what exactly is this?

kataklism said:
it's shonen/seinen slice of life that focuses a lot on psychology and filosophy using symbolism(both visualization symbolism(e.g. things that look like it's what's happening from a character's perspective but that it's relly just pure visualization of their feels and not reality) and religious symbolism) and with a good amount of very dynamic fights with a very good panel-to-panel, page-to-page flow

it is absolutely NOT related to steven universe, in fact, there's a theory that steven universe actually was inspired by houseki no kuni as houseki came out before SU, but nobody knows for real obviously.

it's a very good series, but that should be apprached more like a jojo than a shonen series, the focus is way more on the characters than the plot, and the world building is used more to explain the characters than it is for the plot.... if you're ok with that, you'll love it, but if you're looking for a manga with a plot that makes sense from the very start and with a specific and constant goal as well as as a "what you see is what is happening" storytelling, then you might want to not check it out, the focuses of houseki tend to be very confusing for someone who tries to make sense of it all using real life phisics and common sense, it's something very fantasy and imaginative, yet extremely deep when it comes to emotions and thoughts of characters, but also very much linear with the plot and how the various events unfold if you don't try and look into the characters deeply.