/co/ - We're about 3 months off from the 10-year annivers - Comics & Cartoons (2025)

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We're about 3 months off from the 10-year anniversary of The Return and Jailbreak, so the time is just about ripe to ask those of you who grew up with the show about when you realized how many ridiculously inappropriate anime references there were.

>>146727067
>inappropriate
Eh. Maybe Cat Fingers but it's not really inappropriate. It just has a lot of anime references but then again, what doesn't.

>>146727067
>People up here unironically grew up with the show
I need to get the fuck off this website ASAP holy FUCK

cartoons lost and everyone is a fucking weeb now so they probably don't find any of these anime reference inappropriate
>>146727108
I said that ten years ago

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>>146727108
Everyone thinks it's a joke until you get into double digits.

>>146727108
If you were in 3rd grade when it started airing, you're in college now.

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>>146727067
I've been on a trip down memory lane and looking at a bunch of old archived su threads from 10 years ago. People were so much more positive back then haha I do really miss discussing this show with you guys. Remember the drawfag Tapeworm? I completely forgot about them. Are they still around?

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>>146727108
I've been here since 2005 and got into SU during its first season before it blew up outside of /co/. There is no getting off. You are here forever.

>>146727287
I had fun when everyone just simultaneously pretended that SU had a series in the 70s. Pretty comfy threads.

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See Also

Why MILGRAM is an Undeniably Engaging Project

>>146727287
The tragedy of Zuke is something that needs to be discussed more often.
Zuke is a moral on how it really isn't just as easy as "getting a fan of the show" to get their input on the show and while their is an ongoing issue of properties being worked on by people who don't get or care about it, it's totally possible to end up also getting someone whi is TOO into a property and use their power to make all their fanfiction canon instead of making a sensible narrative.

>>146727287
I remember there being a FUCKLOAD of drawfags during season 1 and 2. Some of them ended up getting pretty big, like relatedguy (RIP) and Discount Supervillain.

>>146727329
Still hilarious how Zuke called Sucrose homophobic.

>>146727329
>>146727362
Zuke was genuinely mentally ill so I don't know how much you can take that as serious vs. her just having an episode. Like she skipped a family member's funeral to work on an episode to try and push the "message" of her ideal relationship in Peridot/Lapis. She was also abusive towards her girlfriend of the time, Tang, who she pretty expressly groomed from when she was still underage.

>>146727287
The time leading up to and just after the special was the best. Not every mystery had been revealed in the most disappointing way yet, and if you (like me) were having a shitty winter, the combo of the marathon/pre-special hype/Stronger Than You hype/Attack The Light release/general SU fan enthusiasm was a ridiculously potent balm. It was a miserable time but now I'm feeling all nostalgic because of you guys and a show I almost despise at this point.

>>146727067
>The Return and Jailbreak
Can we talk about how the showrunners baited people in with the gem stuff and just flat out gave up on every aspect of it after That Will be All?

>>146727407
SU at its peak was genuinely a lot of fun and the fandom was too, both cratered around the midpoint of season 3. But for those 2.5 seasons it was a fun time.

I miss how cozy this show was. Especially season 1 and season 2 figuring out wtf was going on.
Honestly,a flawed but over-hated series.
The backgrounds and musical score was pretty kino.

>>146727067
That build up from "comfy local town show with some magic" to "hints of darker things to come" to "it's not magic but ayy lmaos all along" and finally Jail Break was pure kino.
The problem was after all the surprisesd was gone the show never really kept up with the hype it introduced.

Jail Break should've been this big turning point where the pacing of the show shifted but it never did. The show trudged along with its easy breezy pace as if all these revalations were just nerat little moments with no real ramificationsa. I mean, they were ramifications. The characters and narrative technically reacted to them. But it felt like the show itself just moved right along not caring as we have our 70th townie episode.

>>146727406
I'm glad I'm completely out of the loop on this
Steven Universe's first few dozen episodes were one of the first things I watched along with /co/, but I kinda dropped off from there. Everything else I heard after that came secondhand and it was mostly trainwrecks

>>146727534
The later seasons aren't as well made on a technical level, but there's still plenty of notable episodes I'm sure people could recommend. For me the peak was the movie. Best sountrack, best antagonist, some of the best animation in the show. I liked Future just fine but it only having twenty episodes really fucking sucked.

>>146727468
Yep, I watched it on TV when it was on but those two episodes made me get more into the series. I guess I just recognize now if you didn't enjoy the show for what it was, and not the promises, it wasn't really the show for you. In the end it did make some mistakes that went beyond its limitations as a children's show, and even as a guy who only really liked the gem shit I know that even the most boring of S1 was simply superior to what came after, but well, at least the discussion was fun.

>>146727529
>That build up from "comfy local town show with some magic" to "hints of darker things to come" to "it's not magic but ayy lmaos all along" and finally Jail Break was pure kino.
I'll never forget seeing The Return for the first time and everyone completely losing their fucking minds when Greg started sweating, hard, desperately trying to dodge Steven's questioning, before just blurting out "THEY'RE ALIENS STEVEN! ALIENS!" I was in the sticky when that happened and it was like a collective oh fuck moment.

>>146727529
Pacing issues + it's still a "kids" cartoon so they can't really commit to a proper narrative.

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>>146727572
>>146727589
It really doesn't help the episode following Jail Break was THE ASIAN episode.

Everyone remember this meme?

>>146727589
>+ it's still a "kids" cartoon so they can't really commit to a proper narrative.
Counterpoint: this came out after Avatar the Last Airbender and anime was extremely popular and a major influence on the show itself. I don't think that weighed much on the direction they took the show at all.

>>146727623
ATLA was a different thing let's be real here. I don't think Disney did narrative heavy shows at time.
>>146727611
>Lingering shot o off-model f Pearl sensually wiping herself down
Yeah.

>>146727589
It's the weirdest thing because this was the network that brought us Toonami. Serial action cartoons weren't alien to the producers, and it should have been obvious that the fandom SU had cultivated was essentially what would have been anime fans 10-15 years earlier (both analogously and literally). You know what the number one anime fan complaint was during that time? "Are they still on Namek?" Nothing kills a show like this like time and space for the viewership to get bored and to start questioning the narrative logic. Which is what happened.

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>>146727572
https://desuarchive.org/co/chunk/70211362/ I think this should be the thread? Urgh, it's all so nostalgic. The 2010s cartoon renaissance truly was pretty great, all things considered (especially compared to now with CN dead and netflix destroying the weekly format)

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I want Garnet to be my wife who sucks the cum straight out of my cock

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>>146727569
The thing is, you could accept the gem lore wasn't a priority in the show, the show itself expressed that multiple times. But you would think they would at least do something interesting and satisfying with the other half of the plot they built

But as soon as the Zoo arc ends, the magical part of the gems practically disappear, no effort was made to expand the introduced sci-fi elements, the designs of the newer gems get increasingly worse and more basic, the "more alien" designs Rebecca was alluding to were just sentient objects like perfume and gossiping walls, homeworld itself turned out to be nothing but a couple of crappy backgrounds and a bunch of random constructs haphazardly puked onto the sets, and basically anything gem related took a sharp nose dive in quality

>>146727747
I didn't mind the more cartoony nature of Homeworld gems, but I do agree that not getting to see more of Homeworld was shitty. You know they wanted to do more, too.

>>146727488
The last really hype thing I remember was the Initial-D episode. After that, it's a blur until Homeworld shenanigans, with a few stop-overs to destroy any sympathy I might have had for Rose. Also that weird Zeta Gundam reference.

>>146727741
Yeah that's it. It's so fucking weird remembering that /co/ used to just get stickies for show finales now.

>>146727850
They mention in the thread that on the same day, Terry Pratchett died so the two stickies were his death and Steven Universe lol

>>146727850
Moderation in general is way less involved than it was back then. If it's not a major industry death they don't seem to bother now.

>>146727747
I'm sorry, what did they do with the half they did?

The entire setting was wasted. The slice of life was the most boring irrelevant filler I've ever seen. The plot was: the conflict Pink started and dropped. They didn't do anything with it. They didn't even explain why the gem empire was expanding. They are immortal hologram aliens. Expansion is non-sequiter.

You can't make a cartoon out of just references

>>146727877
To be fair, not even the distributors seem to care much about series finales. They get dropped unceremoniously after a months-long campaign by fans to get it release in ANY form because the network/streamer considers the show a loser and just wants to write it off for tax purposes and pretend it doesn't exist at all.Yes, I'm talking about Pantheon. Which is somehow on Netflix, a year after S2 finally aired, which was a year after it had been completed and then cancelled and shitcanned and we'd been told that it was never ever releasing ever.

>>146727916
They also didn't explain why the gems had a fully militarized society before the rebellion even began if they supposedly had never encountered another sapient race before. Honestly the sheer amount of time they spent on the townies just becomes more and more baffling the more you consider how much stuff the show never even tried to explain.

>>146727954
There's still dangerous organic life even if they aren't sapient, plus most quartzes are for melee combat rather than gun warfare. Tl;dr, they're computers, it's a subroutine.

>>146728025
Ok but you don't need a full military to wipe out regular animals. Unless you're Australian but they get mad when you mention that.

>>146727086
cat fingers is honestly the reason why I kept watching the show for so long
I started watching, gave it my usual "if you REALLY piss me off I'll stop, otherwise I'll give a mediocre show a few episodes to do something impressive", and the bizarre body horror akira reference made me think "OK this has some promise"

shame the final plot arc sucked big floppy donkey dick.

>>146728120
I will say that, "SHE'S GONE," gave me chills. Also, as a monster-tf-fantasizer, I wish Corrupted Steven had been... more. More screentime, become more of a part of Steven's sense of self, etc.

>>146727067
>how many ridiculously inappropriate anime references there were
Inappropriate? Hardly.
Lazy. Yes.
I wouldn't have much of an issue with it if they didn't over rely on anime references for pivotal characterization moments.

>>146727329
>>146727406
There was really drama every other week with this fandom. I'm kind of glad show crews try to interact less with fans these days.

>>146728706
>There was really drama every other week with this fandom. I'm kind of glad show crews try to interact less with fans these days.
I feel like we may see a re-rise in it with bluesky if it takes over the same niche that 2010s tumblr had.

>>146728729
I think fandom culture has shifted too much. I think it would also a require a resurgence in western animation that people care about.