Review of Land of the Lustrous

This is what I think of when I think of the word beauty. Houseki no Kuni is a anime that stretches the imagination in ways that are executed perfectly. When reading the manga before I had watched the anime I was fascinated to see how this world shows beautiful parts of even the smallest things. After I had finished the last volume (volume 6 because that was the latest volume out) I was intrigued to see how the anime could present the beauty of the world in the same level of expression. review spoiler, It lived up to it. First before we get to the longdrawn out review let me tell you about the premise of Houseki no Kuni. The show is in a world where there are humanoids called gems. Each gem has a different hardness which tells how durable each of them are before they break. Gems with a hardness of 10 are very strong and are good with fighting while gems that are lower hardness's are more fragile and break easily. Gems are immortal in a way but they can get broken into many pieces. Once they are broken they can be put back together but if they are very broken it can take hundreds of years to be put back together. These gems are in a constant battle against this species from the moon called Lunarians. Much is unknown about what their motive is but more of the gems try to figure out what it is. Each gem has a job. Now lets talk about our main character Phosphophyllite (pronounced phos·​pho·​phyllite). Phosphophyllite aka Phos is trying to give a gem named Cinnabar that they find out about a job which is the main premise in the beginning. Finding a job for Cinnabar is very hard because Cinnabar has a issue where there is a thing that follows cinnabar around that will burn parts of gems. Now onto the real Review.

When looking at the art of the show, something that you will notice is that it was created in computer graphics. This is something that has notoriously been known to be a problem in anime because it has not been done before in such a way that it lives up to the potential that you have to create great animation. Land of the Lustrous uses this fact completely to its advantage by showing scenes with complex shots, many moving parts and expressive movements. The show also uses it to showcase the beauty of the world and things around them. This is one of the main reasons why I love this show.

Lets talk about the story. The story is fantastic partly due to it's uniqueness and the creativity that makes the story. The story has a completely new and unique premise that just makes you want to know more and more about the world around you. You will always want to know what happens next which tends to be just as creative and interesting as the last piece of the story that you just heard. The main reason I watch anime is for stories that could not be told well in a live action setting, and this is definitely one of them. The story is too unique and creative to be expressed through a live action film or a live action show.

Now onto the characters. Each character is interesting and has a personality that is showed through well written dialogue. Each gem has a different personality that is also shown a bit through there actions and how they do them. When looking at the development and how the characters change throughout the show it is clear that the things that they go through effect the gems to change and live differently. When something bad happens to the characters you legitimately feel bad for what's happening to them even though it is fictional, this is the way it should be.

The last thing I will talk about is the sound. The music in land of the lustrous is fantastic and compliments the show in such a way that is perfectly executed and brought fourth. The music is placed where it should be and it is creative and composed very nicely. The Opening music and the ending music is both experimental and fantastic. They are creatively made songs that each sound good with the opening and endings.

Overall watching this show was very enjoyable and was one of those shows that you cannot wait to watch more. I was continuously impressed more in more each episode about how they fine tuned each episode to be crafted perfectly and express the beauty in the world.

10/10 aka Perfection