Saw 'Star vs The Forces of Evil' as a fan of Disney, which has been the case since childhood. It has been hit and miss for years, with the Disney Channel being nowhere near as good as it was (going from one of my most watched channels to only watching a small handful of shows and their films since my late teens when they started airing their sitcoms more). Saw it too as someone who really liked the concept and who has been really surprised by the quality of Disney's recent animated shows.
While preferring 'Amphibia' and especially 'Gravity Falls', 'Star vs The Forces of Evil' to me was very good and at its best made for one of Disney's best shows in a while. Can totally understand why there has been so much praise for it, while not going as far to call it one of Disney's all time best. Can also totally understand the polarisation, as it is an uneven show with a couple of major debits. It does succeed a lot more than it doesn't and the best of the many good things are outstanding.
Beginning with the faults, it is a little bit of a slow starter with it taking time for any plotting to get very far, the shorter episodes also feeling too much like filler, and some of the humour is childish and tries too hard to be weird. Very similar issues had with 'The Owl House' when it first started, though the character writing is much better and more consistent here than that show.
Also felt that while appreciating the darker and more mature tone of the later episodes and finding there to be a lot of emotion, it did feel on the rushed side towards the end and the final episode feels rushed and anti-climactic.
However, a lot is great. Really like the animation, which is very vibrant in colour (the colours literally popping out without being too dizzying), quirky in character design (Toffee's very creative character design being a standout) and rich in background detail. The character designs are also creative. The music is always dynamic with the action and full of energy and atmosphere. The theme tune is very catchy. The voice acting is excellent all round, particularly from Eden Sher, Adam McArthur and Alan Tudyk. Michael C Hall is effectively sinister too as Toffee.
The writing often is very funny and smart and mixes humour and poignant emotion very well from late Season 1 onwards. Season 2 being the best and most consistent one. Actually appreciated the darker and more mature tone of the later episodes with the themes as well as more threatening villains, as well as the much tighter pacing, and admired its addressing of relevant and challenging themes such as prejudice, personally didn't find that preachy or out of place and prejudice is something that should be talked about to children early seeing how much this has increased. The more complex plotlines from Season 2 onwards didn't come over as too complex and were intelligently and intriguingly done. The often wonderfully wild and visually creative action excites.
Loved the characters too, and these were characters that were interesting and appealed in personality (even with the flaws) almost immediately and showed significant growth the more complex the character arcs became. The Eclipsa and Ludo arcs stood out. Ludo, Tom and Toffee were particularly well written and Star was a flawed (though not overly so) but likeable and rootable character. Really liked her interactions with Marco.
Concluding, very, very good. 8/10.
