Steven Universe first impressions

Yesterday I finally sat down and watched a couple of episodes of Steven Universe and as I watched I could just feel the rabbit hole opening up beneath me. What I watched, for the sake of spoiler warning and in case I make any false assumptions based on my limited experience, were Last One Out of Beach City, Back to the Moon and Bubbled, plus a couple of Youtube clip compilations about Peridot, Stevonnie and Garnet

So, first impressions:

I absolutely adore Pearl. She may be an immortal, holographic gem person from outer space but she's also an anxious homebody who turns into an absolute wreck when faced by a pretty girl. I can't claim I haven't been in that situation a time or seven.

And just... it could not be clearer what is going on. Pearl runs into a hot girl on the way to a rock show, a girl who bears some startling resemblances to her ex, and proceeds to fall over herself trying to ask the woman how she dies her hair.

How anyone with the slightest sense can try to claim “no homo” on this series baffles me (and yet, the comment sections...).

The little platoon of Rubies in Back to the Moon are adorable, aren't they? I guess from the dialogue that they appear before that and hope they'll appear again because I really want to see more of this naïve yet gung ho quintet. That said, Lapis is even more fun than the Rubies are, just casually imprisoning the lot of them in water bubbles so they can be interrogated one at a time.

I like how domestic Greg Universe is in that scene where he darkly muses about Barb holding his mail as some terrible threat.

The animation style is very interesting, Very simple yet very expressive and there's always something to see even in a functional two-hander like Bubbled there's so much to see. I imagine half the fun of this series is seeing what Rebecca Sugar and company come up with next, both visually and story wise.

I really want to see some episodes focusses on Steven and Connie's relationship, I think that'll be the next thing I track down.

Oh, and more Peridot.

Yeah, I can definitely feel the rabbit hole opening up under me.

I may finally watch Steven Universe

I have been aware of this series for a while now and the buzz around the episode Last One Out Of Beach City (from which the above images are taken) has finally convinced me I need to watch this show. The episodes are only about ten minutes long so its not that much of a time investment.

And having decided to watch this thing I suddenly realise how much information I've absorbed just through osmosis. I'm not coming to this fresh. If I decided to watch from the beginning (I'll probably go the edited highlights route) I'd know about the relationship that underpins Garnet's existence; I know that Peridot and Lapis will be redeemed; I'm pretty sure there are no surprises for me in Jasper's motivations; and, how good Pearl looks in a tuxedo.

Obviously, this is all down to the internet. One of the brilliant things about this here medium is that it allows you to research just about anything. Any show or comic or music genre, with a little effort you can get a decent grounding knowledge in just about anything.

This is great because, frankly, without the internet and the way it just delivers discourse and fan art to me I would probably never have even heard of this show that isn't aimed at my age group or carried on any channel that I can readily access. Judging by the buzz (and the utterly amazing fan art) this is a show I'm going to want to see at least a bit of between the fun plot synopses I've read, the rather charming animation style and how people rave about the characters.

Oh, and it apparently really, really gay. When an Englishman of my leanings watches something like this we can basically feel Mary Whitehouse turning in her grave and we take joy in it.