Update: "A Second Opinion" and Abroad

Well, it's finally my summer, and you know what that means: the guy that writes things that you read every once in a while's gonna write something you'll never read. At the very least, this is sort of relevant to the aim of the blog: diversifying.

Cartoon Splurge: Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Season 1

Hey. If you're new here, let me do a quick introduction: I'm Matt, and I write bits of analysis that are so pedantic that all fun is lost. (Riveting, I know.) I'm not a massive cartoon fan, though I'm currently infatuated with The Amazing World of Gumball; it is for that reason that I'm doing this right now, indebted to Mr. Anonim. So, uh... hello. Hope everybody's doing okay.

As you probably know, his grand idea was to hop between communities and spread word of other cartoons to establish a sort of "Community Watching" and give some shows some new fans. Since so few people seemed to be playing along with it, I decided I had nothing to lose and that I was diving straight in. Though he planned out a few episodes of Star vs. the Forces of Evil, I saw the first episode, recognized its potential, and decided to stick around for the whole first season. That's what this is: a so-called "Cartoon Splurge," where I go all in on a cartoon and review a season of it at a time. At the very least, I can offer an outsider's opinion, and that's good, right?

Oh, and as a disclaimer: I apologize for any anachronisms or technically incorrect assumptions: I haven't seen Season 2 and know basically nothing about it, so my views of the show might be slightly incorrect as I lack the complete image.

First things first, though: one of the things that Anonim repeatedly tried to warn me of was that Star was an insanely plot-heavy cartoon, but it's really not, at least not yet. (I've endured HIMYM - this isn't that, thankfully.) Yes, there's some chronology to it all, but it's still light. You can tell that the show is slowly building up, what with Toffee and the Headmistress (?) of the Reform School, but the show doesn't ever let that detract from simple character interplay and quirky ideas. It's a lot like Wander Over Yonder's approach in Season 2, where four, plot-heavy, 22-minute episodes were punctuated by interludes of 12, lighter, 11-minute ones; through it, the story could build up without compromising on any light fun. For Season 1, at least, Star seems to be following a similar course of action. (The two's similarities may or may not be intentional as per Craig McCracken's post discussing Disney's more rigid views towards serialization.)