In the mysterious future, crystalline organisms called Gems inhabit a world that has been destroyed by six meteors. Each Gem is assigned a role in order to fight against the Lunarians, a species who attacks them in order to shatter their bodies and use them as decorations. Phosphophyllite, also known as Phos, is a young and fragile Gem who dreams of helping their friends in the war effort. Instead, they are told to compile an encyclopedia because of their delicate condition. After begrudgingly embarking on this task, Phos meets Cinnabar, an intelligent gem who has been relegated to patrolling the isolated island at night because of the corrosive poison their body creates. After seeing how unhappy Cinnabar is, Phos decides to find a role that both of the rejected Gems can enjoy. Houseki no Kuni follows Phos' efforts to be useful and protect their fellow Gems.
The land of lustrous takes on a CGI approach and goes beyond expected adaptations from a manga to an anime. Scenes feel more dynamic as the camera occasionally pans one hundred eighty degrees to reveal characters or enemies in turn, really immersing the viewer in each scene. Usually with CGI animations one may find it an awkward transition from normally watching 2D animations, however Studio Orange (the studio animators for the Land of Lustrous) executes the animation well by playing with the frame rate of each action to mimic 2D animations, similar to what Sony Pictures Animations did with the movie, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The uniqueness of the story lies in world-building of gems and moon enemies known as Lunarians. Each episode makes you curious as to what the main character will do next as you further envelop yourself intro the Land of the Lustrous.
Currently one of my favorite series. The anime is warm-hearted and gets a little dark by the end, however after reading the manga I experienced an existential dread after seeing what the main character had to go through. The main character Phos psychologically resembles any regular human being. As a fragile gem, Phos quickly learns they have no place in the world and lazily sleeps the day away desiring more. Phos wants to be stronger, but her composition as a gem makes her one of the weakest with a score of a 3.5 on the hardness scale. Phos’s vulnerability is shown when they break after their teacher raises his voice at one of the other gems. Despite this, Phos tries to fight alongside her fellow gems in order to find a place in the world. As Phos learns from each mistake, they grow more curious of the unknown and seek answers only they believe they can find. The journey to the truth changes them and sometimes not everyone wants to believe it as truth. The series takes the thought experiment of the Ship of Thesus to almost a literal level that makes each episode and each chapter all the more exciting to read. Phos is a very relatable character exposed to a very cruel world that makes you pity them by the end of the series. It’s a beautiful story of a tragic hero that everyone should pick up if they have time.
