/run/media/silveradept: Miraculous: Tales of Leitmotif 2: Electric Bugaboo

[silveradept]

Still no formal musical training, apart from the thing where I've been playing and listening to music for decades, so if you're expecting a lot of theory, you may need to go somewhere else.

This post contains spoilers for the third season! (It's really unavoidable, given that names are being named.)

When we last left our lot of heroes at the end of the second season, we had seen a lot, but we didn't have a full rainbow complement of powers and their uses. Having seen all the way through Reflekdoll, we can say we've completed the spectrum. And added a few more additional characters based on some of the other residents of the Miracle Box.

Despite Reflekdoll coming through on the promise of the kwami swap for Marinette and Adrien (and Tikki actually saying Marinette's name out loud, despite Plagg belching bubbles when he tried to say Adrien's name to Marinette. Guess the magic only works if someone else can hear you.), musically speaking, there's nothing new in either of the transformation sequences for Lady Noire or Master Bug. (Why Master Bug? Because Adrien hasn't achieved the age of majority yet. Yes, he says "Miraculous Mister Bug," but I suspect that's Adrien being caught flat-footed without something clever to say. If he gets a second run at it, he'll do better.) Lady Noire is Chat Noir's normal transformation theme, and Master Bug is the same riff as the Aquabug and Icebug, cut off before it could get complete, because the animators did not decide to give Adrien the full length of the vamp to complete his transformation. (I think that's terrible, because Adrien would milk that transformation for everything it was worth, considering it might be the only time he gets to pull it off.)

There's a lot to say about the contrasting visuals of Lady Noire and Master Bug versus Ladybug and Chat Noir, like how the animators deserve praise for not shying away from the fact that Lady Noire is ripped, but that's a separate post, and possibly a question or seven. Including why so many of them see the need to stomp or make an equivalent motion in their transformation.

"Ladybug" gives us a special case of two Lucky Charm sequences and their associated riffs right next to each other.

(Still not an official clip, whic would be nice to have, but we can't exactly impose our musical wills on others. For now, though, this should give you the idea of what we're listening to.)

Sentibug's Senticharm is the Season 2 Lucky Charm riff, with one exception - it's had a key change for the minor. Which pretty much comports with Sentibug as a Ladybug doing Mayura's bidding.

The actual Lucky Charm that follows right afterward has gained a choir. Which is certainly a sound design decision, especially for something for that's otherwise a regular Lucky Charm, rather than something super-powerful or otherwise amped up to the max. (This might have been a good time to bring back the Season 1 mix with much more prominent guitar riffs to make the differentiation easier, rather than adding a potentially over-the-top angelic choir.)

Anyway, onward. Let's start with some extra variations picked up by characters whose transformations we've already seen.

• Rena Rouge collects a third variation in Stormy Weather 2, which is very clearly inspired by the source culture of the flute she carries, a guitar riff meant to evoke the feeling of the koto, and an additional pretty standard Amen break style drums underneath once the guitar kicks in. The actual wind instrument is closer to the pipe and piccolo range than the flute she carries, but Rule of Cool has always been in effect in Miraculous Paris. And, as is generally the case with a flute, trilling-tremolo articulation, just because they can. Bit surprising, actually, that they used this one on Rena, when this season also has the existence of a Dragon Miraculous that could have used to be even more on-the-nose about the wielder's Japanese ancestry.


• Hawkmoth also collects an addition variation in Stormy Weather 2, bringing his variation total to four. It's not quite as heavy on the choral hits as variation three ("Catalyst") was, but it's pretty clear the Catalyst version is the one they want to stay close to and is the one they've built the riffs off of. Most interesting in this variation is the drums after all of the instruments have done their work, as a little coda. This one is repetitions on a theme, as they climb higher up the scale, but at variation three, it jumps key and stays away from the majors all the way through the fourth repetition of the theme.

Okay! It's new themes time. The third season of Miraculous Ladybug introduced us to several new kwami and their wielders.

• Bunnyx: (apparently, they decided Lapin Blanc wasn't going to work, despite the entirely appropriate Wonderland reference for a white rabbit that can control time?) Three repetitions on a theme, with the third slightly changed in tones, and minimal drum work underneath. I was expecting more of a tick-tock motif, I guess, or something that had tempo variations, whether subtle or wild, as a more time-based nod, but Bunnyx is remarkably subdued, theme-wise. (Perhaps it's Alix keeping a lid on the soundtrack as well as the power she wields?) If the series goes long enough for Alix to get her Miraculous for her first time, I'll be interested to hear the episode variations, because I think there's a lot of ground that can be covered, either to make it more punk to reflect Alix and her tattoo sleeves, or to make it more bendy in its structure. If we planned on reusing material, I'd say that Carapace variation 1 (The Ninja Turtles vibe) would have done a better job for this than what we got.


• Ryūko: Starts strong, with a run up the scale as Longg is pulled into the choker, but then we have a double repetition of a two note ascending theme with power chords underneath. Much like with Bunnyx, this seems like the placeholder music made it into the episode, and if we give them some amount of time, they'll give us a good variation if this particular transformation happens again. I mean, as terrible as it would be, having the Rena variation from Stormy Weather here would seem to indicate more thought was put into producing a good transformation riff, even if it was intended only to be a one-off.


• Roi Singe: (Monkey King! Come ON! Why does Bunnix get the pun and nobody else?!) Electronic bass wave, drum work in a "jungle"-y pattern on instruments that are all played with sticks, and a vaguely East-Asian xylophone-ish melody on top. This one feels like actual work was put into it, because it tries to evoke the feel of a mischievous monkey and blend the ideas of monkeys as jungle creatures and Kim as someone with east Asian heritage. I also like it because it has several different riffs running through it, all equally important to the sound, instead of a single theme and backup material and chords. Whatever your feelings might be about casting Kim as the monkey (and giving him personality traits to match), the composers did their job here in evoking the right mood and style.


• Aspik: Desperada gave us two attempts at a Snake-wielder, first Adrien (as Marinette is somehow completely unable to notice all the signals that say Adrien's not actually the right idea for everything that happens in the episode.) Also, ow, poor Adrien, trying for months to get it right in five-minute loops and none of them working. Anyway, it's immediately musically apparent Adrien is completely wrong for the Snake Miraculous, because his entire transformation is a double repetition of descending lines in what might be a non-major key, and it's orchestra hits like they were played on a MIDI piano. The drums are also workmanlike, which is to say it's all executed well, but there's nothing special about it. This is the time where something that sounds like it was the placeholder music is entirely appropriate to put in here. Well done.


• Viperion: Oh, what a difference having the right wielder makes. I kind of wonder whether the Aspik descent is the Viperion ascent reversed, because the Viperion guitar licks sound like it they have the right progression for that. (Also, the visuals in the transformation, especially the left hand snake movements, are very much the same expressive hand gestures in "Silencer", when Luka is on the receiving end of the purple butterfly.) Also, of all the transformation variations, Viperion is the one closest to a superhero theme in the comics book tradition, leading with a guitar that then noodles for a bit while a (presumably synthesizer) melody takes over, and, for the first time since Queen Bee, there's a pause in the middle before the melody returns at the triumphant point to the sky, before closing out with the return of the guitar lick from the opening. It's an interesting fusion of Luka as guitarist (and his hard-rock family) and the more synth-y ways that hero transformations happen in Miraculous Paris. Also, the drums mostly seem to double the rhythm guitar, which makes for interesting choices in the mixing of everything, as the drums are used to lead and fill in spaces where the melody is a long note, before the running guitar takes over and takes us out. (Also, Viperion gets a lyre as his tool of choice, which he seems to use in the same way he uses the guitar.) I will be interested to see if Viperion gets variations that go more or less in the direction of a hard rock or soft guitar.


• Pegasé: Startrain, when it aired, gave us a look at Max as the Horse wielder, which, visually, reminds me a lot of The Twins from The Matrix Reloaded, with the glasses and the dreads. The soundscape for transformation reflects this idea pretty well, with the electronic beats and bass line evoking Daft Punk's Tron work more than Don Davis's score from the Matrix movies, but cyberpunk is cyberpunk, right? It's all about funky rhythms and wobble bass while Max does pop-and-lock as the block components of the picture behind him rotate into place, right?
  
  Despite the snark, I do like the scoring decision made here for Max and I think it's an appropriate theme. And I think it's a cute bit near the end of the transformation sequence, where there's a short burst of woodblock meant to evoke horse hooves at precisely the moment the horseshoe emblem materializes on his super-outfit.
  
  I'm not yet going to talk about the Voyage power, mostly because in the context of the episode, the theme being played started significantly before the power sequence, so I don't know if the cue was written specifically to be Max's power theme, or whether it was just folded into the scoring of the episode, as a lot of the not-Chat, not-Ladybug powers often seem to be. If we get another Pegasus episode, then we'll know.

And, officially, we round out the rainbow spectrum present in the opening series, as of Reflekdoll, getting a first look at Hawkmoth's partner-in-destruction, wielding a semi-b0rked Miraculous.

• Mayura: Right, so thematically, Mayura sees herself as heroic and on the right side, with the repeated climbing notes in her theme as she transforms. Much like Ladybug and Chat Noir's continued rising heroics, you get the four on the floor for the drums, but the most important part of that theme is right at the end, where instead of finishing strong in the key it started in, you can hear it crash. Not that the music falls apart, but the key "drifts" enough as it goes that you end up hearing Hawk Moth's chord at the end of the transformation, signaling how Nathalie has let her love for Gabriel draw her willingly into misusing her Miraculous. As you might guess, this theme also has had some work done on it, since it's a significant moment of the season, and it shows through nicely.
  
  Not all that soon after, Mayura collects a variation in the episode Ladybug, and it's immediately apparent this one was modeled on Hawkomth's Catalyst transformation in the orchestral hits. (which makes sense, given that it's a Catalyst plot that starts the episode.) They're pretty close to, if not the same notes, as the end of the Catalyst sequence for Hawkmoth, and the running notes underneath suggest untapped potential that is about to be put to work in creating Sentibug. It's still very much about devotion and shared goals, which seem to be going strong, despite Duusu's thoughts about how romantic it is.



• And then there was Kwamibuster, and another Miraculous came out to say hello! Multimouse is the first time where I've seen a piece of music from a completely different character used and adapted for the others. It's not hard to recognize the Ninja Turtles Version of Carapace's theme as the base that has had a tempo pickup and some extra breakbeat drums added, and some of the leitmotif lines rearranged in order or repeated. In a world where the music cues were related to each other, that would say interesting things about the space of how Mulktimouse's and Carapace's powers are related to each other, but that is not the case here, unless someone wants to write fic about it. I wonder whether we will continue to see remixing and re-cycling some of the musical cues that aren't currently associated with heroes to apply them to new heroes. (Also, Multimouse's use of special power is essentially the same as the transformation theme, rather than something different, which makes me wonder a touch about how much under pressure the team might have been to get some episodes out on a schedule, and that the music department might not have had their full opportunity to make things work the way they want to.)
  
  (Also also, Multimouse very flagrantly ignores the five minute limit, which can be explained in a multitude of ways, I'm sure, but I'd like to think of it as a sign of the growth of strength and reserves that Marinette has, because, after all, holding that transformation and the unified forms of many different kwami together takes some serious fortitude, mentally and physically.)
  

So, it's a mixed bag in Season 3's transformations. The use of the powers of each of the heroes mostly matches their transformation themes (Roi Singe, Lady Noire, Master Bug, Multimouse) or is sound-effect more than it is leitmotif (Ryūko, Bunnyx, both of who also appear to be able to use their special abilities at will without triggering the recharge countdown, or whose recharge ability is something different than what we saw on screen). We may not be able to completely judge Season 3 until we catch a couple of the variations on the themes that reflect the characters more appropriately than the somewhat worklike products that we have now. After all, every transforming hero and villain, save Queen Bee, who got it right the first time and doesn't need to change, thank you, and Multimouse, who we've seen once and then intentionally burned herself on being used again, has at least two variations on their transformation theme. So we can hope the trend continues and the leitmotifs settle into a good pocket.

I'll be glad to hear what you have to think about these themes in the comments. And do tell me if the links stop working or you find superior versions to the ones I've linked. I'm trying for a certain amount of quality and fidelity, but it's always possible there's something much better around the corner.

And, especially after Reflekdoll, the transformative works community is going to hit overdrive, so expect a lot of fic to come through now that those events have been added to the canon. Also, Desperada and Reflekdoll both canonically confirm that the costuming of any given Miraculous wielder is dependent on them and not on the Miraculous, which makes for some interesting storytelling options when there are kwami swaps or other situations where someone not the usual wielder might take a crack at it.

Comments

[silveradept]

I would check against the Ice Noir variation, but there's also a sped-up (even more so) version of original Chat, usually marked as the higher pitch or S2 version, (or the one in Desperada) that I think is closest to this form. It's definitely different than the S1 and "Sad" forms.

I'll also say that the drums are much more prominent for Chatte Noire, and that might also be getting in the way, because I can hear some extra beats in the percussion track that aren't nearly as prominent in the other Chat transformations. Since this is all YouTube and usually episode rips that have just masked out the vocal tracks (sometimes), what I really want is for someone to grab the HQ masters and let the people with really good sound systems (or synaesthetes) have at it.

I do know your views (and share most, if not all, of them) on where Duusu should be.

Queen Bee is the only one of the reoccurring Miraculous Heroes (to this exact point) to have exactly one variation on the theme. (Or at least, of there are differences between them, they're very subtle.)

And, because of Desperada, there's a revision to be had to the post. So I hope you enjoy it.

[chanter1944]

Re drums and extra notes: You're right! I just listened to Lady Noire's variation, and it's picking up some of the dance pop aspects from the temporary wielder's usual theme as Ladybug. The drums are much more prominent. They are not nearly so in icy!Chat Noir's variation, but the extra note is there, if much more subtly. It's not there during the usual theme, at least that I can tell. Hmm.

Oooooh, I just found and replayed Viperion's theme (your linked video for that one has been removed by the user, alas). You could attribute the ending chord to darker shading, but I don't think so. It may be the same idea as Chat Noir's cataclysm or even Queen Bee; the potential for dark usage is there but not (since Queen Wasp, in the bee wielder's case) acted upon. Some of it could well be Luka's rock influences too. Not dark, just a wee bit metal. XD Those runs up the scale, and the heroic synth work, are perfect.

[silveradept]

I think "metal" is the right way to go with that interpretation, given Luka's family, the entire plot of Desperada, and where Kitty Section rehearses. Surprisingly, though, every time we've seen Luka, he's not doing metal riffs, but more gentle and melodic fingerings appropriate for the lyre he ends up with. (New video in place, we'll see how long it lasts.) There's always the potential for the power to be used in a darker manner, but I'm used to seeing the power of replay put to use in different contexts (Xanth and that Tom Cruise movie about the alien invasion), so I feel like the dark potential would be more like if Viperion got hit by a Dark Cupid arrow or something like that.