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)
Thread episode links: 1. 2.
God I love this OP, it's so colourful. I really love how it contains such a huge amount of childish wonder in its depiction of Phos and the journey and troubles she's going to go through .
What happens if the doctor breaks?
The gems have absolutely no issues with physical contact and are way more touchy-feely with each other than normal. This I think is very much influenced by how touchy people were in the USSR, how much more physical people were.
Phos' problems: Hinted at in episode 1, are now explained.
This interaction is incredibly important for giving us insight into what Phos' problem is and what allegory to real life mental/physical problems Phos is dealing with.
Phos represents a transgender person. Phos experiences extreme dysphoria on account of being born into the "wrong body" for what she feels she is supposed to be within this society. In this society gender does not exist but roles in society certainly do exist and the writer is treating us to a conceptual idea of how expected roles in society can create exactly the same issues. Phos feels she is supposed to be a fighting-type gem. It's all she wants. She truly believes that is what she is supposed to be... But she is limited by her physical structure which she feels is wrong for her. She expresses the desire to be reborn in a different body type, this is exactly the same kind of thought transgender people go through, she experiences dysphoria and she is struggling with all the mental issues that dysphoria causes.
Diamond's problems
Diamond loves Bort so so much.
Inside this line from Diamond we are treated to our first glimpse of the problems of other gems. The different issues each gem faces within society and the mental battles they face. Diamond is perfect, she is perfect and wonderful and beautiful and loved by everyone. But even this gem, who is obviously so perfect, faces expectation battles. She weighs herself against Bort and finds herself lacking. She is our representative for that person you know that should have it all but still finds themselves troubled. She has low self esteem on account of feeling that she can't support Bort the way she wants to. This causes her to do dangerous things, dangerous and body-destroying things in pursuit of living up to expectations that she absolutely can't meet. These are expectations she shouldn't even have to meet, Diamond is wonderful and everyone can see that..
This probably isn't helped by the way Bort speaks to her and takes such a commanding lead in disallowing her participation in fighting. Bort though, being the strongest and "most perfect", likely suffers from her own problems feeling the burden of responsibility to protect that role places on her.
I would liken Diamond to someone with dysmorphia-related illness. A person that might be anorexic, or endlessly pursue fitness and never be happy with it. She will destroy her body to live up to what she thinks she should be based on her perceived belief of what a diamond should be and her own inadequacy in being what she has in her head.
The snail
This is the most visceral, horrific and awful artistic depiction of suicidal ideation and physical body dysphoria I've seen. This holds a dual role in the story, it depicts the occurrences going on, but it also uses body-horror to try and bring the audience into the emotions that Phos is feeling from her issues. It is trying to depict dysphoria and make people feel the chilling horror of being in a body you despise, a body you want to destroy, a body that feels like a monster to you, and this feeling, this emotion Phos is stuck with, is accompanied by the constant cry depicted here as she falls downwards into what is just a bottomless endlessly deep ocean she can't escape, "Save me".
I think with Houseki no Kuni, unlike other anime, it is extremely important to analyse a step deeper. There is art within art inside this show, and the dual meanings and depictions that are chosen are all intentional. It's a piece of work that is carefully construct art from beginning to end with layered meaning within meaning. On one level you can look at it as a simple shonen, but when you start diving into what is being depicted artistically you find something quite special.
I 100% don't want to disregard your reading or imply mine is any more true, but it's eye opening to me that you see Phos as a transgender representation whereas I, being cis + depressed, only saw them as depressed and similar to myself without considering a dysphoria angle. I guess maybe that's a sign of good art that people can read and relate to the same character from different angles.
I do love this show a lot and have already rewatched it multiple times, and read the manga to a similar point to where the anime stops, but had only really approached it from my own perspective, so that's a bonus of these group rewatches.
I think people with depression will empathise with any trans person when their issue is represented just as the visible symptoms to onlookers because the visible symptoms of dysphoria to an audience are... Depression, anxiety, self harm, etc.
The feeling of "I wish I was born in a different body" and "Something about my body is wrong" and "I do not fit correctly into the role that society is giving me" are all things that can only ever be expressed through speech, they are not expressed through behaviour or visible symptoms.
Ultimately what trans people experience is all the things that depressed people experience because their being transgender and being forced to conform to an incorrect societal role (wrong gender) causes them to have depression and multiple other comorbidities.
It is only when you deeply listen to the person in question and they tell you what is wrong with them that you can diagnose that they are trans, just like with Phos, you have to pay close attention to what she is saying about her experience to realise that what she is describing is so close to being trans. The gem society is unique in that it intentionally has no genders in order to represent the issue Phos has through a different lens -- that the issue of being transgender is about societally imposed roles for people and that even in a society without gender you can get something that looks almost identical but it would occur through a different set of societally imposed roles.
Honestly now you've said it, it's borderline explicit how clear Phos can be as a trans allegory, there are definitely some points later in the show I wont discuss here that I can see in a new light. I think part of the reason I missed it (rather than just my own self projection) is the genderless society, which does both obscures and highlight the idea of gender dysphoria, by making it not technically about gender anymore but showing the pure emotions of it, removed from our societal constructs.
Though it is a weird feeling to have a character I so deeply related to, suddenly gain potential depth I wasn't aware of/and can't fully relate to. Again I'm cis and this is outside of my experience, so please trust I mean no offense by anything.
I think that's another very important and interesting thing to think about in the entire topic. Huge numbers of people are capable of relating to and empathising with a character that is based on the trans experience... And yet the moment you try to explain that to a large amount of the audience their reaction would be pure hostility or denial of her status as a character intended to represent trans problems.
People can't relate to the causes of trans pain, but they can relate to the symptoms because the mental-health outcomes ultimately manifest in many things most people related to.
Many of those people would be part of the societal group that would say "No, you can't change yourself, you are not a fighting-type and therefore are not allowed to change yourself, this is unnatural!"
It is in recognising the similarities that we can say "You know what, I'd rather you weren't cripplingly depressed and in pain so you definitely should do whatever it is that stops you experiencing that." Anyone that experiences depression should feel this way about anyone else that also experiencing depression regardless of what causes their depression.