Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: Season 2

June 14, 2020 5:21 PM - Season 2 (Full Season)

Making her way in a world of mutant animals, a sheltered yet scrappy girl learns to survive – and discovers her powers – with the help of a ragtag crew.
posted by Marticus (10 comments total)

I watched this on Saturday, and enjoyed it as much as the first season. It was great to see more unusual sights (like in the fun-gus double), and a lot more backstory, including Hugo's.
posted by Marticus at 5:23 PM on June 14, 2020

Mega-monkey mom makes me so sad :(

I love that Kipo's second transformation has multiple tails and a mullet.

THEotters

Boys in love!

And a wide open possibility for Hugo's redemption arc.
posted by emjaybee at 12:58 PM on June 15, 2020 [2 favorites]

I love:

Kipo’s optimism
The ensemble story
The focus on PoC
The queer content
The animation style
The ridiculous world building
The music
The character design
Benson

I don’t love:
The Scarlamagne story. You do t get to be a monster and get a redemption arc.
Also, he’s dull

I am warming up to:
Mulholland
The Mega Monkey
Dave
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:39 PM on June 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

Den of Geek: Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts’ Casual Diverse Queerness - Where other shows play in subtext or wait until the very end, Kipo has put its best foot forward when it comes to diverse queer representation.
posted by oh yeah! at 6:21 PM on June 16, 2020

The first season was chaotic and character-driven, and they tossed in a bunch of awesome, amazing animated set-pieces to make it work(Benson's intro, Jamok's rescue). The world was over-the-top wild imagination run riot, no-one has any idea what's going on, but moving with it and in service of the story.

The second season was plot-driven, and plodding, with advertised beats on their marks, and everything was overexplained and fit to neat narratives as to why the world is. And the stupid plot-twist inexpertly telegraphed made Wolf seem weak to pump up a sudden villain, which is an unforgivable sin.

TL;DR - Too much Scarlemane, not anywhere near enough Jamok.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:04 PM on June 17, 2020 [2 favorites]

if you mean Dr. Amelia as the big bad, I don't know if I agree that it's inexpertly telegraphed. Yes, the season has been more by-the-numbers than the first, but it's also the sophomore season which has to handle a lot of exposition, and I think they telegraphed everything just fine. It's just that it's not new anymore. My one gripe is the same as you, that they made Wolf seem weak, especially in that fight against Amelia. Also, she and her two lackeys seemed to have not aged in the 15 years since their burrow was destroyed by Mega Song, you would think she shouldn't be able to move that well against someone as agile as Wolf.

I still really enjoyed this season though. Because of the short episode count the pacing was very tight and brisk and we breezed through the season in two nights.
posted by numaner at 1:31 PM on June 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

made Wolf seem weak to pump up a sudden villain, which is an unforgivable sin.

Yes, I fear Wolf is getting Worf-ified, given defeat after defeat to show how tough enemies are. I hope they course correct in Season 3.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:27 PM on June 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

I hope they course correct in Season 3.

Wolf just tooling on threats to the Jaguar Megamute while Kipo takes care of business would go a long way... Also, need more Benson and Dave backstory. Lots more. These guys survive and legit love and like each other as found family.

Most importantly, we need gigantic and grandiose animated set pieces. Featuring Jamok.

Catchphrase? "I knew you'd destroy me, too. Just... not right now?"
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:38 PM on June 23, 2020 [1 favorite]

Heads-up for Kipo season 3 - dropping on Netflix Monday 10/12
posted by oh yeah! at 4:52 PM on September 29, 2020

I also found Scarlemagne kind of tedious. The backstory did help a little, but he spent as much time hurting other mutes as he did humans so not a real great excuse. I know it's the Thing for the show, and some of the redemptions are nice, Jamokk is always fun when he shows up. Plus I was so distracted in the big setpiece by the gold. There isn't actually that much gold in world! Why was the tree not catching on fire? Why was the megamonkey apparently untroubled by what should have been fourth degree burns on her hand? It just seemed a really odd choice for peril, even for a show with much ridiculous physics. I think it was bugging me because it wasn't consistent *within* the world, like the backpack caught on fire but the tree didn't.
posted by tavella at 9:43 AM on July 1, 2021