Original airdate: November 13th, 2014
Production code: 1026-036
After Garnet returns home with a bubbled gem, Steven imagines how she got it. Steven, it turns out, is very fond of shonen anime tropes.
In Steven's story, Garnet goes to train with her secret friends, Hopper and Hoppy (a frog and a rabbit respectively). She is eventually confronted by Ringo, the guardian of the Sacred Magic Gem of Ultimate Power, who was defeated and sent running by an anthropomorphic fox, who took over the shrine. Garnet goes to defeat the foxman, and does- but it turns out that he's the real guardian of the Gem of Ultimate Power. Ringo was just tricking Garnet in order to steal the gem himself. Which he does, putting it in his ring-shaped bun to become Ultimate Ringo. Garnet escapes and starts training to take him on.
When she eventually does, she is overpowered at first. However, you know that shonen trope where characters wear weighted clothing and then take it off for a sudden increase in power? Yeah, it's like that, but with her afro instead of clothing. The newly bald Garnet performs much better against Ultimate Ringo, but is eventually defeated- until Ringo decides to Kick the Dog by turning her picture of Steven into an onion ring and eating it. Garnet is so furious that her power level skyrockets (and her afro grows back bigger than ever) and she is finally able to defeat Ultimate Ringo and take the Gem of Ultimate Power from him.
She then bubbles the gem and returns to the temple, which is how she got to where she was in the beginning of the epsiode. Okay, that wasn't actually what Garnet did with her day, but let's just pretend it was, shall we?
Tropes:
- Accidental Misnaming: At one point, Garnet gets Hoppy and Hopper's names mixed up.
- Affectionate Parody: Of shonen anime, particularly Dragon Ball. The art style and premise also recall games such as Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda.
- Amplifier Artifact: The Sacred Magic Gem of Ultimate Power.
- And You Were There: The character Ringo in Steven's fantasy is clearly based on Ronaldo; given he ends up being Evil All Along, this may have been inspired by Ronaldo kidnapping Steven in "Keep Beach City Weird". The others characters featured also share voices with Steven's friendsspecifically , though they don't bear any obvious resemblance in appearance or personality.
- Animation Bump: Though most of the animation is deliberately more choppy than usual, there are a few scenes that are suddenly far more detailed, including this sequence inspired by
◊ Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. - Anime Hair: Ringo has a ring-shaped bun on top of his head.
- Animesque: Steven's story. Sweat drops, luminescent blushes, Power Levels, the works.
- Art Shift: Steven's story is in the form of an anime pastiche, with some video game tropes thrown in for good measure.
- Attack Hello: Hoppy is introduced into the story attacking Garnet. Garnet just catches Hoppy's sword with her gauntlets.
- Bilingual Bonus: After Garnet finishes training, Korean text translating to "beautiful woman" pops up next to her.
- Cliché Storm: Steven tries to guess what Garnet did with her day, and Steven being Steven, the story contains a lot of anime cliches and video game references. One example is using weights and taking them off to increase strength.
- A Day in the Limelight: A story centered on Garnet via Fantasy Sequence.
- The End: There's no Iris Out, just a cut to a black screen with "The End" written in the corner.
- Evil All Along: Ringo said he was the temple guardian that kicked out of his home by the fox, but the fox was the actual guardian and Ringo was after the jewel.
- Expressive Mask: In Steven's story, Garnet's shades flex and curve to match her expression.
- Expy: Hopper bears a resemblance to Chrono Trigger's Frog, and Hoppy looks almost exactly like Miyamoto Usagi.
- Fanservice: A fair amount of attention is given to Garnet training in a midriff-baring tank top.
- Fantasy Sequence: The plot is kicked off when Steven sees that Garnet has brought in a bubbled gem, asking her about her day. Garnet instead asks what he thinks happened, resulting in "Garnet's Universe".
- Forced Transformation: The fox guardian is turned into an onion ring. He gets turned back at the end.
- Foreshadowing:
- When Garnet jumps out of the portal in Steven's story, her afro gets lopsided before she readjusts it. During the final battle, it's revealed that her afro is removable.
- When Garnet says that Foxman's last beatdown on her spoiled her appetite, he gets enraged, seemingly believing he has great cooking skills. While it was already shown a bit in "Island Adventure", "The Good Lars" shows that Lars is an amazing cook, making an ube roll so good that Steven and Sadie eat it in seconds.
- A subtle one, but Garnet mentions that Steven isn't ready to meet Hopper and Hoppy, and Hopper only has one eye. This will become relevant in near future episodes.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: Most of the episode is a Fantasy Sequence parody of shonen anime and video games staring Garnet and a bunch of characters Steven made up.
- Funny Afro: Garnet's afro is weighted and removable, then it comes back even bigger for her Super Mode.
- Hammerspace Hair: Garnet pulls a water bottle out of her afro.
- Homage: Garnet's final move is an homage to the Giga Drill Break from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, including Garnet's gauntlets suddenly becoming giant with a sketchy and heavily shaded closeup of her face.
- Insistent Terminology: Ringo insists on being called Ultimate Ringo once he gains the Sacred Magic Gem of Ultimate Power.
- Limited Animation: Once Steven's story kicks in, the animation becomes choppier for stylistic reasons.
- Meditating Under a Waterfall: Garnet, Hoppy and Hopper meditate under a water as preparation for Garnet's training. Ringo mistakes it for a Waterfall Shower.
- The Noseless: Garnet doesn't have a nose in Steven's story.
- Power Limiter: Garnet makes her gauntlets substantially bigger and heavier for training. Her hair is also revealed to be weighted for similar reasons.
- Power Makes Your Hair Grow: Spoofed when Garnet's cubic afro grows bigger and cubier when she powers up for an attack. This in spite of apparently being a helmet-like wig that serves as training weights.
- Precious Photo: In the fantasy, Garnet treasures a photo of her with Steven. Ringo destroying it (by turning it into an onion ring and eating it) presses her Berserk Button.
- Punch Catch: Garnet catchs the Foxman's in the palm of her hand, which is impressive since his fist is as big as her entire body and she didn't even wear her gauntlets.
- Readings Are Off the Scale: Hoppy declares that the Foxman's power is off the charts when the device plainly reads "70,000". During Garnet's training montage, when Garnet's power builds somewhere past 10,000, it becomes "infinity", declares that "Numbers have no meaning!" and the device breaks.
- Readings Blew Up the Scale: Hopper's power scanner explodes when Garnet removes her afro. Hilariously, it then reassembles itself when she uses her Super Mode only to blow up again when she uses another attack.
- Riddle for the Ages: Garnet says her day wasn't anything like what Steven imagined, and the episode ends without her elaborating.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Steven asks Garnet if his story was accurate. Garnet humors him at first, then confirms that it wasn't.
- Shout-Out:
- Hopper's power scanner resembles a Wii U GamePad.
- During Garnet's training scene, her power level keeps increasing, Hopper reads them out loud, skipping over 9,000 in the process.
- Hoppy's design is based on Miyamoto Usagi.
- Hopper's design resembles that of Frog.
- Ringo's Transformation Sequence is an obvious reference to Sailor Moon.
- The website that the fox is browsing on his phone appears to be Tumblr.
- The mountains are round and have faces just like the one from the Super Mario Bros. franchise.
- The Cartoon Bombs from the beginning have faces on them that bear a passing resemblance to "Zeeky H. Bomb" from The Demented Cartoon Movie.
- Smurfing: Hoppy and Hopper like to insert the word "hop" into their sentences.
- Super-Deformed: The overall style of Steven's story.
- Super Mode: In a parody of Dragon Ball Z, Garnet's final form has her grow a massive afro.
- This Is Unforgivable!: When Ringo destroys Garnet's Precious Photo of Steven, she goes absolutely ballistic on him, evidently deciding that this was the final nail in his coffin.
- Time to Unlock More True Potential: Spoofed when Garnet, in order to defeat a powerful foe, went through a Training from Hell, got rid of her super-heavy hair and went through an Unstoppable Rage after Ultimate Ringo destroyed her photo of Steven, which caused the power calculator to explode.Ultimate Ringo: This is getting ridiculous!
- Title Drop: "Garnet's Universe" is dropped as part of Steven's Fantasy Sequence, stylized as the title of a show written by Steven.
- Training Montage: Garnet goes through a montage of training with her gauntlets as weights to beat the fox.
- Transformation Sequence: Ringo gets a magical girl-ish transformation sequence when he becomes Ultimate Ringo.
- Water Wake-up: Garnet brings Ringo back to consciousness by spitting water into his face and then slapping him a few times.
- You Monster!: Hopper and Hoppy call Ringo when he says he might destroy the whole world just For the Evulz.
