Land of the Lustrous

mfw Kaiji actually got around to this, and jumped in sooner than I thought he would:

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Heeeeeeeeellllll yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaah. We need as many people as possible, circle jerking this manga.

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Also, on another note, I am still unable to get over how beautiful the concept art is, and can't stop staring:

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Seriously, I want to frame and plaster, a bunch of this stuff, all over my wall to be honest. Having a legit painting, would be aaweeeeesooooooooome. >___>
 
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GenSan said:
That's a really good question, that has no easy answer. At least, the way I see it, is memories do define someone's being and our experiences pretty much shape our personalities. Like how I ponder and get pretty sad sometimes, when I think about my grandmother actually, because she can barely recall anything. At least, in my case, it's so hard for me to think of them as the same person anymore, when they're almost an empty husk of their former selves, and nothing is scarier than that to me.

Pho is pretty very loosely there I think, but I feel as though, this is treading down the path, where she just won't retain anymore of her memories, and being left, it'll be wiped off the board 100%. It's pretty damn cool to me, how Pho's transformation is basically a reference to the Seven Treasures of the Lotus Sutra. Again, the whole huge connection to Buddhism, in this manga which I love. If I go by that, Pho still has more to lose of herself I think, is my prediction there.
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Some really good points there
If all that defines us is our memories, is the same true for the gems? For instance, if Phos had been replaced with other spare pieces of phosphophylitte, would she have retained those memories? Or would they act more.like a blank slate? What interests me is that the agate in her legs and gold in her arms didn't come from anyone else, so they added new abilities, but subtracted from her character. Lapis, on the other hand, has done the opposite. She's given her nothing new physically, but has absolutely changed her personality. Phos as we know her has gone, in my opinion, and I don't think we'll see her back.

The lotus is just one piece of Buddhist mythbeing used here, and I bloody love it. The prevailing fan theory is that the next piece Phos will get will be Paparadscha's heart. That'll break rutile.
ZetsubouKaiji said:
41:

I was a bit disappointed to find such short chapters for a monthly manga, but this does seem to pack in a good amount of progress in each chapter. I picked this up at chapter 30 and I've really up to chapter 41. In that time Ghost got chipped away and taken to the moon, Phos had a mental breakdown out of guilt, she exploded after losing control of her alloy and now she's putting on a show of reverting back to her old personality so she can stop worrying everyone while she figures out a way to get answers that won't constantly be putting others at risk.

I liked the pacing of events here more than I did in the anime. Specifically, we see more of Phos's confusion over what to do about Master before she goes to Cinnabar. It's not until she realizes that she hesitated in helping out Ghost Quartz because she wanted to see what Master would do, that she's become too obsessed with getting answers to look at things objectively. She realizes she needs someone more level headed to help her analyze the situation. The anime does something similar, but it's all compressed into one episode and it doesn't feel like as big of a revelation there.
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Oh man, first @GenSan, now ZK? It truly is a time of giving.
 
50:

I'm pleased with the pacing of this manga. Despite the relatively short chapters they're packed with content, but not to the point where events feel rushed. I've read another ten chapters and once again the status quo has completely changed in that time. However, I feel like the changes are being explored to their full potential within a couple of chapters usually.

At first I was a little annoyed by the 102 year time skip simply because it seemed like Phos woke up and nothing had really changed, but then a couple of chapters later we find out a couple of gems have been taken away and a couple of new ones have been born. The neatest part of this revelation is Phos's reaction to the news. At first she does the typical Phos thing and blames herself, but then Lapis's calmer influence kicks in and instead Phos freaking out, she realizes that even if she had been around there was probably nothing she could have done. She wasn't exactly doing a bang up job of protecting the other gems before she lost her head. It's a depressing truth for Phos to realize, but unlike before Phos doesn't have a near breakdown over it.

Which then brings up the whole question of how much of this is really Phos? Her personality has changed quite a bit since losing her head. Now from what I'm observing I'd say she's still Phos, but with some of Lapis's traits fused into her. However, it's not enough of a change for Phos to have lost who she is, but instead she's taking some of Lapis's strong points to improve herself, but like the agate legs and alloy arms improved her physically. Phos is now better at analyzing situations and can retain more information, but she still values and cares about the same things as she did before. At least at this point, I think she's definitely still Phos.

The 1o2 year time skip has complicated Phos's search for truth, because she doesn't have her memories from that time and most of the other gems have forgotten the details of what happened during that time. The only person she can rely on for answers is Master and he's not handing out any answers. He's not even being his usual evasive self, but just outright refusing to answer. Even when he's directly confronted by Phos, he just acts like a disappointed father looking at a disobedient child. Of course just like Phos, this just makes me want to know all the more.

Not that I think master is a bad guy. It's becoming clear that he made some grave mistake in the past and he regrets it deeply. Whenever, the Lunarians send him something familiar from the past he always seems so wistful and full of regret. He's doing his best now to protect the gems and I genuinely believe he loves them. Whatever truths he's holding back he at least believes he's doing it for their own good.

It looks like something is going to be happening with the jellyfish people, again and then there's the inevitable trip to the moon that Lapis was suggesting when she talked to Phos in the dream. I'm super hyped for both of these.

Lastly, damn Rutile be scary. Even when she was working to repair Phos, she was already making plans to use parts of Phos on Padparadscha.

I'd love to see of this animated one day.
 
Taek said:
Some really good points there
If all that defines us is our memories, is the same true for the gems? For instance, if Phos had been replaced with other spare pieces of phosphophylitte, would she have retained those memories? Or would they act more.like a blank slate? What interests me is that the agate in her legs and gold in her arms didn't come from anyone else, so they added new abilities, but subtracted from her character. Lapis, on the other hand, has done the opposite. She's given her nothing new physically, but has absolutely changed her personality. Phos as we know her has gone, in my opinion, and I don't think we'll see her back.

The lotus is just one piece of Buddhist mythbeing used here, and I bloody love it. The prevailing fan theory is that the next piece Phos will get will be Paparadscha's heart. That'll break rutile.

Oh man, first @GenSan, now ZK? It truly is a time of giving.
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Yeah, it's hard for to imagine old Pho's coming back. I mean, Pho's may have good intentions behind this, but it feels like she's overstepping her bounds a bit too much now for my taste, and going to extreme measures. It's still kind of messed up to me, how Pho's would just think the other gems would be so understanding, after telling them, their loved ones were ground to dust, and scattered over the moon. At least, I don't think old pho's would have been this insensitive. On one hand, I get it, she's blaming sensei for everything and starved for the truth, but on the other hand it's not like he's done anything wrong directly to me. I still very much refuse to believe he's really a bad guy here, and that he is absolutely sincere, in how loving, and caring he is for the gems. I don't know, betraying sensei, just feels.....wrong. I just always clearly remember Pho's initial words of, "Because I love Sensei and I wanna help" were so genuine, warm and pure to me, yeah old pho's was pretty dumb, naive and weak shit, but I still found something strangely charming about that sincere honesty. Now she's all like "FUCK THAT BALDY". This is really a far cry from that, nowadays in my opinion. She sort of feels like, she's becoming this ends justify the means person to me. Perhaps I'm being unfair in my assessment, but I'm swinging on both sides of the coin violently here with my conflicted feelings on this more calculated, and distant Phos. Don't even get me wrong, she's still such an amazing character with a lot of complexity, and depth though. 3>

Another theory I had, was that maybe purifying the lunarians in the past, required the gems as a fuel source in someway, shape or form? Hence, he stopped, as he grew to love them?

Also, man, bringing up that theory with Paparadscha. MAAAAAAAAAN, I don't even want to imagine internal conflict breaking out among comrades, but at the same time, that's another route this could head down with, which I could easily see happening too.

Anyway, my bad, for rambling so much. :sweat:

It's kind of been a long time, since I've felt this strongly about discussing something. This manga, gives me too much fodder to think about.
 
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53:

Not gonna lie, when I saw they were grinding gems into powder my first thought was the Lunarians are snorting them like cocaine. Not that just scattering them across the moon is any better or less frivolous.

Two scenes really stuck out to me in the last few chapters. The first is after Phos decides she needs to go to the moon she chooses to talk to Cinnabar. The half assed way Phos just springs she's going to the moon and then asks Cinnabar for help is classic Phos. She doesn't even pretend she knows what she's doing or what her end goal is. Phos just knows she wants answers and she's going to wing it from there. She still wants Cinnabar's help because Phos respects Cinnabar's judgement.

Then we get Cinnabar's reaction begging Phos not to go, which Phos of course rejects by pretending not to hear. Again, this is Phos being headstrong Phos and doing whatever she wants, then dragging others along.

Now I want to believe this is a genuine plea on Phos's part, but then we get to the scene where Phos asks Cairngorm for help and that plays out totally different. Phos at leas presents something of a plan to Cairngorm and makes sure to mention that Lapis approves of the plan. Then when Phos is explaining her plan she makes sure to keep mentioning that part of her goal is bringing everyone back because that's the part that's most likely to get Cairngorm's attention.

Which all leads to the question is Phos manipulating them both? Is Phos playing up to Cinnabar's feelings for her and then appealing to Cairngorm's deepest desires? I'll say that Phos is clearly being manipulative with Cairngorm. The Lapis part of her knows exactly what she needs to say to get Cairngorm to agree to help. With Cinnabar, though I'd like to think that Phos would know that she doesn't really need the emotional manipulation to get her way. Cinnabar is going to help her because she cares about her.

Either way Phos has gotten drunk on all her new abilities and she's acting even more reckless than ever. I get she's frustrated at not getting answers from Master, but going to the moon is quite a leap. However, she seems confident that no matter what she'll be able to return because she's special. She may not be freaking out like she was before, but she's not going down a good path either.
 
56:

Hmmm, humans prove the existence of a soul that craves eternal peace. Their first reaction is to give up on the hard work of faith and spiritual enlightenment and instead they try to science a short cut by making a prayer machine to do the heavy lift for them.

Sounds depressingly accurate to what I imagine people would do in the real world.

There's no doubt in my mind that the Lunarians are clinging to fantasies and that Master can't do anything for them. But hey, this way they get to be lazy and miserable in hedonistic excess while they grind up gems to hurt Master enough to make him do something for him.

Now, I'm taking everything the Prince is saying with tons of salt, because she's shady as fuck, but it's not like he's hiding it very well anyway. He fully admits to the terrible thing he's doing with captured gems and he suddenly grabs Phos and gouges out one of her eyes after he agrees to help him.

The disappointing thing is how blind Phos is just eating up everything the prince says like its gospel. She's just that desperate to have any kind of answer. Makes perfect sense with where she's at as a character, though.
 
58:

Gods, this is so frustrating, because Phos is completely misunderstanding Master's reaction to his return.

On the one hand I get it. Phos feels that the Master has been lying to the gems and putting them in danger because he can't or won't do the task he was created for. Master isn't good with expressing himself verbally and given Phos's mistrust, I can see her taking his words at face value and thinking that Master doesn't really care.

On the other, how the fuck could you not take one look at his expression when Phos returned and see anything, but surprise and deep relief? He says he doesn't care about what happened or what she's learned, because all that's important to him is that Phos is back.

Oh the frustration, because I can see the mistakes Phos is making and completely understand why she's making them. Of course she's suckered by the Prince. He's the opposite of Master. A complete chatterbox that can't help, but explain anything and everything to her.

Although, I'd still be pretty loathe to side with the guys that are grinding up gems and walking on them in order to send a message.

Also, Cicada looked awesome during the attack

Lovin' it.
 
I'm all caught up now.

I've got a slightly different take on
whether Phos is still Phos. For me the answer is yes and no. Phos has changed drastically, but most of it can be put down to her character development rather than as a result of losing and gaining new parts. Now losing bits of herself and the addition of Lapis's head have accelerated and made the results of that character development more obvious, but Phos is still Phos at the core.

The Phos at the start of the story was sweet and innocent. She loved and trusted absolutely. Then, she had a fateful encounter with the Jellyfish and it turned her world into chaos. Suddenly, there was a lot more to her world than the little school that she shared with the other gems and Master. Not only that, but it was obvious that Master knew about all it. Now Phos is living in a world she doesn't understand and the person she has to trust to most has repeated lied to her. Meanwhile, gems are daily being attacked. Phos has to know the truth and she grows obsessed with it.

At first the result is Phos acting recklessly and freaking out when she put others in danger. However, even before losing her head she was starting to realize this and look for an answer. Then she does lose her head and goes to sleep for over 100 years. When she wakes up, she further than ever from understanding the truth of the world. She's frustrated and angry.

The addition of Lapis's head gives her new choices. She's got better memory and look at things more logically. Now, I'd argue that both of those things were happening to her before she lost her head. The addition of Lapis's head and some of her traits just makes it more pronounced.

Now we have a Phos that's obsessed, angry and desperate for answers. It's not particularly surprising that she would chose then to pretty much do whatever it takes to get answers even if it means putting the other gems in danger.

So yes, while Lapis's head changed Phos. It was more like adding new facets to her personality rather than overwriting or changing what was already there.

As for the loss of memories thing. I think the manga has suggested that Phos can maintain her core personality even after losing so many parts because of how her inclusions works. She loses memories, but the key parts of her memories, the ones that define her personality are kept intact.

I feel even when I think Phos might be slipping away her interactions with Cinnabar always come up to remind me that she's still Phos. I mentioned this a couple of posts ago, but it came up again in the chapter before they left for the moon. Phos clumsily trying to convince Cinnabar to come to the moon was completely different from the way she interacted with everyone else.

Which is actually what made that conversation depressing as fuck. Phos doesn't understand shit about Cinnbar anymore. So much has changed for her that what drew her and Cinnabar together as outsiders is now all gone. Phos is at the center of events. She's special and everyone wants a piece of her. Meanwhile, Cinnabar is still all alone on night duty. However, Cinnabar still recognizes Phos is Phos. It's just that they've drifted apart because of Phos's change in circumstances.

The Phos that we knew is indeed gone, but mostly as a result of her natural character arc. It's just that because of the unique way gems work, this series can have a very unique take on character development. One of the many virtues of this manga.
 
How are the translations for volumes 5-8? I read a fan translated version of volume 1 and the translation was irritating as hell (at one point Phos was referred to with both he/she pronouns in the same sentence). Managed to hunt down a much-better translated version but there's only 4 volumes...

I'm really enjoying what I've read so far (3 volumes), it's more or less exactly like the anime so I don't have much to add there. I know I could just skip ahead but I'm starting from the beginning to refresh my memory a bit and get used to the somewhat different style.
 
ZetsubouKaiji said:
I feel even when I think Phos might be slipping away her interactions with Cinnabar always come up to remind me that she's still Phos. I mentioned this a couple of posts ago, but it came up again in the chapter before they left for the moon. Phos clumsily trying to convince Cinnabar to come to the moon was completely different from the way she interacted with everyone else.
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I don't think I had thought about it from this view point, but I actually really like this take on it as well. As you pointed out, she does act her most Pho's-like in front of Cinnabar, and I guess even among all the changes, cin-tsundere, is the catalyst that really drags out that core, even if their connection has really severed between the two, sadly. I can't imagine, what Cin was thinking, when Pho's went up to her, and said, "Yeeeeeeeah, let's work together, to betray sensei!". That rejection really stuuuuuuuuuung, hard. They only really see each other occasionally and don't exchange that many words, but damn, are these scenes so emotionally effective to me and do I honestly genuinely care a lot about their relationship.

Also, as much I find Pho's actions disagreeable as of late, with all that thirsty recklessness and desperation. This was still funny tho and made me laugh:

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It's like, "Well, Cinnibar dumped me hard, time to be a really pushy little shit."
Vega said:
How are the translations for volumes 5-8? I read a fan translated version of volume 1 and the translation was irritating as hell (at one point Phos was referred to with both he/she pronouns in the same sentence). Managed to hunt down a much-better translated version but there's only 4 volumes...

I'm really enjoying what I've read so far (3 volumes), it's more or less exactly like the anime so I don't have much to add there. I know I could just skip ahead but I'm starting from the beginning to refresh my memory a bit and get used to the somewhat different style.
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At least the translations I've been reading, have been pretty decent. It does switch the pronouns sometimes, but honestly, that's never bothered me, and I hardly notice.
 
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GenSan said:
At least the translations I've been reading, have been pretty decent. It does switch the pronouns sometimes, but honestly, that's never bothered me, and I hardly notice.
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It looks like the fan translated volume 5 is better translated compared to the earlier fan translated ones so it shouldn't drive me nuts... it's either that or I wait until March to read volume 5. xD
Edit: oh man these scans drive me nuts, I'm probably just being way too nitpicky but now there's capitalization errors and missing punctuation everywhere in volume 5
 
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Vega said:
It looks like the fan translated volume 5 is better translated compared to the earlier fan translated ones so it shouldn't drive me nuts... it's either that or I wait until March to read volume 5. xD
Edit: oh man these scans drive me nuts, I'm probably just being way too nitpicky but now there's capitalization errors and missing punctuation everywhere in volume 5
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JUST BEAST THROUGH IT DUDE, YOU GRAMMAR NAZI.

Waiting for Houseki chapters be like:

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Neeeeeeeeeew chaaaaaaaapppteeeer

64:

Well, now I wonder if sensei is actually being forcibly censored internally, and quite literally, cannot spit out the words, so he can't tell the truth, even if he wanted to. At least, that's the way it seemed to me, with the cut off words there in the panels.

Then we had the statement from sensei at the end, with "The one formally known as phosphophyllite". Daaaaaaaayuuuuuuuuum, not even sensei sees phos, as phos anymore.

It was also interesting and neat seeing the first gem ever made, and apparently they're not born with eyes. Pho's has got one eye for Kongo, and the other with the moon people. #Symbolism

If only I could hibernate like the gems till the next chapter.
 
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64:

Now I'm going to have that panel of Master saying "it would have been better if it weren't here" stuck in my head and making me depressed all day.

I agree with @GenSan that he is literally unable to tell anyone the full truth due to his programming or whatever you want to call it. He's also been programmed so he can't destroy himself, which means he's forced to just keep this hellish and lonely existence. Who knows how long he was alone after the humans destroyed themselves before he found Red Diamond. Of course he'd try to make a life with the gems because they were something he chose to nurture and protect rather than having it forced on him. However, the Lunarians just had to keep destroying it and even turn his happiness into a source of misery for their own selfish ends.

It's all broken now, though. Phos has now broken everything Master tried to build. At this point she's as much an antagonist as the Lunarians are.
 
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