Kagami Tsurugi | Rewrite and Redesign | Miraculous Ladybug | FINALE

[Applause] hello everyone this is Kelly Mara here and no it's not calamari welcome back to my Channel or if you're new to the pond go ahead and take a dive you might like it here if this is your first time watching my videos I've been doing a series redesigning and rewriting characters from the show miraculous ladybug now I have a very complicated love-hate relationship with this show where on one hand I love the premise and the potential it had because I am a sucker for animal themed magical girls and on the other hand I hate

its writing and uncanny character design choices you know when most people have given up hope on your main relationship because you overused and baited it so many times as the story's a plot without it going anywhere it's probably a bad thing and it's an even worse idea to finally get the ball rolling after most of your audience have stopped caring I've basically stopped watching MLB after season three because I could physically feel myself losing brain cells with each episode and I don't think I could survive the cringe of season 4 Sun only turning the show

into a musical because there wasn't a president and the characters have literally never done that before canonically they're just randomly breaking into song and dance for no reason foreign but I saw that Tick Tock and now you do too sharing is caring and that's just one of my biggest pet peeves about MLB they say the characters are one thing but then have them act a completely different way they tell us that Marinette is a great person who is supposed to be liked by everyone and yet she acts just as mean and Petty as Chloe the

Creator's mortal enemy by the way when it comes to getting something she wants they tell us Gabriel is this cool intelligent refined character and then make him do this but among the slog of inconsistent characters behaving however the writers need them to there is one character who has always remained consistent in her behavior and standpoint and that character is kagami surugi AKA the best character in MLB and my personal favorite character in the show listen I'm the type of person who always roots for the main ship if I see male lead and female lead having

romantic chemistry and are clearly set up to be endgame I'm rooting for them so yes I did ship starco during the dumpster fire of star vs the forces evil Shipping Wars and yes I am also a basic shipper of Kirito and Asuna in Sword Art online and if you follow me on any of my social media calamara on Twitter and calimar.art on Instagram you would know that I am obsessed with Link and Zelda no not just breath of the wild but in all of the Zelda games it takes a lot for me to not ship

the main ship you really have to try very hard for me to not be on board with it or make a lot of mistakes to the point where I'm like yeah no this is not it and here we are with miraculous ladybug where I'm actually supporting the Rival of Interest more than the end game ship so let's talk about why kagami is one of the few characters that the show got right and how I would utilize kagami's character if I was a writer on the show as well as how I would style her if I

were a designer on the show I also want to thank you guys so much for 90k on my channel I'm uh I'm really really excited that this is actually happening we are almost at 100K which I I didn't think would ever happen and I know like in terms of Channel sizes nowadays 100K isn't really that big a deal but it is a big deal for me so I I want to thank you guys so much for following along in my journey and well I hope you're still here when if I eventually reach that Milestone as

well [Music] design wise I think kagami has some of the better civilian designs in the show at least in terms of color palette her outfit feels very generic and doesn't really reflect her personality very well when I first saw it I actually thought it was a uniform for a different school and school uniforms aren't exactly known for permitting individuality so it was pretty surprising to see that she was still wearing that same outfit even after moving to Francois Dupont College even though they don't really have uniforms at that school I do love her short bobbed

hair but I have a problem with how blunt it is it almost looks like she's wearing a helmet but the worst aspect of her hair in my opinion are her fringes it just it looks very awkwardly shaped and it's very heavy and dense for her small face causing it to engulf her entire features which is a shame because kagami has gorgeous eyes that I'd really like to see better I think kagami could have really benefited from her fringes being a bit sparser and I guess combed over a bit better it just kind of looks like

she has this really long strand that she purposefully pulled across her face and it it makes it look really awkward in my opinion so my goal with her civilian redesign is to give her clothes that better showcase her personality and a more flattering hairstyle as for ryuko I really do love her suit I think it's super sleek and flattering and kagami looks freaking awesome in it but I still can't help but think it's eerily similar to Ladybug I think it's mostly the color scheme and the fact that both are just plain red spandex suits but

it genuinely makes no sense why they had to look so similar there's a lot of criticism of ryuko and long being Red Dragons when the miraculous power is about weather and I completely understand where it's coming from based on my personal knowledge Red Dragons in Chinese mythology are more associated with prosperity and good fortune so it would have made more sense for the dragon miraculous to have luck Powers except that power is already being used by the ladybug miraculous and we can't have that so what other stuff do Chinese dragons do oh they kind of

control the weather that works but they still kept the color the same because in Chinese mythology once again Azure dragons are the ones associated with weather winds and rain the primary powers of the Dragon miraculous so really long and ryuko should predominantly be blue which would have also differentiated the dragon miraculous further from the ladybug miraculous and yet they didn't do that so I can't help but speculate late on the reasoning behind it were they trying to draw parallels between Marinette and kagami were they hoping the audience would compare and contrast the two or are

they simply telling us that kagami is just a knockoff Marinette but that Marinette will always be superior to kagami except they ended up just creating a better character than Marinette though that's not really difficult to do let's be honest and these colors do end up becoming a dilemma for me later down the line when I start coloring because with the original color scheme I quickly noticed how identical ladybug and ryuko's colors are especially so in my ladybug redesign but you'll see that soon enough so here is how I would redesign kagami in her civilian form

I wanted her to look like the Baddie that she is on the inside but on the outside and because she is deeply connected to her Japanese Heritage I decided to turn to Japanese Street fashion and was so pleased because those outfits are exactly what I envisioned for kagami Japanese Street fashion at the moment is predominantly techware which is perfect for kagami because in my opinion there really is no style that's more badass than techware I chose this particular Ensemble as inspiration and got to work there's a particular half jumper that I see K Idols wear

a lot and I always think it looks super cool so that's what I also did for kagami and of course I gave her combat boots for maximum ass kicking overall I think the clothes suit her active lifestyle and ensure that she would be able to move around easily for her hair kagami doesn't really have the volume problem that most miraculous characters have but as I've mentioned before it is very dense without much structure and don't get me wrong I love her hairstyle and actually used to have a similar haircut when I was in middle school

but at the moment it's looking more like a helmet than hair so we're gonna help her out with that naturally I wanted to keep that length but style it a bit differently I went for a short shaved back with longer ends towards the top of the head and the front my main Inspirations for this cut are Lucy from cyberpunk Edge Runners and motoko from Ghost in the Shell I think it looks Chic while still being practical so it was perfect for kagami as for ryuko I knew that I wanted to do a spin on Samurai

armor for her suit because kagami's family is a descendant of Samurai recently I learned about female samurais called onamusha who were some of the most powerful and skilled Warriors in Japanese history one of the examples being tomoe gozen who commanded 300 Samurai against 2 000 Warriors of the Rival tairok Clan during the war in 1182 Japan and won fun fact kagami's mother is also named tomoe and I think that that is a reference to tomoi gozen so that made it all the more obvious for ryuko to have Samurai armor plus it would go perfectly with

yoko's sword weapon which I wanted to keep in this redesign even though I forgot to include it I looked up some references of onamusha in their armor and decided for a bit of extra Flair to add dragon scales on the armor recently I've been feeling really frustrated with my art I feel like I'm stagnating somewhere I don't want to be and I'm really focused on getting somewhere I do want to be I don't know if it's my imposter syndrome or perfectionism but every time I look at past drawings that I've done I can't help but

feel dissatisfaction like I'm not good enough I find myself comparing my art to artists who I think are incredible a lot lately and I think that's what has really motivated me to push out of my comfort zone one of the things about my art I was dissatisfied with was my composition I noticed that a lot of my illustrations have a lot of empty space and just look uninteresting to look at despite the amount of detail or effort I put into it I really want to make my pieces more visually appealing even if it's just a

character design concept so I'm trying my best to fill out space here without making it too busy I also decided to try something new with my line art which is another aspect of my drawings that I've always felt was the weakest and the part I'm least satisfied with normally I work on my lines using Vector layers that allow you to adjust the lines afterwards or even change the thickness of it my lines are very sterile very simple like something you would see for an animated show that needs easily replicated line art which is great in

animation when the characters are moving and the story is told through multiple frames and shots in an illustration you kind of expect a higher level of detail and personal touches because you need to entrance someone in one still drawing I want my lines to have more personality and contribute to the feel of the drawing rather than just being boundaries for my colors to go into so for this drawing I really experimented with different brushes and techniques to see what I could do differently to get the logo that I want this time I decided to work

on a normal layer rather than a vector layer and I went back to my old reliable Reser Rose highlight plan and tried to dial back on my use of the undo button in favor of the Eraser tool I quickly noticed my old habits that were causing my dissatisfaction with my lines and that was the fact that I only take one single stroke without going back over to complete it it's just a bunch of lines that almost feel arbitrary so this time I took Extra Care and going over the lines I made with multiple Strokes until

I'm happy with the shape and feel and I'm actually very pleased with how the drawing turned out and it's really given me my confidence and excitement to draw back though one other thing I struggled with for this particular design were definitely ryuko's colors originally I tried following the red black and gold color scheme she originally had but as I've mentioned before it looked extremely similar to ladybug's suit especially in my redesign I tried mitigating it with a predominantly black design but it still looked too similar to Ladybug for my liking I eventually took a hard

turn and completely changed the colors to blue and white to be more in line with Azure dragons but that one ended up looking too similar to bunnings's color scheme I was genuinely stuck at this point and both options felt like a lose-lose so I took to my Discord yes I do have a Discord please join my server the link is in the description and asked my server members which option they liked better they suggested I mixed the two options by going with a blue and black palette instead of blue and white and I really liked

how it ended up looking so that was the option I went with for ryuko's hair I wanted to change it just slightly I did a swoopy gravity defying Dragon Ball type hair to make it look like she's radiating with power and to make it more reminiscent of Chinese dragon manes to do that I took inspiration from another ryuko from Killa kill and because I forgot to include her sword it's basically the same sword but blue another thing I changed while working on this redesign was my shading brush usually I'm very concerned about my blending being

smooth and clean but this time while using a more textured brush with coarser blending I realized that it looked so much more appealing I'm really getting into including more very Textures in my drawings and I'm excited to develop it further and that's it for kagami's redesign let me know what you think of her new design in the comments below [Music] like most people who watch MLB we first meet kagami in the episode repost and the moment she appeared on screen in that red fencing suit kicked Adrian's ass and I mean she ate that boy up

and only lost because Marinette is a simp and a kiss ass and said that Adrian got the point instead when kagami clearly hit him first I was sold she was so cool and I knew right away that I liked this character and you know what it's because of marinette's lie that kagami became akumatized and she doesn't even apologize for what she did Adrian was the one who had to go and console her Marinette just got away with it yeah don't think I forgot but anyway ever since that episode kagami was officially my favorite character in

miraculous she's assertive she knows what she wants and she isn't afraid to take it she did what Marinette couldn't do for all of four maybe five seasons and bag Adrian as her man and I do mean that literally kagami is super assertive and she isn't afraid to tell people what she wants and at the time that was Adrian and you gotta admit the girl has game she's leagues ahead of Marinette despite being raised with such strict rules and much less Freedom what a girl boss and in her relationship with Adrian considering her upbringing and lack

of interpersonal relationships she does do her best to make it work it wasn't her fault Adrian was leading her on because he can't be honest with his feelings and pretty much treats her like a ladybug substitute because kagami was clearly a distraction I feel like her relationship with Adrian had so much potential to be good if they just let Adrian focus on her for a second kagami sets up the best interactions she's cool witty playful and I'd argue it's better than what aegeanette could ever be kagami and Adrian have a lot of chemistry and come

from very similar backgrounds both come from wealthy families with formidable histories Adrian was destined to become a socialite like his parents and kagami is a samurai descendant they both have emotionally uninvolved single parents with incredibly high standards and expectations of them and they both struggle a lot mentally as a result they both feel like they are never enough no matter how much they try honestly I'd rather watch a show about kagami it's actually crazy how much they parallel each other and I am strongly convinced that the only reason the show never revealed these backstories to

the characters or why they kept shoving ladybug in Adrian's face every time he wants to be with kagami is because kagami and Adrian would have genuinely become an unbreakable couple after all of all the characters in the show they would be the only ones truly capable of understanding each other completely from their mental struggles their hurt and Trauma and loneliness all the way to what it's like to be in that situation and because of that I genuinely think they could be a source of healing for each other too they already work well as a couple

when they were together but with that reveal I think it would create a stronger sense of fondness and understanding that Marinette could never hope to compete with because Mary internet will never be kagami and she will never have the experiences that kagami had that should have brought her closer to Adrian in a way Marinette can never be but you know what kagami is too good for Adrian anyway aside from the shipping aspect kagami is a very strong character on her own she's thoughtful Fierce dedicated a perfectionist a good sport and multi-talented kagami is a badass

in and out of the super suit and on top of that she's actually a great friend and treasures her friendships deeply she's just a genuinely good person she's not perfect of course she has her temper stubbornness aggression and competitive nature that causes her to jump to conclusions but I think these flaws make sense in context to her personality and history kind of like Chloe though unlike Chloe kagami has the luxury of being consist recently written and spared from character sabotage and really the only major mistake kagami makes in the entire show is being romantically involved

with Adrian and is Led on as a result and you know what the longer I've been doing these character rewrites for miraculous the more I want miraculous and Adrian to not end up as a couple romantically I think they have way more natural chemistry and harmony with their alternative ships than each other I think Marinette slash ladybug and Adrian cat Noir work better as friends and work Partners so here is how I would rewrite the show with that idea in mind in my last makeover video I talked about Luca and how I would rewrite his

and marinette's Romance I'm going to be doing the same for kagami as well as finally completing the storyline I'd been writing for these rewrites so to start things off there are some changes from Canon from previous videos that need to be taken into account for this rewrite which I'm going to recap because it's been a while since I've done one of these videos the first is that cat Noir does not have romantic interest in ladybug because he is more focused on finding the whereabouts of his missing mother and his cat Noir identity gives him an

escape from the life he lives plus he's super sheltered for all of 13 to 14 years of his life so he really isn't thinking about girls that much right now the second is that Marinette does not have a genuine crush on Adrian either she only pretends to be interested in him to fit in better with her friends Adrian is also a lot more socially awkward than he is in the show in my rewrite and he's very bad at interacting with people his own age which serves as shili sanon shilly silly silly Shenanigans sometimes try saying

that 10 times fast the third is that ladybug and Cat noir's relationship is more of a partnership than ladybug simply telling cat Noir what to do ladybug is very organized and well prepared whereas cat Noir is spontaneous and unpredictable and they use their differences to their advantage only cat Noir can break an item possessed by a nakuma and only ladybug can purify it both need to be present in order to use their damage reversal power the fourth is that sentimonsters no longer exist because after Master Fu created Feast dusu was incredibly traumatized by the Havoc

at reeked which resulted in their miraculous power changing so I don't want to see any comments saying oh Adrian is actually a sentim monster or oh Felix is actually a scented monster or kadami is actually a Senti monster so don't bother I'm the captain now the fifth is that Felix and Lila are both on hawkmoth's side serving as his henchmen along with mayura like in the show Felix successfully manages to steal the miracle box from ladybug severely reducing the number of allies ladybug has kagami being one of them if you have been watching my videos

you know that Marinette has been having a rough time in my story lately but what's been going on with Adrian well let's talk about that [Music] to refresh you on my storyline after a ruse pulled by Lila to break the bond of trust between cat Noir and ladybug cat Noir severely injured was taken to the Atelier of his home where hawkmoth Reveals His true identity and shows him just what really happened to his mother this convinces cat Noir to join his father's side but only if he gets to make the wish because of this Lila

learns of cat noir's true identity and decides to betray hawkmoth after seeing the lengths he was willing to go to to get what he wanted Lila joins ladybug's side snatching the fox miraculous from Hawk moth to prove her trustworthiness to the heroes and assisting in their ambush but Adrian well he's caught on the opposite end of this tug of war he now has to go up against his partner in arms although deep down he had a feeling that the attack hadn't really been her because he knew how she fought in her strategies What mattered now

was getting his mother back and hopefully getting his father back too Adrian is torn up and conflicted even more than usual he's become withdrawn and quiet at school especially after he took the fall for Felix he kept quiet and bore everything alone like he always did although Marinette would have figured out that the person she had given the dog miraculous to was not Adrian she's also hesitant on rekindling their friendship at the risk of giving away her secret identity and that's where kagami comes in as I've mentioned before kagami is the only person who even

has a remote chance of understanding him and she understands him completely she's the only person to not question his quiet withdrawal or listlessness she never questioned his obedience and resentment to his father or how difficult it was to make friends because she understood and because she understood she was also the best person to be his friend Adrian was never good with words but he never needed words for kagami to understand what he was going through she simply knew and he never felt like he needed to change himself to be friends with her she helped him

forget about his troubles she takes him on various excursions and detours in their busy schedules encouraging him to let loose and indulge in his more playful side they talk about their home lives and overbearing parents and how they wish they could speak freely to them I imagine a scene where kagami and Adrian are together on a rooftop Excursion and they both scream out the things they were never able to say to their parents into the void and in that way they helped each other heal from their wounds two kids forced to live a life their

parents wanted them to live and be someone their parents wanted them to be finally finding their own voice with her he finally managed to bring the freedom he found as cat Noir to his real life too and for her she finally realized that her mother's way was not the right way that she thought it was she was his best friend and the true Miracle he was looking for in the show there is an arc where Marinette tries to get kagami and Adrian back together again after they'd broken up and I'd like to reuse that in

my rewrite here where although Marinette has gotten to know Adrian a lot better and that she does like him she realizes that she really only likes him as a friend and she's tired of pretending that she likes him more than that just to fit in and with kagami in the picture she uses that as an opportunity to mend the strain between her and Adrian relinquishing the person she was pretending to be and giving them her support and seeing kagami and Adrian together only reminded her of her relationship with Luca and I think because Adrian and

kagami are so close in this version Adrian would tell her his true identity as cat Noir and the predicament he was in being the blunt and no-nonsense person that she is kagami tells Adrian that what Gabriel was doing was wrong what he was doing was refusing to let go of his anger and loss just like the two of them were doing and if they hadn't let go of their anger then they might have ended up like Gabriel too because wanting to go back to the past will stop you from finding your future all you can

do is take the past as a valuable lesson and learn from it kagami tells him that they don't have to be what their parents want them to be they don't have to follow in their footsteps and they can be their own people and although she no longer has access to her powers she encourages him to do the right thing even if it's hard Adrian tells her that he'll think about it but that it would put his mind at ease if she was safe so he plans to steal the dragon miraculous back for her so she

can protect herself better if she needs it but little does he know that he's being watched by mayura who overhears this conversation and finds some truth in kagami's words as well wavering her resolve and so she decides to keep quiet about Adrian's plans Adrian manages to successfully steal the dragon miraculous from the miracle box in Gabriel's possession he gives it to kagami and tells her to leave Paris while he returns to hawkmoth's side to avoid suspicion as kagami is on her way to leave Paris she catches sight of the battle between ladybug and mayura and

despite her own safety she decides to Aid ladybug although ladybug is surprised to see her she gratefully accepts her help the two of them proved too much for mayura so ryuko tells ladybug that she can handle it from here and that she needs to go find hawkmoth as soon as she can with no time for questions ladybug rushes off leaving mayura with ryuko in their battle ryuko appeals to mayura's affection for Adrian demanding answers as to why she was working for a man who would hurt his own son and play with his life as if

he were simply a pawn if she had any conscience then why would she continue this foolishness just to please someone who will never be pleased with them and in a way venting her own frustrations about her mother to mayura and it hits far too close to home for mayura ryuko successfully defeats her forcing her to transform back into Natalie just as volpina and Rina Rouge defeat Mad Dog in their battle and now only hawkmoth remained as ladybug arrives at the aggressed Mansion it was shockingly quiet and empty not a single guard or locked door she

makes her way to the Atelier where hawkmoth and Cat Noir are supposed to be waiting for her as soon as she steps through the entrance it seals and locks behind her and there she finds a horde of akumatized anti-ladybug Society members who quickly overwhelm and overpower her as cat Noir and hawkmoth watch on silently they subdue her taking the ladybug miraculous revealing her identity and delivering it to cat Noir however he remains stone-faced now in possession of both the ladybug and Cat miraculous he's able to make the one thing he had been searching and fighting

for a reality ladybug begs him to do the right thing whereas hawkmoth eggs him on to get them what they both desire Adrian misses his mother deeply but he knows that even if she were to come back it wasn't going to fix anything it wasn't going to fix his father's broken mind or the hearts he had corrupted things wouldn't suddenly go back to normal and there was no guarantee she would want to stay with him after what he'd done anyway but now he did have the power to make everything go back to normal no not

even that he could make it better than normal he could make it the way he wanted things to be but was that right or would that make him just like his father so what did he want what was his greatest wish he wanted all of this to stop he was tired of all the sacrifices he and ladybug had to make the lives they were missing as a result he was tired of seeing all the suffering and fear all for his father's selfish mindless goal she wanted a normal life a way to stop all this chaos

and strife and make sure something like this never happened again not to him to Ladybug or anyone else on the planet I wish he pauses and so did everyone else in the room for the destruction of all the miraculous thank you so much for watching all the way to the end I hate leaving a story unfinished so although I am currently working on my wild word series I wanted to give closure to this one as well after this video I'll be doing one more miraculous redesign that includes a continued storyline for the story's epilogue and

how everything shakes out after Adrian's wish after that I might do redesigns for a highly requested characters just for fun without necessarily adding on to the storyline so if you're interested in seeing that make sure you like comment and subscribe to my channel it really motivates me to read your comments and reactions to my videos and it really helps push my video out onto the wider algorithm as well thank you for hanging out with me in the pond for a while I hope your skin didn't get too pruney big shout out to my lovely Pawn

dwellers for supporting me on patreon if you want to become a pond dweller and get early access to my content join my patreon if you want to see more for me then please follow me on all my social media if you want to submit fan art tag me on Twitter if you want to chat with me join my Discord server and if you want to see more of my stories check out my wild word series here on YouTube because that will make me really happy all the links are in my description and I will see

you all in the next video goodbye