Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts

Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts
File:Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts.png Promotional poster
Genre	Adventure Comedy Action
Created by	Radford Sechrist
Based on	Kipo by Radford Sechrist
Developed by	Bill Wolkoff
Voices of	Karen Fukuhara Sydney Mikayla Coy Stewart Deon Cole Dee Bradley Baker
Theme music composer	Vanessa Ruby Sandberg
Composer	Daniel Rojas
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	10 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Bill Wolkoff Radford Sechrist Yoo Jae Myung
Producers	Park Sang Ah Kim Han Byeol
Running time	24 minutes
Production companies	DreamWorks Animation Television Studio Mir
Original release
Network	Netflix
Release	January 14, 2020 (2020-01-14) – present

Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts is an American all-ages animated television series created by Radford Sechrist, adapted from his 2015 webcomic Kipo. The series is produced by DreamWorks Animation Television and animated by Studio Mir of South Korea. Its first season of ten episodes of 24 minutes was released on Netflix on 14 January 2020.

Setting

Kipo Oak, a thirteen-year-old girl, is searching for her father after being forced to flee from her underground city. To do so, she travels through an overgrown post-apocalyptic urban wasteland ruled by sentient mutant animals ("mutes"), together with her new friends Wolf, Mandu, Benson and Dave. Sechrist compared the series to The Wizard of Oz, "but instead of ruby slippers [Kipo] has Converse on".

Development

The series was announced at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in June 2019. It is based on Sechrist's 2015 webcomic Kipo.

The series has five writers in addition to showrunner Radford Sechrist and executive producer Bill Wolkoff. They worked in two teams, each comprising a director and three board artists. The animation is made by Studio Mir in South Korea using traditional animation methods. About sixty people worked on the series at DreamWorks, and about fifty-five at Studio Mir.

Voice cast

Main cast

• Karen Fukuhara as Kipo Oak, an enthusiastic and curious young girl who is searching for her people.
• Sydney Mikayla as Wolf, a cold, distrustful, weapon-wielding survivor girl in the surface world who was raised by wolves
• Coy Stewart as Benson, a happy-go-lucky boy and surface survivor
• Deon Cole as Dave, a mutant insect and Benson's best friend who constantly ages and regenerates
• Dee Bradley Baker as Mandu, an adorable mutant pig adopted by Kipo

Supporting cast

• Sterling K. Brown as Lio Oak, Kipo’s father, a scientist and teacher of their underground community
• Jee Young Han as Song Oak, Kipo's deceased mother and Lio's wife
• Dan Stevens as Scarlemagne, formerly called Hugo, an evil, flamboyant, power-hungry mandrill who seeks to rule the world with an army of enslaved humans
• Lea Delaria as Molly Yarnchopper, a Timbercat
• Steve Blum as Yumyan Hammerpaw, Axe Lord of the Timbercats, who becomes Kipo's ally
• Grey Griffin as Cotton, rocker leader of the Umlaut Snakes from Cactus Town, who becomes Kipo's ally
• Joan Jett as Camille, Cotton's Umlaut Snake bandmate
• John Hodgman and GZA as Billions and Billions, astronomer wolves who work for Scarlemagne
• Jake Green as Jamack, a Mod Frog who seeks to capture Kipo after she causes him to be banished from his pack
• Michael-Leon Wooley as Tad Mulholland, a sentient colony of tardigrades who traps others in dream worlds
• Ian Harding as Harris, a Mod Frog

Music

The soundtrack to the series, including several original songs, was composed by Daniel Rojas. It draws on an eclectic mix of musical styles, from folk to classical music and hip-hop. The first soundtrack album, "Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: Season 1 Mixtape", was released in January 2020 by Back Lot Music.

Episodes

No.	Title	Directed by	Written by	Storyboard by	Original release date
1	"Burrow Girl"	Radford Sechrist	Bill Wolkoff	James P. Gibson, Radford Sechrist, and Young Ki Yoon	January 14, 2020 (2020-01-14)
Kipo finds herself on the surface world and meets Mandu and Wolf.
2	"Explosion Berries"	Radford Sechrist	Bill Wolkoff	James P. Gibson, Radford Sechrist, and Young Ki Yoon	January 14, 2020 (2020-01-14)
Benson saves Kipo, Wolf and Dave from the Mod Frogs.
3	"Real Cats Wear Plaid"	Chase Conley	Bill Wolkoff	Jacob V. Eaton, James P. Gibson, and Ben Li	January 14, 2020 (2020-01-14)
Kipo and her new friends are held captive by a clan of Timbercats.
4	"Cactus Town"	Chris Copeland	Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco	Bridget Underwood, Kalen Whitfield, and Zuke	January 14, 2020 (2020-01-14)
Kipo leads an army of new allies to Umlaut Snäke turf.
5	"The Astronomers in Turtlenecks"	Chris Copeland and Bridget Underwood	Christopher Amick and Ben Mekler	Max Lawson, Kalen Whitfield, and Zuke	January 14, 2020 (2020-01-14)
Kipo and her friends try to blend in with the Newton Wolves and continue searching for the burrow people.
6	"Ratland"	Chase Conley	Bill Wolkoff	Jacob V. Eaton, James P. Gibson, and Ben Li	January 14, 2020 (2020-01-14)
It's Kipo's 13th birthday - and while she tries to crack her father's code, the wolves are reporting to Scarlemagne.
7	"Mulholland"	Chase Conley	Taylor Chapulín Orcí	Jacob V. Eaton, James P. Gibson, and Ben Li	January 14, 2020 (2020-01-14)
The group gets trapped in an ideal dream world.
8	"Twin Beaks"	Chris Copeland	Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco	Adam Lucas, Bridget Underwood, and Kalen Whitfield	January 14, 2020 (2020-01-14)
Kipo searches for another clue among the Fitness Raccoons.
9	"Mute-Eat-Mute World"	Chase Conley	Christopher Amick and Ben Mekler	Jacob V. Eaton, James P. Gibson, and Ben Li	January 14, 2020 (2020-01-14)
Wolf struggles with some new information while the group has to escape from Mod Frogs again.
10	"Beyond the Valley of the Dogs"	Kalvin Lee and Young Ki Yoon	Bill Wolkoff	Ben Li, Adam Lucas, and Bridget Underwood	January 14, 2020 (2020-01-14)
Kipo closes in on her burrow, but disaster is right behind her.

Reception

At io9, Beth Elderkin described Kipo as a "must-watch", writing that it joined the likes of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Gravity Falls and Steven Universe as a series with a broad appeal to many age groups, and highlighting its music and art design. At Collider, Dave Trumbore noted Kipo's similarity to other recent female-led animated portal fantasy series such as Amphibia and The Owl House, and described it as a "classic in the making" that drew on cultural touchstones such as Fallout, The Warriors, The Island of Doctor Moreau, Planet of the Apes and Alice in Wonderland.

Writing for Polygon, Petrana Radulovic appreciated that beneath a standard fantasy exploration quest, the series is a "vibrant mosaic, with a unique world, multidimensional character relationships, and a deeper underlying plot" about the tensions between mutes and humans. She also noted that Benson was the first character to have an explicit coming out as gay in an all-ages animation series, and that the understated manner of the scene, in episode 6, made it all the more noteworthy. Charles Pulliam-Moore at io9 likewise wrote that the series's "casual queerness is fantastic" because Benson's orientation is not treated as a plot point to complicate Kipo's feelings for him, but, "with a distinct matter-of-factness", as just one aspect of his character.

External links

• Official website
• Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts at IMDb