Haruko Ichikawa (1) (1980–)

I wish I had a pile of these volumes to read all in a row. It's too easy to forget details. I may have to break down and start buying this series. Goodness knows where I'll keep the volumes.

If I remember right, the previous volume ended with what looked like a tragic memory loss on Phos's part - Phos gained new arms but appeared to have forgotten who Cinnabar was. This volume begins by telling readers this was a fake-out. Phos merely had a momentary memory glitch.

But that doesn't mean Phos show more is the same. Whereas Phos was previously childish, weak, and too fearful to engage the Lunarians in battle, they're now strangely competent and useful, to the point that Bort offers to pair up with them. It's an awkward offer. On the one hand, Phos could use Bort's strength and experience, especially since Kongo-sensei has just fallen asleep for who knows how long. On the other hand, Phos knows that there's a rift between Bort and Dia and that accepting Bort's offer may widen it.

Not a whole lot happens in this volume, but there are still some interesting developments. There's Phos's new abilities (highly reshapeable arms, an increased ability to note details during battle with the Lunarians), as well as what appears to be occasional hallucinations (?) on Phos's part. Phos keeps seeing Antarcticite, although all but a small portion Antarc has been captured by the Lunarians. I enjoyed seeing a little more of Bort and Dia and hope that they get to talk things over more (on-page!) soon. And the Lunarian...puppies... were cute.

This volume also adds another piece to the mystery that's been brewing for a few volumes now: what's Kongo-sensei's connection to the Lunarians? Phos has a plan for finding out more, and I'm worried about how it's going to turn out, since Phos's "plans" tend to boil down to "I'll do this thing and hope everything turns out okay." It's not like Phos has many more pieces of themselves left to lose.

All in all, I continue to be intrigued by this series and plan on reading more. This volume was a bit weak, more setup for whatever Ichikawa has planned than anything, but I'm willing to stick around and see what happens. (Here's hoping Ichikawa really does have a plan...) I do wish that the artwork were clearer during the action scenes. I had no idea, at times, what was going on during the big fight with the new Lunarian. I've now watched enough of the anime to be able to say that, yes, it's much better in that regard. And it seems like there were a few scenes even the poor animators couldn't figure out - if I remember right they didn't even try to animate whatever happened just before the Amethyst twins were attacked (events from the previous volume).

Extras:

A page of translation notes and two pages of four-panel comics. I particularly liked Alexi's efforts to explain how to predict what their reaction to viewing a Lunarian will be.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

In this volume we get a bit more world-building and a new character. Winter is starting, which means less sunlight and therefore less energy for most of the Lustrous. While almost all of them go into hibernation, Kongo-sensei and Antarcticite become everyone's guardians. Antarcticite spends most of the year in a liquid form, but every winter they solidify and gradually grow stronger as temperatures get colder.

Phos is usually the first of the Lustrous to begin hibernation and the last to show more wake up, but this time around they can't seem to stay asleep, a possible side effect of their new legs. Kongo-sensei assigns Phos to Antarcticite as their new partner. Phos isn't sure they're up to the task, especially after the disastrous incident with the Amethyst twins, and then there's the issue of the talking ice floes that prey on Phos's anxieties.

Although the first volume made this series look like it was going to be a "natural discovery or Lunarian attack of the week" kind of thing, in the last couple volumes it's become more focused on Phos's desire to become stronger and more useful and eventually able to help Cinnabar. There are also hints that Kongo-sensei knows more about the Lunarians than he's told the younger Lustrous.

I wasn't expecting this volume to be as tragic as it was. The panels in which Lustrous (I won't say which ones) were broken into pieces were brutal, and this time around there was more explicit recognition of the horror inherent in the Lustrous's tendency to lose memories whenever they permanently lost a body part.

It'll be interesting to see where Ichikawa goes after this. Will Phos be able to get their memories back, or will they just make new ones? Are they going to lose more? And I wonder, has anyone ever retrieved kidnapped Lustrous from the Lunarians before?

Although I'm very much enjoying the story and world-building details, I do still have some issues with this series. First, I'm just going to say it: the action scenes in this series aren't always very good. They're pretty, and the composition of individual panels and pages is great, but the action often requires a lot of effort to follow and doesn't always make sense. For example, at the beginning of the volume the Amethyst twins cut open another weird pod-like Lunarian. In the first volume, when a similar Lunarian was cut open there was a sequence of panels that showed arrows made out of Lustrous pieces emerging from the Lunarian's...pore things.

In this volume, it wasn't nearly as easy to tell what had happened and how. In one panel, the Lunarian's pore things were just empty holes. In the next panel, giant spiky blade-things has already fully emerged, which no obvious indication of how something so big could have fit inside the Lunarian and emerged from those holes. After staring at the image for a while, I eventually figured out what might have happened, but those pages were really jarring and confusing the first time I saw them.

After the fun I had looking up the properties of real-life cinnabar after reading volume 1, I decided to see if Ichikawa had based Antarcticite off of the properties of real antarcticite. From what I can tell, although antarcticite is just as brittle as the manga said it was, Ichikawa made up most of the character's abilities. A bit disappointing.

All in all, this volume contributed a few more interesting world-building details and continued Phos's transformation into...something. It's definitely looking like this series is going to end in tragedy, at least where Phos is concerned. I plan to continue on with Land of the Lustrous, although limited library availability may mean that I'll have to switch to buying it.

Extras:

Two pages of 4-panel comics - the humor felt a little weird and out-of-place after the events of this volume. Also, a page with two translator's notes.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

Beautifully illustrated and painfully reflective of how we grow up. The main character, Phos, is the youngest of twenty-odd gems, and it shows. She's selfish, self-centered, and irresponsible. She's also caring, ambitious, and stubborn. The manga takes you through her journey trying to become a fighter, as well as finding a purpose for her fellow gem, Cinnabar. As she ages, loses friends, and loses pieces of herself, it's analogous to a child maturing - shedding the shards of the less show more favorable parts of ourselves to become more skilled and wise adults. However, it's a bittersweet process because she also loses some of the bits that make her so endearing and lovable.

I'm eager to find out where her journey takes her. show less

This is a review of the entire series (up to volume 12, since volume 13 isn’t officially released physically in English yet). This does contain some spoilers but I try to leave out enough context that the series will still be enjoyable even if you read my review.
Land of the Lustrous is my all-time favorite manga. I watched the anime on a whim one day, not expecting much, but it was so much better than I expected. It took no time for me to buy the manga (since I really doubt season two is show more going to release anytime soon, and even then, this will probably need three seasons to completely adapt the manga without cutting out parts)…
And it was even better than the anime.
The plot was enjoyable, though one of my very few complaints is that the pacing speeds up around volume 7~ and I did quite enjoy the slower pacing it began with, and I always wanted to know what would happen next. This is, obviously, the part I can discuss the least without spoilers.
The world building is absolutely amazing, I usually don’t really care about world building, but I adore the world of Land of the Lustrous. I can’t properly explain it, you just have to read it.
And the characters are the best part. Though are a bit too many side characters, I actually found myself enjoying almost every character.
Phosphophyllite is the main character, and they definitely go through the most changes… seriously, if I didn’t read the series, I wouldn’t be able to comprehend the idea that the original Phos and the prayer machine Phos are the same character. But I think that’s what makes them interesting, they’re a living ship of Theseus. At what point are we no longer reading about Phos, but a new character completely? The most interesting Phos is Phos after they get Lapis’ head, since they are no longer morally good. They become an anti-hero, someone who is doing so many wrong things believing they are doing right. I love it, it’s my favorite kind of character. I also like the Phos at the beginning, they’re jealous of all the other gems for being able to fight when they can’t due to how weak they are (since real-life Phosphphyllite is one of the most fragile gemstones). You could say their wish to be able to fight got granted, but it wasn’t truly worth all the trauma. I can’t say much more without just explaining the entire series, but Phos is definitely an amazing character and is fit to be the main character.
Cinnabar is pretty much the other main character, and they’re my favorite. I see people often completely miss everything about their character because of live, five lines of dialogue at the very end, and it pisses me off. Cinnabar’s entire character relies on the fact that they care so much about others that they are willing to completely isolate themself from everyone else just to make sure nobody gets hurt by their mercury (it’s called poison in the official translation, but it’s obviously mercury, since the reason real life Cinnabar is toxic is because they contain mercury). Everyone else is scared of them, everyone except Phos, which makes them react badly to Phos’ attempts at being their friend. They can’t possibly comprehend someone not being terrified of them. It makes them a really, really good character. They are the villain in everyone’s story, even their own.
Those are really the only two main characters, everyone else is definitely a side character, which makes me a bit disappointed since some other characters could have really interesting characters if given more time (like Benitoite), I think that if the series had a few more volumes with chapters focused on other characters that aren’t just Phos & Cinnabar there could’ve been so many more great characters… but, I’m not going to focus on the potential. I’ll talk about the side characters too, since they still are enjoyable!
Diamond is definitely one of the closest side characters to being a main character. They are very much interesting, they show the most concern for Phos during a lot of the series. Most of their character relies on their relationship with Bort. They are partnered with Bort during the beginning of the series, and they view themself as inferior to Bort since they aren’t as good as fighting as Bort. I, unfortunately, can’t explain their character very much without spoilering one of the arcs of the series.
Bort is less of a main character than Diamond, but they are also interesting. They are obsessed with fighting, and are the strongest fighter throughout most of the series. They don’t care as much about Diamond as Diamond cares about them. I can explain even less of their character than Diamond without spoilering one of the arcs of the series… but I think they’re still a good character.
Ghost Quartz was, for some reason, not included in the anime? They instead put Padparadscha’s chapters at the end, even though Ghost Quartz’s chapters happen before them? It confuses me but it mostly just disappoints me that people who only watch the anime won’t know about Ghost Quartz. Anyways, they’re definitely one of the most unique characters, because they have another gem inside them! The other gem doesn’t get to talk, but Ghost Quartz often talks about them. I think it’s makes for an interesting character!
Cairngorm is the previously mentioned gem inside of Ghost Quartz. I think it’s a bit debatable if they’re a main character or not because of the sheer amount of influence they have, but since they’re introduced later into the series and don’t get as much influence near the end, I still think they’re can be considered a side character, but I don’t really care about that. What I do care about is how absolutely amazing of a character they are, they’re definitely one of my favorites. At the beginning, after being released from Ghost Quartz’ body, they’re mean and harsh yet protective of Phos. Even when Phos loses their head, they’re willing to give up their own head for Phos (I think that would’ve been extremely interesting, but it doesn’t fit the theme Phos’ new body parts have so it makes sense they got Lapis’ head instead). I won’t spoil it, but a few volumes after they get introduced, they have a major change in personality for a very, very interesting reason that you might be able to guess if you’re paying attention to them. A lot of people hate them after this reveal, but I don’t really get it… not gonna lie, if I was them, I would act the same way.
Those are really the only characters who are important and aren’t only important after something happens in the plot after their introduction. (Other than Kongo, but I don’t really have much to explain about him.)
Anyways, if you’ve read this entire review, PLEASE just read Land of the Lustrous. It’s one of the best manga ever. And don’t hate on Cinnabar or Cairngorm. An angel loses its wings every time someone hates on them. show less