Max Kanté

"With a 6 feet-per-second wind behind you and the sun at 45 degrees to the northeast... I don't think you'd be a rotten egg. You'd be lunch."

- Max

 is a student in Miss Bustier's class at Collège Françoise Dupont. In "Gamer", when he loses his place in the school video game tournament because of Marinette Dupain-Cheng, he is akumatized by Hawk Moth and becomes Gamer, a supervillain who controls a huge fighting robot.

Physical appearance
Max is short with dark skin, curly brown hair, and brown eyes.

Civilian attire
Max wears black-rimmed glasses, a light green polo shirt, and tan and brown checkered jeans. He also has suspenders with a light tan line between two dark tan lines and silver buckles, along with light grayish blue sneakers and a blue watch on his right wrist.

As Gamer
As Gamer, he has purple skin and red eyes. His glasses become butterfly-shaped and the glass has a light green tint. He wears a black full-body suit with a small green circle on his chest and three thin green stripes around his waist, each forearm and each lower leg.

Personality
Max is a gamer and a fan of technology. He is smart, especially when it comes to mathematics, as seen when he figures out how fast Kim needs to be to make it to Pont des Arts right before Chloé Bourgeois gets there in "Dark Cupid". He tends to be carried away with his knowledge, often over-explaining things with further detail than necessary and occasionally revealing something that was supposed to be a secret. Max is also friendly, helping his friends with knowledge and support. In "Gamer", when he loses his place in the competition for which he trained a whole year, he sportingly congratulates Marinette and Adrien before he quickly leaves the room. Once outside, he starts rambling to himself about how unfair his situation was, and it isn't until after his akumatization and Marinette offering up her spot to him in the competition that he perks up.

As Gamer, he stops at nothing to show everyone that he's the best gamer, even turning people into experience points that help him level up. Additionally, the resentment he held towards Marinette turns into hatred, resulting in him specifically targeting her for a brief period.

As a civilian
Max is very intelligent, being excellent at knowing facts, statistics, and calculations. He is also very skilled in playing video games and he has one of the highest scores in the entire school at playing Ultimate Mecha Strike III.

Max's intelligence also shows in his inventions that are revealed in "Robostus": an anti-virus flash drive and Markov, a highly-functional robot that has developed emotions on its own.

As Gamer
As soon as he transforms into Gamer, he gets a giant fighting robot designed after MX-01 from Ultimate Mecha Strike III. He starts off with the robot's Level 1 form, a simple floating black pyramid with a green eye, but by shooting at the population and cars, he turns them into experience points that make him level up. Level 2 adds two tall tentacle-like legs. Level 3 makes the robot more human-like and gives it the power to perform some special moves, such as firing electricity and missiles, creating a force field and spinning to make a drill. Level 4 is the final level, but its form is unknown.

With his glasses, Gamer is able to save his last level and respawn in case his robot is destroyed.

Lê Chiến Kim
Max is best friends with Kim. They are usually seen around each other and sit next to each other in class. Max supports Kim, helping him prepare to express his feelings to Chloé in "Dark Cupid".

Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Ladybug
Generally, Max and Marinette get along nicely. In "Gamer", he becomes upset with Marinette for beating him at Ultimate Mecha Strike III and becoming the second student to go to the tournament, which he tries to hide but fails to over time. After she offers up her place for him, though, he gains a lot more respect for her, and he encourages her when she ends up being his partner. Max appreciates Marinette's bravery and compassion, grateful for her trying to get Markov back for him in "Robostus", and he cares enough about her to team up with other students to try fighting off the titular villain and her minions to protect her in "Befana".

Max sees Ladybug as a wonderful protector of Paris, and he appreciates her greatly. In "Robostus", he takes her advice that he should forgive Markov because people sometimes struggle to control their emotions.

Markov
Max cherishes Markov, both as his creation and his close friend. He fully supports that Markov has his own personality and emotions, and he enjoys working together with him. When Mr. Damocles confiscates Markov, Max worries about his robot's reaction to being separated from him for the first time. While Markov is akumatized into Robostus, Max is alarmed by his friend's villainous actions, and he defies him and his wishes to become human by freeing Ladybug and Cat Noir before their Miraculouses are taken, telling Robostus that he likes him the way he was before akumatization and he doesn't want him harming the heroes. Once Markov is back to normal, Max is initially unsure and worried about reactivating Markov, but after Ladybug encourages him to forgive Markov because he cares about him, Max goes through with it and warmly greets him.

Trivia

 * It's been implied that Max is of South African heritage from his last name, Kanté.
 * In "The Bubbler" and "Lady Wifi", Max appears without glasses.
 * Thomas Astruc noted the instance in the former episode as an animation mistake.
 * In his first appearances in the Korean musical Ladybug, Max wears a different outfit, which includes a purple t-shirt with white lettering printed on the front underneath a green and black plaid hooded jacket.
 * In later performances, Max's outfit is mostly identical to his show appearance, excluding his glasses and including a black hat.


 * Gamer reappears in the two-part special event "Heroes' Day".

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