Land of the Lustrous has a pretty interesting premise, taking place in the far future in which an immortal humanoid race called the Gems live on an island, defending themselves from the Lunarian race which constantly attack them. However, the direction the story took with it left a lot to be desired. For one, it almost entirely takes place on the island, which made the setting quite mundane pretty quickly. It would have been interesting to understand this setting and explore it more, and maybe give some more depth to why the world is in its current state, since the world it takes place in feels underdeveloped. The story itself felt pretty convoluted at times with no clear direction of what it wanted to do or explore. The anime is composed of a few of these “mini-arcs” that end up leaving more questions than answers. As a result of these issues, it exacerbates its issue of an incomplete world. For example, we never fully understand why the Lunarians want to hunt the Gems, other than they look good or are nice for jewelry or something of the sort. Not to mention there being an individual from an entirely different humanoid race that is shown for a few episodes, and then is rarely ever brought up again, which feels like a whole missed opportunity for developing an interesting plot.
The characters themselves weren’t bad; a lot of them have a pretty nice dynamic with each other which made for some fun moments. There were a couple I wasn't really a fan of, but most of them were fine despite not having much depth to them. Phosphophyllite was an alright main character, though I had a couple issues with her, such as her sudden character change mid-way through, as well as the almost non-existent relationship with Cinnabar that keeps getting hinted at for some reason.
As for the visuals, they looked pretty nice. Anime done with CGI isn’t something I see quite often, so it was nice for a change. Fight scenes were well done and the shots of the landscape were quite pleasing.
Overall, Land of the Lustrous had potential, but is heavily brought down by its issues in its lack of worldbuilding and story. Still, it has plenty of nice moments and is pleasant to look at, and if that’s what you’re looking for, it may be worth a watch. Considering it’s 6 years old at this point, I doubt a second season is coming; having more episodes probably could have fixed some of its issues a little.
