What are we watching: Land of the Lustrous
What’s it about: In the mysterious future, crystalline organisms called Gems inhabit a world that has been destroyed by six meteors. Each Gem is assigned a role in order to fight against the Lunarians, a species who attacks them in order to shatter their bodies and use them as decorations.
Phosphophyllite, also known as Phos, is a young and fragile Gem who dreams of helping their friends in the war effort. Instead, they are told to compile an encyclopedia because of their delicate condition. After begrudgingly embarking on this task, Phos meets Cinnabar, an intelligent gem who has been relegated to patrolling the isolated island at night because of the corrosive poison their body creates. After seeing how unhappy Cinnabar is, Phos decides to find a role that both of the rejected Gems can enjoy. Houseki no Kuni follows Phos’ efforts to be useful and protect their fellow Gems.
Studio: Orange
Director: Kyougoku, Takahiko
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIYgPnSvnCE
Where can I watch it: https://twist.moe/a/houseki-no-kuni-tv/1 , https://nyaa.si/view/991627 , https://cytu.be/r/chapochat (At select times)
Spoilers beyond the current episode are :haram: . Please use the spoiler tag if you would like to discuss past the current episode. Everything in this episode and before are fair game.
This show could probably get a lot of the main story down and end in a much better place with 2 cours, IMO.
spoiler
Phos is at the cusp of perhaps one of the most important character transformations they'll under go, AFAIK literally the next chapter they lose another part of themself. They gets a replacement part, but without adding additional spoilers, the rest of the gems are less curious and more horrified by what they used, and I think it adds more depth to the whole inclusions aspect of them. The story goes on and Phos continues to lose themself, physically and emotionally, to the beats of the story. Phos is less a character of themself but an amalgamation with this combination of new parts. They push on to find the meaning to their struggle, and figure the only way to know why the Lunarians continue to hunt them and whether the harvested gems are salvageable is by going to the moon. This would have been a find time to end the anime IMO.