| “ | I wish I could be a superhero. The powers. The secrets. The costume. That would be awesome, right? | ” |
—Kim | ||
Kim Ature[1] or (in Western order), is a student in Miss Bustier's class at Collège Françoise Dupont in Paris, France. In "Dark Cupid", after being rejected and humiliated by his crush Chloé, he is akumatized by Hawk Moth and becomes Dark Cupid, a hate-spreading supervillain.
In "Party Crasher", in order to defeat the titular villain who had been able to capture Ladybug and her team, Kim receives the Monkey Miraculous from Master Fu. When the Miraculous is inhabited by Xuppu he becomes King Monkey, a monkey-themed superhero with the power of Jubilation.[2]
Appearance[]
Physical appearance[]
Kim is muscular and taller than the average student at school; he has olive skin and grey eyes. He styles his hair, which is black with the ends dyed gold, into a sharp quiff.
Civilian attire[]
He wears a red, short-sleeved hoodie jacket with big front pocket and hoodie and some white outlines at certain places. On the front of the jacket, there is a white logo, which is a downward-pointing pentagon outline outside of a smaller, filled-in pentagon with a red corner and a star. He pairs his top with navy blue track sweatpants, and red, white, and black sports shoes.
As Dark Cupid[]
Dark Cupid wears a black and red suit, along with large black wings attached to his back, each feather-like end of each tipped with two red stripes. On the sides of his neck, there are black lightning bolts. He wears a black head cover, the areas covering the top of his hair and around his eyes being red. The top of his suit is red, with a large white broken heart on his chest. To the waist down, the suit is black. From the elbow down to the hand is black, and from the knee down is red with a few strands of cloth sticking out above the back of each ankle. On his back is a black, red, and white striped quiver, which carries red arrows. On the quiver strap across his chest, the brooch, which is now red and black, is attached to it. His archery bow is based on a breaking heart. The handle is white with red heart halves at the ends, and on each side of the bow, there are two large gray and white spikes.
As King Monkey[]
As King Monkey, Kim wears a gold and dark brown mask that covers up most of his head, with the exception of his eyes, mouth and nose, ears, and hair. The Monkey Miraculous gains five black squares on the back once inhabited by Xuppu and is the division between Kim's hair and his mask. His hair becomes one spike on the top of his head, resembling a fire as his hair becomes toned red and orange, brown at the roots. Kim's suit resembles that of a track suit, being separated in two. His top piece is a light brown and at the center covering his stomach and pectorals is a light tan-ish color. A golden zipper rests at the base of the top, just underneath the collar of his suit. He has black shoulder pads that extend down to his upper arm with golden borders. He wears gloves that extend off of his suit. They are golden at his fingers, dark brown at his wrist, light brown at the rest and have tan cuffs. A golden belt with a dark brown buckle and brown spots on either side of his hips rests at his waist, separating the top from the bottom. At the back of his belt is a rope attached to a hook with a golden tip that resembles the tail of a monkey. His pants are all light brown like the top, however, at his calves, there is a dark brown section with gold borders. His boots are similar to his gloves, extending away from the body. Like Carapace, there is a division between his big toe and the rest of his foot. His soles reach up to the top of his foot and are golden, with brown highlights and the cuffs of his boots are golden. He carries a Ruyi Jingu Bang with gold on either end.
Personality[]
Kim is the "king of competitions."[3] He enjoys making dares, much to the frustration of his classmates, and he is also very confident in himself and his athletic abilities, thus most of his dares involve using the person's body. Over-confident and proud, Kim sometimes boasts about his abilities and doesn't always take facts into consideration, believing he can beat a panther in a race in "Animan." He isn't afraid to tease others, either, as he gives Ivan a note telling him that he isn't brave enough to act on his romantic feelings. Behind his bravado are a few insecurities, like his fear of being humiliated and rejected. While hot-headed and rude sometimes, Kim is generally kind, appreciating Marinette's encouragement to confess his love to his crush in "Dark Cupid" — although Marinette isn't aware that his crush is Chloé. In "Syren", Kim admires Ladybug and Cat Noir so much that he wants to be a hero himself and is curious about how to become one.
As Dark Cupid, he is greatly bitter at love and seeks to avenge his broken heart by destroying all the love in Paris with his arrows. He is still very prideful but has no issues teaming up with one of his victims, like Cat Noir, to succeed.
As King Monkey, most of Kim's personality traits remain the same. However, as seen in "Party Crasher", Kim is a little goofier and silly while he goes one-on-one with the titular villain, albeit everyone else had been defeated. He is also heroic and it can be assumed he is loyal as after Party Crasher is defeated, he is seen without the Miraculous which means he must have returned it to Ladybug or back in the place he found it for Master Fu to take it back.
Abilities[]
As a civilian[]
Kim is a very fast runner, being able to almost keep up with Alix, who was wearing roller skates, when they raced in "Timebreaker". In "Animan", Kim states that he came in first place in the County Athletics Tournament. As seen in "Syren", he is also a good swimmer. In the same episode it's also shown that Kim can use his own feet to hold things, as if they were hands.
As King Monkey[]
King Monkey has super-enhanced skills, such as speed, agility, and strength, and he is almost invulnerable to physical damage.
His special power, Uproar, allows him to summon an item that, upon contact with someone, makes that person's abilities malfunction.
Relationships[]
Max Kanté[]
Kim and Max are best friends. Kim seems to trust Max a lot, as seen when he followed his friend's advice to ask Chloé out in "Dark Cupid". He thinks Max is unbeatable at video games and cheers him on in "Gamer", and feels bad when Max loses to Marinette. He also knows about and supports Max's inventions and intelligence, impressed with the arm that Max added to Markov since the previous time he saw the robot. The two often hang out together, such as going to the zoo in "Animan". He shows great concern for Max when he gets to turn into a minion in "Zombizou".
He and Max meet as their alter egos in "Party Crasher" and work well together.
Chloé Bourgeois[]
Kim often hangs around Chloé and sometimes does her bidding. He has a crush on Chloé, but she rebukes his attempt to tell her his feelings with a gift, also humiliating him in the process. Despite his unknown feelings, he is aware of how awful she is, like when he prefers not to run for class president in "Darkblade" because she threatens to tell everyone about his fear of spiders.
In "Zombizou", Kim along with the other students knows that Chloé is responsible for a handful of the akumas in the city. But understanding that she is a part of Ladybug's plan, he sacrifices himself so she can escape. In “Syren”, he tells Ondine that he has invited Chloé to the movies with him; however, he later finds that she doesn’t show up. Like everyone else, he is aware of her actions as Queen Bee. In "Malediktator", Kim is overjoyed when Chloé leaves for New York.
Alix Kubdel[]
Kim often competes with Alix as he challenges her to several of his dares. His most recent dare involved a race around the school to see if he is faster than her roller skates. When facing off, both in fun like to insult each other and brag about their own abilities. On other occasions, they seem to be friendly around each other.
Master Fu[]
Kim and Master Fu meet at the boys-only party at Adrien's house. When Master Fu nearly fell off the cooler he was standing on, Kim quickly caught him, impressing the guardian and making him decide to give Kim the Monkey Miraculous.
Xuppu[]
Shortly after Kim meets Xuppu, he took offense to the kwami calling him "nitwit" and sticking his tongue at him before Kim "fights back" with his own silly face, in which led to the two "bonding" through the silly faces they made and mimic from each other, before the monkey kwami helps Kim to become King Monkey.
Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Ladybug[]
He sees Marinette as a great friend and was amazed by her gaming skills as well as cheered for her during the tournament in "Gamer". He was happy to hear that she was running for class representative and followed her lead in barricading City Hall as well as winning the election in "Darkblade". Kim appreciated Marinette's support in pursuing his secret crush in "Dark Cupid". During her birthday in "Befana", Kim and the others do their best to protect her from the titular villain.
As for Ladybug, like everyone in Paris Kim admires Ladybug's hard work and dedication in keeping Paris safe. As Dark Cupid, he becomes angry with the heroine when she gets in the way of his pursuit for Chloe. He has unlimited faith and trust, that she would save the day mentioned in "Zombizou". As his alter ego, King Monkey and like the rest of his teammates he follows Ladybug's lead without question.
Trivia[]
- Kim is of Vietnamese heritage. As such, his name follows Vietnamese naming conventions.[4]
- "Lê" is his family name, "Chiến" is his middle name, and with "Kim" being his first name.
- In the French dubbed version, Kim's villain name is "Dislocoeur".
- Dislocoeur is intended to be a pun in French, "-cœur" meaning "heart" and "dis-" alluding to "disloquer", meaning "break".
- His supervillain name is based on Cupid, a mythical character in Roman mythology, who is believed to have the power to bring people together with his love arrows.
- However, his powers operate parallel to Cupid's, as he breaks people apart.
- In the French dubbed version, Kim's superhero name is "Roi Singe" which means literally "Monkey King" or "King Monkey".
- Kim is the third person to be chosen to receive a Miraculous directly from Master Fu.
- Much like how it happened with Marinette and Adrien, Kim showed that he was worthy by helping Master Fu when he was in a tight situation.
- Via Nathaniel kurtuberzg anciel twitter, he twitted that Kim's name has been changed from Kim Chein Le to Kim ature.Original Sourcegiven on miraculousladybug.com
Gallery[]
Promotional artwork[]
See also[]
- Lê Chiến Kim on the Miraculous Ladybug Wiki.
References[]
