Land of the Lustrous Volume 1 Review *No Spoilers
Land of the Lustrous is a manga by Haruko Ishikawa and published by Kodansha Comics.
I heard about this series before, but this release seemed to slip by my radar initially. Basically this fictional manga is about crystal beings who are trying to avoid being harvested by some sort of alien force that visits during the day.
The reverse side of volume 1.
Art Style
When reading, the art style is very charismatic and engaging. All of the characters presented have model-like figures and pose in stylish ways when they enter battle. Somehow this style adds to the almost surreal, fantasy feeling of the story.
Image found on page 90 in the first volume.
In addition, I really liked how certain characters were portrayed. Given that the main characters are crystal beings, it is a bit of a challenge to convey this with black and white images. However, at a few key points the artist came up with interesting ways to remind the readers of these character’s beauty despite the limitations of only being able to use ink and paper as the medium.
Found on page 82 of volume 1.
All in all, I thought the art style was fantastic and really enhanced the story.
Focus on Minerals
I happen to be a hobby collector of minerals myself, so I was very interested in this manga.
Some images of my pieces below are below, one is a phantom quartz crystal (meaning one mineral started to grow within another, making it look like a "twin" or "ghost" is inside one crystal), and a citrine:
I really appreciated how they reported the Moh’s Hardness scale for some of the minerals and used it as an explanation as to which of the characters are stronger. I thought that was a brilliant touch and really added to the depth of the world.
I don’t want to spoil this volume, but some of the descriptions about other important gem properties such as brittleness were also very important to the story and made sense. I am a hobby collector and mineral enthusiast, so I am not sure how some of these descriptions/explanations would look to a true mineral expert. But from my standpoint, the explanations seemed sound in a fictional context.
After Thoughts
After reading this manga, I can say this premise and execution is extremely creative. I usually don’t feel the need to re-read manga (or many books to be honest) but this manga as a whole is so unique it feels like it needs another read to fully grasp and enjoy the story presented. I feel this as a plus, since manga is fairly expensive given that they are usually a short read. This is definitely one story that will give you your money’s worth.
In addition, even though this is volume 1 there is a surprise ending I didn’t see coming. I am glad this first volume started out with such a strong punch to keep readers engaged and encourage readers to continue to support this series. I highly recommend this work to manga or even mineral enthusiasts. If nothing else, it is a vibrant and engaging work.
Thank you to Haruko Ichikawa for creating, and to Kodansha Comics for publishing this work! It is a fantastic read. As always, I was not sponsored for this review or financially compensated in any way for writing this. Thank you, and feel free to leave comments below!
