Noting that the musical story of Vivo, a Lin-Manuel Miranda-voiced kinkajou, is about how to move past grief, director and co-writer Kirk DiMicco notes that ”there are times we must learn to sing a new song” and that sparked the introduction Gabi, the 9-year-old , with whom Vivo goes on a journey. “We envisioned Gabi as a character whose design and ethos was the polar opposite of Vivo, and the world he was used to. Where Vivo is the epitome of control, Gabi represents chaos,” he explains.
It was important for us to showcase a strong independent female character whose individuality was reflected in every design choice. We liked the idea that she had an asymmetrical haircut because she probably cut her own hair in the mirror and probably dyed her hair purple herself with her own chalk in the bathroom. And Gabi, who is not by any means a cookie-cutter heroine as she is a little rounder than most kids in animated movies, is always 100 percent perfectly comfortable in her own skin.