TV Recap: "Miraculous World: Tokyo, Stellar Force" Pairs Ladybug and Ryuka with a new Japanese Hero Team

Ladybug’s worldwide adventures continue in the latest hour-long special, Miraculous World: Tokyo, Stellar Force. Not only does this new story take Marinette back to the anime source material that inspired Miraculous, but it also helps set up Disney’s spin-off series that will kick off in 2027. Get a first preview of the new show in this special, and via our recap.

Miraculous World: Tokyo, Stellar Force - Written by Thomas Astruc, Sébastien Thibaudeau & Jun Violet

Ryuka, aka Kagami Tsurugi (Faye Mata), says goodbye to her boyfriend, Argos (Bryce Papenbrook), aka Felix Fathom, in the skies above London. Traveling to Paris, she surprises Marinette Dupain-Cheng (Cristina Vee Valenzuela), who was having a virtual dance with her boyfriend, Adrien Agreste (Bryce Papenbrook), over the phone, since he’s still in New York. With a kaiju monster attacking Tokyo and a new, local superhero team not getting along, Kagami needs Ladybug’s help to save her hometown.

With approval from Marinette’s parents, she joins Kagami on her mother’s private plane to Tokyo. Without time to pack, Marinette uses a sewing machine to customize one of Kagami’s signature blazers to fit her style. Kagami introduces Marinette to the new superhero team via text messages, revealing that they were former friends who added her to a group chat and never removed her when she moved to Paris. Kagami becomes closed off when Marinette asks why they aren’t friends anymore.

Marinette doesn’t speak Japanese, but discovers that when Tikki (Mela Lee) enters her ear, she can both understand and speak the language. Reading through the texts, she gets the sense that the group is too divided to choose a leader. As they land in Tokyo, Marinette wonders if Kagami needs her more than this team does. [As the plane lands, the animation changes from CGI to 2D anime style]

The taxi driver, Tom (Chris Smith), is excited to meet someone from France as he drives Marinette and Kagami to her grandmother’s house. He has a keychain of the Eiffel Tower on his mirror.

Kagami’s grandmother, Nozomi (June Angela), runs a dorayaki bakery, and as Marinette enters the home, she learns the Japanese tradition of taking off your shoes at the entrance. Nozomi prepared dinner for the girls, and Marinette scarfs it down, overeating, as they talk about Hoshi Matsuri, the star festival, happening tomorrow. Nozomi is running a doayaki stand and tells Kagami that her old friends and “boyfriend” will be there tomorrow. 

In a subterranean lair, we see the evil alien Moddler (Xander Mobus) on a throne in a crashed spaceship, surrounded by his minions. A team of colorful superheroes stopped the monster he sent to the surface, and he watches a playback of the fight as two of the heroes fight about strategy, one dressed all in yellow and the other in all black. 

Moddler goes to the surface himself, getting in a taxi and placing red pucks that will turn the driver, Tom, into a monster!

In Kagami’s room, Marinette finds a photo of her with a group of friends, wondering which one could be the “boyfriend” her grandma mentioned. Kagami tells Marinette that in Japan, baths are a communal experience, heading down and ahead of her friend. When Marinette heads downstairs, she is scared by a woman with colorful hair and circles around her eyes, named Shinobu (Jolene Jaxon), Nozomi’s friend.

In the outdoor onsen bath, Marinette asks Kagami about the “boyfriend.” She shares that his name was Kazuno. “He didn’t love me,” she adds, before opening up about her past. Like Adrien, Kagami had a sheltered childhood where school was conducted at home and her only time outside was for fencing competitions. She never had any friends before her 14th birthday, when she convinced her mother to let her go to school, a right she had to win in a challenge involving a ring she still wears. 

In a flashback, we see Kagami’s first day at Kano Academy, a school that specializes in sports and academics. She met a group of students, including a fiery blonde named Miki (Rebecca Wang), who challenged Kagami for her friendship. Since Miki didn’t explain the rules of the red button challenge, Kagami won two weeks' worth of friendship by playing smart. Miki protested, but to Kagami’s surprise, a boy named Kazuno (Zach Aguilar) offered to be her friend, no strings attached.

Kagami quickly developed feelings for Kazuno, telling Marinette that he taught her what love is. But her love was unrequited — Kazuno was secretly in love with Miki. He added her to the group chat with his friends, but she never sent a single message. Shortly after, her mom moved her to Paris.

When Kagami hears a kaiju monster nearby, their bathtime is over. Transforming into Ryuka and Ladybug, the girls rush into action, finding the new team of heroes battling a large, yellow, metal monster. Despite fighting, the red, blue, and yellow heroes are able to save a mother and daughter from being crushed, while the one in black notices strange markings on the monster that the others can’t see.

Watching from a rooftop, Kagami thinks Ladybug can help the team work together. She’s unsure, but she uses her Lucky Charm to conjure an item, confused when it produces an Eiffel Tower keychain, which doesn’t seem helpful. When the hero in black gets grabbed by the metal monster, Ryuka uses Storm Dragon to help him get free. 

The other heroes surround Ryuka, with the one in yellow upset that she thinks they need her help. The monster throws a car at them, and the one in black dives to push them out of its line of fire. The one in yellow refers to him as Capricorn, and he refers to her as Leo. When Leo asks Capricorn to dance with the rest of the team, he refuses. The one in red, Aries (Nick Martineau), takes his place for the Buster 4 move alongside Leo, one in blue named Sagittarius (Secunda Wood), and one in pink named Cancer (Lauren Choo). Their move brings down a combined mecha that they are about to use to fire at the monster.

Ladybug suddenly realizes why she conjured an Eiffel Tower keychain, believing the taxi driver is inside the kaiju! She asks the team to stop, but they don’t listen, and the monster is destroyed. Ladybug uses her powers to undo it, and Capricorn again brings up the strange marks that only he can see. Ladybug uses Lucky Charm again, this time conjuring a can of red spray paint. She gives it to Capricorn, who paints circles around the marks on the metal monster while his team distracts the beast with attacks. Ladybug asks them to try to target the spots Capricorn drew at the same time. They do, and the kaiju is transformed back into his original form — Tom, the taxi driver! With no memory of what just happened, he is starstruck by Ladybug, asking her for an autograph.

Celebrating their victory, Aries returns to the group as the “Super Stella Organization,” which they all veto. It turns out that they’re so new to the hero scene that they have yet to agree on a name for their team. Sagittarius is also a Ladybug fan, and Capricorn asks Ryuka if they’ve met before. Ryuka disappears using Wind Dragon, leaving Ladybug to say goodbye to the team. Leo thanks her for her help. After Ladybug leaves, Leo asks Capricorn if he has a crush on Ryuko, which he blushingly denies.

We see Capricorn return home, seemingly mad at himself as he powers down, revealing himself to be Kazuno, Kagami’s crush! His watch transforms into his sprite (also voiced by Zach Aguilar), who tries to cheer him up.

Marinette asks Kagami if Capricorn is Kazuno, and she confirms that he is. As she tries to get to sleep, Kagami is really hard on herself, thinking she makes everyone around her suffer. Marinette tries to boost her confidence, saying her inner strength helps make her a hero. Kagami believes she’s the reason that Kazuno and his team aren’t working together. She reveals that she tried to tell him how she felt before she moved, but never did. Marinette thinks this is an opportunity for a second chance. “I don’t know how,” she cries.

Moddler fumes that another one of his plans has gone awry. A fiery evil eye named Supreme (Keith Silverstein) appears, and we learn that Moddler is trying to gather all of the pieces of the Stellar Matrix to free him. “This time, I’ll show them what I can really do,” Moddler promises.

In the morning, while Kagami sleeps in, Marinette unlocks Kagami’s phone and sneaks out of the room. Both of their kwami, Tikki and Longg (Grand George), follow her to ask what she’s doing. Marinette asks Tikki to go in her ear again to help send a message to the group chat in Japanese. She invites the whole group to Nozomi’s booth at the festival for a free doayaki. Almost instantly, the group reacts to the fact that Kagami was even on their chat, and that she’s back in Tokyo. Marinette disables notifications from the chat so Kagami won’t know what she did.

Kagami thinks Marinette is acting suspiciously as she helps set up the booth at the festival. Her suspicion proves true when a group of eleven familiar faces suddenly appears at the booth, the friends she made at Kano Academy. Marinette asks to be introduced, and all of the friends are dressed in a signature color — Miki in yellow, Mayotte in blue, Pili in red, Yu-Lu in pink, Ryo (Darius Johnson) in earthy green, Jeola (Jennifer Sun Bell) in brighter green, Nikko (Haven Schneider) in orange, Bulgan (Khoi Dao) in brown, Karelia (Amber Aviles) in white, Kiss (Ryan Colt Levy) in grey, and Anglia (Kate Clarke) in purple. Kagami asks where Kazuno is, and the group says he didn’t reply in the group chat. Marinette wants to go get him, and Miki offers to take her.

A fishing boat in the harbor is suddenly attacked by Moddler and a cat monster, who transform the entire crew into kaiju monsters.

While riding in a cab to Kazuno’s apartment, Miki correctly assumes that Marinette sent the text on Kagami’s behalf. Marinette asks for Miki’s version of what happens, and she not only confirms Kazuno’s unrequited love for Kagami, but also that she has a secret crush on Kazuno, too. Marinette is confused why they aren’t together. “Victory must be earned,” Miki explains, seemingly wanting Kazuno to have to work for her affection.

Kazuno was running an errand for his neighbor, dropping a bag of oranges, when he found his crush at his door with a mystery girl. Bending over to pick up the oranges, he bumps heads with Miki before inviting them in. Inviting them inside, he shares that he could also tell that Kagami didn’t write the message. He knows he hurt her, and he doesn’t want to hurt her again, but Marinette tells him that Kagami feels the same way. But before they can resolve the issue, kaiju monsters appear based on sea creatures! Miki asks Marinette to promise not to tell anyone as she and Kazuno transform into Leo and Capricorn!

As monsters take over the festival, Kagami transforms into Ryuko in front of her old friends, using Wind Dragon to clear the area. “Promise me you’ll never tell anyone,” she asks them about her secret identity. When Kazuno/Capricorn joins the fight, Sagittarius tells him that Ryuko is Kagami. He’s shocked to see her again.

Marinette arrives on a motorcycle with a ladybug helmet like Kagami’s friends’ suits, conjured with Lucky Charm. Capricorn again notices symbols on the monsters that can be targeted to transform them back into humans. However, as these monsters come into contact with other civilians, they, too, are transformed into sea monsters. Ladybug tells Ryuko that she believes she has to patch things up with Kazuno in order for his team to thrive.

In the fight, Miki/Leo gets transformed and captured, brought to Moddler, who is excited to get his first piece of the Stellar Matrix. But Ladybug saves the day, using her helmet to transform the Leo monster back. Leo immediately stops Moddler from taking her shard, and as she prepares to fight him, he makes the ground melt into lava, dropping beneath the surface to his underground lair.

As the battle ensues, Kagami tries to patch things up with Kazuno, finally giving him a letter she wrote before moving to Paris. She had planned to give it to him at the arcade where they used to play a dancing game together. On their last visit to the arcade, she refused to play, informing him that she was moving to Paris. He wanted to keep playing the game with her online, but she told him dancing with him was “a suffering” and that he should only dance with Miki from now on. Now that she has moved on and is in love with someone else, she apologizes, giving him the letter and asking him to please dance with his friends again. They have a tearful hug.

Ladybug is able to revive all of the transformed humans, but there are six giant sea monsters that need to be taken care of. Leo tells Capricorn that they need him to do their choreography to summon their mecha. With dancing no longer reminding Kazuno of the pain of losing his friend Kagami, he joins them. “Celestial Spirit Complete,” they all chant in unison, summoning a giant white and gold machine that they can power to fight the giant monsters.

Ladybug uses Lucky Charm to summon her own giant mecha, needing Ryoku’s Lightning Dragon power to help power it. Together, the two teams in their giant mecha suits take down the creatures, with Capricorn transmitting targets onto the monsters that can be hit at the same time to destroy them. The giant monsters become the last of the fisherman, plus their boat, when the two teams defeat them.

Pili/Aries, who had been trying to get the team to agree on a name, declares them “Miraculous Stellar Force!” Not only does the name feel right, but as they all chant it in unison, their magic surges throughout Tokyo, repairing the damage caused by the battle.

We see Moddler back in his lair, upset that the humans have organized a team to stop him. Supreme vows to help him fight, saying the war isn’t over yet.

That night, Marinette, Kagami, and her twelve old friends celebrate at the Tanabata Festival. Stellar Force thanks Marinette for helping turn them into a real team, and they all vow to keep each other’s true identities a secret.

Kagami and Kazuno have a moment alone where she encourages him to tell Miki how he feels about her. With their wounds healed, the festival’s fireworks feel like a perfect celebration. They rush back to the group to watch with all their friends.

Marinette and Kagami fly back to Paris together on Kagami’s mother’s plane [the special switches back to computer animation at this point], and Kagami had a mini makeover before the flight. Marinette hopes to use some ideas from Japanese fashion to impress Adrian when he returns from New York. She gasps, realizing that when Kagami interrupted her phone call, she forgot to tell Adrian she loves him. She sends him a voice note, professing her love and saying she can’t wait to see him again. Kagami does the same for Felix, adding that she hopes they can see each other more often.

In an epilogue, we see Adrian listening to Marinette’s message. He is about to go into battle alongside Aeon (Kimberly Woods), telling her that he will reply “if” he makes it out of this fight. “Claws Out!,” he shouts, transforming into Cat Noir. They leap into battle against a giant hand reaching through a portal!

Miraculous World: Tokyo, Stellar Force is currently airing on Disney Channel and will begin streaming on Disney+ on February 27th. The Stellar Force team will return in their own Disney-exclusive spin-off series, Miraculous Stellar Force, in 2027.