Steven Universe

Steven Universe is a real gem among animated series. At a time when everyone is placing their bets on a frantic pace, affect and a pile of deranged ideas, Rebecca Sugar’s original project offers up a fresh concept that harmoniously combines bold imagination and the atmosphere of a sleepy small town with a hint of melancholy. One of the key elements in the subtlety and maximally enchanting nature of Steven Universe is the fact that the series’ creators built a world with an wonderful fantastical mythology, but without presenting it to us as a bombastic spectacle, instead focusing on its bittersweet ordinariness. In addition to that, the individual episodes charm viewers with their extraordinarily intelligent screenplays, which are bizarre, meta-genre and delicately emotional in equal measure. However, the brilliantly conceived central and supporting characters still remain the focal point of the series. As its creator says, the series is based on a love affair between fantasy and reality, which not only describes its overarching principle, where fantastical beings marvel at reality as much as ordinary ones marvel at supernatural phenomena, but actually also literally states the origin of the titular protagonist. Steven is a new addition to a group of “Gems”, which is otherwise composed of brilliantly characterised female warriors with magical powers who alternately act toward Steven as cool mentors, caring guardians and friendly sisters. Steven himself is evidently destined for great things, but he still doesn’t know how to control his abilities. The series conveys to viewers the perspective of this chubby and enchantingly cute boy for whom everything magical is new but basically ordinary at the same time. Furthermore, Steven’s bashful good-heartedness, his effort to have a hand in things, his awkward discovery of his own abilities and primary his sincere naturalness and naïve enthusiasm are absolutely irresistible. The overall impression is fundamentally made complete by the boldly stylised drawing, which thanks to the lively animation changes like in a comic book instead of adhering to strict principles of character design, as well as by the saturated colours and chromatically altered rendering of the individual sequences, as well as the superb mix of keyboard and electronic music by the duo Aivi & Surasshu. Even in comparison with Cartoon Network’s otherwise highly distinctive and wildly imaginative series, Steven Universe is a unique gem that as an outsider does not disarm viewers with its self-confidence, but finds its way directly into their hearts. (2014.05.06)