Friday, April 26, 2019

Buddy's Book (Steven Universe Season 4 Episode 3) - 'Toon Reviews 29

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Buddy’s Book
 
 
In my opinion, cartoons of this show don’t always need to have a direct link with the underlying plot to be important.  They can also give scope and development to the major supporting characters and legacy of what the Crystal Gems have done throughout history.  This is a history-building cartoon, and it’s done to a particularly endearing extent. 
It starts off simple with Steven and Connie taking a trip to the library, and Steven comes across an old journal that belonged to an explorer named Buddy Budwick.  If this name seems familiar, it’s a callback to the cartoon “Historical Friction” where Steven was in a play about how the founding of Beach City which the Crystal Gems had a role in.  So from there, the cartoon is all about him and Connie reading that journal with a nice childlike perspective. 
For one thing, there’s a nice play on perception of characters in a book, particularly on how they imagine the appearance of Buddy.  In their mind, he’s representative of the local theatrical mailman, Jamie, and his overdramatic personality and line deliveries are great fits for the journal’s poetic dialog.  As for how it relates to the legacy of the Crystal Gems’ work, it lies within the actual content of the journal.  In addition to Buddy’s recounts, the journal is also filled with many Gem locations from as far back as Season 1 which make the whole show feel better connected.  We have the Lunar Sea Spire, the Heaven and Earth Beatles’ sky spire, the Communication Hub, and the Prime Kindergarten among other locations.  A mere human explorer visiting and documenting these magical historical places brings a fresh perspective from what we as an audience know about them.  What were places of significance in a major galactic war and holders of corrupted Gems, seem like fascinating structures to people from the outside. 
What’s more, there isn’t any ignorance on Buddy’s part as he’s exploring these places.  He was exploring them with the intent of finding something new and interesting to talk about.  However, through encountering the Crystal Gems, appropriately imagined in old-time appearance modifiers we’ve seen before, he finds these places have already been discovered.  This means that he’s not really discovering anything new at all if other beings have been there.  Then comes a fascinating resolution that also drops major suggestions about one of the main supporting characters. 
During a quest in a desert, Buddy was found by Rose Quartz, who at the time, was raising a group of lions, displaying her connection with the Lion we know.  When Buddy explained his problem, Rose offered beneficial advice to what he had accomplished.  Even if all the places in the journal were discovered before, his perceptions of them are new which therefore make the experience new for anyone reading.  This in turn inspired Buddy to write even more books that eventually led to the library standing today.  There’s a lot of truth to this statement and the whole adventure supports that philosophy with major locations to the Gems meaning something different to this human. 
It may not have the strongest plot connection, but with this engaging word to live by and a little imagination through Steven and Connie perceive what’s read, it’s still quite a nice read.
Just remember Buddy’s drawing of a palanquin for later on though…

A
Season 4 Ranking
1.      Buddy’s Book

2.      Know Your Fusion

3.      Kindergarten Kid
The next Steven Universe review is an emotional step up from what we've been getting as well as one of the most therapeutic pieces of animation.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is the return of Voltron: Legendary Defender in the review spotlight.

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