Kipo Season 2 Review

I know this is late, but better late than never right?

Every cartoon I’ve watched on Netflix that dreamworks made has blown me away. Kipo has managed to continue their streak of fantastic cartoons. I got to Kipo season 1 late and only saw it a few weeks before season 2 dropped. I’m really glad I did because the wait would have been unbearable. Kipo has an inventive world with a lot of potential, fun characters that I enjoy every time they are on screen, a great soundtrack, and beautiful animation. There were some things in Kipo season 1 that I wish were expanded upon and I think a lot of them were addressed with the 2nd season. Kipo still has a lot of room to grow, but it has all the building blocks to be a great show and seems to be heading there. Dreamworks is probably my favorite animation company. I have been very happy with everything they have released recently.

Characters

I think I have to start with Scarlemage.  He was built up perfectly in the first season and I really liked the payoff. Dreamworks always has a knack for writing villains be it for their movies or their tv shows and they’ve once again created a very interesting and fun villain. Scarlemagne managed to be fun and sympathetic yet disturbing throughout the season. And while I’m typically all for redemption arcs I liked that he didn’t get one in this season. I think him not changing in the way kipo wanted was a learning moment for both her and her father. For her father it showed him his greatest flaw, giving up on people/things too soon, and how damaging that can be. For Kipo it showed her that as much as she may want to believe in the best in everything that’s not how it will always work out. I think these are major lessons that will effect the characters moving forward. My favorite villains are the ones who challenge the hero’s worldview and that’s what Scarlemagne does. Scarlemagne himself was very compelling this season and I do believe that while he wasn’t redeemed this season there is the possibility for change in the future. 

I got chills every time his musical motif played. I loved the logic behind his obsession with classical music and clothes. How it initially stemmed from his innocent wonder. I think it’s fascinating how in one episode everything we knew about Scarlemagne was flipped on its head. There was a sort of tragic inevitability to his “villain’s journey”. It was all born from one choice on the side of Kipo’s father that was completely understandable from his perspective, but heartbreaking from Scarlemagne’s perspective. (I’m also a big fan of tragic villains where there’s one choice or factor that makes it so that them and the hero can’t see eye to eye)

Kipo: 

I like Kipo as a main character. She isn’t my favorite main character and I chalk a lot of that up to the fact that until the second half of this season her worldview wasn’t really challenged all that much. She was constantly proven right again and again which I think was framed really well for a large part of the first season. It’s because she doesn’t have any preconceived biases against mutes that she is able to find common ground and see the best in everyone, but this view that everyone is good and that everyone can change isn’t challenged in any meaningful way until Scarlemagne and even then we won’t get to see the fallout of that until season 3. More experienced humans like Benson and Wolf are show to have distrust of mutes and we see in Wolf’s backstory exactly why and yet despite having much more experience with mutes and living on the surface the second Kipo comes along everything they previously thought and experienced is proven wrong. I wasn’t the biggest fan of that. Again I think with this season we are starting to see a shift away from that. Kipo has just seen that her philosophy isn’t always correct with mutes and I would assume with how the season ended next season will deal with her coming to that realization about humans as well.

I think Kipo has a lot of room to grow as a character. And they seem to be taking steps to address the problems I had with her. I want to once again emphasize that I do like her. There are just things that I would like for them to address in the future. (also it’s nice to hear Glimmer’s VA again)

Wolf:

Wolf is the character I am intrigued by the most. Her past, while only briefly explored in flashbacks, was hard hitting. The fade from her attacking the mother wolf to the wolf skin she had on her head was chilling. Everything we learn about her childhood is fascinating because I like hearing about how she survived on the surface alone. It’s an interesting concept because unlike Kipo she had to adapt from a young age to survive, but she was left with little to no people skills and attachment issues because of it. She was the main character who had the most room to grow in my opinion and, while her arc may be predictable, I like how it has been handled so far. I do want more information about her past and maybe a run in with some of the wolves that betrayed her (I have a hard time believing that she killed all of them). I just think there is a lot of untapped story potential with her character and I was a little sad that outside of episode 4 and the finale she took a lot more of a backseat compared to the first season. Though it was understandable considering how much they had to cover in a 10 episode timespan.

Benson:

Benson was given more to do this season, but still took a bit of a backseat. His relationship with Kipo isn’t given nearly as much attention as Kipo’s relationship with Wolf. I would like a Benson backstory because there is still so much left up to the viewers imagination about everything he went through pre-series. He’s a really fun character that I wish were utilized to his full potential. He has a fun dynamic with just about every character he interacts with and I look forward to seeing more of him in the future. I also like his blooming romance with Troy. It was really sweet and funny.

World

Kipo’s world is actually what drew me to this show in the first place. It was a unique take on the post apocalyptic mutant world and I was excited to see where they would take it. I really liked the worldbuilding and how unique each mutant society was and how they managed to very even the burrow cities. This world is just rich with so much wonder and potential. There are still a lot of questions like “What caused the apocalypse?”, “Did the mutes cause the apocalypse or did the apocalypse create the mutes?”, “How did society evolve the way it did?”, “How can it evolve from here?”. I am so intrigued by everything about it. The worldbuilding is probably the strongest point in the show. 

Music

That being said, the music is a very close second. The score and soundtrack of Kipo is one that you can just pop on and listen to whenever you want. I don’t think there’s anything I can really say about the music other than it’s great and reminds me of spider verse with how the music is used in the story and how each type of music associated with a character tells you a lot about who they are. It does just about everything that I feel music should do in the audio-visual medium. It’s really amazing.

Overall

I’m a really big fan of this show. I have a lot of fun anytime I put it on. While it isn’t my favorite of the dreamworks cartoons I still find it to be amazing. It manages to have moments and episodes that hit me hard even on a rewatch. There’s just so much creativity and heart put into this show. I really want to see more of it because with how the show is going and growing I believe that a lot of my questions and problems will be addressed. I hope others can find the enjoyment out of Kipo that I do.

199. Sonic the Hedgehog #131

Deep breaths, guys. I know what the cover page says. I know. We'll get to that. Just hang in there. I think you might like what I have in store.

Home (Part 2 of 4): The Gathering

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Ron Lim Colors: Jason Jensen

So not much actually happens in this installment of Home other than the various characters talking to each other about and preparing for the upcoming battle. Since Sonic has been gone, a new Freedom Fighter Special has been constructed that can cut travel time dramatically around the globe. A journey that in the Tornado or on foot (in Sonic's case) would have taken up to two hours can be completed in a mere half hour now, thanks to Rotor's engineering prowess. And thus, Sonic and Tails head out to Old Megaopolis to stop Eggman's twin nukes from launching, along with an… interesting backup team, to say the least.

Man, remember Fiona? It's been ages since we've seen her! It appears that while Sonic was in space, she joined up with the crew in Knothole and has been helping them fight Eggman. That's definitely a better life for her than to be running with the likes of Nic the Weasel, eh? Meanwhile, Knuckles, Julie-Su, Amy Rose, and the other two (active) members of the Chaotix head to Fort Acorn, where General D'Coolette is giving a speech to the soldiers under his command. We've never even heard of this fort before, but according to the general it's been here for ten years, keeping a forward watch on Robotropolis, and this watch has been maintained even after Robotropolis' destruction in case of just such a situation as the current one. With their reinforcements from Knothole, the crew at the fort prepare to defend the city against a massive swatbot assault to lower the forcefield keeping the radiation in check. Back in Knothole, extra measures are being taken to make absolutely sure that even if the worst happens, the citizenry will be safe.

Station Square, for their part, has sent a squad of GUN commandos to help in the battle at Old Megaopolis. The commander of the military is baffled by this decision, wanting to send in their full fighting force, but the president instead opts to trust his allies from Knothole - though just for insurance, he's sent one of his own operatives along for the ride…

Now that's what I like to see! It's about time Rouge got herself some proper screentime. As all this is going on, Eggman waits aboard a docked battleship in the harbor of Old Megaopolis with his assistant M, and orders A.D.A.M. to begin the missile countdown. However, almost immediately, the sound of a biplane puts them on high alert, and Eggman is shocked to see Sonic and Tails bearing down on his location, not having expected them to be able to get here nearly so fast. See, Eggman, this is why you resist the siren call of your ego and keep your damn plans to yourself. All you did was give your enemies ample warning to prepare to foil your evil plot, you idiot!

Mobius 25 Years Later: Prologue

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Steven Butler Colors: Jensen

Okay, guys. This is it. We've reached the most Penders thing of all time. This is something that has been hinted at here and there from all the way back in the Sonic In Your Face special to now, and we're finally seeing the culmination of all of that buildup. All the intricate worldbuilding, all the complex character arcs, all the intrigue and political spider webs and back to back wars and everything that the world of Mobius has been through up until now - there's so much to explore, so many directions it could have gone. We're about to see what this world might look like twenty-five years into the future, and with so much rich history to draw from, what might you imagine this story might look like? What genre might it fall into? Well wonder no longer!

It's a drama. It's a teen drama.

There's a reason that Mobius 25 Years Later is widely considered to be one of the worst parts of the comic. The tone of it is just so far off anything else we've experienced so far that it clashes horribly with what we've come to expect. It's not some masterful subversion of expectations or something - in a lot of ways I consider it to be a genuine insult to the rest of the preboot's material up to this point. It's painfully and immediately clear that this is a story Penders has wanted to tell for a while, but, not being able to fit his "middle-aged adults adulting everywhere and being so adult-like while ignoring the feelings and difficulties that ordinary teenagers face" plot anywhere into the rest of the comic, he's opted to just fire the world a couple decades into the future, pair all the major characters off into weird and oftentimes arbitrary heterosexual marriages, give everyone 2.5 children and a titanium picket fence, and then throw in some allusions to the old "war against Doc 'Botnik" here and there lest we forget, entirely understandably at this point, that we're reading a Sonic the Hedgehog comic here. This thing goes on for nineteen whole issues, taking up each subsequent issue's backup story, and ultimately has no real impact on the actual story involving the characters we already know and love. However, this is technically canon, or at least a version of canon (as when you play with alternate realities and multiple timelines, futures are bound to get mixed up here and there), so we're gonna be covering it - all of it. I wouldn't be tempted to skip it anyway, as by delving into each chapter in this trainwreck, we can actually explore why this whole thing fails so hard, and why it's therefore so loathed in the fandom. Plus, I do recognize that some people actually do enjoy this arc for various reasons (one of my close friends does, and has a whole AU of her own relating to it in fact), so I do plan to at least try to be fair in my review - but I really can't hide that I find this whole affair boring as hell, often downright offensive, and ultimately completely out of place. With all that in mind, let's dive in!

We begin with a full page of exposition delivered to us via high school lecture, because everyone knows the best way to establish your worldbuilding is by infodumping it directly into your audience's eyeballs. Apparently, over the last twenty years, Angel Island has been heavily developed into its own independent republic, with a new city, Portal, acting as the center of trade between the island and the mainland below. We're once again introduced to Lara-Su, who, instead of being the badass time-traveling young adult whom we followed before, is now an ordinary teenager taking ordinary high school classes among a bunch of ordinary high school echidnas.

One of the biggest failings of this story is that Penders writes every teenage character how he thinks teenagers act, from his point of view as a middle-aged adult. This becomes abundantly clear the longer you read, as every teenager is a hormone-fueled, authority-defying, entitled, whiny, fickle child who just doesn't understand how the real world works, while every adult is a wise, experienced, and highly logical individual who always knows more than their younger fellows and refuses to pay attention to the whims of mere children. Like, I'm not even exaggerating here - I'm going to be pointing out every instance of this kind of behavior over the entire rest of this arc, and you can't stop me, so nyah nyah. Penders shows so little respect for the mere concept of teenagers, which is a terrible attitude to have not just in general, but especially if you're one of the head writers for an entire series about teenagers saving the goddamn world! Anyway, case in point: the teacher, instead of admonishing Rutan for being a bully, merely snaps at Lara-Su for not acting enough like a "young lady" and tells her to stay after class. Ugh.

Later that day, Rotor arrives on Angel Island as a liaison for the royal ruling couple, Queen Sally and King Sonic, because yes, Sonic literally becomes king in this timeline. He catches a ride from Harry - hey, good to see our favorite dingo still doing well for himself at least - and meets with Espio, who is now apparently Knuckles' secretary or something. At least, that's all I can assume from this weird-ass conversation.

As a matter of fact, yes, Sonic and Sally are bringing their two children, Sonia and Manik, to the family dinner! How very mid-70s domestic family unit of them! Espio informs Knuckles of this over a television screen as the latter broods around in some kind of high-tech facility. Unlike what we've seen of Espio, the years have dramatically changed Knuckles' appearance - his right eye is missing, replaced with a mechanical one, and he sports the cowboy hat that Hawking gave him in the past (you know, the one we never saw again after he received it). While I actually quite like the idea of a main character in the comic losing something as important as an eye, I feel like there's a huge missed opportunity here - instead of just thrusting us into an alternate future where everything is fine but one character is inexplicably missing an eye, how about actually showing us the story of how that eye was lost? Show us a Knuckles who's learning to cope with the loss of an important body part, and having to adjust to his mechanical prosthetic! Go into his feelings about the subject, as someone who has so long been opposed to a faction that thrives on mechanical prosthetics, instead of just skipping over what has the potential to be the most interesting part of this story! Ugh, sorry, there's just nothing that gets to me more than a missed opportunity like this. Knuckles and Espio exchange some tortured small-talk about their kids for a little while, with the only interesting part of the conversation being their discussion of Rotor's arrival and how he's likely here to see someone named Cobar, with whom he apparently has a history. More on that later. Knuckles excuses himself from the conversation, as he has to be home in time for his daughter's "Unveiling" tonight, and as the call ends we zoom out to see that apparently nowadays, the Master Emerald is hooked up to all sorts of technology in this facility, presumably maintaining everything automatically. However, this story isn't done throwing weird curveballs at us yet - it's time to see what our former villains are up to in this future!

There is so much to unpack here. Dimitri, feared overlord of the Dark Legion, is now an amiable cyborg-head-in-a-bubble. Lien-Da, the treacherous second-in-command who regularly spoke of betraying Dimitri and taking the Legion in her own darker direction, is now apparently a single mom who's embraced the domestic life, taking care of her rowdy teenage son while, predictably, complaining about the behavior of kids these days. And weirdest of all, apparently everyone is just fine with these literal former terrorists living in their midst and doing ordinary mom and grandpa things, with Lien-Da even apparently amenable to the idea of trying to make up with Julie-Su because "they're family," despite her history of, you know, erasing Julie-Su's memory multiple times and killing her biological parents as revenge for her birth. I mean, is this what Penders thinks adulthood is? Is he even entirely sane? Does he know the definition of terrorism?

Any-goddamn-way, Knuckles arrives home to his eerily sterile-looking steel-plated mansion that looks more like the lobby of a pharmaceutical laboratory than a place where people live, and greets his loving housewife Julie-Su, who's gained a cute giant ponytail but lost absolutely everything else that made her unique, including her own cybernetic parts and just her personality in general. She informs Knuckles that Lara-Su has locked herself in the bathroom and is having herself a mighty tantrum, refusing to come out to get ready for her Unveiling ceremony, which is apparently the equivalent of a Quinceañera for echidna girls. Knuckles, instead of doing something reasonable like asking her why she's upset, starts aggressively demanding that she come out of her room this instant, while Lara-Su repeatedly yells about how she doesn't wanna. Ugh, teenagers, amiright?

Seriously, I just can't get over how little respect Penders has for teenagers in his writing. Like, yes, I acknowledge that teenagers aren't always the most logical of beings, but they're also not goddamn three-year-olds either. They're old enough to articulate their desires and express their unique opinions, and often do so in very mature ways, especially if they're raised well and treated with the same respect you'd afford any adult. I should know, I was one myself. I would have assumed Penders was one as well at some point, but perhaps he just popped into the world one day as a fully-formed 43-year-old, full of disdain for those younger than himself. It would certainly explain everything we're seeing here.

Anyway, it turns out that the reason Lara-Su is upset is because Knuckles refuses to train her to be a Guardian, and so she whines and yells about it from behind the door like a petulant child as Knuckles continually refuses to actually give her a solid reason why he won't let her be one. When Julie-Su basically forces him to calm the hell down and explain himself, he reluctantly explains that since all the duties of a Guardian have by now been taken over by other functions of their society, he feels there's no longer any need for one, himself included. This is apparently enough to make Lara-Su immediately happy enough to burst out of the bathroom and grab her father's arm, suddenly totally excited to go to her Unveiling as long as Knuckles promises her the first dance. Ah, the fickle mind of a silly, silly teenager!

Kill me.