In Kipo and the Wonderbeasts, a teenage girl is lost in the big, evil world is a common trope for television, especially animation. This Netflix animation television series is different. Usually, such stories don’t catch my attention. I’m not thirteen-years-old, and exposure to the “real” world has desensitised me to the naïve, often cliched wonder depicted in such cartoons.
A QUIET DEBUT
Television often mirrors, rather than predicts, world events. Adult animation TV shows like Bojack Horseman, Big Mouth, good ol’ perennial The Simpsons are symptoms of the world we navigate – both outside and in our minds. Depression, addiction, dysfunctional families are issues with which each of us deals, or we know someone who does. For all of their surrealism, such shows aren’t escapes. They are acknowledgement.
Kipo and The Wonderbeasts aired on Netflix in January, this year. Like most of us, I didn’t notice it, nor did Netflix’s algorithm decide it suitable for my viewing. My discovery of the show was accidental, and a joyful surprise – just like the show itself. Its audience rating is 13+, but I, more than three times that age, got hooked within minutes.
Having found it just last week, I’ve binged all three seasons already. Though, I promise to limit spoilers because you should go this adventure within the same wonder as myself. Kipo and the Wonderbeasts is of Dreamworks’s best-animated one.
AN UNAFRAID PROTAGONIST
In the first episode, we meet Kipo in a post-apocalyptic world. Humans live underground here to keep safe from mutated wildlife that’s become sentient bugs, talking gorillas, snazzy dressing frogs, and Godzilla-size Yorkies. Kipo is lost, separated from her scientist father and borough. In every sense of the word, she’s lived a sheltered life even in this strange future.
Kipo is a joyful character. She’s gregarious, curious, energetic and, as are all protected, privileged people, confident in the goodness of everything and everyone. This is not to say she’s naïve, though that’s how she seems to the surface-dwelling animals and humans she befriends along her journey.
Her first reaction to being flung to the surface, a world she’s been told is dangerous for humans, isn’t fear. Kipo is stimulated – she’s overjoyed at the new sights; she’s full of wonder. She’s ecstatic while saying, “I’ve never seen so many new things!” Within a few minutes, Kipo befriends a mutated blue pig, with four eyes— the cutest character I’ve seen in animation since Baymax. I will be getting myself a stuffed toy of Mondu—named after a dumpling Kipo’s dad makes for her. Yes, you read that right—I, almost forty, need a cuddle from this adorable pig, and I don’t care who knows it.
You want one too. Don’t lie to yourself or me.
The Netflix series Kipo and the Wonderbeasts was created by Radford Sechrist and adapted from his 2015 webcomic Kipo. This is Sechrist’s first writer/producer/director credit. He’s been involved in other animation favourites like Kung Fu Panda, Kung Fu Panda 2, Penguins of Madagascar, How to Train Your Dragon, and Megamind. He was the story artist for Megamind (which if you’ve seen, please do. It’s hilarious.)
A SOOTHING AGENT IN DYSTOPIAN TIMES
I’m trying not to put out spoilers, so suffice to say that all three seasons of Kipo and The Wonderbeasts have their own story blocks. Each season ties in with the overall, more profound, darker narrative in a smooth, unhurried fashion. There are twists, turns, surprises along the way, if not at every turn. The episodes unfold, and facts come to light as they become essential to further the viewer’s understanding of the overall story. Despite being an animated series for 13+, there’s no spoon-feeding of moralistic ideals. It doesn’t treat children as adults, nor as underdeveloped adults. The show’s writers have made a show for intelligent children. The viewer is engaged and understands what’s happening in the front.
Having said that, Kipo and the Wonderbeasts is not a television series that asks a lot of the viewer either. The show is an easy binge-watch. What makes it stand out from the animation tv we’re used to loving is that after each episode I felt soothed, restored even.
That’s why I’m writing to convince you to watch the show.
These are challenging times, our new horrible normal. I’m exhausted, and you might be as well. I don’t deny being engaged by dark and fascinating television shows such as Queen’s Gambit, socially relevant adaptions like Handmaid’s Tale. At the same time, optimism is scarce, and I, for one, am grateful to receive it from whatever medium presents itself. This is what Kipo and the Wonderbeasts did for me: it provided a healing salve for my sore soul and overwhelmed brain. And, isn’t that what we all hope for when we turn on our televisions (or laptops, or phones)?
DIVERSITY DONE RIGHT
Not one of the main characters in Kipo and the Wonderbeasts are white. And, I’m here for that. I don’t mean the talking animals and adorable Mondu. While finding her way back to her father (a black man), Kipo befriends two humans as well as many, many wacky animal characters. Both black characters: a young, tough loner named Wolf and a music-loving sweetheart boy named Benson – are black. And Kipo herself is half-black and half-Asian (her mom, who’s died long ago is Japanese.)
What makes it remarkable is that diversity is casually presented. It’s not awkward like we’ve seen too many times in recent television series and movies. They’re kids; they’re black. I AM HERE FOR THIS!
Tiny spoiler: Kipo develops a romantic interest in Benson in the first season, a little bit of a crush on the first boy she’s met outside of her tiny borough community. I can’t blame her. Benson is a cutie, with sick style and even sicker taste in music. She confesses her feelings to him during a Ferris wheel ride in an ‘everybody is welcome’ theme park run by rats (see what I mean about the fantastic characters?) Benson doesn’t reciprocate. He’s gay. Kipo is a little embarrassed, but there’s no unnecessary drama or awkwardness.
It’s huge to have a gay character in a children’s animated series. But, a queer character who’s casual, out, and joyous: that’s the icing on the cake for me. There is a scene where Benson hallucinates, and a rainbow shoots out of his mouth. What an evolution in how animation deals with queer characters. Another spoiler: Benson eventually meets the cutest boy. The two are #couplegoals.
BANGING SOUNDTRACK
If I’ve not convinced you to binge-watch Kipo and the Wonderbeasts yet, let me bring your attention to its killer soundtrack. We’re talking Sterling Brown, Daniel Rojas, GZA. My favourite songs are Newton Wolves Rap by GZA and John Hodgman and Grrl Like by Dope Saint Jude.
Overall, this is one of the best shows – from animation to writing to world-building – that Dreamworks has made so far. Kipo and the Wonderbeasts is a children’s show done right. The recurring theme is to use understanding and empathy to engage with people and animals that have different views and life experiences than your own. Who can deny that not just kids, but adults need to relearn these lessons today?
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