Even the most hardened soldiers can’t resist a little song and dance. Netflix has released the first trailer for Megan Nicole Dong’s (How To Train Your Dragon 2) animated spectacle Centaurworld, about a war horse who embraces her inner diva to save a world filled with strange magical centaurs.
Centaurworld stars Kimiko Glenn (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) as Horse, a gruff soldier struggling to survive in a barren, harshly animated wasteland alongside her rider (Jessie Mueller) — when, suddenly, a magical amulet transports her to the bright, colourful, and very musical world of Centaurworld. There she meets a bunch of centaurs who are half-horse, half-just about everything else. And, for some reason, they all have long necks.
Horse works to find the missing pieces for the magical staff needed to get home as a creepy villain (that looks suspiciously like Hexxus from FernGully) prepares to strike her rainbow-hued home. But it’ll take more than arrows, swords, and Samurai Jack-esque animated battles to fight this enemy. She’ll need to don the armour of a Centaurworld warrior: thigh-high boots, a long flowing mane, and pipes that would put Kelly Clarkson to shame.
Netflix debuted the trailer during this year’s online Annecy session. As reported by Variety, creator Dong shared how Centaurworld was inspired by her real-life experience an Asian-American young woman in Southern California. She said she was supposed to stay in more academic pursuits in high school but strangely found herself in show choir because of a scheduling issue — something that ended up changing her life.
“I was like a fish out of water with all this smiling face stuff and jazz hands, but it changed my life in a positive way,” she said. “I fell in love with musical theatre and pursued a career in the arts, and embraced my creative side.”
Centaurworld arrives on Netflix July 30.