Monday, July 22, 2019

Jungle Moon (Steven Universe Season 5 Episode 12) - 'Toon Reviews 29

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Jungle Moon


The biggest reason that there was a fallout between Steven and Connie over Steven’s big surrender was betrayal over a vow to face everything together.  As many of this season’s space adventures will prove, being together in the face of danger really is the best way to go for both of them.  They probably would not get by as well as they do if they were on their own, and this atmospheric cartoon is the first one to majorly support them sticking as a team. 
After crash landing on a distant planet, they’re all alone in a jungle with no way to contact any help.  Adding to the atmosphere, they’re both fused as Stevonnie all throughout.  This gives an illusion that we’re witnessing one person getting by in the wild, but it’s really two kids with different ideals and personalities working off each other.  Since the big thing with Stevonnie is that they strive to be a good experience through existing, it’s huge that they’re dealing with being stranded in the wild.  It’s nice watching them go through many common aspects of survival from gathering food, crafting a shelter, and fending themselves off from aliens living there.  This can easily attribute to Connie’s part of the fusion since she has read up on survival in the wild before.  Steven's part is prominent too, such as being hesitant to kill one of the baby aliens for nourishment.  As for the aliens, they do their part to expand the scope of the show’s universe by showing that alien life expands to more than just the Gems.  Still, they behave like normal wild animals as the mother of that baby chases Stevonnie into a structure where they’re forced to camp out. 
It’s here where the cartoon is at its most interesting during a dream sequence and a highly creatively staged one at that combining the mindsets of both Steven and Connie.  First, Connie’s mom appears talking to someone about an invasion and wiping people out.  While this does showcase Connie tending to feel dominated by her parents, a big thing to this is that Stevonnie is incredibly small by comparison.  The creative staging continues as spaceships appear, the setting turns into a moon base of some sort, and Connie’s mom suddenly turns into Yellow Diamond. 
The biggest and strangest thing of all is that Stevonnie’s personality completely changes. Suddenly, they’re showing interest in cool dropships and later throwing a fit over not having a colony like Yellow does insisting that she’s just as important as her.  Making sense of all this is a single reflection that Stevonnie has taken the form of Pink Diamond.  A lot is said from this dream, particularly giving a good idea of what Pink was really like. From her tantrum alone, she clearly was much more childish compared to the other Diamonds other than a flat-out dictator. 
While this Diamond dream gives the Steven part of Stevonnie a lot of suspicions, for now they focus on using the dream information to deduce that they’re on a moon base.  By extension, the whole jungle they’ve been surrounding in is a moon, and it’s orbiting a colonized planet. It’s one of the rare times we see an onscreen example of the Diamonds’ devastation of other worlds other than the Kindergartens.  Stevonnie simply uses the moon base to contact Lars though and they’re quickly rescued.  That said, focus on a shot of glass Pink Diamond broke thousands of years ago suggests that more of this lore will be looked into, which is thankfully the case. 
On the whole, through starting to answer some of the biggest questions while also showcasing an interesting fusion in the wild, this is one of this show’s most immersive works.
A+

Season 4 Ranking

1.      I Am My Mom

2.      Storm in the Room

3.      Mindful Education

4.      That Will Be All

5.      Steven’s Dream

6.      Last One Out of Beach City

7.      Are You My Dad?

8.      The Zoo

9.      The Good Lars

10.  Gem Heist

11.  Gem Harvest

12.  Three Gems and a Baby

13.  Adventures in Light Distortion

14.  Buddy’s Book

15.  Know Your Fusion

16.  The New Crystal Gems

17.  Lion 4: Alternate Ending

18.  Doug Out

19.  Kindergarten Kid

20.  Room for Ruby

21.  Future Boy Zoltron

22.  Tiger Philanthropist

23.  Rocknaldo

24.  Onion Gang

Season 5 Ranking

1.      The Trial

2.      Jungle Moon

3.      Off Colors

4.      Stuck Together

5.      Lars’ Head

6.      Lars of the Stars

7.      Raising the Barn

8.      Sadie Killer

9.      Back to the Kindergarten

10.  Gemcation

11.  Kevin Party

12.  Dewey Wins
 
The next Steven Universe review introduces Garnet to the Off Colors as she tells them all about Rose Quartz, though several questions are raised about what she truly knows.
Next time, for the first time ever on the MC Toon Reviews blog, there are going to be reviews of the Cartoon Network classic, Ed Edd n Eddy. 
If you would like to check out other Steven Universe reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

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