All the Miraculous

(partly because the Insta stuff is all dated 2019–2020, and still has to fit into the rest of canon, which is dated ?? 2014–2017 ??)

[meta] ML episode order (9691 words) by AlexSeanchai
Chapters: 3/?
Fandom: Miraculous Ladybug
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Additional Tags: Meta, Nonfiction, Fanwork Research & Reference Guides
Summary:

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana. Or, causality is not an oxymoron.

A suggested episode order for Miraculous Ladybug canon, with reasoning.

Chapter 1: First-watch order, spoiler-avoidant (with dates of upcoming episode premieres)
Chapter 2: Chronological order
Chapter 3: Episode order reasoning (assume spoilers for all aired-in-order episodes and all deuterocanon)

The first nine episodes of the season have aired in French; the first six have in English. We have confirmed air dates for English dub of "Passion", "Reunion", and "Elation" (apparently 5x09 has a different name in English than French): the next three Saturdays. We know several episodes have been finished for months—of particular note are "Transmission" and "Deflagration", the tenth and eleventh episodes that taken together are the two-part "The Kwamis' Choice"—but until today we only had air dates for the first nine.

Gloob is airing 5x12 "Perfection" and 5x18 "Emotion" on November 21.

Disney US airs new episodes in English on Saturdays, 10:00a Eastern Time | 7:00a Pacific Time. Gloob airs new episodes in Brazilian Portuguese on Mondays, 19:30 Brasilia Time | 3:30p Pacific Time. TFOU airs new episodes in French at 10h20 Central European Time | 1:20a Pacific Time.

5x01 "Evolution" has already aired on Disney US.

5x02 "Multiplication" has already aired on Gloob; Disney US will air it on October 15.

5x03 "Destruction" will premiere on Gloob on October 17. It will then air on Disney US on October 22.

5x04 "Jubilation" will air on Disney Italy on October 26, though I do not have confirmation of that or of what time this will be, or even if it's only in Italian or if (like Disney Spain) Disney Italy does dual audio. I do have confirmation of TFOU on October 27. It will then air on Disney US on October 29. It seems likely Gloob will air the Brazilian Portuguese dub on October 24, but this is not confirmed.

5x05 "Illusion" will premiere on TFOU on November 2. It will then air on Disney US on November 5. It is at least possible Gloob will try to have it out October 31, but that is still not early enough to compel people watching in world premiere order to watch in episode chronological order, because…

5x06 "Determination" will premiere on TFOU on October 28. It will then air on Disney US on November 12.

5x07 "Passion" will premiere on TFOU on October 31. It will then air on Disney US on November 19.

5x08 "Reunion" will premiere on TFOU on November 1. It will then air on Disney US on November 26.

While we know that several more episodes have been completed, Zag is determined that this season will air in order—no, I don't know why TFOU isn't rearranging their airing order to get 5x05 a few days earlier, now that they're sure enough it'll be ready soon to schedule it to begin with—and we do not have known air dates for anything after 5x08.

We do however have the rest of the titles:

5x09 "Exaltation"
5x10 "Transmission (The Kwamis' Choice Pt. 1)"
5x11 "Deflagration (The Kwamis' Choice Pt. 2)"
5x12 "Perfection"
5x13 "Migration"
5x14 "Derision"
5x15 "Intuition"
5x16 "Protection"
5x17 "Adoration"
5x18 "Emotion"
5x19 "Pretension"
5x20 "Revelation"
5x21 "Confrontation"
5x22 "Collusion"
5x23 "Revolution"
5x24 "Representation"
5x25 "Confirmation (The Last Day Pt. 1)"
5x26 "Re-Creation (The Last Day Pt. 2)"
Special "Action"

Here I am using a super reliable method of figuring out which Chinese characters ML's various instances of tone-marker-less Pinyin in people's names refer to, which I call "poke English-language Wiktionary and hope". I would deeply, deeply appreciate any Mandarin speakers' input.

( I probably did way more research than Astruc and them )

My personal suspicion is that Sabine Cheng's original name is 澄夏炳 Chéng Xiàbǐng, clarify/purify magnificent/colorful bright/notable. Your mileage may, obviously, vary.

Disney US will be airing one episode each Saturday morning in February, 10:00 Eastern Standard Time. In order, even!

4x05 "Psychomedian" February 5
4x20 "Qilin" February 12
4x23 "Kuro Neko" February 19
4x24 "Penalteam" February 26

I am betting this means 4x25 "Risk" March 5 and 4x26 "Strike Back" March 12, since we know those episodes were already ready, but Disney US has not released its March premiere dates yet.

"Risk" and "Strike Back" will air this week sometime. What, you wanted an actual date? Look, we're apparently lucky we get this much notice. I understand it wasn't possible to tell which ML episode the network was airing in that time slot today until it began airing.

(We do know the time slot is 21:55 Eastern European Time, which is 11:55 am Pacific Standard Time. I'd expect the fansubs to take longer than usual, given that the only time the Miraculous Ladybug fandom has previously needed Ukrainian translation for English fansubs was, uh, last time PlusPlus premiered the season finale two-part in Ukrainian dub while multiple episodes from earlier in the season were nowhere to be found.)

When will 4x05 "Psychomedian", 4x20 "Qilin", and 4x24 "Penalteam" air anywhere in the world? Not before the finale. Not on Disney US until, at earliest, February. No other information is available at this time.

ladyofacat, official source on when we can and can't get away with watching the season out of order, says:

Yikes. Well I mean, it’s not a HUGE problem if people watch the finale before the remaining eps, you’ll understand fine, but obviously it would make more sense to watch all the other episodes first. Shame though, Kuro Neko is one of my personal favs.

Update: 4x23 "Kuro Neko" is now also expected in Ukrainian dub this week. Hopefully before the finale.

No, the French network did not schedule this episode to air at 1:35 in the morning for both Mountain and Pacific Time because of plot reasons. I promise you the French network neither cares nor, probably, knows about US Daylight Savings timing. It would be hilariously apt if they had, though.

Assume the comments have spoilers for all episodes that have aired in any language.

If you want to discuss anything that hasn't aired yet, please visit the fan_flashworks guidelines to borrow their HTML for screenreader-skippable highlight-to-read sections to hide the unaired spoilers; search the page for "spoilery". In both places that the example code has skip.titleofstory please substitute your username and a number you haven't used yet; like, my first spoiler bar will have skip.alexseanchai01 and my second will have skip.alexseanchai02. (We don't want anybody's browser or screenreader software to lose their place or spoil them more than they want.)

Well that was a lot colder than Ladybug realized. Also, continuing to validate the "no actually this makes much more sense in chronological order" strategy.

Assume the comments have spoilers for all episodes that have aired in any language.

If you want to discuss anything that hasn't aired yet, please visit the fan_flashworks guidelines to borrow their HTML for screenreader-skippable highlight-to-read sections to hide the unaired spoilers; search the page for "spoilery". In both places that the example code has skip.titleofstory please substitute your username and a number you haven't used yet; like, my first spoiler bar will have skip.alexseanchai01 and my second will have skip.alexseanchai02. (We don't want anybody's browser or screenreader software to lose their place or spoil them more than they want.)

(We do at least now know what happened to episodes 4x05 and 4x09! They were being animated by a studio in India, and COVID-19 happened to the studio. And we do now have an air date for 4x09.)

I've had an epiphany about when this episode is set, though of course that relies on the assumption that a seasonal treat featured in this episode belongs to the same holy day that it's ordinarily eaten in real-life France. Which it might not, since French kids' TV is apparently required to be secular, and that holiday is apparently more Christian than Notre Dame Cathedral or than Christmas itself. And if it is not, then this episode might as well be set at Mardi Gras.

Assume the comments have spoilers for all episodes that have aired in any language.

If you want to discuss anything that hasn't aired yet, please visit the fan_flashworks guidelines to borrow their HTML for screenreader-skippable highlight-to-read sections to hide the unaired spoilers; search the page for "spoilery". In both places that the example code has skip.titleofstory please substitute your username and a number you haven't used yet; like, my first spoiler bar will have skip.alexseanchai01 and my second will have skip.alexseanchai02. (We don't want anybody's browser or screenreader software to lose their place or spoil them more than they want.)