Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts: Farther Toward Gay Inclusivity than Any Other Cartoon

 Just six years ago, there were no gay characters on children's television at all.  Then it was only adults, an occasional girl with two moms shoved far, far into the background.  

Now it is almost customary for child-adventure teams to include a gay kid.  But the word "gay" is typically just a word.  The gay kid doesn't actually do anything to indicate gayness, like stating that someone is cute, or asking them for a date. 

Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, on Nickelodeon, managed to have the gay kid actually being gay, although they eased in very gradually over the course of three seasons.

It's set in a post-Apocalyptic world, where all of the surviving humans live in an underground burrow, leaving the surface to various mutated animals, some monsters, some organized into human-style communities.  

Season 1: Kipo, a 12-year old girl, heads to the surface to search for her missing father, and joins forces with two humans who live there: Wolf  (a little girl raised by wolves) and Benson (a 13-year old boy whose back story is a mystery).  

In Episode 6, Kipo gets a crush on Benson, and he reveals that he is gay.  Of course, fighting monsters and mutant tyyrants leaves him little time to date, but in Episode 10, when they finally make it to Kipo's burrow, he has an eye-glistening falling-in-love moment with Troy (the only human near his age in the burrow-- good choice!).

Season 2: You'd expect Troy to stick around, become a member of the team, right?  He appears only in the first episode, where they promise to get together at the end of the adventure, and he kisses Benson on the cheek.     

In Episode 10, he appears to help Benson escape from the latest threat, a volcanic eruption.

Season 3:  The plot arc is about stopping the series Big Bad, Dr. Emilia, who is trying to stir up anti-mutant fervor.  Troy participates in the adventure in Episodes 1 and 2, and appears in background shots in Episodes 5 and 6. 

Episodes 8 is about the preparation for the  PRAHM, a Party Reconciling All Humans and Mutants.  Benson keeps trying to ask Troy, but loses his nerve or is interrupted by a crisis.  Finally he ends up asking him in front of everyone (which sounds like it would take even more nerve).  Troy reveals that he had been planning to ask Benson.   They hug and kiss, while everyone applauds.

Episode 9 features the party, which is interrupted by Dr. Emilia's final threat.  Troy and Benson manage a dance before the crisis starts.

Episode 10 concludes the story with Kipo's showdown with Dr. Emilia, followed by a flash-forward five years.  

The humans and mutants have formed a society together. Benson owns a restaurant. Troy takes over when he leaves; they kiss.  

Giving up a life of rip-roaring adventure for capitalism and domesticity?  Isn't that the way every adventure story ends?

This was the  only romantic plot arc in the series, not an add-on in the shadow of a heterosexual romance.

In spite of gradually easing into it,  Kipo went farther toward gay inclusivity than any other children's animated series.