Review of Land of the Lustrous

What does it mean to be born so fragile and weak that your body would crumble with the slightest amount of force? To live in a world where you know little to nothing about an enemy so constant and dangerous that everyone you know and love is at near constant threat of being ripped from your life to never be seen again? To know nothing of your past, nor the world around you? These are many questions that are asked within this first season of Houseki no Kuni as you go on a journey with Phospho to try and unravel many of the complex andvast mysterious shrouding this world.

To say I was absolutely blown away by this anime on the whole would be a gross understatement, and studio Orange deserves full praise for such a spectacular adaptation of this story. When I had first heard of Houseki no Kuni and how it was animated in near full CGI I was turned off from the idea that it would be worth my time seeing as I had very little trust of the technologies usage in the medium just yet, let alone to be used for an entire show. Let it be known I was an absolute fool for not giving this gem of a series the chance it deserved because WOW the usage of CGI in this anime was fantastic. HnK has such strong visual presence at all times, with the environment being utterly stunning to look at as characters gracefully fly about in perfectly choreographed action sequences that would make high budget shonens sweat with nervousness.

Houseki no Kuni is a near flawless anime, from the sound design always being utterly phenomenal and really selling that the characters are made of gems, to the voice acting being spot on. Every aspect of this show is incredible, the pacing always keeping me interested and the overarching mysteries and questions increasing in scope and impact as well as the progression of our main character Phospho (who I absolutely LOVE).

So then seeing as how I've not only sung the praises of this anime and given it a flawless 10 across the board, what gives with that final rating of 9/10??? Wellm it's nothing wrong with the show that's for sure. It's because all 12 episodes in this one season is ALL WE'VE GOTTEN (aside from the manga which is no doubt phenomenal)! This is a series with absolutely MASSIVE potential, but there has been no capitalization on it! It's been more then four years since this season came out and there hasn't been a second season, I haven't heard any word of a second season, nothing! Now I don't know if that's because there isn't enough of the manga to be adapted, or studio Orange simply has other priorities, or what have you. It's simply a little frustrating and honestly quite sad to see such a, pardon the pun, GEM of a story remaining un-adapted!!

All in all, Houseki no Kuni is absolutely worth your time to watch. I could ramble on about it for hundreds more lines of text but I'll end this review off here seeing as it's more than verbose enough.