Arcade Mania

Arcade Mania is the eleventh episode of Steven Universe in Season 1. It premiered on February 17, 2014.

Synopsis
When Steven takes the Crystal Gems to Funland Arcade, Garnet is enticed by video games.

Plot
The Gems are in a cave looking for a tentacled beast that Garnet easily destroys. She collects its core and declares the threat over even though several cone-shaped parasites escape into the ground.

To celebrate their victory Steven takes them to the Funland Arcade. Pearl plays a driving game but is bad at it because she's such a cautious driver. Amethyst plays skee ball and starts to cheat when she finds out you can win prizes. Garnet breaks several machines when she misunderstands Steven's instructions. She becomes entranced with a rhythm game called Meat Beat Mania, and doesn't hear Steven when he collects the others to leave when Mr. Smiley finds out someone's been breaking the games.

In the morning Steven's out looking for coins with a metal detector when the parasites from the day before show up and attack him. He finds Amethyst and Pearl but they don't know what to do without Garnet's leadership and she hasn't been seen since yesterday. Steven runs back to the arcade and finds Garnet still playing Meat Beat Mania. She doesn't listen when he tries to tell her about the danger outside, and he takes off her sunglasses revealing she has a third eye that allows her to easily keep up with the rhythm.

Steven tries to beat Garnet at the game so she'll snap out of it, but he loses multiple times. Even unplugging the game is useless as Garnet uses her gem energy to restart it. He finally brings Garnet back to normal by smashing the screen. She goes to help the Gems fight, but Steven's caught by Mr. Smiley and forced to work off the cost of the damaged games while his friends fight the monsters.

Characters

 * Steven
 * Garnet
 * Pearl
 * Amethyst
 * Onion
 * Mr. Smiley

Songs

 * Funland Arcade (song)
 * Road Killer (song)
 * Teens of Rage (song)
 * Meat Beat Mania: Over Easy
 * Meat Beat Mania: FLAMBÉE!

Trivia

 * It is revealed that Pearl knows how to drive, despite not owning a vehicle or needing one.
 * In the episode, Garnet's shades are taken off by Steven for the first time which reveals that she has a third eye, giving her amazing hand-eye coordination and good reflexes.
 * In the episode it reveals Garnet has heterochromia, which means all three of her eyes are a different color.
 * The Gems don't know how to play video games the right way, except for Garnet later in the episode.


 * Teens of Rage is a tribute to an old Sega Genesis Game called Streets of Rage. Note that they have a slight reference to the character Skate (fights with rollerblades) as a Head with a cap on a skateboard. The game was made by a company called Carpcom, which is a parody of the real game company named Capcom.
 * Onion appears to be the ticket master. He wins a moped from the arcade ticket counter.
 * He only seems to have many tickets by opening the machines to get it as seen in the episode "So Many Birthdays."
 * In some shots, there is an arcade game named "Lakewood Plaza Turbo", the title of Ian Jones-Quartey's failed pilot for Cartoon Network.
 * It is revealed that Garnet had the power to turn the game on without using the power plug when Steven pulled it out.