Review of Land of the Lustrous
If I were to characterize Land of the Lustrous’ first episode with a single word, it would be “freeing”. The tone of the episode isn’t locked in trope nor discipline to the audience, the episode just freely expresses its love for being alive by simply showing the audience just that. Every frame and character is animated and polished to absolute near-perfection, and honestly is quite astounding to even see such quality in today’s saturated market. LotL is more dominant a piece of art than an anime, and it shows it constantly by rejecting normalcy and tropes within anime, and instead strives for a less grounded comingof age narrative in a world distant extremely from our own interpretation of society.
The show is most definitely built for a more mature audience who holds the same open-minded attitude that the show operates upon. But it doesn’t ask too heavy-handed questions that a casual viewer might not understand. In spite of this, LotL still definitely has its moments when it comes to serious depth and thought-provoking motifs, but are more concentrated and take time to grasp fully.
Drama is definite the genre of this show. But, is also followed with strong elements of action and fantasy. The world that is displayed is bright, colorful, and holds an array of specifically tailored landscapes to match the tones of each scene. A lot of thought and effort was put into making sure that each frame of this show had a purpose, which also seems to be one of the overarching themes of the show, who knows if that was intentional, but I’d like to think it was. Coupled with some excellent direction and worldbuilding, it only enhances how the world itself feels cognizant of everything within it. But these elements of course are mere pawns to what develops internally and through the characters themselves. Although it tries to break free from almost any norm modern society has established in order to create a brand new world, it doesn’t seem distant enough as a concept to the point that I would feel at a disconnect. Phos, our main character, is understandable and relatable, even if her world is detached from every aspect of our own. As the show progresses themes of loss of innocence, duty, and projection of oneself are vehemently elaborated on, actually quite literally through the world and Phos herself. At its core, LotL is more on lines of not necessarily to “be and love yourself” but more in line with “learning to lose yourself again and again”. For those that have seen the show, I’m pretty sure you know where I am coming from.
The backgrounds, voice acting, and animation ooze passion and love from every inch of the screen and is not limited to anything but its source material. Massive amounts of liberties were taken from the source material bringing this to life through CGI animation, and it works excellently, of course, coupled with a beautiful soundtrack to back it up.
Symbols, foreshadowing, intensity, all fit into episodes like a cog in a clock, tiny pieces to a larger entity. This is done with as much polish as you could possibly accomplish, and so elegantly woven into the screen that you can barely notice some of them unless you are paying attention, which of course, with such excellent visuals, I don’t see how your eyes couldn’t be glued to the screen. I like how the show trivializes these aspects and doesn’t blatantly show these things to the viewer. Which in turn means the rewatch value skyrockets when you look back and see these types of things that are not definite on a first watch.
One of the more major things I can appreciate about the series as a whole is its deemphasis on outward appearances and beauty. All of the characters are made to be completely genderless, even though most of them resemble females most prominently, it’s not made apparent that gender nor body structure even matters. This is of course beyond progressive for what is usually spewed out of seasonal shows nowadays, making sure you, as the viewer, know that this is a boy and this is a girl and they are happy-go-lucky childhood friends that somehow always end up in situations where one their pants are off! So funny and hilarious! Strict, rigid, and non-fluid characterization makes me drool with boredom. On the contrary, LotL takes no time to even care about these unimportant aspects and purely focuses on the characters themselves. I absolutely adore this creative way of writing and characterization, and I haven’t seen it replicated or imitated at all by any show I have ever watched.
It’s not often that I can truly appreciate a work like Land of the Lustrous, having seen its first episode alone a multitude of times just for fun, my obvious enjoyment of the series is present and heartily justified.
That isn’t to say the first episode and some other episodes aren’t still awkward at times, most definitely attributable to some basic Japanese writing choices, recognizable in the introduction of characters like Cinnabar, but nothing too outstandingly bad or de-emphasizing an immersive environment.
Some of the dialogue can come off as serious, but not too foreboding or overwhelming to the point where there is no satisfying payoff. I tend to dislike serious language right off in the first episode, but the weight of the language in LotL feels important enough and filled with depth even if the reason you should care isn’t present yet.
I highly recommend the series, having previously had the show on my top 10 of all time, until more recently, I can still confidently say it's a strong 8. If you are looking for deeper themes and more interesting characterization, then I suggest you watch the entire show more than once for some actually gratifying concepts to grasp onto. But for those looking for an excuse to not watch the show because it is solely animated in CGI, you are only cheating yourself of a great experience.