The Complete Steven Universe Scorecard

Hey, hey, hey! Welcome to the 5th riddle of this premiere week! Want to know more details? click here! Like last time, the answer will be an episode part of this show. Also, please don't say the correct answer to all of your watchers "The correct answer is blah blah blah". At this point, the riddles will be harder by the number of verses decreasing. So, here is the riddle for you to figure out the answer:

Seeks revenge

but caused an incursion,

then unites with a person...

And to let those know, this scorecard is part of my premiere week ranging from May 21st to the 27th, so be on the look out!


This is one of the last new cartoons I've seen before my TV was sold. The only episodes of Steven Universe I remembered watching before reviewing the series were Gem Glow, Cheeseburger Backpack, Frybo, Cat Fingers, Tiger Millionaire, and Arcade Mania (6 in total).

Unlike the previous cartoons I've reviewed, this is one of those shows I really want to review because of how popular and significant Steven Universe is. Earlier, I planned to review Cartoon Network shows in order by airdate so that I can compare rip off episodes better (if I watch the rip off one first and the original victim last, I could've changed the rating of the episode and could mean trouble), but because that millions of people across the web talk about Steven Universe a lot, I had no choice but to abandon my plan and confirm myself that I'll review Steven Universe in October 2016, next to Harvey Beaks, but because that I took a break from cartoons, I failed to watch it. When I started watching The Fairly OddParents, I decided to watch this show next, but again, didn't happen. Ironically, I planned Steven Universe as a "Season 2" episode along with My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, but then the fame Steven Universe has gotten bigger and bigger that I had no choice but to review it as part as this premiere week. My distractions happened in the middle of watching this cartoon and I didn't get to watch the rest of Season 4 on time until I finally got the courage to watch the remaining episodes I haven't watched on June 12, 2017, which is 2 weeks and 4 days after I uploaded the scorecard to DeviantArt. Ironically, it took me a while to try and watch Steven Universe Seasons 4 and 5. Since no one did a scorecard on the fifth season yet, I was the first cartoon reviewer to do a scorecard on Steven Universe Season 5.

It took a while for me to try and watch an episode of Steven Universe. For a reason, I can't handle the fact that I have attention deficit and worried that it'll attack Steven Universe, which I tried my best to understand all the episodes because 1. this show is extremely popular in the cartoon community and 2. the writing is more advanced. I thought that I'll finish the series in 5, 4, or even 2 days, but because that I was too distracted struggling to watch an episode, it woefully took me a week to finish the series. I didn't know why I wasn't that attracted to the show compared to the other shows I watched (I was very attracted to The Amazing World of Gumball and We Bare Bears) so I took some breaks from the show. I mean, I completed Season 1 on time, but Seasons 2-4 felt like I'm not attracted to Steven Universe. Well... all of that distraction made this one of my least favorite shows I worked on, but anyways...

...onto the summary! Sorry for the wait for all of you reading the condition of working on Steven Universe. The pie chart wasn't what I expected the show to turn out because Gem Glow is supreme, so I expected the show's final rating to be supreme, but no. However, it's much better than The Amazing World of Gumball and Uncle Grandpa's pie chart, since there's only 6 episodes I don't recommend at all (Crack the Whip is from the first series, whereas the rest are from Future), though two of them are from the epilogue series, while the said 2 cartoons has a bunch of weak episodes and this show only has an epic episode (obviously Jail Break) while the 2 cartoons has no epic episodes, but at least they both have a blessed episode. Coming to my surprise, more than 15 episodes are episodes I find watchable, but I feel like this show can do better with the percent of episodes I don't care about (29.3%). At least there are more episodes I seem to love.

Ok. Let's talk about the writing before I get distracted from doing this summary, but let me tell you that I'm only going to talk about the original show and the limited series in different ways in this section only because with the quality and characters, they're pretty much the same show, but maybe I can describe my thoughts on the limited series just one time:

Steven Universe: First off, the premise of the show is really good. I don't know any show that has something to do with gems, but the premise of Steven Universe is very creative and interest. However, I have a big problem regarding the premise. What's the problem you may ask? The entire series is similar to Avatar: The Last Airbender, where that show is very creative and miles interesting with its premise, the creativity of "the 4 elements", great story arcs, etc. Feeling like Steven Universe is another clone, I think the writers did the writing well! Nothing amazing about it, just great writing. The tone of any episode executes correctly to any point where it can be heartwarming, creepy, or funny. What makes some moments in the show special are the songs, depending on the tone that makes you feel emotion. The songs aren't boring, they're one of the best parts about the show because they fit with this decades generation, they flow supremely, the voices sound fantastic and could show the characters at their best performances, it can sometimes teach you about any lesson and they even can feel motivational. The side episodes where Steven hangs out with his friends/face situations or conflicts with people are solid, but I think they can get boring often (that's where the ample episodes come from) or cliched. There's creativity with the gems and I love how there's more crystal gems to see, but the idea of creative gems is obviously done in Avatar where there's creativity with Water, Earth, Fire and Air and benders must learn how to bend one of those elements. However, this show attempted to differ with the creativity of the gems by making the gems like superheroes instead of something people learn. I could've wished that the writing would be better with the emotional songs, elements from Avatar that were differed into something unique and the tone keeping me interested all the time, but the side episodes, blandness, what science fiction shows must face, pointless episodes, and cons from Avatar: The Last Airbender brought the writing down to nearly solid writing.

Steven Universe Future: Ah yes, here we are in the future and it's all...wrong actually. Basically all of the aspects from Steven Universe are here; the songs, side episodes, creativity and exploration of the gems, and more. However, this series feels like a watered-down version of said series because right now, it just feels like a continuation of the series but set in the future. Not a bad idea, but in all, the show really underwhelmed me. With much of the side episodes, they might be relatable but how cliched, predictable and repetitive they are just ruins the series for me and the fact that there weren't many interesting twists put into them makes the show worse. I also felt like there's not enough gem exploration here because that was what the original show was about even though it's more than that. And I thought that this was the series to tie all the loose ends the previous show left; solving the unsolved story arcs. But instead, the show keeps jumping back and forth from solving a character's conflict to an episode with an episodic structure and the show just isn't as strong as the previous seasons. There are the themes, but most of it involves Steven and in this series, he really feels too desperate about everything going the way he wants it to be. And can't I mention how pretty much every episode has him throwing a fit at the end or any bits of the episode? I know, this is supposed to capture mental illness and try to make Steven realistic but with it appearing often, it's not only pretty obvious that it'll happen plus the fact that it barely progresses, making them feel unengaging at times, but it feels like the show focused on this arc way too much to not make a lot of room for the other characters and their troubles. Yeah, they are brought up, but I feel like some such as Bluebird Azurite's, as well as Sadie and Lars' subplots, could use more exploration because they are brought up and barely appears again with something happening to them several episodes later, plus the fate the original series left might have a huge impact on how these characters could've acted here. And the humor can feel so random and strange that it doesn't make things better. The show's script pretty much ruined the series for me for being forced and predictable, including Amethyst sipping a cup for so long that it's unfunny, plus the ending to A Very Special Episode being a strange fourth wall joke in which the show never do ones like that. I expected this show to be like the original series, but what I got is more like the movie; boring, annoying at times, and underwhelmingly disappointing. I think I described everything I can say about the series so I'll end my thoughts on the series here. It's pretty meh (59%), comes to show how much the franchise went downhill.

Steven Universe felt like a show that was influenced by The Last Airbender. It took some elements from that anime...cartoon and still made it feel different. It's true that the animation is a lot different.

Just like the writing, I find the animation great. Some of the character designs are cute (like Onion), some are rather dull looking, and especially the crystal gems, they look awesome especially as fusions. The animators got the height of the characters right by comparing the size of the fusions to the size of the ordinary cast of Steven Universe. The colors used for the gems are great, they fit the color of each gemstone the crystal gems represent. It's also nice that Beach City is a coastal town, so I give points to Steven Universe for choosing that setting since I don't see that much in other cartoons. However, a problem I have with the colors is that the colors, when used in daylight are too vibrant (Pearl's skin-tone, the clouds, and more) where it could give me an eye-ache occasionally. Also, some of the character designs and color schemes (like Bismuth, Alexandrite, the sand and the interior of the Gem Warship) can be an eyesore, plus the character designs being inconsistent. Yeah, not great enough because of ugly colors, but still, I loved the settings and the cool character designs.

I thought it was great at first, but then I realized how rapidly vibrant the animation has gotten. Not a problem, along with the characters:

The human characters are solid, but the crystal gems are absolutely fantastic and lovable characters. From any backstory, it makes them more interesting and loveable as we get to know more magnificent info about them. Some characters change through seasons (Peridot and Lapis Lazuli), which I adore when that happens. Speaking of that, a variety of characters from Steven Universe get very good character development that makes me like them more when the episode goes on. Those pros are pretty amazing, but like what I said in the writing section, the show took cons from The Last Airbender. Does that make me dislike the characters a little more? Yeah because there are human characters that are one-dimensionally bland or has an annoying attitude. Also, I find a few crystal gems also flat and round (yes, I'm referring to Jasper), but they have a good purpose.  Some episodes focus on the characters, and I think the bonding in the episode is solid. While I do like how the characters develop through the episode, I don't like how one of them act dull through the episode. So yeah, better than the writing and characters thanks to their development and info, but also facing blandness on the journey.

Remembering my tag questions, I said "Did you find shows like Steven Universe and Gravity Falls overrated?", so that's what I think of the show. I think it deserves its love, but I think it's too overrated. Steven Universe is just a solid show in my opinion. While the writing can be interestingly creative, the tone can make me emotional, the character designs are awesome and the characters have good info and development, the show can be dull sometimes, it's similar to The Last Airbender, The colors are too vibrant and we still have some one-dimensional characters. I thought it'll be blessed, but now it's good (77%) because of these reasons, just like how Avatar: The Last Airbender is only good. However, because that Steven Universe Future was underwhelming, it makes the franchise ample (73%). Next time, I want a show with more entertainment juice and less blandness. These human episodes are the reasons why Steven Universe is just good but without them, the cartoon could be divine like Gravity Fall,s but I didn't mean remove all the human episodes because people want to see the personal life of Steven Universe.