It might be the perfect time to start watching Steven Universe

Apologies to my fellow Crystal Gems, but I suspect there are a lot of readers who may have heard that Steven Universe is one of those cartoons that adults like too and is worth checking out. (Seasons 1-4 are available on Hulu, later episodes are on the Cartoon Network app with a cable login, just be ready for a lot of toy and cereal commercials.)

SU may be singularly well-suited to the moment. There’s a ton of it (Steven Universe: Future is 14 episodes in, so there are currently 174 episodes and a movie), but it’s bite-sized, colorful, and often light in tone.

I’ve re-watched the show so much that it’s deeply meaningful to me and most of the old episodes are a real comfort. But objectively I think it’s really interesting if you like animation, graphic novels or sci-fi in general. I’m a cartoonist and I’ve written about the show, and recently I’ve coached a few friends in how and why to start watching. So here’s the best context I can give you about the show before you decide to watch or not:

- Unlike Bojack or Rick and Morty, SU is genuinely children’s entertainment. The first season especially is silly and light and focuses on a kid doing kid stuff. But I promise that it doesn’t take forever to veer into hard sci-fi and I wouldn’t recommend trying to skip through the early stuff.

- But I do recommend muting the theme song. Because the episodes are so short, and it’s a real earworm, the opening theme starts to grate very quickly, especially for roommates.

- And by short I mean that the episodes are less than 12 minutes (you may remember that two episodes fit in a half-hour block). But unlike a lot of cartoons, SU is serial, and starts to build on itself quickly.

- SU is famously woke, with unique takes on gender and sexuality, pluralism, and learning how to handle emotional trauma, among other topics.

- It flips superhero convention on its head: the badasses in the show are all female and Steven’s powers are all pink and defensive.

- Steven’s character development over the years has been on the scale of Breaking Bad, and there are reveals and surprises seasons in the making that I think pay off incredibly well. (Don’t accidentally spoiler yourself!) Steven starts as a pre-teen and in the episodes of Steven Universe: Future currently airing, his friends are thinking about college.

- Steven Sugar, the brother of creator Rebecca Sugar, is the inspiration for the title character and the lead background artist on the show. Beach City, where the show is set, is based on the Delaware beach towns they grew up going to.

- It means a lot to me that the show’s creator, Rebecca Sugar, came out of indie comics and grew up going to SPX, D.C.’s annual indie comics convention in the suburbs. The art that she and her team generate for this show, from the character designs to the backgrounds, is incredible (OK, no longer objective).

- Finally the music is delightful too, and some episodes skew towards being full-blown musicals, but not too too many.

- The crew recently announced that Steven Universe: Future will be ending March 27 with a final batch of episodes. While you could, hypothetically, binge the entire series before then, why not savor it and enjoy the luxury of not having to wait for new episodes?

Sorry (not sorry) to be so sincere, but I love this damn kids show and you might too! Please do let me know if you decide to watch it.

(images all from stevencrewniverse.tumblr.com)