One of the pleasures of a new Pixar feature is the chance to be amazed by what animation can do. Sometimes you witness a big, bold breakthrough, like the computer-assisted rendering of fur in “Monsters, Inc.,” of water in “Finding Nemo,” or of metal in “Cars.” The innovations in “Coco” are no less satisfying for being of a more subtle kind. The grain of leather and the rusted folds of corrugated metal have a rough, almost tactile quality. Human bones, hairless dogs and orange flower petals look uncannily (but not too uncannily) real. There are moments of cinematic rigor — when the animators mimic the movements and focal effects of an old-fashioned camera in actual physical space — that will warm any film-geek’s heart. Not to mention the Frida Kahlo-inspired musical number with dancing papaya seeds.

“Coco” is also one of those Pixar movies that attempt a conceptual breakthrough, an application of the bright colors and open emotionalism of modern, mainstream animation to an unlikely zone of experience. From the very start, the studio has explored the inner lives of inanimate objects like lamps and toys with a tenderness we now take for granted. It has also summoned the post-human future (“Wall-E”) and the human unconscious (“Inside/Out”) with breathtaking ingenuity. And now it has set out to make a family-friendly cartoon about death.