Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: Season 1 Review
Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts Season 1
Between his work as a story and storyboard artist throughout the 2010s on titles like Ultimate Spider-Man, How to Train Your Dragon 2 and The Lego Ninjago Movie, Radford Sechrist created a web comic titled Kipo. It’s colourful imagery and playful take on a post-apocalyptic Earth grabbed the attention of DreamWorks and became the new animated outing from the famed Studio Mir in the form of Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts. But after the successful hit that both companies had previously with Voltron: Legendary Defender, does Netflix have its first big animated hit of 2020?
Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts takes place two hundred years in the future where humans compete against the mutated animals and plants that have mysteriously evolved in many absurd ways. The first season opens up with Kipo (voiced by Karen Fukuhara) being unexpectedly washed away from her underground society and excited at being on the surface for the first time through her innocent and joyful view of this surprisingly upbeat take on a futuristic Earth.
But as she tries to befriend both humans and Mutes (the name for mutants throughout the season) that tag along on her journey to return home, there’s an equal number of mutants made up of gangster frogs and biker skunks after her from orders of the enigmatic Scarlemagne (Dan Stevens). This simple premise of someone trying to return home is filled with some interesting set pieces, characters and ideas within each episode, while also continuing to show Kipo and her newfound friends’ bond over the ten-episode run.
Fukuhara does a brilliant job portraying the innocent and intelligent Kipo and really makes you feel connected to her journey while also seeing her mature to the world that resides above her. The comedic duo of Dave (Deon Cole) and Benson (Coy Stewart) are also enjoyable, but apart from one episode where Benson shows a good part of the world to her, they don’t really have as much development. The best of the supporting cast throughout is the young and tough Wolf (Sydney Mihayla), as she has a lot of depth from being alone in a dangerous place for so long, and learns from Kipo what it takes to be kind and compassionate, something she has not experienced in a long time.
Scarlemagne, voiced by Dan Stevens
While the writers did a great job at telling the story and adding new elements in each episode, the villainous Scarlemagne just didn’t have the best introduction or motivation to make him intimidating. This could be addressed and explored more if the series is successful enough for a second season, but he simply wasn’t as good in the antagonistic shoes as previously hinted at in the episodes before his first appearance.
Studio Mir has always produced great pieces of animation to television screens and Netflix certainly has an intriguing portfolio from them. Voltron: Legendary Defender brought major success to reinvent the franchise and Lego Elves: Secrets of Elvendale took the iconic toy brand and tried to make something refreshing with it. But how does the animation fare for Kipo and the gang?
The animation feels more similar to Mattel Creations’ She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, as the character designs aren’t as realistic, and it felt similar to the more exaggerated animation style that series produces. It’s not to say that Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts isn’t a great animated series – as it certainly is with the artwork from the original web comic as a basis and expanding the world beyond the panels.
But it was a surprising to see that this was from Studio Mir, as the change from a realistic to a more cartoonish approach felt initially bewildering – it did feel like it was animated and designed in a very different approach. The way the animation is used certainly felt connected with the pastel colours and exaggerated characters, but it was surprising for them to take a new direction like this; fans of their previous work might need to adjust when diving in.
Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts is a great animated series to start 2020 and despite the villain’s initial introduction and Studio Mir’s interesting choice towards the animation, it has the potential to become a wacky and great title for DreamWorks. I hope a second season arrives on Netflix with more on offer from these exaggerated characters in this exaggerated world.