“Tiny hands. My only weakness.”

As a leader, Garnet did not learn from the best. She learned from Rose Quartz, and Rose Quartz loved secrets.

Garnet’s mysteriousness is her defining characteristic in the first season, masking her greatest strength: understanding. Time and again we see her vast capacity for accepting others and seeking clarity for everyone around her. Her aloof demeanor may seem counter to this, but beyond its mimicry of her fallen leader, I see it as a defense mechanism: she doesn’t let Steven understand her because she doesn’t understand him. I mentioned in my post on Tiger Millionaire just how small of a blip Steven’s existence is in Amethyst’s long life, and Garnet is even older; what we see as the status quo is still a brand new development for a leader that’s been a follower for millennia, and like Steven, she’s got some growing to do.

Garnet’s Universe is an adorable episode visually (thanks to the help of guest artist Eusong Lee) and is an awesome showcase for the voice cast, but it doesn’t seem all that notable to the overall series until you realize that it kicks off Garnet’s arc in Season 1B: getting Steven to understand her. Steven’s story may be whimsical, but it also reveals how he sees her. The mere concept of his needing to fill in the blanks highlights how little he knows about her, but it’s even more telling that Garnet’s greatest struggle, in Steven’s mind, is that she isn’t Strong enough to open up to him—her use of the S word conspicuously echoing what he heard from Pearl in Coach Steven.

Now, because Steven’s a kid, another major theme is jumping animal sidekicks. This is above all else a fun episode, exposing way more inner thoughts than his opinions of Garnet’s secrecy. Turns out he’s probably played Chrono Trigger and read Usagi Yojimbo, given the designs of Hopper and Hoppy (or is it Hoppy and Hopper?), and Ringo’s villainy shows that Steven might still be a little upset about Ronaldo tying him to a chair. The unnamed fox is big and mean, but secretly heroic: as voiced by Matthew Moy, it’s not hard to see traces of how Steven sees Lars.

Moy’s great, and while Zachary Steel just does his Ronaldo voice for Ringo (which, again, I find pretty annoying), it fits both characters well. Michaela Dietz and Deedee Magno Hall swap roles, with Dietz voicing the serious rabbit and Magno Hall the enthusiastic frog. Amethyst and Pearl are deep enough characters that their actors have tapped into these emotions before—Amethyst can get dour and Pearl can nerd out—but Hoppy and Hopper are something entirely new, and are portrayed as such. (They also use “hop” the way Smurfs use their species name, which is just tops hops.) Zach Callison caps the story by narrating in his actual speaking voice, reverting to Steven Mode when we get back to reality, and the contrast proves once again how talented our lead is and will continue to be as he slowly ages Steven up.

Still, the star here is Estelle. After so many episodes in the sidelines, quiet even when she’s focused on, this is the first time Garnet speaks for an extended period of time. We know Estelle can lay down the law, crack jokes, and show affection, but we’ve never seen her sustain it for a whole episode. We’ll get more performances like this as Garnet gets more open around Steven, and thank goodness for that, because Estelle’s stupidly gorgeous voice is backed by serious acting chops. Even before the fantasy that thrusts her in the lead, there’s just something special about how much love she conveys while playing with Steven.

The art style of the fantasy is cute without being cutesy, acknowledging the simplistic point of view of a child character without condescension. Movement is choppy, evoking early video game sprites, and the loose physics of Gems is exaggerated to even more cartoonish levels; Garnet is a heck of a shapeshifter when she wants to be, but I doubt her hair is Lego-style removable. Her character model at all times resembles the semi-chibi appearance that Steven Universe characters take from afar: at the risk of over-analyzing an episode where the villain gains the power to transform objects into onion rings, I take this as another sign that Steven sees her as distant.

This style is enhanced by Aivi and Surasshu’s especially chippy score and the simplistic quest plot format. Honestly, from the atmosphere (a wild forest lost in time, with an ancient temple the only sign of civilization) to the animal companions to the single-minded mission to the cartoonish goofiness to the language games and nerdy references, Garnet’s Universe feels a lot like old-school Adventure Time (despite neither storyboarder having worked on that show).

Garnet’s Universe is a straight-up shounen episode, where her goals are directly linked with getting strong in the physical way. There are still small subversions (such as Garnet not being a boy hero and the melding of typical shounen “strong” and Steven Universe’s “strong”), but there’s a reason it takes so many cues from Dragon Ball Z: Steven’s idea of an adventure is shaped by the media boys are exposed to, and boys are exposed to a lot of shows and games where characters develop by fighting, losing, training, and trying again.

That, more than the art or the new characters, is why this episode feels so different yet so familiar. Steven Universe presents a new kind of story about growing up around magic, but here, even though her emotions matter (which is hardly to say that emotions aren’t a centerpiece of shounen and its kin), everything’s settled in a fight. No twists, no attempts to make friends, just two enemies punching each other with increasingly powerful fists. (More thematic stretching: Ringo is the opposite of Garnet because giant hands are his only weakness.)

It’s only when we return to reality where the ending gets its standard wrinkle, and Garnet confirms that Steven’s version of events obviously didn’t occur. Shounen adventures are fun, but Steven’s Universe can always add just a little bit more.

Future Vision!



Garnet’s ability to grow massive fists turns out to have some basis in truth, as we’ll see in Warp Tour. Not as exaggerated, but still!

On a meta level, this is the episode that gives us the phrase “Steven Bomb.”



We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

I’ll be the first to admit that I probably over-think this one, but that’s just because I have so much fun watching it. Even if nothing I said about its depth is intentional, I just plum enjoy how goofy and fun it is; I love seeing into the headspace of a character, so despite starring “Garnet,” this is a premier Steven episode.

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