Morgan (2016) [+] Action thriller film. There’s a secret lab in a remote woodsy location and there was an accident. Lee Weathers (Kate Mara) arrives from Corporate to investigate and determine whether or not to cancel the experiment. That experiment is the artificial life form Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy), five years old but looks like a teenager with enhances strength and reflexes and with emotions, though perhaps a bit more psychotic than empathic. Turns out that pretty much all the half-dozen people there are quite sympathetic and protective of Morgan which will make Lee’s job more complicated once she decides to terminate Morgan… I like the somewhat surprise ending where if you rewatch the movie with that knowledge it makes Lee’s characterization quite different.

The Gorge (2025) [/] Apple TV+ action/horror film. During the latter Cold War before the Berlin Wall comes down two snipers are sent to monitor a secret gorge to make sure the creatures down there don’t come out into the human world. Levi Kane (Miles Teller) is a former Marine sniper and currently a mercenary. Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy) is a Lithuanian sniper employed by the KGB for political assassinations. Stationed on both sides of the gorge they manage to communicate and become friends over their year-long tour (which ends with them getting offed by their superiors but although it’s shown with Kane’s predecessor it doesn’t come into play at the end of the movie). Levi even manages to attach a rappel line and visit Drasa but it’s on the way back that he falls into the gorge with Drasa immediately following. Inside they have to fight off the mutants and get out before they’re infected and afterwards they’ll have to survive being purged by their superiors because they think they’re infected or worse, know the secret of the gorge… Perfectly entertaining film. Above average for Apple TV+ action movies. I like that Miles Teller has gone from playing “goofy why do people think this character is charming” to “oh, this character has rizz” which is more a function of becoming an experienced and better actor.

Love Game in an Eastern Fantasy (2024) [-] Chinese romance drama of 32 episodes. Modern day girl Ling Miao Miao (Yu Shuxin/Esther Yu) is somehow transported into a computer game based on the novel Catching Demons where her character is the minor villain Lin Yu. Not wanting to be the villain she is decides to change her fate even though the computer keeps giving her villainous quests. Miao Miao is determined to become friends Mu Yao (Zhu Xudan), help Yao get her love interest Liu Fuyi (Yang Shize), and get Yao’s brother Mu Sheng (Ding Yuxi) to fall in love with Miao Miao… I like the setup but after a few episodes they drop the whole computer game subplot and bring it back once or twice and then at the end, so for most of the series this is a plain fantasy demon catchers vs demons story and even the romantic elements aren’t emphasized. Then the last episode brings in a bunch of back story and it’s a bit abrupt (contrast with a K-Drama which would have seamlessly weaved the back story throughout the series until in the end you get this surprise tying everything in). Vaguely disappointed because I was expecting more.

Shovel Knight Dig (2022) [/] A version of Shovel Knight (which I haven’t played). Fantasy roguelike with 8-bit graphics and arcade soundtrack and sounds. You are a knight with a shovel. You dig down through dirt (or sideways and fast sideways digging prevents you from falling if there is no floor below you). Kill bad guys, collect gems, find secret areas, avoid traps. Lots of arcade timing and quick thinking required. Even with a controller I found it difficult to navigate (and without one feels like it’d be really tough to play). A full run is four levels then a boss level and if you die (or I guess if you finish) you mostly restart with nothing except gems collected. So there is no big quest (though there are quests, the first one being to find the missing blacksmith) and it's mostly random dungeon runs. Not really a game for me.

Hummus Mediterranean Kitchen, San Mateo [+] Second time ordering from here. Had two appetizers Sautéed Eggplant (sautéed eggplant cubes with tomato, garlic & bell peppers, and pita bread, $10.45) and Greek Fries ($7.85) which I’ve had before and liked. Eggplant dish is a cold dish but tastes pretty good — garlic cloves helps a lot. And the pita bread is thick and more bread-like than normal. Very filling.

Superman is the first movie for James Gunn, who is now in charge of the DC Universe reboot of films to try and compete with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. David Corenswet plays Clark Kent aka Superman, Rachel Brosnahan plays Lois Lane, and Nicholas Hoult plays Lex Luthor.

The story starts in media res (with a bit of background text indicating that Superman has been super-heroing for several years now) as Superman smashes into the Antarctic ice after being defeated. He recovers at the Fortress of Solitude (and it's great to see Krypton and the Fortress's robot helpers) then heads out to battle the Hammer of Boravia and he manages to not win again because the Hammer is controlled by Lex Luthor who knows Superman's every combat move and has 1000+ countermoves he can feed to the Hammer.

Anyway the Hammer leaves. It was all a ruse to get Superman to retreat back to his Fortress and Luthor's henchwoman The Engineer (Maria Gabriela de Faria) tracked Superman and found the Fortress. Luthor and his two meta's, Ultraman and The Engineer, break in to the Fortress to find Superman's secrets which Luthor will use to show that Superman is a danger to the Earth that only his organization can stop.

Meanwhile Superman battles a giant monster and needs the help of the Justice Gang, a corporate super-hero group led by Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion) and including Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) and Mr Terrific (Edi Gathegi). Once Superman is revealed to be a villain he has to turn himself in and the US government outsources his confinement to Luthor who happens to have a pocket universe where's built an ultra-secret meta-prison (which he also uses to imprison people he doesn't like such as his ex-girlfriend that wrote a mean blog about him). It's put o Lois Lane and Mr Terrific to find and break out Superman before Luther's plan is completed.

There's also nice subplot moments. Clark and Lois have been in a secret relationship and she knows he's Superman. Superman also has both parents (Pruitt Taylor Vince and Neva Howell) back in Smallville (in different DC continuities one or both dies while Clark is young and in all previous movies I think Pa Kent dies). Superman has a bit of a weird relationship with Krypton who we finds out right at the end is actually Kara Zor-El's (Milly Alcock) dog.

And there's Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) who is quite the ladies man and even Luthor's current girlfriend Eve Taschmacher (Sara Sampaio) is Jimmy's ex and still wants to get back with him and is willing to reveal Luthor's plans to Jimmy. Perry White (Wendell Pierce), Steve Lombard (Beck Bennett), and Cat Grant (Mikaela Hoover) make appearances but have very small roles.

This is a really good movie. Has a bit more humor (and more derpy humor) than any previous Superman film and I guess is closer to how Guardians of the Galaxy has more humor than other MCU films (which themselves are more humorous than DC films so far). Going into this I didn't know so it was a bit jarring that first time Krypto playfully mauls a wounded Superman. But halfway through the film you get used to it (I loved Lois and Superman having a serious conversation at night while outside in the distance we can see the Justice Gang fighting a huge monster).

Dungeon Fantasy GM's Screen (2017) [/] A four-panel upright/portrait screen. 16-page character creation cheat sheet. 16-page delvers to go which is 13 pre-made characters, one for each profession. Nothing critically needed.

Dungeon Fantasy Monsters 2 (2019) [+] 52-page book with 24 monsters. Each monster has a 2-page spread including a picture and adventure seeds. Pretty nice compared to how monsters are described in DF RPG where for space reasons it's about half-page per monster. The descriptions are also nice as they include tactics and why this monster is unique or dangerous.

Dungeon Fantasy Magic Items 2 (2019) [+] 48-page book with 44 "rare or unique artifacts". Each one gets a page and includes a picture. Intro text (one or more people talking in a scenario where the magic item is useful), description and effects (including an example of use if needed), price/weight/power-item capacity, adventure seed or two. I like that most are fairly quirky and kind of designed to be unique items so you end up with a party with non-generic items. Most adventure seeds are "bad guy has the item and is using it effectively" so PCs both have to work for it and see it in action.

Dungeon Fantasy Companion 2 (2020) [+] 64-page book in three sections. Magic Items (16) and Monsters (6) follow the formats used in DF Monsters 2 and DF Magic Items 2. Villains has 14 bad guys (champions, minor bosses, major bosses) and many of them introduce some new spell, advantage, or race. Each villain has a standard PC writeup with accurate point cost, a section of where and how they can be used, and a couple of adventure seeds. The Villains chapter is the best since it's more concrete adventure possibilities than standard monster write-ups.

Dungeon Fantasy Monster Seeds (2023) [/] a little 16-page PDF reprinting adventure seeds created for DF boxed set monsters. These were done as promos for one of the Kickstarters and it's nice to have them compiled into an official SJG product.

While You Were Sleeping (2017) [+] South Korean romance drama of 16 episodes. Reporter Nam Hong-joo (Bae Suzy) has dreams about the future which she meticulously writes down in post it notes. She and her boyfriend are saved by junior prosecutor Jung Jae-chan (Lee Jong-suk) who turns out can also dream the future. And then police officer Han Woo-tak (Jung Have-in) also starts having prophetic dreams. What do they have in common? They become friends and solve crimes together while Hong-joo and Jae-chan start falling in love (with Woo-tak maybe being in the running)… It’s a nice series not particularly moving — the first half is pretty good but then it starts tailing down. Could be because I watched half then took a month off to watch Netflix (and if you come back and don't really remember the first half maybe it wasn't that interesting). And I still give it a + because Bae Suzy is so cute.

Fountain of Youth (2025) [/] Apple TV+ adventure movie. Treasure hunter Luke Purdue (John Krasinski) drags his sister Charlotte (Natalie Portman) and her son around the world following clues looking for the Fountain of Youth, meanwhile being chased by Inspector Jamal Abbas (Arian Moayed) who wants to arrest the art thief and Esme (Elza González) who wants to protect the very powerful artifact that Man is not ready for. Also Luke’s famously wealthy patron Owen Carver (Domhnall Gleeson) wants to find the Fountain to cure himself, or that’s what he claims… It’s a lackluster film with ok action scenes but no romantic subplot since the two leads are siblings.

Fall in Love Like a Star (2015) [-] Junior talent manager Tian Xin (Yang Mi, The Interpreter) has to team up with her ex — whom she broke up with five years ago — the now famous singer/songwriter Su Xingyu (Li Yifeng). They both still love each other so their relationship is rekindled but it has to be kept secret since it would ruin his heartthrob image… I’m starting to feel that Asian cinema cannot do romance movies well or maybe their romance tv series are so good that their movies can’t compete. Anyway I didn’t feel any romance nor any stakes.

Battleheart: Legacy+ (2022) [/] Apple Arcade isometric RPG game. Played for about an hour. Six ability stats; 12 classes each with several skills. You can gain a skill form any class (though advanced skills require beginner skills) and the gate is your ability stat which you increase using points you earn each level so to be really good in a class you'll need to concentrate on its two or three ability stats and multi classing is simply putting points in the relevant ability stats (and it helps if both classes have overlapping primary ability stats). Combat is action oriented (with automatic basic attacks if you want) and you have to spam the special abilities to do big attacks (then wait for skill cooldowns and trigger again). Eight equipment slots and various equipment to buy and find… I guess my big problem is there is no engaging story, at least at first, so not much motivation in continuing.

Trader Joe’s Baingan Bharta [/] This is roasted eggplant curry and takes about 5 minutes to heat up. Onions, mashed eggplant, tomato stuff. Does have an eggplant taste though not that strong. I eat it with rice and it tastes fine. A little meat helps more but not needed and if you’re vegetarian this with rice is a fine meal.

Murderbot tv series is based on a series of novellas/novels by Martha Wells and season 1 covers the first book in the series.

In the far future an nondescript security unit (Alexander Skarsgård) — a vat-grown and assembled human/robot — manages to hack his governor module and achieve freedom but he has to keep acting like a SecUnit or he'll be dissolved by the Corporation that runs this sector of space. Oh and a fit of originality he names himself Murderbot since he dreams of going on a killing spree on all these annoying humans he has to protect.

Murderbot is assigned as SecUnit to a bunch of anarchic scientists from Preservation Alliance who are going to an unexplored world to look for discoveries:

• Ayda Mensah (Noma Dumezweni) - expedition leader who suffers panic attacks whenever someone is in danger and decisions need to be made
• Gurathin (David Dastmalchian) - augmented human tech guy, formerly from Corporation Rim so he knows how ruthless they can be which also leads him to treat SecUnit as a potential enemy/spy.
• Pin-Lee (Sabrina Wu), Arada (Tattiawna Jones), and Ratthi (Akshay Khanna) - team scientists, Pin-Lee and Arada are in a relationship and invite Ratthi to join though Pin-Lee didn't really want to do it.
• Bharadwaj (Tamara Podemski) - an older scientist who is almost killed early on and suffers a bit of PTSD afterwards

The series is mostly Murderbot internal dialogs as he tries to deal with these people who seem to have few survival skills nor survival instincts. Meanwhile he also spends his free time watching B-level drama shows like The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon — which we get a lot of clips from and has actors John Cho, Clark Gregg, Jack McBrayer and DeWanda Wise. And of course Murderbot is proven right as there are giant worms that will eat you and secret bad guys that wiped out a third-party research team on another part of the planet.

As the series goes on Murderbot starts to care, in his non-human way, about his clients. All along they've treated him as a person not a thing, except for Gurathin who starts to suspect Murderbot might be defective because he's acting weird…

This is a very funny series of 10 half-hour episodes in season 1 (and has renewed for season 2). The characters are good and Murderbot is great — 80% of the show is Murderbot's internal monologues especially as his clients do stuff around him as he's standing still "waiting" for commands. Each episode kind of ends in a cliffhanger so if you're not careful you'll watch all five hours in one go but worth it. The season does end at a good stopping point so not an annoying season-ending cliffhanger.

Dungeon Fantasy RPG is GURPS 4E cut down for running D&D-style dungeon crawls (DF RPG not to be confused with GURPS Dungeon Fantasy which is the same and previously done concept as GURPS 4E PDF supplements). The physical box comes with five books, two large double-sided battle maps, thick cardboard figures and stands, and dice.

DF Adventurers (128 pages) - Basic character creation rules and later on advantages, disadvantages, skills and gear much like in GURPS Basic Set. 95%+ of stuff in Dungeon Fantasy has the same names and characters as in GURPS. A couple of things are rewritten slightly or clarified but it's not an issue taking a DF character into a regular GURPS campaign.

The big addition are professions and races. Professions are templates and they mirror D&D classes. They give you set attributes, advantages, disadvantages and skills with extra points and lists of things to pick out. For example Barbarian has ST 17 DX 13 HT 13 with High Pain Threshold, Outdoorsman, and 40 points of advantages from their list and then it goes on. Every profession has their own list of advantages, disadvantages and skills that they choose from so every profession has their niche set up.

Races are done the same with less points. Every profession is 250 points but races are 0 to 40 points and the racial point cost comes out of the 250 profession points so every starting character is quite proficient and more like an 8th to 12th level character in D&D. Gaming Ballistic has Delvers to Grow for creating 62 or 125 point heroes for a more "zero to hero" campaign.

Spells (80 pages) - Standard GURPS 4E spell mechanics where spells are skills, have pre-requisite spells to learn, and cost magic points to cast. In Dungeon Fantasy Clerics, Druids, Wizards (and Bards) have different spell lists so PCs don't have access to just any spell and once again we have niche protection. Since GURPS Basic Set is mostly fantasy spells Dungeon Fantasy has almost all the same spells with the same characteristics.

I don't think Dungeon Fantasy has multi-classing. Each profession tends to have a few unique advantages or extras (e.g. with a starting ST 17 Barbarians can also add up to +4 ST and none of the other professions can get to ST 21). Still, this is GURPS so there is a sidebar on creating custom professions which is basically pick whatever you want from any profession with a few prerequisites in mind such as Bard-Song abilities need Bardic Talent.

Exploits (112 pages) - The kind of material in GURPS Basic Set: Campaigns. Two extra chapters are Dungeon Delving and Treasure which give specific advice and rules for a dungeon crawl campaign. For example if you find look what skills are used to determine value and what skills for finding a buyer and selling. I like that it points out the skills because sometimes you're thinking "what is Hazardous Materials skills for" and the answer is extracting poisons and toxins from a monster for sale (or use) — and in Dungeon Fantasy trap descriptions include resale value if you disarm and grab the trap and monster descriptions include which parts are valuable.

Monsters (64 pages) - Standard GURPS format monster descriptions. Every monster is one of 13 classes which affects some advantages and spells. Also since some advantages work against Evil the end notes of a monster might say "Truly Evil" so you know and don't have to guess (GURPS doesn't stat list alignment so Good and Evil are more like descriptors in the notes).

Monsters aren't really patterned D&D monsters. Even similar monsters tend to have differences intended to make them different than D&D. There is no D&D monster = DF monster table here (though maybe in a supplement) which would be helpful for converting D&D adventures to DF. One thing I like about Gaming Ballistic's Nordlonder Ovinabokin (their Nordic-themed monster book) is that they do have that table.

Dungeon (24 pages) - One 16-room dungeon also serves as an example of how to do a Dungeon Fantasy dungeon.

Dungeon Fantasy RPG is a fairly impressive package boiling down GURPS to just the heroic high fantasy genre. It is still full GURPS mechanics though so still a fairly complicated game but professions, races, and spell lists show the way to keeping a PC focused on the stuff they need to know (D&D is the same, you don't need to know what every other class can do).

Overall I like this format. Too bad there might not be any other genre big enough for the same treatment. Then again few RPGs are as detailed as D&D — a Call of Cthulhu conversion is fairly simple (except maybe for spells) and doesn't require a new RPG (and then again, Supers would be nice with it's own RPG with a customized powers/advantages chapter that makes more sense for super-hero games).

Ditto (2000) [/] South Korean romance/drama. Yoon So-eun (Kim Ha-neul) and Ji In (Yoo Ji-tae) go to the same university and talk to each other via HAM radio but they’re separated by time. She lives in 1979 and he lives in 2000. As they get to know each other and give relationship advice to each other she realizes that his mom and dad are her best friend and the person she likes the most… It’s an ok film with a poignant, maybe, ending. With Ha Ji-won (who played the leader in The Huntresses) as Ji In’s romantic interest that he kind of ignores.

Stitch. (2022) [/] Stitching-themed puzzle games where you stitch a pattern. Each section is subdivided and there are numbers. Drag your finger to stitch a line or area with the number of subsections as in the number in that area. The numbers can be colored in which case you’re stitching that color so it has to match the pattern. If you do it wrong it tells you immediately. Seems rather simple so I guess for a younger audience.

NBA 2K23 Arcade Edition (2022) [/] Five on five basketball with “real” NBA players. It’s an arcade game and even with a controller I found it hard to pass and shoot. There is also a campaign mode where you have a team, play games and train your players up. Graphics are good though not as good as dedicated console or PC. There is voice commentators which make it more real. Overall not really my type of game.

The Official Prisoner Companion (1988) [/] Mass market TPB about The Prisoner which had aired two decades previously. Episode Guide with synopsis and observations of each episode; Notes, anecdotes, and nonsense which is trivia stuff; The Great Debates with a couple of pages devoted to each topic; What Does It All Mean? with speculation on what the themes are might be; Talking with McGoohan reprints a short 1985 interview; Source of Information has where to get more info including Six of One: The Prisoner Appreciation Society which is still ongoing; Shooting Scripts has excerpts of key or notable scenes. I found the book interesting but rather shallow. It’s meant for people who’ve watched The Prisoner and want more but don’t want to get too deep into the lore.

Fight for Glory is a three-episode documentary about last year's World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees. Episode one covers the season and game 1. Episodes 2 and 3 cover the rest of the World Series.

Lots of player and coaches and some fan commentary voice overs from public interviews and maybe interviews for this documentary. I like that they always label who is talking: player and position, or person and title, or fan and description.

The game coverage is excellent. I did not watch the World Series and all I knew was which team won but not even in how many games. Game coverage hits key moments and pitches with good narration buildup of what people were thinking. For the most part we skip zero run innings (except first inning gets coverage) and get to see most of the scoring plays and exceptional defensive plays and pitches.

I felt this is a great narrative of the 2024 World Series and I don't feel like I missed anything important not having watched the games themselves. Unlike a condensed version of the World Series (say 15m clipped highlights of the broadcast for each game) the narration makes it a much more vivid experience.

GRIS is a platformer puzzle game where you play a nameless girl in a grey post-human post-apocalyptic Earth (maybe it's Earth). You travel around collecting glowing orbs which can open paths and when you get enough you finish the section and two or three sections is a level in as much as you get this big cut scene where you bring back a color to the world.

As the game goes along you get more powers though slowly. First is you can turn into a big block of stone. Useful in that you can jump then block then fall and break through weak areas of floor or break open vases (which might be important in some sections). Also less obvious use is to resist strong winds and to move a balance (like if you're a giant weight).

After that there's double jump and then enliven (you stand still and emit a circular aura that brings plants to life which has some uses) and that's as far as I've gotten. Oh eventually you can jump into water and turn into a stingray or something to move around in water sections.

The different levels are fairly varied. Besides underwater I hit an area where it's dark except when you get close to a light plant so easy to get a bit lost. There are colored cubes: green appear and disappear at regular intervals, red do so whenever you jump. There are floors and stairs that are invisible unless you light something and sometimes that light only lasts a few seconds. I was just on a level where if you go high enough gravity flips so you do the upper side upside down.

Meanwhile there's nice mood music, appropriate sound effects, no narration or text so you kind of discover the world by playing it. It's a nice game and at least it's not a platformer where there are areas you can't get to until you have a power so you end up running around the same areas later on. This game you don't go back to an old area — you're always moving forward and the puzzle can be solved by exploring your limited immediate area and maybe using a power in a way you didn't expect.

Overall entertaining so far. I guess the only negative is when you restart you start at the last checkpoint and it never tells you the checkpoints. I'm assuming cut scenes (long or short) are checkpoints though I think I've been wrong at least once.

Next day: Turns out I was pretty close to the end. About one more hour-long session and I finished. It's like a 10 to 15 hour game though there are probably secrets I missed so maybe a little replayability.

Cleaner (2025) [/] Action-thriller movie. Eco-terrorists take over the high-rise building of a London-based energy company and massive polluter. Joanna Locke (Daisy Ridley), former British SRR (special forces) and now down on her luck window cleaner is stuck outside while the terrorists (led by her co-worker Noah (Taz Skylar)) take hostages including possibly her autistic brother Michael (Matthew Tuck). Can Joanna convince the hostage negotiator Superintendent Claire Hume (Ruth Gemmell) that she's on their side?… Has a suitable amount of action, explosions, shooting and hand-to-hand fights.

Mythic Quest s4 (2025) [/] In season 4 Ian Grimm (Rob McElhenney) and Poppy Li (Charlotte Nicdao) return from their startup to Mythic Quest to work on the most ultimate expansion ever and to resolve their romantic issues (though Poppy spends most of the season with her boyfriend Storm (Chase Yi) who has a much higher EQ compared to Ian). I wasn't that impressed with this season and the series finale is rather abrupt getting them back together for another try as the credits roll. Favorite episode is the murder mystery where they're all playing a 1920's dress-up game of Mafia.

The Gardens Between+ (2022) [/] Nicely animated puzzle game. Two teens go from island to island. Objective is to follow a path to the top and light the pedestal. Left and right move you through time left and right (i.e. the teens and other objects on the island follow a set timeline so you're kind of scrubbing forward and back). When one of the teens reaches a certain point you can click the action button to do something: pick up or put down lamp, add light to the lamp, activate a trigger. A lighted lamp opens a path (e.g. unlocking a bridge) although there are things that will suck the light which you then have to scrub back and figure out how to stop the blocker. It's a fairly original concept but not that interesting.

Gin Rummy Classic+ (2022) [/] MobileWare game of Gin Rummy where you try to create sets or sequences before your opponent. Pretty standard format for MobielWare card games. You can play vs random people.

Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir is a French teen superhero animated series set in Paris. Marinette Dupain-Cheng (Christina Vee, who I love as a voice actress and Internet personality) is a normal high-school teen who has a secret — she is also the superhero Ladybug protecting Paris alongside her partner Cat Noir who she doesn't know is actually her high-school crush Adrien Agreste (Bryce Papenbrook). At the same time Cat Noir is in love with Ladybug and since they don't know each other's secret identity they don't know that they're actually in love with each other.

Meanwhile the main villain is Hawk Moth who is actually Adrien's father the fashion designer Gabriel Agreste (Keith Silverstein). Hawk Moth finds people with negative emotions and akumatizes them into supervillains which he then sicks on Ladybug and Cat Noir because he wants their Miraculous — the totem that lets them turn into superheroes. Later on we find that Gabriel has a good reason for wanting the two Miraculous though still not a good idea to let him have them.

In each episode someone gets akumatized and Ladybug and Cat Noir have to stop them. This also reveals something about the akumatized person since something unfortunate happened to make them angry or sad or disappointed or whatever — and that something is often Chloé Bourgeois (Selah Victor), the rich mean girl of the high-school who also loves Adrien and is intensely jealous of Marinette.

Later on Ladybug is allowed to deputize people to help her for a mission and she gets to lend them a Miraculous. Hence we start seeing new superheroes with their own unique powers and even Adrien (Aspik snake hero) and Miranette (Multimouse mouse hero) get deputized, one because Miranette doesn't know Adrien's secret and the second for Miranette to cover her secret. Even later still Ladybug and Cat Noir have special cookies to turn them into variants, like Aquabug and Aqua Noir.

Season five (the last one to day though season six is coming) Hawk Moth finally gets the upper hand as he obtains all the Miraculous except for Ladybug and Cat Noirs. Things get bleaker and bleaker until a final confrontation that could be a series ender (I guess if they had decided not to do a season six).

Along with the regular series there are four standalone movies (of 45 to 60 minutes length).

• Miraculous World: New York (2020) - introduces American superheroes
• Miraculous World: Shanghai (2021) - introduces a Chinese super heroine with multiple powers akin to Miraculous. The heroes introduced in New York and Shanghai show up for the season 5 climax.
• Miraculous World: Paris (2023) - an alternate world invades where Shadybug and Claw Noir are the supervillains
• Miraculous World: London (2024) - a neat time travel story set right after season 5 ends and sets up season 6's new villain

Miranette and Adrien are a great almost couple and it takes until season 5 before they get their act together (though still, without learning their alter egos). Animation is mostly ok — not the biggest fan of this type of animation. This is a nice wholesome series that I enjoyed watching.