'Toon Reviews 9: Star vs the Forces of Evil Season 1 Episode 8

Blood Moon Ball

Here’s an episode where all the strengths of this show come together to turn out something great and memorable.  It’s got a lot of creativity shown with a premise of a ball taking place in the underworld on the night of a red moon that occurs every 667 years.  It also explores Star’s past when she’s invited to the ball by her ex-boyfriend Tom.  We get a glimpse of what he’s like when Star turns down the invitation and explains that they broke up because of Tom’s anger issues.  Despite this, Tom assures her that he’s changed with constant assistance from a life coach and a bunny to pet to prove it.  Plus, while one might think that this whole anger management thing is just an act, as the episode goes on, we see that Tom really does want to make a good impression with Star at the dance.  He keeps everything low-key much to the disappointment of the guests who want something more exciting, and every time Star doesn’t comply with what he wants to be done, he calms his anger with bunny pets.  Ultimately, Tom is a well-written character with some good depth being neither completely right nor completely wrong.  Then we have what’s proven to be the strongest element of the show so far, Star and Marco’s friendship.  When Marco first hears about Tom and sees what he’s like, he feels that Star shouldn’t be trusting him, let alone go to the ball, showing how valuable Star is to him.  Though he tries to be accepting of Star attending the ball, his own doubts and fears of the name “Blood Moon Ball” are prevalent enough to get him to go after Star for her protection.  This leads to him arriving at the ball just as the blood moon shines to signal the start of a dance Tom intends to use to bring him and Star together in matrimony, giving Marco’s protectiveness some justification.  Marco ends up grabbing hold of Star just as the blood moonlight shines on them and the two share a charming, well-animated dance and Star doesn’t realize who she’s dancing with until he takes his disguise off . There’s also a lot of tension from the dance when Tom’s anger reaches its boiling point beyond control and only Star’s wand can stop him, also proving that she can look out for herself.  This idea clashes with Marco’s care for Star as the episode ends with Star saying how annoyed she is that Marco’s always trying to protect her and really wants him as a friend.  It’s the most mature and convincing Star has been as of now.  She doesn’t villainize Marco for his protection and has reasons of why she shouldn’t be watched over so much, and Marco genuinely understands, keeping their friendship on good terms.  What we see of these characters makes for an appealing experience, and the creativity, new location and maturity add to the memorability of everything. 10/10

Fortune Cookies

 

When it comes to Ludo and his plans to get Star’s wand, they’ve honestly become repetitive at this point.  He and his army pop up at a random part of an episode, he expresses great annoyance at their incompetence, and Star and Marco do some cool moves relating to their strengths to stop him.  They’re still fun to watch and there are slight variations, but writing-wise, they just make Ludo a laughable nuisance as opposed to a legitimate threat.  That all changes with this episode when he hires a monster called Toffee to build the monster army into better shape, or rather Toffee hires himself.  From this point on, Ludo’s plots to get the wand become much more serious and threatening as opposed to an episode’s comedic occurrence.  Toffee stands out as serious and calculating as opposed to Ludo being loud, agitated, and insane.  Toffee actually builds a strategy around the given situation instead of just jumping into fight.  In this case, he has Ludo’s army take advantage of Star’s latest obsession with fortune cookies where she believes that every fortune inside of them is real, and even has a funny relation to her old life on Mewni to back up her beliefs.  On the whole though, this plot may have its moments, but compared to Ludo and Toffee’s part of the story, it’s very tame and way too basic.  Speaking of Toffee, the more serious tone really picks up when one of Ludo’s henchmen switch one of Star’s fortune cookies just as the whole army arrives to attack.  The fortune convinces Star that “love is always the answer” so she deals with the monsters by hugging them.  However, this is all part of Toffee’s plan as it keeps Star’s wand out in the open ready to be taken thus showcasing Toffee’s major talent of strategy, and Ludo is constantly shown to be too anxious to just rush in and grab it.  As a matter of fact, the only reason the plan fails is because Ludo blurts out that the love fortune was part of the plan when one of his henchmen enjoy the hugging too much.  Plus, the love Star showed gets the henchman to be honest about what’s been going on, prompting Star to fight back the way she always does and learn that fortunes in fortune cookies aren’t real after all, just as you’d probably expect she would.  Even with this failure though, Ludo is still satisfied with how close they came, and as he laughs maniacally while feeling optimistic of getting the wand, Toffee just stands menacingly unmoved, letting the audience know that this isn’t the last we’ll see of him.  After all, his first impressions really let us know how serious of a threat he is.  That’s the biggest strength of this episode amidst this simple plot.  It lets us know that storytelling-wise, things are going to change. 9.5/10

The Ranking

1. Blood Moon Ball
2. Mewberty
3. Diaz Family Vacation
4. Fortune Cookies
5. Sleep Spells
6. School Spirit
7. Party with a Pony
8. Quest Buy
9. Monster Arm
10. Cheer up Star
11. Star Comes to Earth
12. Brittney’s Party
13. Matchmaker
14. Lobster Claws
15. Pixtopia
16. The Other Exchange Student

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Star and Marco have a "Freeze Day" and King River drops in for a visit and turns out to be a "Royal Pain" for Star.

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.

'Toon Reviews 9: Star vs the Forces of Evil Season 1 Episode 7

Lobster Claws

A good character is one who isn’t completely good or completely bad.  They should have some flaws, but enough likable qualities to make them worth getting behind because that’s what makes them relatable.  This is the idea explored in this episode where another failed attempt to get Star’s wand leads Ludo to fire one of his henchmen named Lobster Claws.  When Star and Marco find him upset about being out of a job, Marco feels sympathetic and offers to help Lobster Claws learn to be good.  We then get a montage of Lobster Claws trying to be good, but all his attempts constantly get shut down by his monstrous tendencies such as punching people, putting a cat he rescued from a tree and its owner in his mouth, and causing destruction while helping an old lady cross the street.  There’s a humorous feel to how all of Lobster Claws’ goodness attempts go wrong, but you can still buy that he’s trying, so it’s nice that Marco continuously believes in him.  At the same time, Star doesn’t seem at her best here by constantly shooting down all of Lobster Claws and Marco’s claims that Lobster Claws can be good just because he’s a monster and all monsters are bad.  That’s a major one-track mindset which never is welcome.  Just because some beings are part of a notoriously bad group doesn’t mean they’re like everyone else.  There can have depth and other sides to them people hardly see, and if Star can’t consider this, that costs her value as a protagonist.  She even convinces Lobster Claws that Marco’s just trying to make him into something he’s not and that he should be trying to hurt people, and has him stage a fake fight to get Ludo to hire him back meaning that Star is so rigid, she’d stick to the black-and-white good-hero, bad-monster way of thinking.  Now during the fake fight, we get some creativity when Lobster Claws does take Star’s wand, and it, along with him, turns dark and monstrous as a result.  Plus, Lobster Claws actually appears at war with himself as he can’t decide whether to give the wand to Ludo or Star, and his internal conflict is reflected by the wand changing its eye as he turns to different opponents.  Thankfully, this gets Star to realize that there is good inside monsters after all, so she’s saved from being completely unlikable.  Also, everything’s wrapped up nicely with Marco getting Star’s wand back and Lobster Claws getting rehired by Ludo.  The latter point may be disappointing considering what Lobster Claws went through, but at least we know that he isn’t completely bad.  Overall, this is a fine good episode brought down by an outdated one-track mindset. 8/10

Sleep Spells

This is another episode that explores how strong of a duo Star and Marco are.  Its strength is shown through how willing they are to put up with each other despite how eccentric they are, particularly with Marco willingly doing something about Star and her spells.  He realizes that Star has a habit of casting spells in her sleep which cause havoc all about his home.  His way around this involves simple psychology practices, and while it takes a while for Star to grasp how they work shown to humorous effect, Marco does find some success by uncovering a reason for Star’s habit with an ink blot test.  While the rest of the episode doesn’t further explore the reason, it does provide more value to Marco’s psychological talents.  When it seems that Star has just gone back to sleep-spelling, it’s revealed that she was defending herself from a monster called Princess Smooshy.  Her story is that she’s on the run from St. Olga’s Reform School and thinks that stealing Star’s face is her way out of it.  It’s as ridiculous as it sounds, but its threat is genuine when she makes it clear that she means what she says.  As for how this whole thing is resolved, Marco uses his psychology to great effect.  When Smooshy says she doesn’t have ears, Marco points out that this is the problem which gets Smooshy to reveal that while she actually does have ears, she only listens to her mind and doesn’t want to listen to people.  While this psychological therapy only increases Smooshy’s desire to steal Star’s face, Marco still gets his moment to shine by using force as his last resort and comes out on top while Smooshy is taken away.  To be honest, after seeing Star’s magic and wand work be the means of solving every problem for so long, it’s a nice change of pace for Marco to be the big hero with simple non-magical practices proving that this show knows how to stay fresh.  Plus, it leads to a nice ending moment to serve as closure to Marco constantly calculating how much he and Star save each other.  Star, taking on the role of a psychiatrist herself, lets Marco know that he’s great as he is and that the both of them being there for each other is what’s most important, and it’s especially great that Marco gets it just as the episode ends.  While this episode mostly exists as a standalone entry, the strength of Star and Marco’s friendship, the strong comedy, and the different than usual ways of resolving things make it a strong entry of the season. 9.5/10

The Ranking

1. Mewberty
2. Diaz Family Vacation
3. Sleep Spells
4. School Spirit
5. Party with a Pony
6. Quest Buy
7. Monster Arm
8. Cheer up Star
9. Star Comes to Earth
10. Brittney’s Party
11. Matchmaker
12. Lobster Claws
13. Pixtopia
14. The Other Exchange Student

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where we meet Star's old crush, Tom, when she attends the "Blood Moon Ball" and we also meet Ludo's new assistant, Toffee, who plots to get Star's wand by taking advantage of her new obsession of "Fortune Cookies."

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.

'Toon Reviews 9: Star vs the Forces of Evil Season 1 Episode 6

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

1. Mewberty
2. Diaz Family Vacation
3. School Spirit
4. Party with a Pony
5. Quest Buy
6. Monster Arm
7. Cheer up Star
8. Star Comes to Earth
9. Brittney’s Party
10. Matchmaker
11. Pixtopia
12. 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.

'Toon Reviews 9: Star vs the Forces of Evil Season 1 Episode 5

Diaz Family Vacation

Marco’s parents have so far proven to be a likable couple given their generous and hospitable nature, and for that, it’s nice that they have major roles in this episode where Star, wanting to give them a gift for their anniversary, decides to take them on a trip to her home dimension of Mewni.  The catch to this is that in taking the Diaz family to another dimension, Star has to use the dimensional scissors she got from “Party with a Pony” which is forbidden because her parents require her to stay on Earth, so that gives this little vacation some tension.  Because this vacation is forbidden, Star keeps everyone in the village district of Mewni where the poor live to keep from being noticed by her parents.  Despite the less than ideal spots for the vacation, Mr. and Mrs. Diaz are very appreciative of what they see which only adds to their appeal.  At the same time, Marco feels noticeably inferior to Star since all he offered his parents for their anniversary are fanny packs which don’t please them nearly as much.  It’s a shame that this point isn’t really resolved because as they travel, the safety gear packed in the fanny packs prove to be useful in helping Marco survive.  This steers us towards why the vacation leads the group into the Forest of Certain Death.  It’s all because despite Star’s best efforts to duck out of the way of her parents, her father, King River, just happens to be travelling in the particular area of Mewni and even hunting in the Forest of Certain Death, even though he had earlier claimed to be holding a lecture.  They just can’t escape him.  If that’s not enough, Mr. and Mrs. Diaz are just completely blown over by everything in the forest which still shows the appreciative and enjoyable sides of their characters, but this also means they’re unaware of the extreme dangers.  It reaches its breaking point when Star and Marco come to the conclusion that they were eaten by a multi-headed dragon.  There’s an awesome fight against the dragon with cool spells from Star, and Marco using more fanny pack supplies, but it’s ultimately broken up by River who cuts the dragon open revealing that Marco’s parents were never eaten.  We also get a great moment of bonding between Star and her dad when he reveals that he just wants to have a little fun and adventure to get away from the stress of royal life, just like his daughter.  It’s a nice reveal that shows there’s more to Star’s dad than just a strict authority figure as is how it strengthens Star’s bond with him by showing that he’s not as boring as she thinks.  Ultimately, this episode really packs in a lot of greatness with likable characters, genuine suspense, and surprising developments. 9.5/10

Brittney’s Party

As this episode opens with Star being loved by the entire school, it’s pretty easy to see why this is the case.  Not only can she perform great spells with her wand and win in several awesome monster fights, but she’s also friendly to everyone she meets.  Then we have another popular girl at the school, Brittney Wong who by contrast gets her popularity for all the wrong reasons.  She’s rich and is among the best looking of the girls at school, but she’s also highly judgmental, looking down at others for petty reasons which really makes all popular and rich people look bad, and that’s a trope that I really can’t stand.  Anyway, because of her popular status, her birthday party is looked at as the biggest social event of the year, and anyone she doesn’t give an invitation to is crushed.  Now Star, literal-minded as she’s established to be, gets her invite with the help of her wand when Brittney says that she’ll invite her when pigs fly; you can probably guess where this is going.  The party itself is what makes up the entire episode where the ever-friendly and innocent Star steps in to liven up the party with her wand complete with bounce house bus seats, a hot tub, and a light show which make it easy to identify with the guests who love it.  The party feels like one you wish you could attend.  In addition, we’re treated to a large dose of Brittney complaining about things not going her way and acting like she’s the only person who matters.  Those moments are significantly less pleasing.  There’s also a subplot of Marco dealing with motion sickness since the party takes place on a bus.  It presents a major challenge for him to not embarrass himself and the longer he stays on the bus, the easier it is to feel for him, even if the strains he’s feeling can be hard to watch at times.  The climax of the party when Ludo and his army show up to attack and drive the bus into another dimension ties into what these characters go through, even if it doesn’t always make them likable.  Star’s fight with the monsters comes with creative takedowns for each of them and makes everyone love the party even more.  Brittney has her ultimate unlikable moment by saying she wants Ludo to destroy Star.  Marco, whose motion sickness is at its peak, successfully fights through it all and takes control of the bus to make it avoid the interdimensional portal and give the party a literal smashing finish.  Basically, this fight is the ultimate finale to the party even with Brittney’s constant ingratitude and bratty attitude.  Because of this, this episode is truly one party you’ll never forget. 9/10

The Ranking

1. Diaz Family Vacation
2. School Spirit
3. Party with a Pony
4. Quest Buy
5. Monster Arm
6. Cheer up Star
7. Star Comes to Earth
8. Brittney’s Party
9. Matchmaker
10. The Other Exchange Student

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Star gets "Mewberty" for the first time, and takes Marco and his friends to "Pixtopia."

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.

'Toon Reviews 9: Star vs the Forces of Evil Season 1 Episode 4

Cheer up Star

This episode is perhaps one of the strongest representations of Star and Marco’s friendship and it’s told in a pretty interesting manner.  We open with them in the middle of a battle with Ludo and his monster army and it begs the question as to why this battle is happening.  Star and Marco end up hiding in a toolshed and as Marco explains that the monster attack is all his fault, we start to get a sense of his strong bond with Star.  As you can see, the meat of the episode is told in flashback which is a creative way of getting information across.  Anyway, in the flashback, we see that Marco had a bad day consisting of missing the school bus, getting bullied, and even embarrassing himself in front of his crush.  Star, being the good-natured, albeit hyperactive, friend she is, did everything in her power to cheer him up and it worked.  As for Marco, he soon got his chance to return the favor, when Star met a boy named Oskar Greason and became instantly smitten by his music which everyone else considered torture to their ears.  Heck, she was so taken in by Oskar’s music, her fantasies of him she has in the present interfere with the flashback in a humorous turn of events.  Anyway, Star was soon down in the dumps when she left Oskar her phone number and he never called.  Personally, it’s hard to get behind Star’s feelings since Oskar didn’t seem the least bit interested in her back when she left the number, so this outcome should kind of be expected and she shouldn’t even be making him worth her time.  That said, everything Marco does to cheer Star up after she did the same for him really demonstrates how much he values her as a friend, making that a true bond to get behind.  As for how the monster fight started, it’s all because Marco used Star’s wand as bait to lure a monster to Earth since fighting monsters is something Star loves to do, but it actually lured a whole bunch of monsters to them causing the current conflict.  Ultimately, Star beats them all with cool wand spells just as she always has throughout the season and is totally cheered up.  She even gets that call from Oskar during the fight which still doesn’t present a reason to get behind them getting together since they don’t discuss anything meaningful or get to know each other in any way.  Well, no matter how you feel about Star and Oskar together, there’s enough strong points to Star and Marco together present in this episode, and that makes it one of the most pleasing watches so far. 9/10

Quest Buy

 

Shopping can be either an easy thing to do or very confusing especially if you’re doing it in a big store.  This idea makes for a fun episode that’s relatable and also, given the fantasy element of this show, works in a good amount of magic and monster related creativity.  The plot gets going when Star can’t find a charger needed to power her wand, which is a bigger deal than you’d think because it’s revealed that when a wand completely runs out of power, it will stop working for good effectively raising the stakes of the conflict.  She and Marco then head over to the dimension known as Quest Buy to buy a new charger which seems to have everything anyone could need, but the store is designed like a maze, making it hard to navigate.  This is where we see a clash of methods of how to get through the store to the wand charger aisle.  Star, having been here before, believes she can get to the right aisle easily which leads them through obstacles like an ancient system of navigating the store that’s hard to decipher, aisles they need to answer riddles to get to, and somehow ending up back where they started explaining how creative and mysterious this store is.  Marco’s method ties into his idea of staying organized he’s shared throughout the episode, particularly how Star not staying organized led to her old charger getting lost.  He simply reads a map which appears to work, but certain factors, mostly involving the elevator, make everything harder than they need to be.  Even Ludo and his men get up to enjoyable antics at Quest Buy from the henchmen trying to sneak in stuff they don’t really need and getting cramped inside an elevator with a huge passenger, which doesn’t seem too uncommon in real life.  Their battle with Star and Marco is also very interesting since they have to fend them off without the help of Star’s wand which is still in its weak state, and mostly work with the store’s products lying in certain aisles, so to say the least, that’s an interesting turn of events.  Of course, our heroes find the charger they need and leave Ludo to pay for the damage, but that leads to them finding out that Star’s old charger was there the whole time sucked up into Marco’s vacuum causing it to levitate.  This may seem that the Quest Buy adventure was a waste, but since Star opts to keep her new charger and let Marco have a flying vacuum, this does still leave some possibilities for new creative adventures, maybe not a lot, but I think some potential is good enough.  On another note, it’s not exactly clear if Star truly learned about the benefits of being organized from this so the episode’s value is questionable.  Still, it’s a very good one for its creativity and how relatable it can be. 9/10

The Ranking

1. School Spirit
2. Party with a Pony
3. Quest Buy
4. Monster Arm
5. Cheer up Star
6. Star Comes to Earth
7. Matchmaker
8. The Other Exchange Student

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Star takes Marco and his parents on a "Diaz Family Vacation," and once pigs start flying, Star finds herself invited to "Brittney's Party."

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.

'Toon Reviews 9: Star vs the Forces of Evil Season 1 Episode 3

Monster Arm

It’s interesting how a safe kid like Marco has proven to be useful in the fights we’ve seen so far not to mention turn out to be so skilled in karate.  Because of this, it’s great that we get an episode dedicated to these talents of his.  He’s shown to be competing for a karate competition against Jeremy Birnbaum who, in an amusing turn of events, turns out to be a bratty little boy.  Star’s magic is worked into the issue when Marco breaks his arm while practicing.  Using a spell book that came with her wand, which was never used before this which brings some unfortunate implications to Star’s personality, Star finds a spell to heal Marco’s arm, but it instead turns the arm into a monster tentacle.  Although this further shows Star’s tendencies to get reckless with spells as shown with a collection of scenes of Marco’s life being inconvenienced by the monster arm, it’s cool to see how Marco actually grows to benefit from what’s happened.  He not only beats a school bully with it and obtains more popularity than ever, but he also becomes stronger than ever for his karate competition.  As for Star, she also shows off a lot of admirable qualities when she takes it upon herself to fix Marco’s arm, literally staying up for hours to get the spell right before jumping in to use it.  She also points out that while Marco is benefitting from the arm, it could be a bad influence on him, especially when it talks to him and convinces him to take out all humans.  While Marco doesn’t get this at first, when the arm tries to actually destroy Jeremy Birnbaum, he finally sees sense just as the arm starts destroying the karate stadium.  Everything’s resolved with another battle with a creative magic display from Star where she turns a lot of random things into arms, and they prove helpful in getting her to finally defeat the monster arm, and turn Marco’s arm back to normal.  Ultimately, it makes the story kind of just come and go aside from a slight hint that this isn’t the last of the monster arm, but we are still left with a well-told story for Marco and Star making a significant step towards getting a better control of her wand.  So, there are some significant benefits here. 9/10

The Other Exchange Student

While Star’s friendly and loyal side has made her a likable character to get behind, with this episode, we learn of an unfortunate catch to this part of her character.  She’s so loyal to the Diaz family letting her stay with them while she’s on Earth, that she becomes possessive of them and their hospitality.  What’s more, as the beginning of this episode shows, she takes the Diaz’s treatment of her way too well which is a problem due to how excessive the treatment is involving them literally throwing a party for her every day.  It’s like Star thinks she’s the most important being in the world which is not a very likable trait to get behind.  This really comes to a head when an exchange student called Gustav from Scandinavia arrives.  He almost instantly wins over his hosts with his hospitality, thoughtful gifts, and especially his meatballs.  While Gustav seems like a really nice guy, Star completely dreads his presence the moment he arrives all because he’s getting a lot of attention from a family who don’t get to see him all that often.  It not only makes her come off as jealous, but also highly inconsiderate.  What’s more, it isn’t long before she starts making wild accusations about Gustav without any proof all for the purpose of making him leave so she can have her precious Diaz family to herself even if it would cost them the genuine happiness they’re getting from the visitor.  Granted, there are some suspicions that are justified such as her getting that Gustav’s faking his Scandinavian background after going through his bag, and catching some strange actions from him in the dead of night.  Still, her irrationality comes clear when she comes to the ridiculous conclusion that Gustav wants to cook the Diazs into meatballs making her still open to put a damper on their fun when Gustav invites them for a meatball picnic in the woods.  It does lead to a nice revelation to flesh out Gustav’s character.  Star really was right that he had something to hide.  He’s from a small unpopular town who wants to start his own meatball business to stand out, and Gustav isn’t even his name.  Everything else Star suspected about him is proven false as everything he did the previous night was related to the making meatballs…though we never get an answer of why he measured Marco’s parents.  This is welcome depth to Gustav’s character as opposed to him just being a happy visitor, but Star STILL is inconsiderate by being happy that he's leaving in exchange for her keeping his identity secret and even goes back to enjoying the unnecessary parties for her.  She really isn’t at her most likable here, but she’s still enjoyable for how funny and over-the-top she is, even when she’s acting jealous.  That good humor, Star being right in some instances and Gustav proving to be a likable guest character save this episode from mediocrity even if the issues are hard to ignore. 7/10

The Ranking

1. School Spirit
2. Party with a Pony
3. Monster Arm
4. Star Comes to Earth
5. Matchmaker
6. The Other Exchange Student

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where see more heart to Star and Marco's friendship in "Cheer Up Star" and when they go on a shopping spree and find Ludo at "Quest Buy".

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.