Steven U Niverse - TV Tropes

I went into Steven Universe having heard nothing but praise for it, and ordinarily that would induce Hype Aversion but people I like and respect also praised it, its fans had a lot of crossover with things I'm a fan of, people with similar tastes to me liked it, and the bits I heard made it sound like something I should love. So instead I went in expecting and wanting to like it.

Which is why I'm so sad to say that I absolutely hated everything about it.

I wish there were just a few key factors to my dislike, but there wasn't just one aspect that put me off that I can easily explain whenever someone asks me - it just...wasn't...good. I don't have room for a detailed dissection of every small-to-medium problem that slowly piled up into a greater mess, so I'll try to cover the very basics (oh, and I've seen every episode, so the "it gets better!" that's the knee-jerk response to any criticism won't cut it here):

The pacing is abysmal to the point of frequently managing the miraculous feat of making eps feel too long and too short at the same time. Apparently this is because the show is supposed to be "character-focused", but all the characters only have three traits between them: boring, obnoxious, and stupid. No matter how many times it tries to present them as lovable, I don't want to watch the adventures of a blithering idiot and 3 creepy abusive psychos. If there's a character I don't want to strangle, it's only because they're too flat to justify any strong feelings.

Some claim the show has great character development, which is frankly the biggest load of shit I ever heard. Sometimes they act completely different from one ep to the next for no good reason (you'll notice consistency is never a strong suit), but they never "develop". As soon as next ep roles around they're stuck back in their 1-dimensional ruts no matter what happened previously.

The setting and world-building also suck. Gem abilities (including whatever the plot needs them to pull out of nowhere and then forget as soon as the credits roll) make no sense and they constantly contradict themselves on their workings and properties (coughfusioncough), always breaking any morals they were trying to teach using any sort of supernatural context wide open. There are story elements that could be used to make something interesting if they DID SOMETHING with them, but here are inevitably crudely shoved aside to make room for vapid filler.

Every time we see a character start to exhibit a mildly interesting new trait, every time the plot vaguely wanders in the direction of happening, they mash the reset button like they made a horrible mistake that must be fixed by applying dull filler. I tried to summarize the plot of season 1 in 2 sentences, and realized I was writing a premise, not a plot. Many great series don't last close to 75 episodes, we're past that mark and barely anything has actually HAPPENED.

Sorry to disappoint, but I don't believe in Steven.