She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
Noelle Stevenson's five season Netflix run: starts as a toy commercial rewrite, ends as a war epic about propaganda and defection. The best adapted villain romance in animation.
Cast & Key People
Our Review
Everyone expected a woke rewrite of a toy commercial and got one of the sharpest war serials of the streaming era. Noelle Stevenson starts Adora’s defection from the Horde as episode one and then lets the consequences compound for five seasons, friendship, propaganda, genocide, the enemy’s civilians, until the final season plays like a fantasy epic with no punchlines.
It is also the best Catra and Adora story any adaptation ever told, because it makes the romance and the war the same argument. The animation budget visibly climbs each season, and the later episodes go full cinematic. Netflix canceled it at the story’s natural ending, which by 2020s standards counts as a miracle.
All five seasons on Netflix. If your only She-Ra is the 1985 show, watch both and argue about which Horde is scarier. 8 out of 10.
