So if you're willing to hear some spoilers in order to find out whether you'd really be interested in the show, keep reading. What are those events? Westernized Magical Girl adventures are, after all, not everybody's cup of tea, nor does the phrase properly indicate the show's surprising depth, or even the majority of its subject matter. It is possible to look back at the series' second episode, "Laser Light Cannon," and find foreshadowing for events that took two seasons to become fully apparent to viewers. Even episodes that start out with stock plots never finish that way, and the show subscribes heavily to the Adventure Time/ Gravity Falls rising scale of world building and emotional complexity.īut where Adventure Time does its explosive plot events whenever it feels like, Steven Universe is clearly playing by plan. Nothing is simply what it seems at first glance in Steven Universe. We just know that she's even cooler than we originally thought. We know that Pearl's worrying and need for order is an important part of what keeps the Crystal Gems together. We know the understandable reasons why Amethyst craves attention and approval, and acts out when she can't get it. And we've watched him, the only known human/gem hybrid, learn how best to embody his role as the link between two cultures. We've also watched him grow into his Crystal Gem powers, turning from the trainee team member who only gets to go on the easy missions to a fully fledged Crystal Gem. Steven Universe is, in good part, about Steven growing up, and it's not afraid to start the series while he's still very much an excited, inexperienced kid.īut, since the beginning of the series, we've explored Steven's complicated relationship with his mother, the founder and former leader of the Crystal Gems, who "gave up her physical form to bring into the world" (a line of dialogue that's casually tossed off in the second episode without so much as giving the viewer a chance to gasp). appear upon first watch: as stock tropes from team action cartoons. Now, these are all simplistic descriptions of these characters - but they're also how the Crystal Gems, et al. Nothing is simply what it seems at first glance in Steven Universe It also follows the Crystal Gems' interactions with the citizens of their hometown, Beach City: Steven's failure to launch father Greg Universe his sheltered, overachieving best friend (and maybe more, someday) Connie Maheswaran Lars and Sadie, the employees at the local doughnut shop and many more. And in animation, a medium where the actor's appearance can always be easily divorced from their character's, it's clearly a deliberate choice, too. That's a rare choice for a children's show that is not primarily about racial themes - not to mention a show in which a large portion of the cast come in literally every color in the spectrum. Smiley, Brian Posehn as Sour Cream and Tom Scharpling as Greg Universe.)īut Steven Universe's cast has another thing that sets it apart from many kids' cartoons: It's overwhelmingly composed of actors of color. (Other names of note who play recurring roles in the series include Joel Hodgson as Mayor Dewey, Sinbad as Mr. British singer/songwriter Estelle plays a lead role in Steven Universe as the Crystal Gem known as Garnet, and the show has boasted cameos from the likes of Aimee Mann, Patti LuPone and Nicki Minaj. "Nightosphere" was actually her first storyboarding work on the series.īut she's probably best known to Adventure Time fans as the person behind some of the show's most enduring music, including " Fry Song," " I'm Just Your Problem," " Nuts/Remember You," and, of course, " Bacon Pancakes." And Sugar's keen musical talents are in full force in Steven Universe, even in the voice cast. While on Adventure Time, Sugar took storyboarding duties - which, in Adventure Time production lingo, is synonymous with "writing duties" - on episodes like "It Came From the Nightosphere" and "Simon & Marcy," both of which were nominated for an Emmy. Sugar is one of a busy generation of animators to have come out of Cartoon Network's epic Adventure Time series and gone on to craft their own successful, original projects - she shares that "origin story" with folks like Natasha Allegri ( Bee & Pupp圜at) and Patrick McHale ( Over the Garden Wall). It comes from the mind of animator Rebecca Sugar, making it the first Cartoon Network original series created by a woman. Episodes run at about 10 minutes long, and - depending on timeslot - are either aired alone or in half-hour blocks of two. Steven Universe is an all-ages animated series that airs intermittently on Cartoon Network.
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