Miraculous Ladybug

This blog entry contains spoilers for the Miraculous Ladybug episodes 15 and 16, Le Gamer and Animan.

Did anyone else feel that episode 16 Animan, looked as if it takes place before 15 Le Gamer? I know this show is episodic, but that's the reason why these episodes stand out so much. Here's my reasoning: In Animan, Marinette starts babbling in front of Adrien, and later tells Alya about her determination to talk to Adrien. In Le Gamer, Marinette interacts with Adrien in a more composed way than usual when they're gaming. She still stumbles on her words, but at least she's trying to talk to him and her expressions aren't quite as shocked as in other episodes.

In Animan, we see Chat Noir looking at a photo of Marinette and her family with some interest, which might have been second hand interest from Nino at this point. He also gives Nino advice about just being himself when talking to Marinette. In Le Gamer, Adrien is impressed by Marinette's gaming skills to the point where he shows some insecurity and mentions that he doesn't measure up to Marinette's ability. This is kind of a contradiction to his confident attitude while advising Nino in Animan. Nothing happened in Le Gamer that would serve as a resolution to Adrien's seemingly newfound insecurities, which he doesn't have in Animan. Maybe he thought that the advice he was giving Nino was so easy to follow because he had not yet experienced a similar enough situation as a civilian, without the confidence boost and outgoing nature that being Chat Noir seems to give him.

At the end of Animan, Nino and Alya end up liking each other and Nino knows that Marinette likes a boy from their class. Even if Alya didn't directly tell him who that boy was, Nino saw Marinette with the magazine full of photos of Adrien earlier and he saw her nervous reaction similar to his own nervousness during his short-lived crush on her. It shouldn't be too difficult for Nino to conclude that Marinette likes Adrien and even if he didn't outright tell Adrien that Marinette likes him, he might have spoken favorably of her to Adrien, while at the same time assuring him that he now likes Alya, to subtlety make it clear that he has no problems with his best friend liking Marinette if it comes to that.

Moving on to another theory, I'm probably over thinking this, but I suspect that Marinette's parents know she's Ladybug and trust she has good reasons to keep it a secret, thus don't push her about it (which IMO is part of what makes them great parents). A sub theory of this is that Chat Noir might have begun to suspect that Marinette is Ladybug and that's why he was examining her family photo in Animan, having the opportunity to compare it with Ladybug side by side. It would also influence how he acted towards Marinette when they were gaming in Le Gamer.

Chat Noir he seemed kind of happy that Marinette was concerned for Adrien in Le Gamer. His suspicions, or theory about Marinette being Ladybug would explain why he would think it's ok to leave Marinette on some rooftop instead of putting her down on the ground, where she could more easily continue moving to a safer distance or find shelter. Then his setbacks in helping Marinette pilot the LadyNoir mecha would further solidify his insecurities concerning Marinette and motivate him to give up his spot in the gaming tournament.

If we get an episode where there's something that hints at the above, the bracelet Marinette gave Adrien makes a return appearance or Chat Noir starts out with less confidence than usual, but saves the day by the end of the episode, I would say that episode would be the follow up to these two.

As a random note, in Animan, did anyone else think it was strange that Cataclysm only made the bus controls go crazy instead of destroying them entirely? The whole thing about the door not opening without the key seems odd too.