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 complain that the second half feels extremely disjointed but i dont know, it works for me.
i will say, there's a portion in the middle of the manga where it does get a bit repetitive and it starts to drag a little. this is due to the setting that the manga confines itself in, which does start to get stale after awhile. thankfully there's a change in setting soon enough, and that's when things start to progress again.
CHARACTERS:
the protagonist (phos) is handedly one of the best ive seen. many amazing protagonists in manga are unlikable or not particularly interesting in the begin compared to the path they will later undertake (i.e. eren, thorfinn) but phos is immediately charming and interesting from the start. there's a sense of incompleteness in phos, which makes their development one of the most fascinating ive seen done in manga.
the other characters are pretty solid too. most of the Gems are dysfunctional in their own way, which makes for an interesting character study on each of them. they get ample page time to establish themselves, and overall i have no issues with them. they do feel set up to flesh out phos further at times, but i really have no issue with that in a manga that is laser focused on its protagonist's development as LotL.
ART:
there are two kinds of amazing art in manga. on one hand, you have the berserks, the vagabonds. those are meticulously drawn to perfection, trying to capture the human anatomy as accurately and as realistically as possible with the pen. on the other, you have LotL.
ichikawa excels at creating evocative, beautiful art while achieving a sense of minimalism in her art. there's no intricate shading, no miura-esque every-pixel-must-be-perfect philosophy behind her art style, but her impressive use of negative space, symmetry in her page compositions and panels are simply incredible. every panel flows seamlessly to the next, and it makes for a great reading experience.
only nitpick is that it can be quite tough to differentiate the Gems, especially at first.
TONE:
i love how bleak this manga can get. i also how love how hilarious it is.
the humour is a constant in the series. unlike many manga out there, where humour is often highly exaggerated and slapstick, LotL's humour is often more quippy, and even in many occasions, pretty damn dark. it's never too frequent to become grating, and the jokes tend to land well.
THEMES:
existentialism and a whole lot of buddhist motifs. sounds pretentious i know, but don't worry, ichikawa does not shove it down your throat to the point where it affects the plot. ive never read a manga with themes that get as existential and abstract as LotL, and as someone who does believe somewhat in Buddhism it is handled in a really interesting manner without getting preachy.
OVERALL:
also the ending's good. it's not anything mindblowing, but it's a fitting, beautiful ending for our protagonist.
a must-read if you're someone looking to read all the classics in the medium. i can promise that you will find NOTHING like LotL, love it or hate it. an imperfect masterpiece.
9/10
