Land of the Lustrous

When I started this, I didn't know what to expect. When I was just past the first act, I thought it was cute and fun, with some interesting ways to depict character motivation. By the halfway point, I started really feeling something for the characters. By the two-thirds mark, I realized I was reading something that's along the lines of the abstractly unique. And, by the last ten or twenty chapters, I realized this was genuinely a once in a lifetime reading experience.

The way the story pans out, it makes me wonder how exactly the author planned it all out. Seeing Phosphophylite

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go from a lovable, cute, and unassuming protagonist to, by the last third, a 'tyrannically altruistic' individual that still works to their own means to an end,

is fascinatingly fantastic writing. The story takes so many 180-degree turns, but executes them flawlessly. There are so many ways to interpret Phos as a character. You can interpret their arc as a theme for mental health, about how selfless love for people can turn into selfish desire, about the natural sense of self the human spirit has, and so much more.

There's so much to talk about here. The Lunarians

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hold an idealized, yet interestingly venomous type of 'love', in a similar way that Phos, the other gems, and Kongo does.

None of the characters

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are inherently bad people, but they all work to finalize their own means to their own end, no matter the consequences.

The Lunarians'

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pain of existence is understandable, but their uncaring attitude towards the Gems being taken with them is self-centered.

Kongo's

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pain during the notion of the Gems disappearing, after raising them for thousands of years, is understandable,

but that attitude

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forces the Lunarians into a constantly declining sense of self.

Phos' realization

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of living a lie of war against the Lunarians is understandable,

but their actions

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eventually come to a head in such a heartbreaking way.

In the end, the whole story felt thematic. Kongo is especially...interesting, to say the least. The concept of

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a machine literally built to pray for the souls of the human race after its inevitable destruction

really stuck with me. The theme of his kindness and selflessness towards the gems, mixed with an overarching theme in the story of self-seeking to the point he didn't want to let them go... I can't lie. I teared up a bit.

I have so many questions I want to ask the author about all this. What parts were even planned? By the end, it takes such an esoteric turn that I can only assume it was written in the heat of the moment. That, to me, actually makes it feel all the more special, because in turn, it makes the story feel like the musings of the author as it progresses. The way HnK tackles sense of self, perception of events, and motivation, borders on genius, and it all feels both like a natural evolution and like an evolution that progresses as the author wings the story. The whole world really feels 'alive'. Even though the story is relatively short, it's very open-ended, and very lively. It's an extremely impressive level of world building for a manga of its length - We know exactly what happened to get every character to the point they're at now, But, when reading, you'll have no idea whatsoever what comes next for anyone.

The art? Gorgeous. Some of the best paneling and shading you'll ever see. The character designs are simple enough, but when you see the way liquid mixes with rock, or the aesthetic of the Lunarians, you'll remember some of these pages for the rest of your life. The whole story is food for thought, and almost every page is a five-star feast for the eyes.

Ichikawa, I kneel.