Land of the Lustrous Vol 1 Review (no spoilers)

Land of the Lustrous by Haruko Ichikawa has been on my to-read list for a long time. I’m happy I finally started it. The manga has a muted online community. From my outsider’s perspective, the online fanbase of this series primarily shares esoteric panels and sparse theories on Twitter, which isn’t a criticism (it makes it easier for someone like me not to get spoiled), but I can imagine the longer, in-depth analyses can be found on Discord servers, subreddits, and YouTube videos. With that in mind, I knew very little about the series going into it, so this was a pleasant discovery.

The story is set in the far future. Earth has changed drastically following six meteor strikes which subsequently created six orbiting moons and decreased the planet’s available land. Over time, the moons became inhabited by a race of powerful beings called Lunarians, whilst earth’s inhabitants evolved into genderless crystalline lifeforms called the Lustrous. The Lustrous are regularly raided by Lunarians who want to steal and use them for jewellery and furniture. To survive, the Lustrous assemble into pairs of watchers and fighters, constantly on the lookout for an attack by their enemies.

The setting is unique and beautifully drawn. Each character design is fluid and androgynous, their slender bodies often sparkling to exemplify the property of their individual crystals. Our protagonist, Phos (after the stone phosphophyllite) is a boisterous irritant, whose unusual green hue makes them a noted target. They’re also weaker and more brittle than their peers, which gives way to a cruel nickname 3.5 (rereferring to their hardness. The strongest is 10). The leader of the Lustrous, a monk-like person known as Sensei, tasks Phos with documenting a natural history of the world, but Phos wants to be more useful as a fighter or watcher. On Phos’s quest for a more interesting past time, they meet Cinnabar, a volatile Lustrous that involuntarily emits a substance that is damaging to other stones, but whose night watches provide invaluable information about life on Earth for Phos to take note of.

Throughout this first volume, Phos traverses their community, giving readers an introduction to the various crystals that inhabit the planet, their weaknesses, Phos’s relationship to the others, and the methods of the Lunarians. The antagonists of the story are frightening, emerging on the page suddenly via a single black star in the sky, which quickly grows and transforms into a cloud of serene god-like creatures with eerie smiles and an arsenal of weaponry. They attack in silence, shooting arrows at the Lustrous below, before snatching them away. During their first attack, they use arrows tipped with heliodor gems—spoils from the last Lustrous they stole. Their almost angelic innocence, and their methods of spiriting away the gems, is reminiscent of colonial violence we’ve seen throughout history on earth today—Australia’s stolen generation comes to mind immediately. It’s harrowing watching their behaviour and the lack of emotions with it.

Phos is also an interesting character. They don’t fit in with the others, and even though the other Lustrous treats them with disdain, its clear that there is kinship felt towards them—when Phos is attacked by an unusual giant slug intentionally left behind by the Lunarians, other Lustrous quickly get into action to develop ways to save them—including tsundere Cinnabar.

As an introduction to the story, this volume covered a lot of information, but none of it felt like an infodump. The chapters provided a character analysis, with the setting and background to earth’s predicament neatly weaved into the narrative in a brief and skilful manner. My only criticism so far is the fight sequences. The Lustrous are so fluid in their movements, and their fighting styles are expressive and dream-like, and so limbs get lost in the affray, and shadows make it hard to discern what actions are actually happening. I’m sure the fights will change over time, as I can’t imagine the Lunarians will be satisfied with their current results for too long, so I look forward to seeing how these interactions will develop over time—both in terms of story and artwork.

So far, I’m intrigued and glad I finally got around to starting this. I can’t wait to read the rest.