ladybug season 5, right after (spoiler alert) Gabriel Agreste makes his wish to revive Nathalie, sacrificing himself to do so. Marinette saw this sacrifice and has decided to not tell Adrien that his father was Hawkmoth, telling the world a story that Gabriel was a "hero" instead of the villain that had been terrorizing them for five seasons. She struggles with this choice, and seeing Adrien's reaction to his father's death, but things change when a new villain comes into play, stealing Marinette's Miraculouses and making a wish to trigger the end of the world. Marinette must go back in time, figure out where and when her identity was uncovered, and grapple with the effects her choice had on the world along the way.

This special was really good! I will admit, the beginning was a little slow because it was a recap of all the events in Miraculous that led up to this point, and there were other moments in the special where footage from other episodes were played, which was a little frustrating considering I know EVERYTHING about Miraculous and have seen every other episode, but I guess it works for people who don't know as much as I do. But other than that, I loved it! I really appreciated how well the writing was in this special, and how Marinette's character arc was handled in the midst of the fallout from the season 5 finale. I also liked how involved Alix and Nathalie were in this special, and their character arcs as well. The new villain (I won't say who, but you guys probably know if you're a Miraculer) was way better than I was expecting - I knew she had tough shoes to fill after the end of the Hawkmoth arc, but she was even MORE clever than Hawkmoth in her first special, and it made me even more excited to watch Season 6 when it comes out at the end of the year!

Speaking of Season 6, something important to note about this special is that it's the last episode with the animation done by SAMG, and that going forward, Dwarf Animation will be doing the animation for Miraculous, meaning there will be a new art style. However, there was a bit at the end with the new style, and it looks great, though I will miss the old art style, of course. But thankfully, there were a lot of full-circle moments in this special that eagle-eyed fans are able to catch, commemorating the end of one era of Miraculous and the beginning of a new one.

Overall, this was a great special! I would rate this a 9/10 and recommend it to any Miraculous fans, but wouldn't recommend it for newcomers to the show due to having to watch all 5 seasons of the show and 3 other specials before you watch this one. But if you do want to get into Miraculous, all 5 seasons are on Disney+ and it comes on Disney Channel at least three times a day!