Star vs. The Forces of Evil - a recommendation
Ohmygod you guys, I threw a party on my very comfy couch yesterday because LIFE IS GOOD AND WONDERFUL ON A SATURDAY EVENING.
pinku and I have been watching "Star vs. The Forces of Evil" a magical girl-cartoon from Disney XD. The series premiered in 2015 and although I had heard of it around then, I didn't really follow it as I found the main character's design - Star Butterfly, the magical princess from the planet of Mewnie - to be a bit lazy (a white, blonde haired blue eyed princess) but later, after seeing a hundred people cosplaying the main characters, I got curious and binge-watched the first season which was super enjoyable. The animation is great, the humour and dialogue are wonderfully quirky and deadpan and the characters are beautifully nuanced - although some of those nuances only really start to shine in the second season.
Ludo, the main antagonist, for example only serves as a monster-of-the-week-provider in the first season but the second season starts off with an entire eerie, supernatural-horror-survival themed episode dedicated to him ("Ludo in the Wild", Season 2, Episode 1b). This was a super creepy episode (somebody frigging died!) and the voice actor - as Ludo is the only important speaking role - did an incredible job, whining, blabbering, shouting and crying in that nerve-grating tone of voice of Ludo's until you really want his suffering to end just so he will shut up.
The second season does away with a lot of what I didn't like very much in the first one.
All of the highschool clichés - like getting invited to the most popular girl's sixteenth birthday party - that are rehashed in every damn cartoon ever are reduced as well as Star's boy-craziness which was amped up and mentioned a lot in the first season (like Mabel's in "Gravity Falls") for example. They try to lampshade it in the episode "Mewberty" where her obsession with boys leads to her turning into a giant butterfly kidnapping boys and imprisoning them (it's truly a funny episode) but I could have done without that in the first place.
The second season tones it down by a large margin, thankfully, focussing more on Marco and his crush on skater girl Jackie (WHO IS THE BEST SUPPORTING CHARACTER OH MY GOD I AM SO INTO JACKIE'S CHARACTERIZATION THEY DID SO RIGHT BY HER) which is still awkward but also handled very beautifully. The "will they, won't they" between those two isn't dragged out that much instead leaving time for them to enjoy the beginnings of their relationship and sharing multiple kisses which was absolutely beautiful and stunning. Jackie is never shown to be jealous of Star's and Marco's relationship, instead embracing Star as his best friend and spending time with both of them. There is of course a love triangle with Star later because we can't have nice things urrggggh, but still, at the end of the second season Jackie is best and Star is best and nobody is pitched against each other thanks Jesus.
Marco as well is of course a very well rounded character: he is a straight-A-student and although he does karate he is also a bit of a scaredy-cat, and a very cleanly and neat person in general.
He expresses an interest in interior design and is very much into boyband "Love Sentences" and never. ever. is he mocked for his interest in that. Which is frigging beautiful. In episode "St. Olga's Reform School for Wayward Princesses" Marco and Star infiltrate an evil school and rescue Star's best friend Ponyhead and Star magics a dress for Princess Marco and although he says "Couldn't you have transformed me into a guard?" at the start of their adventure, he never mocks the dress again instead asking if he gets to keep it!
He later has to put on the dress again in front of his parents for plot reasons and there is not a single weird joke about him in the dress! He even keeps it on for a game night with his father and mother and I went bonkers BECAUSE THIS WAS SUCH A LOVELY AND WELL USED OPPORTUNITY. Marco is neither a wuzz nor a super masculine jock, he is a normal well mannered boy who does karate and is respectful of the women he interacts with and I AM SO HAPPY ABOUT HIS PORTRAYAL REALLY. AHHH.
OkAY BUT THE PART THAT - APART FROM ALL THESE WONDERFUL ELEMENTS - REALLY MADE ME HAPPY WAS THIS SCENE: Jackie, Star and Marco go to a concert of aforementioned boyband Love Sentence together and... just look for yourself.
THERE ARE GAY AND LESBIANS COUPLES KISSING ON SCREEN IN A DISNEY CARTOON AND IT ISN'T PLAYED FOR LAUGHS (yeah yeah the love triangle I know buT LET'S FOCUS ON THE GOOD SHIT.
AH. I WAS SCREAMING SO MUCH WHEN WE SAW THAT AND I GOT SO HAPPY THIS WAS AMAZING THANK YOU SO MUCH.
I SHOULD NOT BE THIS HAPPY THIS SHOULD BE NORMAL BUT LET'S NOT KID OURSELVES, IT IS NOT YET, SO DAAAAAAAAMN. GOOD SHOW.
SO IF YOU WANT A GOOD CARTOON WITH A GOOD MESSAGE AND WONDERFUL CHARACTERS AND CUTE DESIGNS:
WATCH STAR VS. THE FORCES OF EVIL. (at least the first two seasons I hope the third one isn't terrible AHAHAHAH).
IT IS GOOD.
pinku and I have been watching "Star vs. The Forces of Evil" a magical girl-cartoon from Disney XD. The series premiered in 2015 and although I had heard of it around then, I didn't really follow it as I found the main character's design - Star Butterfly, the magical princess from the planet of Mewnie - to be a bit lazy (a white, blonde haired blue eyed princess) but later, after seeing a hundred people cosplaying the main characters, I got curious and binge-watched the first season which was super enjoyable. The animation is great, the humour and dialogue are wonderfully quirky and deadpan and the characters are beautifully nuanced - although some of those nuances only really start to shine in the second season.
Click to viewLudo, the main antagonist, for example only serves as a monster-of-the-week-provider in the first season but the second season starts off with an entire eerie, supernatural-horror-survival themed episode dedicated to him ("Ludo in the Wild", Season 2, Episode 1b). This was a super creepy episode (somebody frigging died!) and the voice actor - as Ludo is the only important speaking role - did an incredible job, whining, blabbering, shouting and crying in that nerve-grating tone of voice of Ludo's until you really want his suffering to end just so he will shut up.
The second season does away with a lot of what I didn't like very much in the first one.
All of the highschool clichés - like getting invited to the most popular girl's sixteenth birthday party - that are rehashed in every damn cartoon ever are reduced as well as Star's boy-craziness which was amped up and mentioned a lot in the first season (like Mabel's in "Gravity Falls") for example. They try to lampshade it in the episode "Mewberty" where her obsession with boys leads to her turning into a giant butterfly kidnapping boys and imprisoning them (it's truly a funny episode) but I could have done without that in the first place.
The second season tones it down by a large margin, thankfully, focussing more on Marco and his crush on skater girl Jackie (WHO IS THE BEST SUPPORTING CHARACTER OH MY GOD I AM SO INTO JACKIE'S CHARACTERIZATION THEY DID SO RIGHT BY HER) which is still awkward but also handled very beautifully. The "will they, won't they" between those two isn't dragged out that much instead leaving time for them to enjoy the beginnings of their relationship and sharing multiple kisses which was absolutely beautiful and stunning. Jackie is never shown to be jealous of Star's and Marco's relationship, instead embracing Star as his best friend and spending time with both of them. There is of course a love triangle with Star later because we can't have nice things urrggggh, but still, at the end of the second season Jackie is best and Star is best and nobody is pitched against each other thanks Jesus.
Marco as well is of course a very well rounded character: he is a straight-A-student and although he does karate he is also a bit of a scaredy-cat, and a very cleanly and neat person in general.
He expresses an interest in interior design and is very much into boyband "Love Sentences" and never. ever. is he mocked for his interest in that. Which is frigging beautiful. In episode "St. Olga's Reform School for Wayward Princesses" Marco and Star infiltrate an evil school and rescue Star's best friend Ponyhead and Star magics a dress for Princess Marco and although he says "Couldn't you have transformed me into a guard?" at the start of their adventure, he never mocks the dress again instead asking if he gets to keep it!
He later has to put on the dress again in front of his parents for plot reasons and there is not a single weird joke about him in the dress! He even keeps it on for a game night with his father and mother and I went bonkers BECAUSE THIS WAS SUCH A LOVELY AND WELL USED OPPORTUNITY. Marco is neither a wuzz nor a super masculine jock, he is a normal well mannered boy who does karate and is respectful of the women he interacts with and I AM SO HAPPY ABOUT HIS PORTRAYAL REALLY. AHHH.
OkAY BUT THE PART THAT - APART FROM ALL THESE WONDERFUL ELEMENTS - REALLY MADE ME HAPPY WAS THIS SCENE: Jackie, Star and Marco go to a concert of aforementioned boyband Love Sentence together and... just look for yourself.
THERE ARE GAY AND LESBIANS COUPLES KISSING ON SCREEN IN A DISNEY CARTOON AND IT ISN'T PLAYED FOR LAUGHS (yeah yeah the love triangle I know buT LET'S FOCUS ON THE GOOD SHIT.
AH. I WAS SCREAMING SO MUCH WHEN WE SAW THAT AND I GOT SO HAPPY THIS WAS AMAZING THANK YOU SO MUCH.
I SHOULD NOT BE THIS HAPPY THIS SHOULD BE NORMAL BUT LET'S NOT KID OURSELVES, IT IS NOT YET, SO DAAAAAAAAMN. GOOD SHOW.
SO IF YOU WANT A GOOD CARTOON WITH A GOOD MESSAGE AND WONDERFUL CHARACTERS AND CUTE DESIGNS:
WATCH STAR VS. THE FORCES OF EVIL. (at least the first two seasons I hope the third one isn't terrible AHAHAHAH).
IT IS GOOD.