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The Miraculous Ladybug OVA was a planned original anime series based on Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir. It was going to be produced and animated by Toei Animation.
As of April 2017, the anime series was confirmed to have been cancelled from production due to a lack of interest from French broadcasters preventing it from being greenlighted.
History
The OVA was first hinted at on Jeremy Zag's Instagram on December 21, 2015, when he was at Toei Animation studios in Japan for the project's development process.[1]
During an interview with Krystal Kitsune, Jared Wolfson revealed that an anime version of Miraculous Ladybug was "something [the crew members] wanted to potentially put out".[2]
On June 21, 2016, Wilfried Pain confirmed on Twitter that the OVA was in the writing process.[3]
On April 3, 2017, the official Miraculous Ladybug Tumblr confirmed that the development for the anime series was cancelled.[4]
On April 28, 2024, Thomas Astruc revealed on Twitter that the OVA had been cancelled due to the lack of interest from Western broadcasters and the cultural differences between Western animation and Japanese animation within the industry.
According to Astruc, storyboards were created to pitch the project to broadcasters. However, because "the way Japanese animation studios work hardly matches with how Western broadcasters work", the French broadcasters refused to greenlight the OVA because they found it "too complicated" to understand the animation process shown on the storyboards. He explained despite the quality of 2D animation, "nobody wanted to buy the show" in the anime style. So, the crew was forced to switch to animating in CGI since the broadcasters found it "more appealing to people outside [of] anime fans" and "anime was considered a niche market by Western industry". As a result, they were only able to have the "French version" (Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir) greenlighted.[5][6][7][8][9]
Trivia
- It's unknown if the OVA is part of the Quantic Universe continuity or a separate continuity.
- Thomas Astruc hinted that the anime series might take place in a separate continuity due to the differences in art style.[10]
- Thomas mentioned that the crew brought in an interpreter to explain the animation process to the broadcasters so they could greenlight it to no avail.[11]
- Because of the lack of interest from broadcasters, he "still [hopes] that one day [they]'ll have an anime version" and believes "popular demand would help" convince them to greenlight it.[12]
- Unlike the Ladybug PV, Cat Noir was going to be Adrien instead of Félix.[13]
- Even though the OVA was never greenlighted by the French broadcasters, Toei Animation later acquired the rights in 2020 to create a manga series based on the TV series. As of 2021, the manga series was published by Kodansha.
References
- ↑ https://www.instagram.com/p/_lfIvPyQ3A/
- ↑ https://youtu.be/G_cLarJDhKU?t=368
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Winny_IRL/status/745484929258004482
- ↑ https://officialmiraculousladybug.tumblr.com/post/159163539957/is-it-true-that-there-will-be-a-2d-animation
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Thomas_Astruc/status/1784722610250518819
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Thomas_Astruc/status/1784723797674729921
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Thomas_Astruc/status/1784744835020177670
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Thomas_Astruc/status/1784744835020177670
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Thomas_Astruc/status/1784721176826175876
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Thomas_Astruc/status/1784733107930685781
- ↑ https://twitter.com/JdponJibarita/status/1784728814565695961
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Thomas_Astruc/status/1784725920957313443
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Thomas_Astruc/status/679310947933102080