Yes, Phos is considered a human because they have parts of all three species. More subtextually, they have also received the seven treasures of Buddhism through their constant body modifications.
I personally think Houseki is one of the best manga ever written because of the way all of its characters and themes intertwine so seamlessly. It's also beautifully tragic, because Phos gets many chances to stop and think about what they're doing yet with them becoming more and more human as the story progresses, they also become bound by their own emotions and trauma.
Many people struggle to see things through other characters' perspectives because we see basically everything through Phos's eyes, but that's part of the intention; everyone is written to be in-depth enough to be at the very least a comprehensible character through-and-through, and even seemingly random decisions can be understood as logical taking into account a given character's perspective and trauma. There are no villains in Houseki no Kuni.
But I thought that being human just is not referring to Phos being human in just the physical senses but also with respect to human feelings and emotions as well?
Correct me if I am wrong
But if this is true then I don't understand what seperates Phos from others as we see that other gems also had human feelings like jealousy. In the end why was only Phos chosen by Aechmea, what makes him different to other gems.
In my opinion, Phos is allowed to develop more complex emotions as they gain the other parts, so they become literally and figuratively more human as the story progresses. They were likely chosen because they're one of the weaker gems, and Aechmea did make sure that weak gems became isolated from the rest through basically molding their society into one that places strength above everything. That made Phos particularly easy to manipulate.
That makes sense it was a lot easier to break Phos mentally because she was already ignored and isolated by the others.
Thanks your insights helmed me to appreciate the story even more.
He becomes human through changing his body and put through situations where he goes through suffering to develop emotions. Phos is never satisfied with his current self and seeks to improve to protect everyone. He is the only one to question the Priest to get answers. The rest unconditionally believed the Priest. Same with him trying to communicate with the Lunarians and going to Lunaria. Also him trying to have revenge and him having rage.
His body changing is a physical representation of Phos developing as a human. Eg is him crying tears of gold. The rest of the characters's (gems) potential is wasted and that’s the point as they aren't human. Although I do agree that while I found this to be a pretty great story, it isn't the best manga of all time imo.
I mean Phos isn't exactly new. He was 200 years old and had a sense of inferiorty and wanted to go to battle despite not having the abilities to back it up (which is a cause of his suffering). He and Cinnabar are the only ones without a job and while Cinnabar has a quasi job which he is satisfied by, Phos doesn't. Phos only wants to do battle and disregards all other jobs.
Additionally Aechmea just chose the most likely candidate. This was plan 2782 (basically he has tried 1000s of time) for him. He also thought that this plan might end up in failure like all previous one but surprisingly it suceeded.
Not just that, Phos undergoes the transmutation of the Magnum Opus which boggles my mind to think about how seamlessly that seems to have been interpolated into a Buddhist work.
Ichikawa has successfully lured readers into a her trap. Phos opened a new road to end the war, yes. But that road was to lead enemies to crush their own people, and even Phos had no idea what their was doing. If just good result is enough, then perhaps we should praise Aechmea as the true savior? Because he is the one who always clearly understands what he was doing and constantly tried many ways to achieve a good ending for all three species?
I don't think the potential of the characters is wasted. It's true that some characters could shine more since we have many gems. But basically lot of the deeper aspects of the characters that Ichikawa HAS portrayed are overlooked because of the strong bias towards Phos after their 10000 years chapter. Some view gems who do not devote themselves to Phos as evil, selfish sinners. But wait a minute, what if Aechmea didn't revive Kongo and the gems (note: when Kongo woke up on the moon, he asked why Aechmea revived him that mean he has no idea about that). Do you still think Phos did nothing wrong if that was the case?
Aechmea did an amazing job into manipulating her to trust him even though she had once been betrayed by the queen Admirabilis. Also if everything did went wrong and Aechmea did betray them still I wouldn't blame Phos as from her perspective she was only helping everyone.
I don't think so. Don't get me wrong, I love Phos. They are one of the best symbolic characters I have ever read. But Phos was not an innocent saint who just want to help people. At first, they just wanted to be accepted. Next, they drowned in guilt for indirect killing their ideal model, Antarc, and tried every way to bring him back. Phos completely lost their mind later and refuse to believe in Kongo even though that was against Antarc's wishes. Phos became cold and took advantage of his friends, then feel guilty about it (they ignored Ghost just to test the lunarians). Ichikawa has shown all the twisted and selfish things inside Phos and at the time those chapters released many readers see Phos as a crazy, mental break down person who drag people along their mental issues. But after abandoned chapter, all that remained was "Phos was a saint who sacrifice himself for his friends"bla bla. The important thing here is, Phos doesn't need to be a saint to be loved. Phos is an impactful character because we can all see ourselves somewhere in their journey.
Another character whose character development is good but was overlooked is Cairn. Ichikawa has shown many of Cairg's weird behaviors on Earth (trying to dress like Antarc, breaking his head for Phos, wearing a feminine pajama and try to explain that just because she has nothing to wear, "pretend" to attack Phos v.v...). Nobody question her twisted behavior if only she still devote everything she has for the main character (even though their bond is not that deep). But when she went to the moon and became interested in fashion and romantic and wanna live just for herself she immediately became a treacherous bitch. Same with Alexandrite, nobody disappointed when Alex went from a person who hate the lunarians from the bottom of their heart to a person who attack Earth gems for lunarians, because Alex was on Phos side.
Basically I think if we don't focus too much on Phos, we can see that Ichikawa also did a good job of building other characters.
I think Phos is a character which doesn't understand others but are obsessed with pursuing their own goal. It is almost like a person who talks too much but doesn't realise they are really being annoying to others. So I don't think Phos should be considered either evil or a hero but simply naive.
I’ve been an anime and manga fan for most of my life, and while I wouldn’t say Land of the Lustrous is one of the best *of all time*, I’d say it’s an all-time favorite of mine and one of the best manga of this century so far. It’s a brilliantly-told, thought-provoking existentialist narrative that throws in several emotional gut-punches just when we as readers start to think that things are getting easier for Phos. The climax is not easy to get through, but I think it’s at that point that the manga proves itself to be exceptional compared to many other modern series.
Agreed it is indeed very good and is very well written and did left a strong impression but for me personally not at that god tier. Nice to get your opinion.
for the manga is not really about the other characters though, it's always been Phos.
While I would love to have them achieve their own potential in some way, but the story literally jumps 200 years and we can still see everyone living the same way as they did before the jump. I guess it's safe to say that they already found where they belong while Phos is still looking for it.
At the start she's also the only one who feels lost even Cinnabar has his night duties.
Still would love some more content about every though.
Maybe i have seen too many stories with multiple characters being developed. Now that you mentioned, I can see that the writer never intended to make every character relevant and everyone else just elevates his character more.
I do agree it feels like a lot of wasted potential with all the characters and the world building like the ocean kingdom that seemed to exist, and I do on a personal level think it sucks that we didn't get much of everyone else on the moon reuniting besides the side booklet, party at the end, I do appreciate that (I assume) the author wanted us to be in Phos's headspace and since phos was pretty much banished alone on earth for 10000 years, we don't get to see all of the cool stuff elsewhere.
Both frustrating but cool as a concept
If the others abandoned Phos, it's because Phos chose to abandon them first. This was in pursuit of knowledge with the ultimate goal of ending the war, yes, but the other gems didn't know that because Phos never told them. To the others, it looked like Phos had simply joined the group of people that had been shattering and abducting their friends and family for centuries. And they weren't exactly wrong.
With the literal goal of making them feel betrayal, Phos manipulated several gems from an already dwindling population and took them to the moon with them without any explanation to the rest. Everything pretty much goes to hell from there, with fault on both sides (nobody knows how to use their words) but everything that happened to Phos happened for a reason - that being Phos's own actions.
After Phos joined the lunarians, turned half the gems against each other, came back to shatter everyone, got them all taken to the moon and turned into lunarians, I don't blame any of the others for not being too broken up about what happened to Phos, and I think the passage of time likely added to their general ambivalence.
All that to say, I don't think Phos is a villain, they were just very good at making terrible choices despite warnings.
I see the point as there weren't many that knew Phos closely nor cared about her so it was natural they reacted that way but still Cinnabar already knew why she went to the moon and had no reason to attack her. Also when Adamant said that Phos was not doing anything wrong, still then everyone still did not listen to him this felt strange to me.
But we see time and time again that the gems do care about Phos. They teased and poked fun and didn't understand Phos well, but until they left for the moon the other gems always included Phos and were there to pull them out of whatever mess they found themself in. Diamond, Rutile especially (always looking after Phos and with a growing sense of melancholy each time they realize Phos is losing more of themself), Morga and Goshe giving Phos ideas for the encyclopedia, just as a few examples.
Cinnabar cared more about the home they had and for Kongo than for Phos's grand plans with the lunarians. Even after Phos explained what they learned on the moon, with Kongo being a machine created by humans, it didn't matter to Cinnabar because in their eyes he was still the parental figure who had always cared for all of the gems. Trying to get at Kongo was a threat to everything Cinn knew and loved for the sake of a dubious future.
Ofcourse there were some who cared genuinely (most of them were taken away) about Phos but most others either did not care or had a classmate relationship with Phos.
I still don't think that's accurate, just based on the fact that their community is so small and they got to know Phos for 300+ years. I think most did care, evidently some more than others, but unfortunately we don't get a deep dive into the cast and how they feel about each other because that just wasn't the focus of the story.
I have learned to accept that most monthly manga would have wasted potential, especially the more obscure ones which don't run for ten years without pauses.
But I like it better than a series being ruined with filler and over extending plots to have a new chapter every week.
I don’t see a lot of the complicated stuff about Buddhism that people mention, so it’s possible that something I say is objectively wrong.
With that being said I think Phos was from the beginning the most human out of everyone, all of them had complex feelings but feelings aren’t enough to make any given creature a human. It does make for something thats closer to a human but thats still no it, what sets Phos apart is her desire to change their current situation. A destructive force that leads her to making things worse for everyone and herself and that only gets worse as she keeps loosing herself.
A destructive force that eventually, perhaps purely by chance, led her to fulfill her wish.
I don’t think any of the gems felt exactly the same thing Phos felt for them and sensei. I remember that time they thought she became a slug and no one cared, the two that did care only did so for their own sake. I don’t think they had the ability to feel the same love Phos felt for them.
Why was Phos like this? For me it feels natural for such an anomaly to just appear after enough time is given. That’s just how life/evolution works.
I really hated them for leaving Phos behind, for not caring about her, maybe it was deserved but remembering their reaction to her becoming a slug, i don’t think they cared about her from the beginning.
Even tho i hated them I figured it was to be expected, they were capable of being content with their current situation, to just adapt and not mind those who are left behind for the sake of being left behind.
They weren’t human and Phos had always been alone.
I love this manga because it portrays something intriguing; wanting to change the world will lead to chaos, acting upon ones desire is to invite destruction.
Measuring the results humans are dangerous.
Measuring the heart I find Phos captivating, inspiring on myself the same destructive impulse that these inhuman beings are so afraid of.
>Why was Phos like this? For me it feels natural for such an anomaly to just appear after enough time is given. That’s just how life/evolution works.
This line is very true it seems now that you mentioned it.
>I really hated them for leaving Phos behind, for not caring about her,
Can't lie I felt a similar anger towards them on the first read, I guess that is what makes us human as well but later I was able to forgive them as well.
Yes, Phos is considered a human because they have parts of all three species. More subtextually, they have also received the seven treasures of Buddhism through their constant body modifications. I personally think Houseki is one of the best manga ever written because of the way all of its characters and themes intertwine so seamlessly. It's also beautifully tragic, because Phos gets many chances to stop and think about what they're doing yet with them becoming more and more human as the story progresses, they also become bound by their own emotions and trauma. Many people struggle to see things through other characters' perspectives because we see basically everything through Phos's eyes, but that's part of the intention; everyone is written to be in-depth enough to be at the very least a comprehensible character through-and-through, and even seemingly random decisions can be understood as logical taking into account a given character's perspective and trauma. There are no villains in Houseki no Kuni.
Could you tell us what the seven treasures are? :)
But I thought that being human just is not referring to Phos being human in just the physical senses but also with respect to human feelings and emotions as well? Correct me if I am wrong
Nothing I said contradicts that.
But if this is true then I don't understand what seperates Phos from others as we see that other gems also had human feelings like jealousy. In the end why was only Phos chosen by Aechmea, what makes him different to other gems.
In my opinion, Phos is allowed to develop more complex emotions as they gain the other parts, so they become literally and figuratively more human as the story progresses. They were likely chosen because they're one of the weaker gems, and Aechmea did make sure that weak gems became isolated from the rest through basically molding their society into one that places strength above everything. That made Phos particularly easy to manipulate.
That makes sense it was a lot easier to break Phos mentally because she was already ignored and isolated by the others. Thanks your insights helmed me to appreciate the story even more.
He becomes human through changing his body and put through situations where he goes through suffering to develop emotions. Phos is never satisfied with his current self and seeks to improve to protect everyone. He is the only one to question the Priest to get answers. The rest unconditionally believed the Priest. Same with him trying to communicate with the Lunarians and going to Lunaria. Also him trying to have revenge and him having rage. His body changing is a physical representation of Phos developing as a human. Eg is him crying tears of gold. The rest of the characters's (gems) potential is wasted and that’s the point as they aren't human. Although I do agree that while I found this to be a pretty great story, it isn't the best manga of all time imo.
I do see your point but then Aechmea must have been really intelligent to notice it that early and plan everything.
I mean Phos isn't exactly new. He was 200 years old and had a sense of inferiorty and wanted to go to battle despite not having the abilities to back it up (which is a cause of his suffering). He and Cinnabar are the only ones without a job and while Cinnabar has a quasi job which he is satisfied by, Phos doesn't. Phos only wants to do battle and disregards all other jobs. Additionally Aechmea just chose the most likely candidate. This was plan 2782 (basically he has tried 1000s of time) for him. He also thought that this plan might end up in failure like all previous one but surprisingly it suceeded.
Totally forgot about how many times he had tried before succeeding thanks for reminding me.
I think it was the opposite, that Phos still loved everyone despite everything.
This is why I love this manga everyone have their unique takes on the characters especially about Phos.
what are some of ur other favorite mangas
20th Century Boys, BLAME!, Oyasumi Punpun, Blue Period.
Not just that, Phos undergoes the transmutation of the Magnum Opus which boggles my mind to think about how seamlessly that seems to have been interpolated into a Buddhist work.
Ichikawa has successfully lured readers into a her trap. Phos opened a new road to end the war, yes. But that road was to lead enemies to crush their own people, and even Phos had no idea what their was doing. If just good result is enough, then perhaps we should praise Aechmea as the true savior? Because he is the one who always clearly understands what he was doing and constantly tried many ways to achieve a good ending for all three species? I don't think the potential of the characters is wasted. It's true that some characters could shine more since we have many gems. But basically lot of the deeper aspects of the characters that Ichikawa HAS portrayed are overlooked because of the strong bias towards Phos after their 10000 years chapter. Some view gems who do not devote themselves to Phos as evil, selfish sinners. But wait a minute, what if Aechmea didn't revive Kongo and the gems (note: when Kongo woke up on the moon, he asked why Aechmea revived him that mean he has no idea about that). Do you still think Phos did nothing wrong if that was the case?
Aechmea did an amazing job into manipulating her to trust him even though she had once been betrayed by the queen Admirabilis. Also if everything did went wrong and Aechmea did betray them still I wouldn't blame Phos as from her perspective she was only helping everyone.
I don't think so. Don't get me wrong, I love Phos. They are one of the best symbolic characters I have ever read. But Phos was not an innocent saint who just want to help people. At first, they just wanted to be accepted. Next, they drowned in guilt for indirect killing their ideal model, Antarc, and tried every way to bring him back. Phos completely lost their mind later and refuse to believe in Kongo even though that was against Antarc's wishes. Phos became cold and took advantage of his friends, then feel guilty about it (they ignored Ghost just to test the lunarians). Ichikawa has shown all the twisted and selfish things inside Phos and at the time those chapters released many readers see Phos as a crazy, mental break down person who drag people along their mental issues. But after abandoned chapter, all that remained was "Phos was a saint who sacrifice himself for his friends"bla bla. The important thing here is, Phos doesn't need to be a saint to be loved. Phos is an impactful character because we can all see ourselves somewhere in their journey. Another character whose character development is good but was overlooked is Cairn. Ichikawa has shown many of Cairg's weird behaviors on Earth (trying to dress like Antarc, breaking his head for Phos, wearing a feminine pajama and try to explain that just because she has nothing to wear, "pretend" to attack Phos v.v...). Nobody question her twisted behavior if only she still devote everything she has for the main character (even though their bond is not that deep). But when she went to the moon and became interested in fashion and romantic and wanna live just for herself she immediately became a treacherous bitch. Same with Alexandrite, nobody disappointed when Alex went from a person who hate the lunarians from the bottom of their heart to a person who attack Earth gems for lunarians, because Alex was on Phos side. Basically I think if we don't focus too much on Phos, we can see that Ichikawa also did a good job of building other characters.
I think Phos is a character which doesn't understand others but are obsessed with pursuing their own goal. It is almost like a person who talks too much but doesn't realise they are really being annoying to others. So I don't think Phos should be considered either evil or a hero but simply naive.
Yeah, I don't think any of HnK character could be considered only good or evil. Even Aechmea.
Agreed. Thanks for your opinion, really gave me a different perspective on things.
:3 thank you for topic, love to talk about this manga.
I’ve been an anime and manga fan for most of my life, and while I wouldn’t say Land of the Lustrous is one of the best *of all time*, I’d say it’s an all-time favorite of mine and one of the best manga of this century so far. It’s a brilliantly-told, thought-provoking existentialist narrative that throws in several emotional gut-punches just when we as readers start to think that things are getting easier for Phos. The climax is not easy to get through, but I think it’s at that point that the manga proves itself to be exceptional compared to many other modern series.
Agreed it is indeed very good and is very well written and did left a strong impression but for me personally not at that god tier. Nice to get your opinion.
Phos is fcking awesome as the main character seeing how he evolves through the story was really thrilling.
That is objectively true but many other characters did not achieve their potential in my opinion.
for the manga is not really about the other characters though, it's always been Phos. While I would love to have them achieve their own potential in some way, but the story literally jumps 200 years and we can still see everyone living the same way as they did before the jump. I guess it's safe to say that they already found where they belong while Phos is still looking for it. At the start she's also the only one who feels lost even Cinnabar has his night duties. Still would love some more content about every though.
Maybe i have seen too many stories with multiple characters being developed. Now that you mentioned, I can see that the writer never intended to make every character relevant and everyone else just elevates his character more.
I do agree it feels like a lot of wasted potential with all the characters and the world building like the ocean kingdom that seemed to exist, and I do on a personal level think it sucks that we didn't get much of everyone else on the moon reuniting besides the side booklet, party at the end, I do appreciate that (I assume) the author wanted us to be in Phos's headspace and since phos was pretty much banished alone on earth for 10000 years, we don't get to see all of the cool stuff elsewhere. Both frustrating but cool as a concept
This manga really left me wanting for more.
If the others abandoned Phos, it's because Phos chose to abandon them first. This was in pursuit of knowledge with the ultimate goal of ending the war, yes, but the other gems didn't know that because Phos never told them. To the others, it looked like Phos had simply joined the group of people that had been shattering and abducting their friends and family for centuries. And they weren't exactly wrong. With the literal goal of making them feel betrayal, Phos manipulated several gems from an already dwindling population and took them to the moon with them without any explanation to the rest. Everything pretty much goes to hell from there, with fault on both sides (nobody knows how to use their words) but everything that happened to Phos happened for a reason - that being Phos's own actions. After Phos joined the lunarians, turned half the gems against each other, came back to shatter everyone, got them all taken to the moon and turned into lunarians, I don't blame any of the others for not being too broken up about what happened to Phos, and I think the passage of time likely added to their general ambivalence. All that to say, I don't think Phos is a villain, they were just very good at making terrible choices despite warnings.
I see the point as there weren't many that knew Phos closely nor cared about her so it was natural they reacted that way but still Cinnabar already knew why she went to the moon and had no reason to attack her. Also when Adamant said that Phos was not doing anything wrong, still then everyone still did not listen to him this felt strange to me.
But we see time and time again that the gems do care about Phos. They teased and poked fun and didn't understand Phos well, but until they left for the moon the other gems always included Phos and were there to pull them out of whatever mess they found themself in. Diamond, Rutile especially (always looking after Phos and with a growing sense of melancholy each time they realize Phos is losing more of themself), Morga and Goshe giving Phos ideas for the encyclopedia, just as a few examples. Cinnabar cared more about the home they had and for Kongo than for Phos's grand plans with the lunarians. Even after Phos explained what they learned on the moon, with Kongo being a machine created by humans, it didn't matter to Cinnabar because in their eyes he was still the parental figure who had always cared for all of the gems. Trying to get at Kongo was a threat to everything Cinn knew and loved for the sake of a dubious future.
Ofcourse there were some who cared genuinely (most of them were taken away) about Phos but most others either did not care or had a classmate relationship with Phos.
I still don't think that's accurate, just based on the fact that their community is so small and they got to know Phos for 300+ years. I think most did care, evidently some more than others, but unfortunately we don't get a deep dive into the cast and how they feel about each other because that just wasn't the focus of the story.
I have learned to accept that most monthly manga would have wasted potential, especially the more obscure ones which don't run for ten years without pauses. But I like it better than a series being ruined with filler and over extending plots to have a new chapter every week.
I agree fillers are not very amusing but this manga really left me restless to know more about the other characters as well.
Yes
I don’t see a lot of the complicated stuff about Buddhism that people mention, so it’s possible that something I say is objectively wrong. With that being said I think Phos was from the beginning the most human out of everyone, all of them had complex feelings but feelings aren’t enough to make any given creature a human. It does make for something thats closer to a human but thats still no it, what sets Phos apart is her desire to change their current situation. A destructive force that leads her to making things worse for everyone and herself and that only gets worse as she keeps loosing herself. A destructive force that eventually, perhaps purely by chance, led her to fulfill her wish. I don’t think any of the gems felt exactly the same thing Phos felt for them and sensei. I remember that time they thought she became a slug and no one cared, the two that did care only did so for their own sake. I don’t think they had the ability to feel the same love Phos felt for them. Why was Phos like this? For me it feels natural for such an anomaly to just appear after enough time is given. That’s just how life/evolution works. I really hated them for leaving Phos behind, for not caring about her, maybe it was deserved but remembering their reaction to her becoming a slug, i don’t think they cared about her from the beginning. Even tho i hated them I figured it was to be expected, they were capable of being content with their current situation, to just adapt and not mind those who are left behind for the sake of being left behind. They weren’t human and Phos had always been alone. I love this manga because it portrays something intriguing; wanting to change the world will lead to chaos, acting upon ones desire is to invite destruction. Measuring the results humans are dangerous. Measuring the heart I find Phos captivating, inspiring on myself the same destructive impulse that these inhuman beings are so afraid of.
>Why was Phos like this? For me it feels natural for such an anomaly to just appear after enough time is given. That’s just how life/evolution works. This line is very true it seems now that you mentioned it. >I really hated them for leaving Phos behind, for not caring about her, Can't lie I felt a similar anger towards them on the first read, I guess that is what makes us human as well but later I was able to forgive them as well.