In the early seasons I appreciated how Steven acted like an actual child and not just "grown-up acting perfectly logically in a child's body." It's hard to explain that part without citing every specific, but he really felt like an actual child/actual human person. Throughout the entire show, however, there were a lot of high points. The music was good, the illustration in the backgrounds and the primary style were beautiful. Yes it's still got CalArts beanmouth, but look at the way characters' hands are drawn so intricately and technically, the way Pearl moves in three dimensions when she dances or fights, the way sloppy things are sloppy and floaty things are floaty. Rose's dress, flower petals, clouds/explosions, color palettes and set designs. The worldbuilding was phenomenal and sets were awe-inspiring at times (like the sky arena or the warp pads or when Lapis raised the whole ocean into space.) Steven Universe could be fucking stupid and poorly executed at times, but it could also be beautiful.
And when you get to the writing, holy shit the worldbuilding. Not just how cool gems are as a species/concept/whatever, but the way the story unfolded over time. You didn't get fed all the info in the first season, you learned what gems were, who our gems were, why they were here, what the war was, what the extent of it was, what/who the diamonds were, all this stuff over the course of years. Characters weren't 100% Good or Bad, they could be complicated! They could fucking suck! And the way that the gems' species allowed for both crazy cool weapons and beautiful transformations and absolutely horrifying body horror and all this other stuff, it all worked together so cool! THEN the way you could watch older episodes back and realize there was foreshadowing or something that you couldn't have known but now you see all of this was planned from the very beginning, that was awesome! It gave you REASONS to go back and watch reruns and old episodes instead of just throwing them out because they're not the latest release.
A lot of the stuff Steven Universe did well is stuff I'm sure anime already does/has done, but it just wasn't done in Western media. Especially Western media aimed "at kids," which encompasses literal toddler programming up to things like Batman TAS, which I'm sure you already know about why that's stupid and frustrating and how it kneecaps animation in the West. Steven Universe had a lot of problems, and some of it's because it was Rebecca Sugar's first show and I don't think she totally knew how to lead a big project like that, and some of it's because the Network didn't like the gay shit or wanted to force everyone to use the CN app so the airings were all fucked up and things were censored/couldn't be aired overseas, bla bla bla, and then some of it's because the animation industry is all liberal college people and it's gonna have Current Year woke shit in it because obviously. But despite that, I think Steven Universe was, at its best, a really fascinating, exciting, beautiful, awesome show that had artistic merit both as "just a cartoon aimed at kids" and as something that people poured their hearts and souls into.
Then there's the shit that appeals to me personally, like the fact everybody is a mineral. I'm huge into minerals, always have been, and so when Steven Universe came out it was like YOOO THAT'S MY THING!! Still drives me insane how they pronounced Lapis Lazuli and Peridot wrong, but whatever lol. And I can't fully powerlevel this one, so forgive me for how vague this sounds, but there's a thing I experience irl and have experienced my entire life that people don't really grok, but Steven Universe had it from the jump and it hit me like a brick shithouse. I never thought any media (let alone a cartoon on national TV) would ever mention [X], but Steven Universe had it front and center!! I'm not some kind of tumblrina who insists on being represented everywhere re: [X] because that would be weird, and I'm mature and get that my [X] isn't common and it's just a me problem and that's FINE, but to actually have someone else acknowledge my [X] was shocking in a good way. I remember working retail a couple years back when SU was still airing, and this little girl looks at me, looks back at her mom, and goes "Mommy look! She's [X] just like on Steven Universe!!" That interaction stuck out to me so much, I still think about it. My [X] isn't even some kind of big politicized deal, so if I feel like this over some small inconsequential thing, I can't imagine how it must feel for someone who's a lesbian space rock or an Indian swordfighter or some other actual thing represented in Steven Universe.
