"Steven the Sword Fighter" is the sixteenth episode of the first season of the American
animated television series
An animated series is a set of Animation, animated works with a common series title, usually related to one another. These episodes should typically share the same main characters, some different secondary characters and a basic theme. Series can ...
''
Steven Universe
''Steven Universe'' is an American animated series, animated television series created by Rebecca Sugar for Cartoon Network. It tells the coming-of-age story of a young boy, Steven Universe (character), Steven Universe (Zach Callison), who li ...
''. It is written by Joe Johnston and Jeff Liu.
In the United States, the episode originally aired on
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, Car ...
on April 9, 2014, the first new episode to air on the series' new Wednesday time slot. The episode was viewed by 1.098 million viewers, becoming the thirty-sixth most watched episode aired by the network for the week of April 7 to April 13, 2014.
The episode shows Pearl attempting to teach Steven the art of sword-fighting using Holo-Pearl, a holographic version of herself. However, during the lessons, Pearl gets injured and retreats into her gem to heal and make a new body to project.
Plot
While Steven (
Zach Callison
Zachry Dean Callison (born October 23, 1997) is an American actor and singer. He is primarily known as the titular voice of Cartoon Network's ''Steven Universe'', and its follow-ups '' Steven Universe: The Movie'' and ''Steven Universe Future''.
...
), Garnet (
Estelle), Amethyst (
Michaela Dietz
Michaela Dietz (born November 1, 1982) is a Korean-American voice actress whose professional career started in 2005. She voiced the character of the lost 4th dinosaur member Riff on the PBS children's television series ''Barney & Friends'', Amet ...
) and Pearl (
Deedee Magno Hall
Deedee Magno Hall is an American actress and singer. She is best known for her work in the pop group The Party, and as the voice of Pearl in the animated series ''Steven Universe'' and its epilogue series ''Steven Universe Future''.
Early life ...
) are watching the fictional Japanese movie ''Lonely Blade'', Pearl critiques the film's sword fighting techniques and offers to give Steven a proper demonstration. At her arena, Pearl summons "Holo-Pearl", a
holographic
Holography is a technique that enables a wavefront to be recorded and later re-constructed. Holography is best known as a method of generating real three-dimensional images, but it also has a wide range of other Holography#Applications, applic ...
version of herself to spar with. After Pearl wins a sparring match with Holo-Pearl, she begins to show Steven the basics of sword-fighting. However, Pearl's lessons bore Steven, making him clamor for Pearl to teach him the signature move from the ''Lonely Blade'' movie, much to Pearl's chagrin. While Pearl is distracted talking to Steven, Holo-Pearl impales Pearl with her sword, which causes Pearl to lose her physical form, leaving nothing but her gemstone. Although Steven is distraught, Garnet and Amethyst assure him that Pearl has simply retreated into her gem and will return, projecting a new body, once she has healed.
Two weeks pass, and Pearl is still healing inside her gem. Steven decides to use Holo-Pearl as a replacement for the real Pearl. However, Holo-Pearl only knows how to sword fight, seeing everything as a potential opponent. Garnet and Amethyst urge Steven to stop using it and wait for the real Pearl to come back. After Holo-Pearl cuts down the real Pearl's favorite tree, Steven becomes infuriated and tries to drive Holo-Pearl away.
Later that night, Holo-Pearl continues to ask Steven to be challenged in combat, though he repeatedly refuses. But when she destroys the television, Steven becomes fed up and fights back against Holo-Pearl, accidentally activating her "advanced" mode. After an intense fight, Steven is able to destroy Holo-Pearl permanently. Garnet and Amethyst hear the commotion and come to check on Steven; and while he is explaining what he has learned, Pearl finally regenerates with a new outfit and faces the mess left from what recently happened, while Steven happily parades around celebrating her return.
Production
The episode was written by Joe Johnston and Jeff Liu. Ki-Yong Bae, Seon-Jae Lee and Seo Whan Kim provided
animation direction, Elle Michalka served as
art director
Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film industry, film and television, the Internet, and video games.
It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and ...
, and
Ian Jones-Quartey
Ian Jones-Quartey (born June 18, 1984) is an American animator, voice actor, storyboard artist, writer, director, and producer. He is the creator of the animated series '' OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes'', based on his Cartoon Network pilot ''Lakewood ...
provided
supervising direction. A sneak peek of the episode was shared on
io9
''io9'' is part of Gizmodo media since 2015, and it began as blog launched in 2008 by Gawker Media. The site initially focused on the subjects of science fiction, fantasy, futurism, science, technology and related areas but over the years has ...
on April 7, 2014,
with Johnston first announcing the episode on the series' production blog the following day,
shortly after the series' new Wednesday
time slot
Broadcast programming is the practice of organizing or ordering (scheduling) of broadcast media shows, typically radio and television, in a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or season-long schedule.
Modern broadcasters use broadcast automation ...
was promoted on April 2.
In addition, several promotional pieces were published by him,
Rebecca Sugar
Rebecca Rea Sugar (born July 9, 1987) is an American animator and screenwriter. She is best known for being the creator of the Cartoon Network series ''Steven Universe'', making her the first non-binary person to independently create a series for ...
and color stylist Tiffany Ford, encouraging followers to watch.
A panel from the storyboard was also promoted, before various background art and animation props were released before and after its premiere;
the animation props indicate the episode was produced thirteenth in production order.
The soundtrack features the
instrumental
An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...
pieces "Dance of Swords" and "Holo Pearl" by pianist Aivi Tran and sound designer Steven Velema of the musical group
Aivi & Surasshu
Aivi & Surasshu (stylized as aivi & surasshu) are an electronic composer duo, composed of pianist Aivi Tran and electronic artist Steven "Surasshu" Velema. They are known for composing soundtracks, including that of Cartoon Network's animated ...
.
The latter track was composed to resemble the "broken facsimile" nature of the Pearl clone who bears the song's title.
The group utilized a "glitchy" piano and "an erratic collection of sounds" for it.
The tracks were released onto
SoundCloud
SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is one of the largest music streaming se ...
on April 12 and 13, respectively.
Cultural references
Gergo Vas from ''
Kotaku
''Kotaku'' is a video game website and blog that was originally launched in 2004 as part of the Gawker Media network. Notable former contributors to the site include Luke Smith, Cecilia D'Anastasio, Tim Rogers, and Jason Schreier.
History
...
'' observed various video game references during Pearl's lecture on swordfighting, including ''
Pokémon
(an abbreviation for in Japan) is a Japanese media franchise managed by The Pokémon Company, founded by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures (company), Creatures, the owners of the trademark and copyright of the franchise.
In terms of ...
'', ''
Final Fantasy VII
is a 1997 role-playing video game developed by Square for the PlayStation console. It is the seventh main installment in the ''Final Fantasy'' series. Published in Japan by Square, it was released in other regions by Sony Computer Entertai ...
'', ''
Gitaroo Man
''Gitaroo Man'' is a rhythm video game developed by iNiS and published by Koei for PlayStation 2. The game features visual production by Mitsuru Nakamura and an original soundtrack by Japanese band COIL. The game was released in Japan on June 2 ...
'' and ''
Sonic the Hedgehog
is a Japanese video game series and media franchise created by Sega. The franchise follows Sonic, an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog who battles the evil Doctor Eggman, a mad scientist. The main ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' games are platformers mo ...
''. In addition, he identified an
homage
Homage (Old English) or Hommage (French) may refer to:
History
*Homage (feudal) /ˈhɒmɪdʒ/, the medieval oath of allegiance
*Commendation ceremony, medieval homage ceremony Arts
*Homage (arts) /oʊˈmɑʒ/, an allusion or imitation by one arti ...
to ''
Revolutionary Girl Utena
is a series created by Be-Papas, an artist collective founded by Kunihiko Ikuhara. The primary entries in the series include a 1996 manga written by Chiho Saito, a 1997 anime television series directed by Ikuhara, and ''Adolescence of ...
'' upon looking at
GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987. ...
s of Pearl's sword-fighting scene with her hologram clone.
Writing for ''
Cartoon Brew
Cartoon Brew is an animation news website created by Amid Amidi and animation historian Jerry Beck that was launched in 2004.
Cartoon Dump
It also created ''Cartoon Dump'', a weekly podcast showing poorly made TV cartoons featuring ''Mystery Sc ...
'', Kendra Beltran noted that ''Lonely Blade'' imitated the style of
anime
is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...
, stating that "while the ''Universe'' team didn't overdo the animation on the anime, you could tell what they were going for without hearing the accents."
Reception
"Steven the Sword Fighter" was the first episode to premiere outside of Monday, onto its new time slot of Wednesdays, on
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, Car ...
.
Upon its premiere on April 9, 2014, the episode was seen by 1.098 million viewers.
It received a
Nielsen household rating of 0.7, and was ranked as the thirty-sixth most watched episode aired by the network for the week of April 7 to April 13, 2014.
Beltran highlighted elements of horror in the episode, noting it to come "in small spurts toward the end", while writing about the "eerie tone of the rainy night matched with the sword-wielding psychopath hologram."
She found it "weird to see Steven trying to not replace her," regarding her as the established mother figure in the series. She concluded her review stating that while "not much for
characterization
Characterization or characterisation is the representation of persons (or other beings or creatures) in narrative and dramatic works. The term character development is sometimes used as a synonym. This representation may include direct methods ...
," Amethyst and Garnet's acts of "
sitcom
A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...
comedy" were "the source of laughter this time around" for the series.
Eric Thurm of ''
The A.V. Club
''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...
'' graded the episode an A−, calling it, "in many ways, a perfect distillation of what makes ''Steven Universe'' special."
He noted Steven's attempts to learn sword-fighting as a
callback
Callback may refer to:
* Callback (comedy), a joke which refers to one previously told
* Callback (computer programming), executable code that is passed as a parameter to other code
* Callback (telecommunications), the telecommunications event tha ...
to the first episode, "Gem Glow", which aired alongside "Steven the Sword Fighter" upon its premiere. Finally, he contrasted Steven's childishness and refusal to completely learn lessons to ''
Adventure Time
''Adventure Time'' is an American fantasy animated television series created by Pendleton Ward for Cartoon Network and distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic Television. The series follows the adventures of a boy named Finn (Jeremy Shada) and ...
'' and ''
Regular Show
''Regular Show'' (known as ''Regular Show in Space'' during its eighth season) is an American animated sitcom created by J. G. Quintel for Cartoon Network. It ran from September 6, 2010, to January 16, 2017, over the course of eight seasons a ...
'', where the protagonists of each have taken steps toward maturity.
References
External links
"Steven the Sword Fighter" on
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, Car ...
*
{{Steven Universe
2014 American television episodes
Steven Universe episodes