Mewberty
This is an episode that’s the most creative as of now. We all know that shows tend to have
characters flirt around anyone who looks cute, but this is where the source of
the creativity lies. As we open with
Star flirting with her crush, Oskar Greason, we’re led to believe that what
she’s doing is nothing unusual for girls her age. That all changes when she
starts growing purple hearts all over her body, and it keeps happening as she
comes across boys in general. This is
the phase common to people of her kind, mewberty, and given that seeing boys
increases its effect on the victim, it’s easy to see that it has stronger ties
to our own puberty instead of just the name.
However, unlike puberty, mewberty has violent effects on the victim and
the world around him/her as Star keeps getting incased in purple hearts
which transform everything into a purple jungle. This poses a major challenge for Star as she
tries to keep herself from seeing boys by hiding in her locker, but a bad turn
of events have a bunch of boys constantly showing up there continuously making
the situation worse and try as she might, Star just can’t stop looking at
them. Honestly, given what mewberty is
modeled after, girls in real life would probably do the same. Then we have Marco going through trials to
help get Star out of her mewberty phase.
He goes to all sorts of kids to retrieve Star’s spell book, then he
struggles to learn more about mewberty from it, and then he comes across
another creative addition to the episode.
Instead of a glossary, the spell book comes with a small figure called
Glossaryck who seems to know all about magic.
When Marco tries to get him to talk about stopping mewberty though, he
only offers limited information in exchange for Marco feeding him pudding. He does point out that mewberty is a natural
process that can’t be stopped, which makes the creative aspect of Star’s
workings relatable, and that it MAY stop at a certain time. Given that he didn’t seem clear that it
would, it’s easy to assume the worst as Marco sets out to stop Star from
attacking the boys at school as a result of becoming a crazed, flying, purple,
boy-crazy creature, further demonstrating mewberty’s dangerous effects. Following a lot of action where Marco tries
using force to stop Star, we get a pretty emotional scene of Star flying off
with Oskar and Marco getting distraught about never seeing her again. Then Glossaryck proves credible after all
when mewberty ends on time and Star returns to normal with little wings that
can’t even make her fly. In all, we have
so much happening for such a small change, but getting a lasting change is
still something to take note of. This
has got to be one of this show’s strongest works with its creative premise,
relatable ties to real life, and genuine emotion. 10/10
Pixtopia
This episode takes us to another new dimension where the
catch is that the seemingly nice inhabitants turn out to be twisted and
threatening. It all happens when Marco
and his friends, Ferguson and Alfonso, use Star’s magic mirror phone so much
that its service is all used up, and Star is quick to point out that Marco is
no different from her because he messed up just like she usually does, even if we’ve
already seen that Marco can mess up. We
get to see the dimensional scissors in action again as Star and Marco use them
to travel to Pixtopia, the dimension where Star must renew her services before
her parents try to call her and learn what happened. Pixtopia is a land inhabited by pixies and
they all seem nice and friendly like most people would expect pixies to be, but
their sweetness seeming like a joke and the somewhat dark color scheme is a
good indication of what their true nature is.
Anyway, to renew Star’s services, the group has to work in shard mines
headed by a pixie with a mind for enforcing heavy labor, and Star’s magic can’t
save them revealing their true nature to be dark and twisted. Now, it should be noted that Ferguson and
Alfonso join Star and Marco for this dimensional travel and just feel like
unnecessary tagalongs who just want to do something cool. Alfonso is given very little to do while
Ferguson gets himself in trouble by idiotically claiming to be a king, which is
really just a role-playing act, which prompts the pixies to take him away. However, Ferguson getting taken away once
again gives an impression of sweetness from the pixies when he’s brought to the
Pixie Empress and the two seem to bond together nicely. However, this leads to another bit of idiocy
from Ferguson who feels it’s okay to jump into matrimony with the Empress. Thankfully, after his friends get there via
an awesome mine cart escape scene, they convince him not to go through with the
marriage and Ferguson even admits he didn’t think it through. This once again effectively leads to the
pixies’ dark twisted nature as the Empress cheerfully opts to kill Ferguson and
the others after being turned down. The
resulting fight makes for a fun climax, even if Star and Marco are the only
useful fighters. In the end though, the mirror
service plot is resolved with Star deciding to switch providers which makes one
wonder why she didn’t just do that in the first place as well as rendering the
Pixtopia trip pointless. We also get one
last chance for Alfonso to be useful when they realize they left him behind to
get married to the Empress. Too bad the
episode ends at that moment. I know it’s
a gag, but it doesn’t feel right given this show’s apparent care for
characters. Even with its questionable
value, this episode still has mostly fine character moments and an interesting
way of showing that things aren’t always what they seem. 8/10
The Ranking
- Mewberty
- Diaz Family Vacation
- School Spirit
- Party with a Pony
- Quest Buy
- Monster Arm
- Cheer up Star
- Star Comes to Earth
- Brittney’s Party
- Matchmaker
- Pixtopia
- The Other Exchange Student
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Star and Marco, well Marco anyway, try to reform the monster, Lobster Claws, and Marco attempts to save Star for once by curing her "Sleep Spells."
If you would like to check out other Star vs the Forces of Evil reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.
No comments:
Post a Comment