Picture: AB International Distribution, PGS Entertainment, Mediawan
February 2023 will be the end (for now) of Marinette and Adrian’s miraculous crimefighting on Netflix as all 3 seasons of Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir depart worldwide.
Created by Thomas Astruc and produced primarily by Zagtoon and ON Kids & Family, Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir (Miraculous Ladybug for short) has been amassing legions of fans worldwide for over seven years.
After first premiering in September 2015 on South Korean network EBS1 and then in October 2015 on its home network, French station TF1, it quickly expanded worldwide via partnerships with Nickelodeon in the U.S., Gloob in Brazil, The Family Channel in Canada, and Disney Channel in EMEA. By 2016, the series had been distributed in more than 120 territories.
Using the lovely sights of Paris as its backdrop, the show follows Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Adrien Agreste as they combat evil by transforming into superheroes. With the power of magical gems (the “Miraculous”), mystical beings known as Kwamis imbue them with animal-themed powers and costumes.
Much of the series’ popularity online comes from the love story between Marinette and Adrian, who are attracted to each other in real life but unaware of each other’s superhero identities. Plot twist: in superhero form, they don’t like one another. So the drama!
Netflix title page showing the expiration notice.
Recently Netflix has notified subscribers that the series will be leaving on February 1st, 2023.
This is exactly two years after the second half of season 3 arrived. This isn’t surprising because, in 2019 and 2020, Disney began acquiring Miraculous Ladybug television and streaming rights across the globe.
In 2020 Disney grabbed the rights to the in-production Miraculous World: New York – United HeroeZ and Miraculous World: Shanghai – Lady Dragon films. In their exclusive announcement of this pact, Variety incorrectly stated that the first 3 seasons were now available to stream on Disney+ and Netflix but would leave Netflix as their windows expired. In reality, fans in many territories have been waiting two years for the first three seasons to leave Netflix.
In 2021, Disney officially obtained the full streaming rights to Seasons 1-3 in most countries and the then-upcoming Seasons 4 and 5. The clock has been ticking for quite a while, but it’s finally nearing that proverbial midnight. Almost 2 years after the announcement that Disney+ had acquired worldwide streaming rights for Miraculous Seasons 1-3, the franchise is set to exit Netflix on February 1st, 2023. This means the final day to watch is January 31st, 2023.
In addition to Miraculous, the aptly named A Christmas Special – Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir is also set to leave on that day. The Netflix-exclusive webisode “Happy Birthday to You!” does not show an expiration notice, so we expect it to stay longer.
Now that Disney has the rights, it’s unlikely the series will return for quite a while, but since they do not own the series, anything is possible in the future. Are you sad that Miraculous is leaving Netflix?
You can catch all the removals from Netflix in January 2023 in our extensive US list here and keep an eye out on our leaving soon section for a full list of February 2023 removals as and when we get them. In addition, we’re tracking the removal of Disney’s remaining content on Netflix here.