Steven Universe

What if the protagonist of a magical girl anime was a boy, and also it was made in America and not Japan?

Okay, but seriously now. Steven Universe is the story of... Steven Universe, half-human son of failed musician Greg Universe and magical space warrior Rose Quartz, who inherited some of his mother's powers and her responsibility of protecting the Earth against the fascist Gem Homeworld and their evil rulers, the Diamond Authority!

I'll start with the good. I always start with the good, and it's especially important to get it out of the way first before all of the show's fans ragequit out of reading this review.

So yeah, I'll admit I did like some of the ideas they had. The show's science-fantasy style universe is very creative. The songs, which the show has a lot of, are generally really good. I also like a lot of the characterizations. As an example, I appreciate the way they handled the Diamond Authority, the evil rulers of the Gem Homeworld. These are individuals who keep slaves, who genocide entire planets, and who rule the universe with an iron fist... and yet, who will then also spend 6,000 years either in mourning or plotting vengeance, because one of their own got killed, because they're seriously that self-centered. That's pretty clever, and a very insightful look into the mentality of a narcissistic evil oligarch.

That being said, on to the bad.

I was introduced to Steven Universe by some friends who keep insisting to me that it's just sooo gooood and after watching it myself I have to say I have no idea what said friends are smoking. I don't even feel like this is debatable. If you like Steven Universe, that's fine. I liked the Dungeons and Dragons movie. It's okay to like things that are objectively not good.

And yes, Steven Universe is objectively not good.

The graphics are terrible. Characters are so frequently off-model that it makes you wonder if there was ever a model to begin with. Rebecca Sugar has tried to justify it by saying they didn't have limits on the art because they wanted to encourage "stylistic freedom."

This is a total crock.

Lots of shows allow artistic freedom. An excellent example is Love, Death, and Robots which features a different artist and a radically different art style in every episode. Steven Universe... is not that. Using cel-shaded art for one episode and then ultra-realistic CGI for another episode is a style choice. Drawing the character 7 feet tall for a scene because you sent a rough draft on a napkin off to the Korean animators and didn't realize they'd take it serious? Not a style choice.


LEFT: Actual artistic freedom.
RIGHT: "How tall is our main character again?"
There's exactly ONE time in the show where a model change was probably intentional - that being when Connie becomes a main character and shrinks from being way taller than Steven, to being his own size.

Every OTHER time is just the artists being lazy. They had model sheets. That alone should prove that they had a consistent look in mind and they couldn't manage to hold to it, then Sugar made up that ridiculous retcon excuse that's about as convincing as that friend who insists that he's not misusing the word "ironic", he's "expressing the fluidity of language as a social construct!"


LEFT: Actual artistic freedom.
RIGHT: "Such freedom! I can make the character's hair as poofy as I want!"
The story is terribly paced, dedicating less than half of each 20+ episode season to the actual plot of crystal gems fighting against the evil forces of Homeworld. Again, yes, a lot of shows have filler, but this show... honestly, I hesitate to even call it "filler" because I get the feeling that these are the stories they actually wanted to tell and yes, they are usually reasonably well-told. It's almost like Steven Universe enters into some sort of reverse pacing rules where the filler stories are the ones that actually move the A-plot along while they work on their next script about freaking Lars and Sadie. Maybe you like that, which is fine, but it's not how a good show works.

Continuity is also a problem, as you may have heard. What happened to the weapon upgrades Bismuth made for everyone? Does Gem Fusion require a dance, or just holding hands? Do the show's creators even remember?

...and I think that's about it...

Can't think of much else...

Let's see... oh, I guess the theme song is totally ripping off Space Oddity by David Bowie...

...

...okay, fine. It's now time to tackle the elephant in the room.

People who follow the blog know that I have a rule about keeping politics off it. A lot of shows have political messages and I don't usually talk about them or judge the show for them unless I find them to be particularly notable. In this case... you kind of can't talk about Steven Universe without talking about the politics. The show's writers practically beg for the show to be judged on its politics.

Honestly, it's to the show's detriment, and I'm not saying that because the show's politics are right or wrong (though I'll get to what I think of them in a moment) but because the show very clearly prioritizes its politics over everything else. Hell, just look at their casting decisions. They hired on people who had never done voice work before and gave them starring roles just because they're minorities. And yes, most of those people do a more or less... at least acceptable job, but that's not the point. The point is that these are the decisions they made. Couple this with the sloppy animation, plodding pacing, and the fact that the show in its original run went on hiatus after every tiny handful of episodes. It's blatantly obvious that Rebecca Sugar and her "Crewniverse" set out to make a show that was political first and foremost... and good a far distant second.

It's also stupid whether you agree with the politics or not. Is Steven Universe a show about lesbian relationships? No, it's not, because none of the gems are actually female. They're magic rocks that project an artificial image that looks and sounds and moves like a female but is actually just a hologram. There are also no male-on-male relationships in the show, only straight relationships and pseudo-lesbian gem relationships. This isn't LGBT, it's just playing.


LEFT: An actual lesbian couple.
RIGHT: None of these characters has a vagina.
I also really dislike Steven Quartz Universe as a character. He clearly cares a lot about things which is something that I would give him credit for except that he cares about all of the wrong things. He defends terrible people, like Mayor Dewey who is laughably inept at best and heinously corrupt at worst. He spends multiple episodes crying over the fate of some random Ruby he left stranded in space - this is someone who wanted to kill him and take his friends away to be tortured, by the way. He turns against Bismuth, whose only crime was wanting to treat the war against Homeworld like a real war and being willing to kill if it was the only way to win.

And yes, I get it, he's a child and as such holds onto naive ideals, wants to see the good in everyone, has a fear of violence and losing his "moral purity", so on and so forth. The problem is that he doesn't get better with character development. Actually, the show doesn't seem to think that any of that stuff is any sort of flaw he needs to overcome at all and ends up insisting that he was right all along and that even the heinous, slaving, genocidal space monsters can totally change thanks to the power of love. How did the people who made that "insightful look into the mind of an evil oligarch" I mentioned also make this? Did I just read way too much into that and the truth is we really were supposed to take it at face value and feel bad for the omnicidal maniacs?

And because I know people are going to say it: "Oh, you're just saying this because you're a conservative fascist and you hate everyone and want them all to be the same!" Yeah, no, and if you're going to say that then there's really no point in me saying anything else to you but I will anyway.

"Why do you want everyone to be the same?" I DON'T. I appreciate the freaks. I AM a freak in my own way. I believe that all good and innocent people have the right to the pursuit of happiness... but in order to make that work, evil must never be allowed to prosper. It's not about taking away freedom to make everyone good, it's about protecting freedom from those who choose not to be good.

"Why don't you support gay people?" I DO. But I don't support pandering, nor do I believe in trying to define yourself entirely by something so shallow as who you want to sleep with. Am I gay or bisexual myself? who the Hell cares. I am a person who believes in saying what I believe is true even when it's unpopular. That is what defines me.

Besides, anyone who's really paying attention knows I'm just as quick to call out right-pandering too.

So yeah...

I'll stop here because I don't want this review to turn into an overly-long tangential rant. (Too late.) So what's my overall judgment?

I've given my opinion on the show's politics. I don't like them and I'm never going to like them, but I'm also not going to judge the show on them. Rebecca Sugar's "stylistic freedom" lie also does bother me and it makes me question a lot of the other things with the show... but I won't hold that against the show either. After all, I didn't hold Haim Saban's actions against Mighty Morphin' and Rebecca Sugar is more decent a human being than he is by a factor of about a million.

Taken as it is...


BAD
I've found the works I give a 2 out of 5 are usually ones where I liked the ideas but disliked the execution, and this is no different. The show has some good ideas. The gems, their powers, and the way they work were really cool. Some of the characterizations were pretty neat. Steven slowly coming to learn that his mother was actually kind of a terrible person was pretty well handled, even if I didn't care so much for the rest of his character. I had fun watching the show. I never found myself looking at the clock wondering when the episode was going to end. And I'll admit that a lot of the show's problems are inherent to the format of being a kids' cartoon on Cartoon Network.

Going into this review I was planning on giving the show a 4 out of 5 as a good show held back by notable flaws... but the flaws in this case are SO bad... the show is over 50% filler... characters are consistently off-model in notable ways that are exactly as bad as if they'd just painted someone red for an episode... these are not things that good shows do. I'm convinced the only reason so many people swear by this show is because so many other people also say they like it and the only reason I've even been as nice to it as I have is because I was worried about upsetting friends of mine who also like the show. But it's not good, sorry.

PROS:	CONS:
+ A lot of very good ideas and world-building.	- Consistently off-model, and it's not on purpose no matter what Sugar says.
+ A lot of really good music.	- Slow, plodding story that is mostly what other shows would call filler.
	- Prioritizes political pandering over being a good show.