'Toon Reviews 6: Steven Universe Season 1 Episode 49

The Message

While it may seem like not much happens in this cartoon, if you follow it through all the way, you’ll find that it has some good instances of character and plot development.  Like most cartoons, it starts off nice and simple with Steven and Greg enjoying one of life’s pleasures which is their shared passion of music as they come up with album art and songs inspired by the time Lapis Lazuli stole the ocean to try and get home.  It even features a moving, albeit very brief, ballad about Lapis.  Then the plot gets more important when an ancient Gem artifact called a wailing stone picks up a message, but all the Crystal Gems can hear is a loud indescribable noise and the rest of the cartoon is them trying to make sense of the noise to hear the message.  It’s not exactly the most exciting thing for a plot to revolve around given that all the action takes place in one area and the long process of getting the message is mostly heavy on explaining what goes into it.  However, no matter how you may feel about what goes on entertainment-wise, it’s worth noting that what goes on is a good display of everything about Greg’s character.  Although he’s a mere human who wouldn’t doesn’t really understand the ways of Gems like the others do, he’s still willing to put in a good effort to help them out with everything he does know, mainly his knowledge on sound mixing showing the purpose of what we as an audience saw before the wailing stone was heard.  It’s hard to determine that his plans will work, but it’s still great that he’s trying.  Because of this, it’s easy to feel for him when his first plan doesn’t work and he couldn’t help the Gems all through a reworked version of the previous song.  However, there’s twist to the plan when the idea comes that while Greg’s audio equipment didn’t work, video equipment is the way to go, which also harkens back to something that occurred with Steven and Greg in the beginning.  Then, we get the most engaging part of the cartoon which is the message itself.  It’s of Lapis Lazuli informing them (mostly Steven) of how she’s found out that Homeworld has changed so much while she was trapped in the mirror, and more importantly that Peridot is coming to Earth, and she isn’t alone.  While this conclusion is a great triumph for Greg, it’s foremost a major foreshadow for what’s to come as we near the end of the season, and the worried looks of Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl sell how major it is that they’ll have to deal with Homeworld Gems again.  While this cartoon is on the slow side, it’s still easy to sit through it and get a lot of impactful elements out of it. 9/10

The Ranking

1. Rose’s Scabbard
2. Ocean Gem
3. Lion 3: Straight to Video
4. Alone Together
5. Coach Steven
6. On the Run
7. Story for Steven
8. Maximum Capacity
9. Mirror Gem
10. An Indirect Kiss
11. Space Race
12. So Many Birthdays
13. Steven the Sword Fighter
14. Lion 2: The Movie
15. Bubble Buddies
16. Monster Buddies
17. Laser Light Cannon
18. Winter Forecast
19. Giant Woman
20. Lars and the Cool Kids
21. The Test
22. The Message
23. Steven’s Lion
24. Horror Club
25. Watermelon Steven
26. Gem Glow
27. Steven and the Stevens
28. Marble Madness
29. Warp Tour
30. Open Book
31. Island Adventure
32. Rose’s Room
33. Cheeseburger Backpack
34. Future Vision
35. Secret Team
36. House Guest
37. Serious Steven
38. Joking Victim
39. Beach Party
40. Cat Fingers
41. Tiger Millionaire
42. Together Breakfast
43. Fusion Cuisine
44. Frybo
45. Shirt Club
46. Onion Trade
47. Arcade Mania
48. Garnet’s Universe
49. Keep Beach City Weird

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode when Homeworld's threat finds a way to affect the Beach City residents in "Political Power."

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

'Toon Reviews 4: The Loud House Season 1 Episode 2

Heavy Meddle

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can definitely say that the Loud sisters really care for their brother after watching this cartoon.  However, you can also say that they care for him a little too much which makes the viewing experience a bit frustrating.  The main premise is that Lincoln is annoyed by how his sisters always seem to barge in on his personal problems in an attempt to help him, but they only make things worse, (which is uniquely personified as a tornado of sister heads) and now he’s trying to prevent that by keeping them from finding out that he’s being picked on by a girl named Ronnie Anne.  After a set of pretty enjoyable moments of Lincoln covering the truth, the sisters eventually find out, and we see first-hand why their meddling is such a problem to Lincoln.  They may have good intentions of helping their brother in his time of need, but they never take to time to listen to him and figure out the right way to deal with the issue.  As a result, the rest of the cartoon features the sisters grabbing any random boy without listening that it’s a girl who’s picking on Lincoln, and when they find that out, they seek no ill-intention in the situation and stick to the conclusion that Ronnie Anne likes Lincoln.  The fact that these girls have such a one-track mind of not listening in on the whole story or assuming one possible reason for the bullying instead of all reasons gives the feeling that nothing is being accomplished which costs the cartoon a good amount of entertainment.  That said, the payoff is pretty decent where after getting a black eye when kissing Ronnie Anne, Lincoln finally snaps and tells his sisters to stop with the meddling, but later gets an apology note and things to heal his eye from Ronnie Anne, showing that she really does like Lincoln.  This ends the cartoon with the sisters learning to not butt in when they’re not wanted and Lincoln learning that sometimes meddling can help you.  Plus, it’s a good start to Lincoln and Ronnie Anne building a strong friendship later in the season. We’ll see a lot of stronger moments of helping from the sisters later on too.  As for this cartoon, it’s all right with some strong enjoyable parts, but much of its frustrating qualities do not make it one of the show’s best works. 7/10

 Making the Case

 

 

 

 

 

 

This cartoon follows a convention that makes me feel very uncomfortable.  The convention follows normally good characters managing to intrude the privacy of people he/she is very close to, exposing them to the public, and are then treated like they’re evil and deserve to be shut out from life despite making one mistake.  I never like good characters getting treated like that.  It all starts out sympathetically when Lincoln desires to get a trophy for the family case like most of his sisters after many failed attempts.  He gets the idea of entering a video contest, and after a talk with Luan, he goes on to keep the camera running whenever he sees his sisters do something funny.  Some moments are funny, but a few of them are kind of cringe-worthy, especially a set of moments of Lori farting.  Anyway, following the convention I talked about, Lincoln posts the video of his sisters’ moments, it becomes the most popular, but his sisters end up hating his guts because of the humiliation it causes them.  It’s not just the sisters hating Lincoln that’s the problem, they also go way too far with their hatred considering that Lincoln clearly shows them that he regrets what he did, but they won’t give him a chance to fix his mistake even though he’s usually a good kid.  This point is driven in so hard, it makes the cartoon kind of painful.  However, there are some things that don’t make this cartoon as painful as others that follow this convention.  The sisters allow Lincoln to explain why he did what he did, Lincoln did kind of bring the hatred on himself by ignoring Luan’s tip to not post the video without permission (even though they later say she didn’t say so because it’s the unspoken rule), and at least Luan is willing to help Lincoln fix everything by providing him with embarrassing moments of him.  As for how this ends when Lincoln posts himself in an embarrassing video to replace the old one, it’s not as satisfying as it can be since after all that trouble, he loses to a hamster video and has to make do with a makeshift trophy from his sisters, but I guess it’s rewarding enough that his sisters genuinely love him again.  This cartoon’s heart is in the right place and does have some good parts to it, but its painful factors prevent it from being one I’ll want to see again anytime soon. 6/10

The Ranking

1.      Left in the Dark

2.      Heavy Meddle

3.      Get the Message

4.      Making the Case

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where we follow Leni, the dumb blond, take up driving in "Driving Miss Hazy," and discover what a heavy dose of authority does for the Loud House when Mom and Dad are out in "No Guts, No Glori."