'Toon Reviews 6: Steven Universe Season 1 Episode 6

Cat Fingers

This cartoon has much of the same unsettling and creepy vibes as the last one, but there’s a lot more heart to the story here, as well as development as a Gem for Steven.  Regarding the character, Amethyst, one of the Gem powers she loves to expose is shapeshifting allowing her to turn herself into absolutely anything.  She’s mostly seen doing it to mess around with others, but it’s still an interesting and fun aspect of being a Gem, perfect for the animation medium.  Since all Gems can do shapeshifting and Steven finds it cool, of course he wants to learn how to do it.  Even through starting small, Steven can’t get it as well as Amethyst.  He is, however, able to turn one of his fingers into a cat, and is perfectly content with only getting this far.  He’s so content with this that he goes on to have more of his fingers turn into cats and goes around impressing everyone with his new skill.  Basically, this setup with Steven’s new ability is nice and cute at first.  However, this feeling doesn’t last long when Steven realizes that he can’t turn his fingers back to normal.  In fact, his situation just gets even darker when the rest of his body starts growing cats, turning him into a meowing monstrosity.  I’m all for a natural tone shift from light-hearted and fun to dark and scary, but the shift to dark seems to be a little too much.  Steven covered in cat heads is just horrifying to look at, and when he looks in pain as the cats consume him, it feels just as painful to anyone watching.  You really have to wonder why Amethyst never considers teaching him how to turn himself back to normal.  However, the resolution to the issue does have a good amount of heart to it when Steven turns to his dad for help when things get bad.  As Steven laments about how monstrous he has become, Greg shows that he loves him for who he is as he sees him as his son and nothing else.  Still, he respects Steven’s wishes and uses the super wash setting of his carwash to get rid of all the cats which gets Steven back to normal.  That’s genuine fatherly love right there.  Basically, if you can take the major creepiness factor of Steven’s cat-tastrophe as well as Amethyst’s neglect when things get really bad, you’ll easily find that this cartoon really does have a good heart and sense of fun. 8/10

The Ranking

1. Laser Light Cannon
2. Gem Glow
3. Cheeseburger Backpack
4. Cat Fingers
5. Together Breakfast
6. Frybo

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where we meet Steven's best friend, Connie, in "Bubble Buddies."

If you would like to check out other reviews on this blog, click here for the guide to all the reviews posted so far.