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Allison W · 11-07-2015, 12:19 AM

This is a television series and not a movie (if there's a better thread for it, let me know and I'll post there), but Steven Universe. It's challenging to describe, because there's so much to it, and I don't wanna write a giant ten-paragraph tl;dr dissertation. So while there are a few spoilers in it I'll let The Mary Sue give you the 101.

I know, I know. Beyond being a TV series, it's a cartoon on bloody Cartoon Network. I was all "I R ADULT I DUN WANNA WATCH NO CARTOONS" too, but then my friends got me started watching it and I'm bloody glad they did because this show, man, this show. Then I went and started getting other friends of mine watching it. And then they went and started getting, like, their friends and spouses watching it and shit. It's kind of like the corollary that completes the Maturity Paradox. Like, you know how most "mature" stuff is juvenile in the extreme? Steven Universe is kind of the opposite of that. It's a family-friendly cartoon that comes in quarter-hour episodes and yet it's easily one of the most mature shows on the telly, both in how it approaches people and relationships and how it approaches fiction. It's rich with things like foreshadowing, a contiguous narrative that welds all the details into a coherent whole instead of every episode ending in a return to the status quo, high-production-values musical numbers that are a delightful treat when an episode turns out to have one (a brilliant musical number was even the climax of the first season), a wonderfully developed and flawed cast of characters, storytelling so tightly wrapped and cleverly expressed that it can tell a meaningful story and then some inside of an 11-minute episode, and even the occasional usage of techniques normally found in adult fiction like deliberately unreliable narration.

I could ramble on and on and on and I'd love to but I'm gonna control myself, for now. Just... watch it. You'll be glad you did. (To keep it brief, like many shows, it takes a little while to really hit its stride, but where many shows don't do that until a couple seasons in, Steven Universe hits that stride fully at halfway through the first season--26 eleven-minute episodes--and has kept that stride going strong since. It's presently close to halfway through the second season, though new episodes are on holiday hiatus.)

11-07-2015, 12:19 AM	#7
Allison W Member How Do You Identify?: TG Femme Preferred Pronoun?: She Relationship Status: Loner Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Wisconsin Posts: 366 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 1,414 Thanked 1,195 Times in 319 Posts Rep Power: 12203815	This is a television series and not a movie (if there's a better thread for it, let me know and I'll post there), but Steven Universe. It's challenging to describe, because there's so much to it, and I don't wanna write a giant ten-paragraph tl;dr dissertation. So while there are a few spoilers in it I'll let The Mary Sue give you the 101. I know, I know. Beyond being a TV series, it's a cartoon on bloody Cartoon Network. I was all "I R ADULT I DUN WANNA WATCH NO CARTOONS" too, but then my friends got me started watching it and I'm bloody glad they did because this show, man, this show. Then I went and started getting other friends of mine watching it. And then they went and started getting, like, their friends and spouses watching it and shit. It's kind of like the corollary that completes the Maturity Paradox. Like, you know how most "mature" stuff is juvenile in the extreme? Steven Universe is kind of the opposite of that. It's a family-friendly cartoon that comes in quarter-hour episodes and yet it's easily one of the most mature shows on the telly, both in how it approaches people and relationships and how it approaches fiction. It's rich with things like foreshadowing, a contiguous narrative that welds all the details into a coherent whole instead of every episode ending in a return to the status quo, high-production-values musical numbers that are a delightful treat when an episode turns out to have one (a brilliant musical number was even the climax of the first season), a wonderfully developed and flawed cast of characters, storytelling so tightly wrapped and cleverly expressed that it can tell a meaningful story and then some inside of an 11-minute episode, and even the occasional usage of techniques normally found in adult fiction like deliberately unreliable narration. I could ramble on and on and on and I'd love to but I'm gonna control myself, for now. Just... watch it. You'll be glad you did. (To keep it brief, like many shows, it takes a little while to really hit its stride, but where many shows don't do that until a couple seasons in, Steven Universe hits that stride fully at halfway through the first season--26 eleven-minute episodes--and has kept that stride going strong since. It's presently close to halfway through the second season, though new episodes are on holiday hiatus.)