I'm told by everyone that likes this show that it's terrible for a stupidly long time before it starts "getting good"...

I'm told by everyone that likes this show that it's terrible for a stupidly long time before it starts "getting good". Why did it survive that long if it was bad? I looked at comments on the pilot and a bunch of them say it's terrible.

maybe because its kind of filler before it gets to the main stories that people expect to see?

But Season 1 is good through pretty much the entire thing.

It corrected itself in season 1 to do a better mix of filler and story. They had time since they were signed to do a complete season before having to prove themselves worthy of it.

Oh the Pilot's garbage really. The show itself starts out fine, with a decent episode 1 and a phenomenal episode 2. There are just a bunch of bad eggs, really, rather than an actual trend in quality.

You're only told that by idiots.
The first 50 or so episodes are good.

Then Steven slowly goes from a goofy adventure lad to a little girly faggot permanently. They stop fighting monsters and going to cool temples/locations too. Background quality and sound design declined severely.

Note, however, that there the issue of these 'bad eggs' becoming frustratingly common for certain periods of time.

>little girly faggot
It's almost like Steven's whole existence is an excuse to have a feminist propaganda show on cartoon Network

>Lets cancel this really shitty show with LGBT themes and other clear as day political ideologies.
>What could go wrong?

It wasn't that it eventually got good, the writer was just too much of an untalented cunt to actually establish any of her god damn characters in a reasonable amount of time.
Until then the show was a bunch of cardboard cutouts and and overweight special needs child.

Because a lot of people picked the show up because of the ending of s1 which was a lot more action and plot heavy than earlier episodes and had continuity. Most long term fans of the show picked up the show during s2 which had a lot of development and is also when the show's popularity snowballed. Some longer term fans didnt like the direction of the development and a lot of people didnt like s3 because not a lot happened in terms of how they expected the plot to progress. A lot of people claim this and s4 to have a lot filler despite liking the s1, though some of the writing back then was better. As a result theres not a very good consensus among fans to when the show is good.

The funny part is that Steven was setup to go for a deconstruction of typical tropes. He could have passive shield/healing powers, or solve his problems without violence, and still be distinctly masculine. Your typical coming of age shit where he has to assume responsibility of the people under his protection.

But then their own SJW writers prove themselves wrong. Males must be aggressive and violent, if you're not then you must be a stunted crossdressing poof. The truth is the truth I guess.

But I thought most of us agreed that the show peaked in Season 1 and it's been going downhilll ever since

This is a good post and is pretty accurate in my opinion.

I liked it initially because I had really low expectations, and was surprised that the writers actually intended to pursue some pretty broad character arcs. Unfortunately, due to a combination of writer creep and rather terrible management from CN, the plot just sort of continually balloons and only releases new episodes in small spurts every few months.

I think, for me, the lowest point of the series was the 'mystery girl' arc; where they attempt to 'resolve' Pearl's attachment to Rose by just having her immediately fall for someone who looks similar. Lazy fan service masquerading as writing.

Yeah; its sort of a case where the writers sunk into the mud of a all-too-vocal fanbase. The show might be able to address topics of masculinity and femininity better if it bothered to introduce a more proactive foil to Steven; or if they bothered to counterpoint the 'positive, sensitive' idea of masculinity, with an equally 'positive, traditional' portrayal, and showed the advantages and limitations of each.

But then I remind myself that this is a cartoon show, and that we can only really expect impressive, well executed plots in like 2% of shit that gets aired.

S1 remains my favorite to this day

Season 1 of Steven Universe is fucking great, the fanbase really only cares about LGBT stuff and """lore""" so they prefer later seasons.

"Steven and the Stevens" may go down as one of the greatest filler episodes ever next to that DBZ driving episode.

man the pilot designs were so much cooler.
the show started off really good but declined and floundered over time
steven's VA stayed the same but he started doing a different voice i think around s2 that was higher pitched and clearer. that really bothered me.
the episodes used to all be crazy adventures (go watch the one where steven gets the time travel orb and has to experience full on ego death and let himself and an infinite amount of his other selves be destroyed) and back when the episodes were adventure focused they would go to really cool locations which would let their background artists flex. the scenery used to be a big deal but now thats not even really part of the show. like they draw some shapes and slap some colors down and call it a day. it used to be focused on art and atmosphere a lot more but then shifted to character development, but the writers were hacks and made the characters "develop" into really shitty parodies of themselves, so now all that's left is a less focused, less artistic character drama where all the characters get worse per episode (except lars who died and became ascended lars and is cool now)

i think the feminism / tumblr pandering criticism it gets is mostly undeserved, the show really doesn't have that much to do with those themes. like really the extent of it is some gay relationships on screen, and pointing out that some relationship dynamics are harmful. i don't have any numbers but that probably makes up less than a third of the show

steven and the stevens is GOAT

>steven and the stevens is GOAT
Meh. their first album was pretty good, but things changed when Steven got together with Connie. Brought the band down imo

It survived because it's in touch with the current generation and its sensibilities. Everyone has learned at this point that this generation cares a whole lot about their own opinions, so much that they're willing to ignore every other thing - like quality - if they can share it on social media and feel good about it.

yeah, i completely agree both connie and steven were better before they started hooking up but that wasn't the real steven. the OG steven died after writing the lesser known single "arrivederci"

I wish there were some gems with male voice actors. I had hopes for Topaz and while the girl voice was funny it had me a little dissapointed.

> lot of people picked the show up because of the ending of s1

Would they have still come if ruby and sapphire weren't in/garnet wasn't a fusion?

You know? I don't think so. Or rather, I don't think they would have come if Ruby and Sapphire weren't in love.

I do believe that people like it because of its gender fluidity, if that's the right term (?). I mean you have rock lesbians and Stevonnie, so maybe people flock to it because of that. Also when is that game coming out, dammit

No. The show is garbage in general. Anyone who likes any part of it is fucking retarded and should kill themselves.

because it's not actually good, it just wears people down until they are brainwashed into thinking it is. The reason it survived is because the few lesbians who watched it would have thrown a bitch fit if it had been cancelled

I was more interested in the show when it was a monster of the week kind of set up. I don't even know what it's supposed to be now.

>I'm told by everyone
>a bunch of them say
oh good another zero-effort bait thread on Sup Forums, if I'm not on tomorrow congratulations in advance on your 400+ replies

What's double sad is that anime pulls off the passive strat male character very well. There are tons of series where the girls are the powerhouses and their male friend provides support power or even just acts as a coordinator, and still feels just as useful as the tank.

Dunno if it has to do with cultural differences and political climates affecting characters or not because I'd like to think that Japan would have way more shit seeped into their work than America would, yet it doesn't really happen.

>the show really doesn't have that much to do with those themes.
Yeah, but a lot of the crew, including the creator herself, talk heavily about those themes being major parts of the show, so it's not out there for people to think why the show would be "all about that".

That's like falling for the meme that Legend of Korra was a progressive show with lesbians. It's just the last minute of the finale, and it's not even explicitly shown that they get together

Except it's not because it's been stated since episode 1 what Sugar's intentions were with the show and many episodes do support that. It's not 100% of the show, but it is a major recurring theme.

Confirmed that you didn't watch it then

Do you watch the show motherfucker? A large portion of the show is about acceptance, fighting to be who you are and love coming in all shapes and sizes, all while having a lot of gay character representation to fill the gap for the lack of it in many Sup Forums works that Sugar admits felt empty when she was growing up.

But the show gets worse over time.

I was one of those shitters that used to say "wade through the first few episodes, it gets gud after a certain point guys :^)" But now I'd give anything to get goofy original Steven back. And cool Garnet. God season 4 was just so fucking bad.

This show has a weird problem where it takes too long to get to shit, and then breezes through said shit so quickly when it DOES get to it, that it all feels insignificant. We just got to FUCKING HOMEWORLD!!!! It should be endgame level stuff and it just feels so blasé somehow.

Adventure Time pulled up it's big boy pants after a crummy season 4 too so I'm not ready to write off SU yet, but, damn. Feels bad man. I'll never forget the summer I marathoned everything up to Chille Tid (the newest episode at that point). It'd help a lot if they'd just let Steven age up already so his VA can stop doing that shitty fake voice. I'm ready for Steven Universe Z now that the original charm is all gone.

It starts out fine but a little boring, but it slowly burns up to something really good. and then that sub-story ends and it gets boring again, then it grows to another great climax, then it gets boring again.

Repeat that formula X infinity, and you have Steven Universe.

I like you. I share most of your sentiments.