Review of Land of the Lustrous

Gems are regarded as precious things. There are a plethora of these beautiful, varied jewels, each with distinct colors to catch the eye. Out of this shimmering rouges-gallery, the most popular one may be the diamond. Diamonds are overvalued. They may shine bright but aren't as uncommon as some like to feel they are. However, they are special for some reason or another, above most other gems. Houseki no Kuni, or Land of the Lustrous, really is a diamond in such a sense, fittingly enough. Not the hardest gem or material ever conceived, and more like the character of Diamond in the show, where despiteits hardness, some cracks can certainly show. However, there is a certain charm, a certain beauty to this series, and in fact, a certain catharsis that comes to myriad individuals who have often doubted CGI shows and the inclusion CGI in anime in general, as well as to the people who saw that it could be done right, without a hitch. That last part may not be entire true; a diamond is not without fault. This show is a Diamond, after all, which feels odd given its initial reception.

In the early days of Fall 2017, this shimmering beauty was not watched by too many, and its reception was lukewarm at best. I distinctly remember a score of 6.98, a score that most in the community would mock given how it seems like anything under a 7.15 is considered to be a waste at best by the community at large, with exceptions to those who see something others clearly don’t and are oft not outspoken. You could say that throughout the the better part of its run, this show really was a “hidden gem”, slowly getting better and better, ever more popular, and better-received by the day. Obviously this isn't the case anymore thanks to all the passionate fans that spread the news of this lustrous jewel throughout the 12 or so weeks of its run. Now, it is more akin to a “dark horse”, ironically enjoyed given the vocabulary thus far. Would I claim this is the best of the year? Certainly no. There are a handful of choices that stand out and shimmer even more beautifully, however that is a small handful of gems, not all of which truly got to shine in front of everyone underneath all the rough this year had provided.

Gems are oft valuable, tremendously so. Their value is virtually everlasting. Meanwhile, more than half to more than three quarters of a year’s anime offerings are left in the dust within half a year, either deprived of their insignificant value by time, or with none to begin with. Whist Houseki no Kuni’s value is certainly not everlasting, it is one of the few from 2017 that will be fondly remembered for at least a couple years to possibly even a decade, as many gems should. Yet despite how marvelous this jewel turned out, its luster didn't entirely shine initially. It cracked, and it wasn't as beautiful. However, as stated earlier, much like its protagonist, Phosphophyllite, its pieces were picked up, and it hardened, turning from a blight few cared of, into a far more respected work of craftsmanship. It became even more beautiful, intriguing, and varied as well, much like said character. This applies to the visuals and the narrative at large, even if not all the prices were really put back together.

Said character, Phosphophyllite, reminds me of an exaggerated version of myself. Lazy upon most tasks found to be terribly uninteresting at best and mind-shatteringly stressful at worst, more than willing to get out of said tasks to the chagrin of the one who assigned them, mocked and challenged by many colleagues, frail, quick to aggravate, understood well by a particularly feminine individual considered to be keen on fictionally romantic situations, and sought after by a specific few for a specific quality. My persona reflects this to a large degree given my wording, though my ordinary self embodies much of this as well, with some applying to one part of me than the other. Indeed, this kind of protagonist embodied some aspects I disdain of my two selves, so warming up to it had to happen, which was thankfully effortless to accomplish the more I related on the whole. Not to knock many of the other, mostly less interesting characters with fantastic chemistry with this one to the point of leading to myriad moments of sheer hilarity. However, it is rather apparent that Phos is the true standout of this show, above all else, with the visuals, and the slimy creature, Ventricosus, who managed to perfectly fill most of Phos’ roles in episode 3 to the point of convincing many, including myself that she actually was Phos. The admittedly decent, yet immense and relatively unexplored cast was ultimately saved from mere relative decency by Phos almost exclusively thanks to the charm Phos has and the chemistry it and the other gems have, which is unfortunate, though other anime that concluded this season with an unexplored cast and a main character that grows a ton and learns about the world, have fared far worse in this regard. The fact that Phos develops in ways that affect it detrimentally as a living being as more of the Phosphophyllite we once knew is stripped away, including any sense of satisfaction of accomplishing anything anymore, is also engaging, even if sometimes it feels like we only really see the results of the development, feeling as if we skipped an episode dedicated entirely to said character growing weary and possibly depressed after the new powers acquired after a situation that sparked this gigantic change in Phos’ life.

Another monumental aspect of this series’ charm and acclaim, as well as the largest point of the overvalue is the visual department. The CGI character designs are certainly fantastic, especially in terms of the shimmering and detailed hair that dictates which gem each individual is. The hair sometimes goes above and beyond, such as with Diamond’s hair that constantly shines multiple colors and creates a heavenly light in the dark. I do find it odd that the series focuses more attention on their attention-grabbing derriere than even Code Geass and Sword Art Online, especially when all of them, despite most of them being abjectly feminine in nearly way, are considered genderless. Even worse, the models have absolutely sluggish frame rates, and when they move in tandem to the well-done environment, the difference in frames feels awkward to put it politely. However, the choreography in the fight scenes is rather impressive, and combined with the dynamic camera movement a CGI series allows, as well as the stellar designs and interesting effects of the anthropomorphised gems and materials, it isn’t a surprise that this show is heralded as a fantastic action show, let alone a fantastic CGI action show. Special praise must also be given to the visuals of the ending theme for its magnificent 2D visuals that are unlike anything I have seen, to the point where I cannot accurately describe what kind of two-dimensional visuals they are, other than magnificently colorful and charming. I can certainly say as well that the issues the first episode presented, visually speaking, got relatively ironed out over time minus the frame rates in the models, like when we reserve 2D for that fantastic ending credits sequence or for impact-related dust clouds and whatnot. Not to sing this series’ praises in terms of visuals as much as others have, but when we see improvements being made to an already visually unique series, especially one done almost entirely by three-dimensional computer animated models, it is certainly cathartic, notably as of 2017, to agree with the visuals looking splendid on the whole. Combining everything with some interesting and trippy moments of introspection with great directing by Takahiko Kyogoku, the team at Studio Orange did a really interesting and relatively fantastic job here.

And whist the narrative is rather inviting and willing to slowly reveal more over time, including themes about what humanity was like in the distant past, about life, and how immortals still have plenty to fear much like mortals do, among other things, there are some fundamental issues. For one, for a 2.5/10 hardness rating, Phos is so fragile and weak at times that I could almost swear she was 1.5; even a 2.5 wouldn't break just for stepping on a rock. It also raises consistency issues with how fragile or study Phos is, especially when another gem with a slightly higher rating can take so much more and is infinitely stronger. Also, you have to learn via commercial break and return eyecatchers that the hardness rating is out of 10 unless you already have such knowledge; while it turns out that ultimately, the Mohs scale makes it so that even a .5 difference is monumental, most viewers would be uneducated on the subject and this would need to be told by the series in order to really buy this, which they aren't. Given how memory is stored in the actual gems within every fiber of their being sans their hair to the point of every single shard comprising of memories, how do they consistently gain new memories, and given the seemingly finite amount of space, and their immortality, how can they continually gain new memories for all of eternity? They don't seem to physically grow. When Phos loses her legs, she manages to retain nearly everything important and only really lose memories of one individual and a location she had seen for the first time? Up until the halfway mark, the gems seemed to have photographic memory, and even afterward they mostly do, so it seems like Phos and other can't remember some things for the sake of convenience or emotion, as contradictory as it seems to what impressive memory they seem to display. Given that there are two amethysts that are numbers 33 and 84 respectively, how many of each exact gem are there? The yellow gem has lived for thousands of years, over 3,500 in particular, so you are left to ponder of the age of the likes of Bort and Sensei, who are much wiser and more battle ready? Has sense lived for tens of thousands of years? How long has this conflict gone on? Are none of them tired of life barring CInnabar, who is only sick of everything due to how no one respects it or can find a use for it given its hazardous condition? How exactly does this gooey material all gems have inside them really connect the missing pieces together, and how come we never see any of it splash out when a gem gets slashed or downright shattered into a cornucopia of shards and pieces?

I could go on and on, but the point has long since been made clear as crystal; that being: all of this serves a grander dilemma in that we do not know well enough how this species of gems work, as an inhuman amount of aspects about them are contradictory and unfathomable to try to answer. Not to mention other issues like how only one of them has any semblance of knowing how to use a projectile, and none of them have ever tried that or coming up with experiments to allow long-range combat on their end to possibly surpass the projectile-heavy weaponry of the Lunarans. There aren't too many problems with the active narrative in terms of holes, errors, and progression (at least in the first half), barring a few conveniences and contradictions mentioned earlier and not mentioned at all, as well as a few real issues towards the end, but when it invites you to learn as much as it does, and you try to think of everything, or beyond the most obscenely basic understanding of how the gems work, you end up with myriad questions the series cannot tackle about the world-building or the novel species it is depicting. It would be like a high school biology teacher trying to explore how humans work in an attempt to invite others into such knowledge, yet she only understand a minute aspect of their biology and psychology, infinitely less than the still limited knowledge we already have acquired within the best two centuries about our species, leaving you disappointed as you already know more about the subject than she does by the time you’ve taken the midterm, and there are no more classes on the subject at your school. One could counter back with “the series doesn’t need to know everything, it even admits that it doesn’t”, however most stories that explore a fictional species do so enough for you to get the gist of things without delving deep enough and doing things that make you question everything about said species. This clearly wasn’t one of them, and it suffered for that. The fact that they sorta dodge showing us some of the processes involving healing other gems only makes this burn even harder, and the ending is certainly nothing satisfying, amounting to a “we made it this far and covered ground; wait for more or read the source material”. And you wonder why I'm such a curmudgeon.

Oh, and also, while the show does present a few interesting themes to explore, including how these characters deal with immortality, don't be surprised when they start leaving those in the back-burner at best or drop them like flies at worst. It is another glaring flaw in this show preventing it from being one of the crown jewels of the year.

There are other positives I want to throw out there to really sell that despite the major problems the show has, it is still a laudable show, particularly involving the character arcs Phos and Diamond go through, but I cannot really mention much without spoiling them other than the premises of said arcs. I already mentioned Phos’ so Diamond’s is about learning to get stronger and do things on its own, which while executed almost how you would expect, there is a brutal twist to it near the end of episode 10, to leave it at that for you to speculate. I cannot really do the narrative any more justice in a spoiler-free review, so let me just say that the humor is gut-busting to me and that the show does throw in a few wild surprises in there, some of which nearly had me rolling on the floor in terms of comedy. So now, let me transition into what I feel truly shines as the best aspect of the show: the music.

The enchantingly melodic tunes of the pieces such as “Lunarians” and immensely memorable and emotion-intensive pieces such as “Danger” and especially “Cinnabar" and "Breaking” make particularly the action scenes and emotional scenes leave even more of an impact than otherwise. Even if some tracks get played too frequently, they simply sweep you into every scene in a way that really invites you in and immersed you. The OP, "Kyoumen no Nami (鏡面の波)" by YURiKA, is among the best this season has to offer, exemplifying a lot of what I mentioned previously about the OST, and the vocals make my love for the song reach ever more. The ED, "Kirameku Hamabe (煌めく浜辺)" by Yuiko Ohara, is also fantastic, and is also one of the more emotionally resonant pieces of music in the series, especially combined with its stellar visuals. All in all, the music is simply fantastic, sweeping, and emotional, and I had no idea what to expect from it overall, nearly getting floored with some of these pieces the first time. Unfortunately, only a handful of tracks really get to stand out this way, but it's still more than many have managed to do.

So, this was Houseki no Kuni. A gem that shines bright enough to become a dark horse of its season and captivate the hearts of many for weeks, as well as set a new benchmark for full CGI anime in the future to strive to live up to. I had a good time viewing and appraising this jewel, even if it isn't as lustrous as its title suggests. So, as always, with all that said, I bid you adieu.