Review: Kipo And The Age Of Wonderbeasts
Season 1 of Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts follows Kipo Oak, a 12 year old girl who lived in a burrow or tunnel until she was washed out in an aqueduct following an attack. She emerges on the surface of an earth-like place in the year 2200 and the world is very different then it is currently in 2020. Animals mutated to have additional eyes, noses, legs and are the size of skyscrapers. Kipo finds two humans, Wolf and Benson, who have lived on the surface and they’ve survived despite the hardships of living alone and scavenging as children. 10 episodes of season one follow Kipo, Wolf, Benson, as well as two ‘mutes’ or animals Dave, and Mandu and their quest to find Kipo’s dad, Lio, and Kipo’s burrow community. Fortunately while Kipo does get reunited with her dad and her burrow, the celebration is short lived as the show’s antagonist, Scarlemagne, a talking gorilla with aspirations to turn humans into his brainwashed army, destroys the burrow and kidnaps Lio. Season 2 does not disappoint, revealing more about Kipo’s past and how the set of characters found themselves in this predicament. Scarlemagne has grand plans on enslaving the humans and his past is more tied to Kipo’s than she knows. Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts is a fantastical story that weaves the virtues of friendship into a never-ending discovery of mute (or animal) characters and backstories.
Show creator is Radford Sechrist and Bill Wolkoff. Sechrist’s other works include Megamind and Kung Fu Panda 2 as a story artist. This is Sechrist’s first producer, writer, and director credit. This show was produced by DreamWorks. Young Ki Yoon directed 17 episodes. Their past works include Black Dynamite and Ultimate Spider-Man. The music is also notable. Seeing that the series is similar to a musical, each episode, Kipo meets and resolves conflicts with different mute or animal groups who also have their own genre of music. This helps set the tone of the mute group. For example, the snakes are into rock ‘n roll while Scarlemagne plays classical piano music.
Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts does a terrific job setting up a futuristic science fiction plot incorporating elements with today’s current state. When obvious questions pop up as to why or how certain story plots are possible, the writers answer most of the conflicts well. For example, why would Lio risk Kipo’s life in the aqueduct when there is a backup burrow? It turns out that the backup burrow was kept a secret to protect the community’s safety in case of an emergency, but in the case of Kipo, that secret backfired since Lio did not know of a backup burrow and believed his child’s safety would be more guaranteed in the aqueduct. As the story unfolds, it makes sense that Kipo’s skin color is purple but how did she grow up and that was never an issue? Wolf’s story also unfolds beautifully seeing that she is prickly and slow to trust anyone or make friends but the character arc really makes audiences work and believe that her character has come along way. And can we just give some kudos for having a gay teen character! Audiences are left wanting to know how Benson ended up being a surface dweller. It’s nice to see how Kipo deals with rejection from Benson. Seeing Kipo like Benson but the communication is nice. It’s not as wonderful if we were to witness a guy liking a girl and being rejected though. We need to see more of those examples.
The acting in Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts is pretty great. Starting with Kipo played by Karen Fukuhara. It has not ceased to amaze me when grownups are play children’s voices. Fukuhara does an amazing job of matching Kipo’s enthusiasm. Here is an example of how Fukuhara’s performance is successful. As for Wolf’s character played by Sydney Mikayla, the animation and voice really changes throughout the two seasons of the series. Wolf changes from a prickly no-nonsense girl to someone who is moved by Kipo’s kindness and ultimately opens up to care for another being. Even her character arc transitioning from being traumatized by mutes to accepting and appreciating other mutes is something I aspire in my own healing journey. The voice acting and animation shows the audience the character trying not to care to openly supporting her friends. Benson is an amazing character. The animation and voice acting of Benson crushing on Troy is so cute and wonderful to see. I have never seen gay animation before. I’ve heard about it on Steven’s Universe but I haven’t seen it and maybe those characters are as human-like. It is also so exciting that Sterling K. Brown plays Lio Oak although he does not have as much screen time. It is also meaningful that while the characters are people of color, the actors who voice the characters are also corresponding people of color.
