Released in a rush over the course of 2020, this phenomenally LGBTQ-positive show is well worth revisiting.

With a perfect 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and an all-star voice cast that includes greats like Karen Fukuhara (The Boys), Steve Blum (Cowboy Bebop), and Dee Bradley Baker (Star Wars), Kipo is an astounding study in contrasts, mixing apocalyptic thrills with family-friendly laughter — and a corgi the size of a city block — into something unique and genuine. It's rare for a show like Kipo to get a chance to tell such a compelling and complete story and it deserves to be seen by more people.

Kipo And The Age Of Wonderbeasts Is About Overcoming Trauma And Fear

Surprisingly, Turning Into A Giant Purple Leopard Makes A Great Metaphor For Both Puberty And Emotional Trauma

The titular Kipo (Fukuhara), the show's protagonist, is a young girl lost in the ruins of Las Vistas (think Los Angeles with the serial numbers filed off) two hundred years after an unspecified apocalypse drives most humans into underground shelter-cities called burrows. An accident sent Kipo careening down a drainage culvert and washed her onto the surface, and while her burrow was a nexus of knowledge and learning, none of Kipo's education prepared her to face down angry mutants (here just called "mutes") the size of skyscrapers.

Kipo is repeatedly forced to confront not only the weirdness of the surface world and its denizens, but also her own inner demons and biases, and she irably does this again and again with an open heart. The show is full of incredible action sequences, like when Kipo and her friends ride a giant dragonfly through a twisted mass of collapsed skyscrapers while being chased by a frog in a flying Lincoln Continental and a massive mega-bunny, but those thrills aren't the heart of the show; that's Kipo and her willingness to never let her fear and trauma control her.

Again and again, Kipo uses her comion and her curiosity, tempered with the self-respect she learns along the way, to try and connect with even the most hard-hearted mutes she and her friends come into conflict with. Although not everyone in Las Vistas agrees with her, there's no denying that Kipo's radical vulnerability works in her favor far more often than not, whether it's with small things (like when she rolled with finding out Benson was gay and not actually hitting on her) or the big ones (like the first time she faces down the mega-monkey using just an acoustic guitar outside Cactustown).

Kipo And The Age Of Wonderbeasts' Soundtrack Makes Its Story Even Better

The Show's Jukebox Soundtrack Is Full Of Absolutely Phenomenal Music You've Never Heard Before

Both in and out of character, Kipo's greatest strength is music. The original soundtrack for the show, composed by Daniel Rojas (M.O.D.O.K., Monster High), encomes a wide range of genres that blend seamlessly together into a cultural mélange that intentionally reflects the mixed-up world of Las Vistas, where gangs of mutes have adapted various real-world musical subcultures to serve as their gang colors. And then there's Kipo's friend Benson (Coy Stewart), who has spent his whole adolescence roaming the surface world collecting various hip-hop cassette tapes.

A few of the particularly musical mutes are even voiced by famous musicians.

The songs that weren't written for the show are also fantastic, and showcase a wide variety of independent artists like world-fusion band Atomic Drum Assembly or afro-beat duo The Derevolutions. A few of the particularly musical mutes are even voiced by famous musicians — rap legend GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan plays the brainiac wolf Bad Billions (successor to Old Dirty Billions), and one of the Umlaut Snäkes is voiced by the Queen of Rock and Roll herself, Joan Jett.

The music of Kipo is also more than just something that makes the show pulse with positive energy; it's a key theme of the show. Kipo herself often uses music to connect to those she is in conflict with, whether it's the hard-rocking Umlaut Snäkes, the flannel-clad Timbercats, and even her own inner self, showing that no matter what genre someone identifies with, there's always a way to turn discord into beautiful harmony.

While it started as a now-defunct Tumblr webcomic by showrunner Radford Sechrist, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts grew into a phenomenally compelling coming-of-age story about a bright-eyed purple burrow girl, and it's one that has a lot to say (if you don't let your own biases get in the way). Much like Kipo herself, this show is disarmingly genuine and heartfelt the entire way through.

(Sources: Rotten Tomatoes)