The Color of Mutations: KIPO
Spoilers ahead if you haven’t watched it yet.
This year, a lot of people have watched and fallen in love with Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, and with good reason. It looks great, has great writing, and in the first two seasons a lot of foreshadowing with great payoffs. Unfortunately, that means that there’s not a lot left to theorize. While watching I was able to stay spoiler-free and correctly predicted that the monkey mute was Kipo’s mother and Scarlemagne hated humans because he was tested on. I’d incorrectly predicted that Kipo’s dad and Scarlemagne were genetically modified to live hundreds of years given the post-apocalyptic nature of the show.
What else is there to theorize? It’s not much of a stretch to say that the Mutes are the descendants of animals that were genetically tested, but that would also suggest that the knowledge of how to do so was known but had been lost by the time Lio was tasked with finding a way to create mutations. I did notice something, however, connected to all Mutes that might shed some light on how the Mutes came into existence: the color pink is almost exclusively connected to Mutes.
I’ve found that nearly all Mutes are coded with the color pink. Usually hot pink, but also a paler pink. There are some exceptions, which I’ll mention at the end. For the purposes of this post, I’m not including things that are normally pink, like ears and tongues.
1. Kipo
Kipo’s skin is pink. It was revealed in “Fun Gus Part II” that Kipo is the result of genetic experimentation. Lio and Song, having discovered the formula that causes Mutes, decide to implant the DNA into four embryos for artificial insemination, and Kipo was the result of the puma embryo taking hold in Song’s womb.
2. Scarlemagne’s pheromones
Hugo, or Scarlemagne as he prefers to be called, used to be a normal mandrill until Dr. Emilia (let’s be honest) went crazy trying to find a way to create Mutes. Scarlemagne’s sweat can be used to compel other primates and humans into obeying him, and is colored pink. I couldn’t find an image of him sweating or his pheromone bottle, so have his smug face instead.
3. Dave
Part of Dave’s carapace is pink. Pink and green is a very odd color scheme, even for insects.
4. The Humming Bombers
Their beaks and explosive nectar are hot pink.
5. The Flamingoes
Flamingoes in real life only turn pink after eating enough shrimp. Scarlemagne’s flamingoes are permanently pink, and the
6. Eyes
Many Mutes -- the rats, the wolves, Yumyan, and some of the Umlaut Snakes to name a few -- have eyes that are hot pink. Aside from the eyes, these Mutes are often no different from their animal counterparts, if you don’t know they’re very large and can speak.
7. 3.262
Before Kipo finds the backup burrow, Lio leaves clues around the city, including this one written in hot pink on a billboard. When I noticed the connection between pink and Mutes, my next thought was that Lio wrote this number using Mute blood. It’s such a unique choice of color that I’m pretty sure that’s what actually happened.
8. Mulholland
Yes, Mulholland, the blue water bear, who’s a giant tardigrade. What pink does he have? The dreams that Mulholland gives his victims have hot pink in them. In Dave and Benson’s dream, the drink umbrellas and fireworks are pink.
In Kipo’s dream, her mother’s scarf is pink.
In Wolf’s dream, Kipo’s cape is pink.
This is one Mute where the pink isn’t prominent but still exists, but the next is a Mute that has no pink at all.
9. The Mega Monkey/Song Oak
As a result of being pregnant with Kipo, Song begins developing monkey Mute abilities from one of the other embryos. The reason I think she doesn’t have any pink is because she isn’t a natural Mute.
There are some things that seem to disprove this connection, however. Many Mutes, like the Mega Bunny, the Mega Dogs, the Chevre sisters, the Deathstalkers, the Mod Frogs, Fun Gus (who’s completely orange), and Mandu have no obvious pink on them aside from body parts that would normally be pink like ears and tongues. Without obvious pink bits, I’m defaulting to the hypothesis that their blood is pink, and we have yet to see any Mute bleeding.
There’s also the moon. The moon is shown tinted pink, like in the episode “Mulholland”. At first I thought it was just the moon in one of his dreams, but the end of the episode it shows the real moon, also tinted pink. Our moon isn’t actually pink, of course, but can change color depending on what’s in the atmosphere, and I think this may be the biggest clue as to what caused Mutes to arise in the first place. Perhaps there was some kind of chemical pollution that was toxic to humans, requiring them to go into hiding underground to survive. The animals could survive, but as a result of the chemicals developed mutations that over the next 200 years led to rapid evolution into Mutes. The chemical is still present enough in the air to tint the moon pink, but has become weak enough that humans can survive breathing it without harmful effects.
