#kipo meta

[nashidakyouko]

Yumyan’s Big Hero Moment

It’s pretty safe to say we all agree that it was heart-breaking to see Yumyan Hammerpaw get “cured.” 

The piano rendition of his theme song was both beautiful and crushing. Kipo and the others prematurely celebrating that everyone had made it out of the situation okay hurt because we, the audience, had seen that dart heading towards him and this musical flourish essentially confirmed the worst.

But at least we know he went out a hero, saving Wolf, Benson, and Dave.

That is not, however, the moment that I thought was his most heroic.

The moment that stirred my soul and brought on a whole new wave of tears was what he asked Kipo to do for him.

“Tell them the stories of Yumyan Hammerpaw. The good and the bad.” [Emphasis mine]

When we first met Yumyan, he would never have said such a thing. He was all about looking like he was truly fearless, basically flawless. He led the Timbercats on this mythical idea that to be great you couldn’t fail. And so the one time he had failed and couldn’t hide it, he hid in the canopies of the trees for 3 days and allowed his people to hurt for him so he wouldn’t have to face his shame and own up to that failure. 

That is the kind of cat he was when we first met him. That Yumyan, the one who didn’t know Kipo, would have rather died from hunger up in those trees than let anyone tell a bad story about him.

His true big hero moment isn’t just saving his friends, it’s acknowledging that his shortcomings and mistakes have value, too, and all the parts of his story should be passed on to help others grow.

And I just gotta say that I really, really love that.

[ianmalcolmptsd]

An incomplete list of things wrong with Kipo S3

What the fuck do you mean it’s been months???? The first season took place over ten days, the second about that same amount or less, yet we’re supposed to believe that people who can accomplish that much in that little time got nothing done for months????? That scarlemagne was in a glass cage with no bed or toilet, not visited by anyone but kipo, FOR MONTHS????? That Emilia and co somehow was able to keep a cruise ship operating and feed at least a hundred humans on it without being noticed FOR MONTHS?????

Benson is apparently the cooking guy now instead of being the music guy, the thing we’ve had two seasons of development for, which much of his character and relationships are centered on, you know the thing which mulholland saw was his greatest fantasy. Nope! He’s the food guy now.

Now that jamacks arc is “done” (because the creators say it is) he’ll never have a serious moment again unless it’s to show that Kipo Is Savior

Both kipos parents are around, the kids are in a village full of adults, and yet a 13 year old is still considered and encouraged to be the leader in a fight that is openly known to be against eugenicists who want her dead

Completely unnecessary back story about Emilia. We already know that she’s a eugenicist, a philosophy inherently tied up in white supremacy, and that she’s 100% down to murder children. We don’t need a backstory about her having an also eugenicist dad and gay sensitive brother who she murders to support her agenda. It’s wholly unnecessary.

All the post season talk about Emilia feeling guilt over murdering her brother is 1) bullshit artistically and 2) completely something the character would not feel because she’s set up to represent everything horrid about eugenicists. She wouldn’t feel guilt over killing her brother because she would see him as having either been a threat himself or having already been corrupted by mutes, in which case she would just blame mutes for his death.

Song was not asked if she wanted to become human again immediately, and that’s an important question since it means that she can never be her mute self again. This is another example of the show falling off the train of saying humans and mutes are equal because whenever it does have to choose between a human and mute- they chose the human.

Songs recovery to having a human body again goes way too quickly, basically all just brushed over so that she can become just “kipos mom” instead of her own character

Songs relationship with scarlemagne is also given far less weight than kipos in s3 or than Leo’s was in s2, despite the fact that song spent just as much time raising him as Leo did and knew him much better than she knew kipo. For a variety of reasons song would likely feel closer to scarl than she does to kipo, at least at the beginning of the season, and that should have been featured.

Scarlemagne s characterization just went way off, possibly because he was locked in a glass box for months, you know, like when he was imprisoned as an adolescent

Narwhal horns are their teeth, I know these are mutes but come on. Don’t be cowards, put the horns where they belong.

Among the things which are clearly done for plot convenience but fall apart the second you remember anything from a previous season: the “cure” really shouldn’t have worked on song in the first place. She became a mute due to the same mutagen which affected scarl and kipo, and it’s the mutagens signature within kipos dna which allowed Emilia to make the “cure”. Kipos dna itself isn’t a cure or the code or anything, and if they said it is in the show I will shove my entire biology degree down the throat of whoever’s idea that line was. The cure has to be based on the mutagen, a mutagen which created the mutes of kipo, scarl, and song, and therefore all three of them should be immune to it.

There will be more but I gotta stop now before I ruin my whole bath with terrible-plot induced rage

[afriendlyirin]

I feel creative tonight, so here’s a back-of-the-envelope Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts rewrite:

Let’s start at the top and work our way downwards. What is this story about? The canon doesn’t seem to have an answer beyond “segregation bad, friendship good”.

My answer for a central theme is grief and loss. Let’s actually use the post-apocalyptic setting for something instead of it just being background aesthetic. The story is an allegory for the cultural tension we are currently experiencing, with the world ruined by the older generation who view the strange new young things with fear and repulsion. The humans must accept what they’ve lost and embrace the new mute society instead of pursuing their futile attempts to regain their world by destroying the mutes’. We will parallel this broad-scope theme to personal losses in Kipo’s own story.

So, the first arc is denial. At the macro level, this only requires one change: Kipo’s dad died in the initial attack. Wolf’s oft-stated warnings are correct, and Kipo’s hope that he somehow survived against all odds is naive. Upon this discovery, Kipo swears vengeance on Scarlemagne and pursues him, which is already pretty similar to the canon ending of S1.

We fill this arc by expanding Kipo’s interactions with the mute societies, and using the episodic encounters to actually make the worldbuilding make sense. The theme of denial is integrated through Kipo’s continued attempts to resolve conflicts peacefully despite all advice to the contrary. Crucially, nonviolence does not work perfectly. Perhaps it does lead to the mutes allowing her safe passage, but they are not best friends forever and she does not change their opinion of humans; the next humans who pass through are still gonna get eaten. Kipo is applying a band-aid to the situation, not providing any permanent solution. This can be revisited in future arcs to show the consequences of her denial.

Second arc, anger. Kipo joins the human resistance early on and fully embraces their mission to defeat Scarlemagne. Without Lio to explain things, the journal can actually be a meaningfully-timed reveal about the full nature of her powers in addition to the reveal about her mom (if we’re keeping that). The need for the anchor also becomes more relevant if her dad is completely gone and this is her only tangible reminder of him.

Kipo leads the charge to Scarlemagne and clashes with him. Circumstances require her to go full jaguar to defeat him, at which point she readies to kill him. Her friends go through the whole cliche of trying to talk her down, “This isn’t you!” “If you kill him you’ll be just like him!” “You can’t fight hate with hate!” etc. Kipo kills Scarlemagne anyway, losing herself to the mega jaguar and running off. (To make this more palatable, we could change Scarlemagne’s backstory to be less sympathetic, perhaps removing his connection to Lio entirely. Or we could keep his backstory as-is and embrace the moral grayness!)

Third arc, bargaining. Kipo and her friends must find a way to bring Kipo back, and in the process Kipo must make sacrifices and face hard questions about who she really is and what she has to leave behind. This is paralleled with the reveal of Emilia’s treachery -- for pacing, she probably shouldn’t be revealed as explicitly evil until now. Emilia and her human resistance are desperately clutching for the world they destroyed, trying to bring it back no matter the cost.

She, Kipo, and the other humans must ultimately come to accept that some things can’t be taken back. They destroyed the world and they have to come to terms with that sin. But in their blind nostalgia, they couldn’t see that life has gone on and a perfectly fine society already exists: the mutes’. (This would, of course, require mute society to be actually functional and for industry and innovation to exist outside of Scarlemagne, which we can establish in earlier seasons.) Kipo, as the bridge between their worlds, is able to fully integrate human and mute society, allowing everyone to live prosperously once more. For bonus transhumanism, mutating humanity into a new form like Kipo may be required, similarly to how Adventure Time handled a similar plot point.

Also, Benson doesn’t exist because he’s a completely extraneous character and literally everything he does can be handled by Wolf or Dave. His important moments are actually stronger coming from them, honestly -- a mute inviting Kipo to the theme park to show her the surface has good parts carries a lot more weight than a human doing it. If you still want gayness, Kipo/Wolf is endgame.

(Additionally, as much as I love representation, maybe let’s not have a black girl’s character arc be #NotAllMutes. We can conserve representation by having Kipo actually look Black/Asian instead of a white girl dipped in grape juice.)

So there you have it. A thematically coherent story with topical social commentary and several dark subversions to keep seasoned audiences’ interest.

[ianmalcolmptsd]

I was just struck with the understanding that Lio and Scarlemagne are Victor Frankenstein and his Creature: Scientist doing some really unethical stuff eventually creates a sentient being who just wants to be loved but is so mistreated that he WILL cause pain to anyone he perceives as a threat

[afriendlyirin]

Just finished Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts season 2. (See here for my thoughts on season 1.)

It was better than season 1 by virtue of having a consistent plot instead of being episodic, but it was still very color-by-numbers. I was not expecting them to introduce a new villain quite this early, but otherwise I predicted all the twists, as well as the plot trajectory -- which wasn’t hard, considering it pretty much begins and ends at “power of friendship solves everything”.

I’m left feeling that Scarlemagne is completely right and Lio is terrible. We see in the flashback that Lio is willing to sacrifice Scarlemagne for Kipo at the drop of a hat, and then he makes no attempt to help him even after the facility blows up and there should be no danger in doing so. Scarlemagne’s switch to evil happened ridiculously fast, but otherwise, he is completely right in all his accusations against Lio. When forced to choose between his adoptive mute child and his biological human child, he chose the human without hesitation. He is terrible.

And yet at the same time I’m also left feeling that Scarlemagne is irredeemable and it’s absurd how many chances Kipo keeps giving him. His soldiers actually, for real killed people this season, he is very strongly implied to be working his slaves to death, and he personally murdered the mod frogs while believing that was what being nice looked like. He is too far gone and too much of a danger to everyone, that is the point where you have to pull the trigger.

Also, I feel like Emilia has a point too? Mutes clearly have not been doing a great job shepherding the Earth. The burrows appear to be the only places that still have complex technology and society. Even the most industrious group, the rats, are operating out of broken, refurbished technology, and appear unable to fix it up further. Mute society is incredibly tribal and divided, and even Scarlemagne appears unable to unite them. Even assuming humans were responsible for the apocalypse in the first place (which seems a near certainty at this point), mutes have done a terrible job proving their fitness to rule. (There’s also the awkwardness that several mutes, most notably the really dangerous ones like the kaiju and the deathstalkers, appear nonsapient, so surely there’s no harm in de-mutating them, at least?)

About the only interesting element in all of this is Kipo being cool about being a science experiment, and also embracing her transformation. But we could have also gotten that from Scarlemagne, so I’m just left feeling like he would have made a much better protagonist. Why must experimental lifeforms always be miserable and turn on their creators? (I did like that he was so immediately willing to accept Kipo as his sister, though.)

[afriendlyirin]

Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts

(Disclaimer: As of this writing, I have only seen up through season 2, and the show is still ongoing.) This is Extruded Cartoon Product. Its blurb sounds like a blender of modern cartoon cliches: P…

This is Extruded Cartoon Product. Its blurb sounds like a blender of modern cartoon cliches: Post-apocalyptic! Female protagonist! “Journey home” plot! Power of friendship! Giant talking animals! Secret tragic villain backstory! But it doesn’t actually do anything with it. The whole thing has a very design-by-committee feel to it — it’s just woke enough to make the Tumblr crowd spread it like wildfire, without being truly transgressive or subversive. 

I reviewed Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts on my blog. Please comment over there if you’d like to discuss, because Tumblr is terrible for that sort of thing.

[afriendlyirin]

I just finished Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts season 1.

I found it very color-by-numbers. It’s a bunch of cartoon adventure tropes that kids love but with no attempt to make them fit together. How is scavenging from supermarkets still a viable practice 200 years post-apocalypse? They make a point of saying the milk is expired, but cleaning chemicals still work perfectly? Do the writers not know those expire too? Why is Wolf so convinced talking never works when talking works every single time Kipo tries it? How does Benson know what “gay” means? How would he even know he’s gay when he doesn’t seem to have met another human in his whole life? How is any of their knowledge compatible with Kipo’s when they shouldn’t have had any of the same education?

The worldbuilding just doesn’t make any sense. It overall feels like it’s trying way too hard to be the next Adventure Time, but without committing to both the darkness and surrealism that made Adventure Time plausible. You can’t expect us to simultaneously believe the surface world is genuinely dangerous but also that the power of friendship can solve every conflict. (Also, how has Benson survived this long with no survival skills? Seriously, what is he eating? We never see him hunting like Wolf does.) You can make it all easier to swallow by throwing crazy magic into the mix, but no, Kipo seems to double down on all the fantastic elements being purely technological and scientific. Seriously, people need to eat. An ecosystem consisting entirely of predators is not sustainable. How does anyone have a stable society here?

The plot was incredibly rote, too. Kipo is warned the villain of the week is super evil and dangerous, Kipo completely ignores that advice and makes friends with them instead, this magically works out for everyone, repeat repeat repeat. Wolf betrays Kipo for absolutely no reason, Kipo immediately forgives her, Wolf flips out at Kipo’s transformation for no reason (her backstory still did not justify it for me), followed by them making up with a perfectly timed hero-of-the-hour moment. Despite constantly being told the world is super dangerous and the monsters eat people, her dad and everyone else turns out to be completely fine, and even the villain is a softball who doesn’t kill anyone. It’s all so cliche, so toothless.

I’m also weirded out by Kipo latching onto all the surface-dwellers so quickly. Wolf, the girl you hung out with for a week, is your best friend, Kipo? Wow, I’m sure all your burrow friends who have known you their whole lives are just thrilled to hear that.

Ratland was cute, though. I laughed at the survey scene.

About the only element I found interesting here was Kipo’s transformations (transhumanism good), but we get agonizingly little information about them. If it’s supposed to be the focus of the plot, they’re going real slow burn with it, and I don’t have high hopes for any of the resolution being satisfying given the quality of writing displayed thus far.