Review of Land of the Lustrous

I haven't written a fully revieuw for a while now. Not that a most of people read these reviews anyway, but I feel like talking about Houseki no Kuni for a bit and how I want to express my vision and feelings and how I think about it. Since I work in a geology related museum, I'm surrounded by rock hounds on default, so I had to watch this anime sooner or later so I finally did. So how do I feel about Houseki no Kuni or in English Last of the Lustrous? It's pretty good actually. No, I won't bore you to death withan over exxarated phrase, but I can say some good things about it. Sadly I have to adress it flaws as well.

So what's it all about? Well...

Story: 6/10 (Fine)

We follow the footsteps of Phosphophyllite or short Phos, a young fragile Gem that's clumsy and a bit uncertain about itself, thinks everyone is trustable but atleast Phos is like-able. I'm going to try to avoid spoilers as much as possible, but the setting plays in a distant future where Planet Earth has suffered six major impacts by rocks outerspace - it's probably symbolic for the 6 mayor mass extinctions that we know in Earth's geological history of the past 541 million years and counting and only one of them is actually caused by an asteroid impact which is the well known Cretaceous - Paleogene mass extinction 66 million years ago - that's why somehow several pieces and fragments of human DNA managed to evolve over an unknown ammount of time into several different species that they are now somehow humanoid like. These species represent the human body, mind, and spirit. I have no idea how that would work in real life, but whatever - this story is fiction so anything's possible. So anyway Phos got assigned to learn more about their world and that's pretty much the story in a nut-shell. It's a coming-of-age story. Go figure.

Art: 6/10 (Fine)

It's visuals is pretty OK to look at. It's very colourfull for sure. But if you're colourblind you gonna' have for sure a bad time watchng this one. Not that I'm colourblind myself, but still. The CGI use, well it's better then a lot more other anime, that's for sure. I just happen to think again about those horrible vectors in Elfen Lied (TV 2004) or those god awfull windmills in Haibane Renmei (TV 2002) that I've seen and this is coming from someone that actually despise CGI use in anime, but hey, we're talking Studio Orange here. They know what they are doing. So far I really can't complain about their visuals coming from them. I had no real big isseus iether with Beastars (TV 2019) or the visuals of the current airing anime Godzilla: Singular Point (TV 2021). So yeah, you did a good job studio Orange. Your CGI is better then some studio that primairly did hentai and another some studio that did an anime over approx. 20 years ago that's also no longer around iether. I still have to give a go to Ex-Arm (TV 2021) aswell at some point, mind you. Iether way, it's uncertain if this visual-wise will age well in lets say 10 years from now on. Only time will tell. We'll see.

Sound 7/10 (Good)

One of better aspects for this anime is it audio. The music; both intro and outro sets the mood to wander a bit in this bit of a strange world, yet you can feel what kind of anime this will be be. The voice acting is done by several well accepted voice actors as well. It's a bit odd to hear Ayane Sakura is voicing a charather that's not her usual kind of charaher she usually voices, but she did her job wel so it's worth mentioning that if you're familiar with her voice acting. The background sounds whenever the Lunarians show up is rememberable for sure aswell.

Charathers: 8/10 (Very Good)

One of the mayor plus points for me is it's charathers. Maybe it's because I'm a bit of a rock hound myself, but boy, do I like the charathers. Sure, they are assigned non-binairy, but let's be honest, they do show a bit of femininity probably for marketing purposes. Watching this with masculince subs still is technically speaking still more correct if we're following the Japanese language correct. Is it a bit odd? Sure, but I got used to it. I'm not gonna whine and complain now on Twitter about those masculine fansubs for this anime that exist because I don't even have a Twitter account to begin with. I have better things to do then complain and virtue signal like a toxic person. Even Cinnabar is a lot less toxic then those kind of people, heh and Cinnabar has to deal with the element mercury and that's both poisionous for gems, flora and fauna a like.

Iether way, the Gems are all pretty much based on their real life counterparts in real life. If you're familiar with geology and mineralogy you'll probably understand. Probably the author Haruko Ichikawa a bit of a rock hound herself. I don't know. I think she made mainly Phosphophyllite as a self-insert, but don't quote me on that. However, the sad part about this I pretty much only have seen character development in Phosphophyllite. All the other character just pretty much exist and show no character development, which is kinda a bummer. I really would have liked to see more character development in the other charathers. Who's my favorite Gem you'd might ask? Well, whenever Bort showed up I just felt a little bit more joy compaired with the other Gems. Cinnabar deserves together with Phosphophyllite some headpats. All other Gems probably would get headpats as well. Bort probably doesn't want headpats, but that's Bort's problem. Headpats for all Gems. Heck, I would even make-up some fan-made head-canon charathers myself if I was allowed that will spice things a bit more up, since I know their are over 5000 described minerals according to Mindat; a site I every now and then use.

Enjoyment: 7/10 (Good)

I'm going to be honest to say I did enjoy Land of the Lustrous, but it's not "a masterpiece" per se. With it's draw-backs it was a bit difficult to tell how much do I really enjoy it and that's why I needed to write a fully revieuw how do I really feel and think about this anime in the first place. I mean, I would have enjoyed this anime a lot more if it was a 2-cour series. I mean, if you gonna cram approx. 5 volumes up to chapter 31 (according to MangaUpdates) and end the animated series with an original ending, something was a bit off with it's pacing for sure. Things were happening way to quick and I feel like this is more of an advertisement to read the original source and that's a bit of a bummer. Sure, pretty much all anime based off manga, light novels and visuals novels pretty much always been an advertisement and that's always been a mayor draw back.

Overall: 7/10 (Good)

So my conclusion? Should you watch Houseki no Kuni / Land of the Lustrous? Yeah sure, it's a good watch coming from me. Just go for it. It's a nice coming of age story with nice visuals, audio and charathers, but it's pacing and given length with only 12 episodes makes it sadly a bit messy, but nonetheless it's a good watch. Sadly we'll never get a second season of this because of it's original ending compaired to the original source.