*For those of you worried, this will be as spoiler-free as possible for Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, which drops on Netflix on January 14.

Let’s be honest, the feature film catalog from Dreamworks Animation over the years has been a bit hit or miss. There have been a lot of great movies, but for every How to Train Your Dragon and Kung Fu Panda, we got a Boss Baby and Bee Movie.

Dreamworks’ partnership with Netflix, though? Well, that’s a different story. In 2013, Netflix and Dreamworks signed an unprecedented multiyear programming agreement for more than 300 hours of content. It was Netflix’s largest commitment to new content, and it was to a single provider.

The fruits of that original deal were multiseason shows based on existing Dreamworks IPs – in other words, adaptations of their feature films. We saw Turbo Fast, All Hail King Julien, The Adventures of Puss in Boots, Dragons: Race to the Edge, and more.

A second wave of shows was heavily weighted toward properties that Dreamworks owned but weren’t tied to a specific film: Mr. Peabody and Sherman Show, Voltron: Legendary Defender, The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants, and the like.

Many (if not most) of these shows are solidly entertaining, and we’ve thoroughly enjoyed our time spent with them.

But where the Dreamworks/Netflix partnership REALLY shines is with their wholly original programming. Trollhunters. 3Below. Dinotrux.

And your newest obsession: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts. Seriously, this is an absolute MUST watch.

The elevator pitch for Rad Sechrist’s new show sounds normal enough, if not a little bit familiar:

After spending her entire life living in an underground burrow, a young girl named Kipo is thrust into an adventure on the surface of a fantastical post-apocalyptic Earth. She joins a ragtag group of survivors as they embark on a journey through a vibrant wonderland where everything trying to kill them is downright adorable.

But the result feels like what might happen if you trap a group of animators in an actual elevator overnight with a minibar. Imagine if Gravity Falls and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power had a baby that was raised by Jim Henson and Invader Zim.

Set 200-some years in the future, humans have been driven underground and the surface world is now home to sentient, talking animals (some kaiju sized), many of which have mutated to have four eyes, six legs, or random “superpowers.”

Like Dreamworks’ other megahits (Voltron, She-Ra, Trollhunters), Kipo has an ensemble cast. They all absolutely shine, and it’s really hard to say who steals the show.

At first, it’s Kipo (Karen Fukuhara) who is 100% undiluted optimism and excitement (like my other favorite new character in recent memory: Deet from The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance). Despite being separated from her father and entire community and thrust into a world of giant, killer bunnies and scooter-riding skunks, Kipo maintains her sense of humor and hopefulness.

Then it’s the titular wonderbeasts: the “mutes” and “megamutes” that populate this post-apocalyptic Earth. I mean, come on, there are two-headed flamingo dragons. There’s a giant tardigrade named Tad. There are dubstep bees. There are puppies the size of buildings. And there are nerdy wolves.

Seriously, those wolves. I cannot wait for y’all to experience the divine thrill of watching John Hodgman and The GZA deliver a subtle Carl Sagan joke and then rap about the Big Bang.

But by the second half of the first season, you’ll have fallen in love with Benson (Coy Stewart) and Wolf (Sydney Mikayla), the other humans in Kipo’s “ragtag band of survivors.” It’s hard to say too much without entering spoiler territory, but let’s just say I finished the 10 episodes of the first season with an audible harumph of frustration because I couldn’t just binge 30 more episodes with these three.

The fantastical setting and characters, and the ridiculous scenarios we see play out in each episode, are wildly entertaining, sure. But Kipo and the Wonderbeasts is also the most progressive show Dreamworks has produced.

All of the humans at the center of the story – Kipo, Benson, Wolf, and Kipo’s dad (Sterling K. Brown) – are people of color. A majority of the actors working on the show are people of color. One of our three main characters is gay (they actually say, “I’m gay,” so this isn’t a matter of interpreting subtext). Kipo is a mixed-race girl being raised by a single dad (her mom was Korean).

And none of this feels “forced” or like it’s “pandering,” as the Reddit trolls love to complain. It actually took me a few episodes to realize just how much Kipo delivers on representation in the most natural way possible.

And I haven’t even mentioned the music. Daniel Rojas delivers a soundtrack on par with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. I know that’s a high bar, but if you get to the second episode and you’re not sold on the show by the music alone, you might just be tone deaf. And hate joy.

Do yourself a favor and queue up Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts on Netflix. The 10 (30-minute) episodes of the first season drop on January 14. You’ll smile. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll audibly harumph at the end of episode 10. You’ll spend the next few months obsessing about the show and waiting for Season 2.

But you won’t be disappointed.