Deep down, he’s worried about not being able to protect his family and can only feel curious about the woman everyone else misses deeply but he never got to meet. He tends to see the best in everyone, which sometimes makes him stunningly oblivious but also able to win the hearts and minds of just about everyone he comes across. Our protagonist, a half-Gem and half-human kid who’s only beginning to learn how his powers work. While every secondary character gets their day in the limelight, there’s a little over half a dozen characters who receive prominent focus in the majority of the episodes. There’s a space opera playing at the edges of the show’s story, but its beating heart stands with its well-formed cast. From there the show both opens up and doubles down on its history, revisiting old stories and settings with new details that make both for great rewatching potential and a well-crafted means of undermining what the audience thinks they know about this world. That, as the saying goes, is where the “real” show begins: “Mirror Gem” is our first introduction to a Gem who isn’t a Crystal Gem, and who resents “our” Gems mightily for trapping her over the millennia. The early going can seem pleasant but disposable, in that light, but it’s more calculated than that, feeding us at least one character or backstory relevant detail per episode until the season one finale. Much of the first season is of the slice-of-life variety, following Steven as he tags along after the Gems on missions, figures out the powers he’s inherited, and makes friends with the various citizens of Beach City. His mother, Rose Quartz, gave up her physical form so he could be born, and he’s been living with the Crystal Gems ever since (though his father, Greg, is very much a supportive presence). Our story proper begins with Steven, a bighearted and chipper kid. Only a handful survived that war, and they became the Crystal Gems: protectors of this planet over its comparatively brief timeline.īut that’s all history – critical, like Adventure Time’s Mushroom War, but mostly referred to in pained asides. Eventually, a small band of Gems lead by Rose Quartz could no longer stand the carnage and turned on their own people in defense of the Earth. Thousands of years ago (6000 at least) an invading species called Gems came to earth to colonize it, intent on wiping out the native population in the process. I’ve been here since day one, and I’ve got you covered. But don’t worry if you’re intimidated about jumping in. With season 3 just getting started, now’s absolutely the time to start. “Did I really see that on TV?” Yeah, you did, and it’s only getting more audacious and amazing. But none of that quite captures the feel of the thing: the experience of settling into a world of well-shaped characters and getting to see yourself in them when you might not anywhere else, whether that’s in body type, or race, or sexuality and having those characters practically burst off the screen with adventures that the creators also seem to have thought would be Way Cool once upon a time, tempered through skill and experience into something new while retaining that feeling of possibility and the amazement of seeing something new (whether that’s picking up your first comic or seeing a cartoon from another country on Saturday mornings). I considered 27 different openings that might best encapsulate what I find so wondrous about this show – it’s beautiful pastel color palette and cleverly budgeted animation it’s warm and dreamy musical score, which often burbles out into full song courtesy of series creator (and one of Adventure Time’s best songwriters) Rebecca Sugar its unabashed earnestness coupled with an equally sweet but sharp sense of humor, or the Incredibly Important nature of its inclusive writing and casting (you may have even noticed the internet having a meltdown over that this last weekend).Īnd I stand by all of those as excellent reasons to invest. Steven Universe is the show my 12 year old self wanted more than anything of the world.
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