Houseki no Kuni

Long ago, Earth was struck by six meteorites, creating six moons and leaving a lone island in their wake. Those who could not make it to the island sank to the bottom of the ocean, where, over time, they slowly turned to crystal. As countless millennia passed, 28 of these crystallized lifeforms, known as the Lustrous, rose from the depths and resided on the island. Led by the wise Kongou-sensei, they must defend themselves against the seemingly infinite number of Lunarians, inhabitants of the moons who seek to harvest their valuable bodies for crafting weapons and jewelry.

Houseki no Kuni centers around Phosphophyllite, a young gem about to turn three hundred years old. Clumsy, extremely fragile, and having no visible talent, they are one of the weakest gems around, unable to help in the fight against the Lunarians in any meaningful way. But as the battle with the otherworldly invaders rages on, they soon learn that power comes at a cost that no one should have to pay.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Houseki no Kuni ranked 10th in the 2015 Kono Manga ga Sugoi! for the Male Readers division.

The series has been published in English as Land of the Lustrous by Kodansha Comics USA since June 27, 2017. It has also been released in Spanish as La Tierra de las Gemas by ECC Ediciones since September 17, 2019; and in Brazilian Portuguese as Terra das Gemas by NewPOP Editora since November 5, 2021.

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Houseki no Kuni, Houseki no Kuni PV

More characters
Characters

Phosphophyllite

Main

Antarcticite

Supporting

Diamond

Supporting

Cinnabar

Supporting

Padparadscha

Supporting

Bort

Supporting

Lapis Lazuli

Supporting

Yellow Diamond

Supporting

Rutile

Supporting

Alexandrite

Supporting

Reviews

Apr 24, 2024

Fguyretftgu7

Recommended

it's over. it's finally over.

what started out as a charming, albeit slightly unsettling, story of cute rock humans fighting fluffy moon aliens quickly became one of the wildest, strangest and most provocative plots i've read yet in manga. seriously, this manga gets really weird. not too incomprehensible, nor pretentiously abstract, but if you want a simple action mystery story Land of the Lustrous probably isn't for you.

PLOT:
plot is good. it's not what i'd say is the selling point of LotL, but it's definitely paced well enough to never feel like a scene drags too long. the plot gets really weird halfway through, and some might ...

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Aug 25, 2019

SsyNoYori

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (80/108 eps)

I'm not a huge fan of the way the plot has been progressing lately (spoil chapter 80).

I like this series, but I can't help but feel the quality of the writing has degraded ever since Phos went to the moon, so I thought I'd discuss it a little here and get some opinions. This might get a little long, so there's a TL;DR in the bottom.

The major issue with this arc is that we're switching from a mostly character-driven story to a mostly plot-driven story. While LotL obviously has a good plot, most of it came from how characters interact with each other and Phos ... learning about the world and changing within it. Other than "lunarians are attacking", there really isn't much happening in the world.

We take a sudden shift from Phos just wanting the truth to Phos tries to end the war between the gems and the Lunarians. The arc starts off great, because you're not sure who's side you should be rooting for, or if you should even be rooting for Phos because he seems kind of evil and suspicious trying to lure people onto the moon (granted, it's for a greater purpose, but being a lunarian spy is just creepy).

The problem with this is that after that point, we almost get no character interactions outside of Phos, Adamant, the Prince, and Cairngorm. Everyone else seems to have been thrown to the side so we can get more time to move the plot forwards. Characters like Dia, Amethyst, Alexandrite, etc have barely appeared at all in the last ~15 issues other than a few cute scenes, and we barely see the perspective of any of the gems on earth. This already makes things iffy, but lets talk a little on what the main characters have been doing in this arc.

The prince and Cairngorm
I like the idea of Cairngorm being broken of their curse and becoming more like their own character, while some people called him evil it really isn't the case, as he did thank Phos for bringing them to the moon and did show some appreciation despite everything. Other than that, the relationship between the prince and Cairngorm really isn't going anywhere. Other than Cairngorm wanting to become a lunarian, all their time spent together could've been utilized better. I'd rather have seen the rest of the cast getting some love.

Feels like some parts are missing?
Since we're mostly spending our time on the moon, we don't get any perspective for what's happening with most of the characters. We see the earth gems visibly upset about some of them leaving to the moon, but that idea doesn't get expanded at all. Also, some things that should've been there just... Aren't. For example, we never saw Rutile's reaction to Padpara being revived and shattering him other than this one panel in chapter 70 (which was heavily rushed and hard to follow imo). Considering we just had a huge time skip, I doubt they'll ever talk about this.

I wish some characters would explain how they're feeling so we can understand their perspective. Dia looks alright on the moon, but are they happy? The earth gems look frustrated, but do they not have any doubts about killing the moon gems they used to love? We never got any of that.

What the hell is going on with Cinnabar?
Cinnabar's arc just makes NO sense. The first encounter with Phos, he said he wanted to go to the moon. After that, they literally thought to themselves "If you had just asked to team up... I would've said yes". When talking about finding the truth, Cinnabar said they haven't decided on trusting Adamant or not, indicating that they're willing to work with Phos in finding the truth. In general, they're distant but very close friends with Phos. After all their interactions, Phos FINALLY tells him the truth, and FINALLY asks to team up, but CINNABAR SAYS NO?????

What the hell? It felt like they threw out all of Cinnabar's development away in one chapter. Not only that, but cinnabar treats Phos as an enemy and even attacks him in chapter 70 FOR NOOOO REAAASOOON. Literally just tried to kill the one character that legitimately cares about them. Are you telling me he didn't actually care about Phos after all this time? I hate what they did with cinnabar this arc, hopefully there's a reason for it.

TL;DR
This arc is kind of messy story-wise. Everything is happening a little too fast and we're not getting developments in the right spots. Some characters like Cinnabar aren't acting like themselves at all just to cause trouble for Phos. I honestly doubt most of them should be as heartless as they're being now. It feels like the writing has gotten a little lazier and more plot-heavy but sacrifices character development to move things forwards. Hopefully things will get better in later chapters.

I still like the story and would love to see what happens next though.

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Dec 27, 2023

Twirox

Not Recommended

Preliminary (88/108 eps)

Spoiler

After seeing all the positive reviews and the very high rating this manga has, I felt like an opposing review was more than needed.

So let me say that I liked this manga at first. I'd say the beginning of the manga was very strong. The characters and the setting were interesting and I liked the interactions and dialogue between the characters. Phos was a likable character and their character development was great throughout the chapters...until it wasn't. So what happened?

Everything started to go downhill when Phos got abducted to the Moon. From that point onward the story started to slowly lose me. At this point ...

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Manga 'Houseki no Kuni' Concludes Serialization

Haruko Ichikawa's Houseki no Kuni (Land of the Lustrous) manga will end in the June issue of Afternoon on April 25, according to the May issue released on Mond...read more

Mar 25, 9:36 PM by Vindstot | Discuss (30 comments)

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Poll: Gems' gender ? Jellybeanx - Sep 10, 2022	12 replies	by Phantomnocomics »» Yesterday, 5:39 AM
Manga actually ended in chapter 98, everything after is nonsense otacobell - May 4	11 replies	by Angel_crush1 »» Yesterday, 3:52 AM
Ending release tied to Comet NightlyData - Apr 26	7 replies	by Rhae »» May 11, 7:52 PM
Poll: Houseki no Kuni Chapter 108 Discussion ( 1 2 ) kizumi91 - Apr 24	92 replies	by Rhae »» May 10, 10:44 AM
Poll: Houseki no Kuni Chapter 107 Discussion Snovia - Mar 24	36 replies	by Rhae »» May 10, 10:29 AM

Houseki no Kuni
Land of the Lustrous
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