A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

eglantiere screened this for me and was very amused by my reactions. I somehow not only avoided being spoiled for it, but had osmosed basically everything about it wrong.

My beliefs going in: It's a Japanese anime about a lone disgraced warrior who picks up a young girl with a mission, and they have a father-daughter relationship. I was picturing something like Lone Wolf and Cub or True Grit, set in some Japanese historical fantasy period.

What it actually is: An American animated movie based on an American webcomic. The setting is a fantasy-SF mashup with knights AND flying cars AND pizza. It does involve a lone disgraced warrior, but he's voiced by Riz Ahmed (with an excellent cartoon rendering of his puppy-dog eyes), and he's a GAY KNIGHT with a canon GAY relationship with another canon GAY KNIGHT. No, I don't know how I'd failed to osmose the gay earlier.

Nimona is a girl and they do have a sort of parental relationship but also a reluctant sidekick-knight relationship, and it's hilarious. Nimona is a great character who can shapeshift into basically anything, but frequently pink. She's pure id: "FIGHT! EAT PIZZA! CHAAAAARGE!"

The other thing I completely failed to osmose is that the entire thing is an allegory about trans/queer issues and acceptance. It's completely unsubtle and very sweet. Nimona can be a girl, a boy, or a giant pink whale; what is Nimona? "I'm Nimona!"

The animation is bright and bold, with nicely done flashbacks in different styles. The whole thing is funny and sweet and charming. I gather that it's not completely faithful to the original webcomic, but I don't know the original webcomic so I can't comment on that. I enjoyed it.