This peculiar manga came into everyone's radar when the anime released in 2017, with it's then fresh new art direction - but I never got into it because I dismissed it as a fetish work just based on what I've seen. Then came a tribute comic for the main character of the series, and I just cannot resist tragic characters and depressing stories, so I binge read all chapters in 10 hours. Was it worth it? Eh.
Houseki no Kuni, literally translates to 'country of gems', features a large cast of characters as colorful as the minerals they are composed of. Set on post-apocalyptic Earth, now inhabited by humanoid beings known as the gems guided by a man they call Sensei - teacher essentially. They don't age and are technically immortal; as long as they don't get taken away by the Lunarians - people who come down from the moon to capture them for their color and brilliance.
We see the world through Phosphophyllite, 300 years young and one of the weakest of the bunch (Mohs scale 3.5). Unlike the others who have their work cut out for them, Phos is just there. Because of his low hardness and clumsiness, he can't go against the Lunarians in combat or take on other duties (else he breaks into pieces, which has happened many times).
All of it changed when Sensei gave Phos the important job of compiling an encyclopedia. He meets Cinnabar, another gem with an even lower hardness (2). Cinnabar is the night watch, as the reflections of light from the liquid mercury gives him enough energy to continue working without the sun. Phos and Cinnabar have a strange friendship - if you can even call it a friendship - which would resolve very painfully in the future.
Phos really can't catch a break - he gets swallowed whole by a sea slug and ceased to be... at least for while. He was brought back when the others figured out how to collect his components from the broken shell of the sea slug, none the worse for wear! As Phos tries to compile the encyclopedia, he follows the sea slug (now a small harmless thing) into the seabed, where he was used to strike a bargain with the Lunarians. They didn't manage to take him away, but it cost Phos both of his legs. The sea slug (revealed to be the Admirabilis) returns him to Land with some replacement components for his legs.
After this incident, Sensei relieves Phos of his encyclopedia duties. His new legs gave him super speed, but his combat abilities still suck ass. Because of the loss of his original legs, Phos also loses some memories - information that would reveal so much more...
Phos' journey of losing parts of himself continue as he desperately tries to be of help to Sensei and his peers. First his legs, then later his arms, eventually even his whole head gets stolen by the Lunarians, which get replaced by Lapis Lazuli. Here is Theseus's Paradox; how much does Phos have to remain in order for him to still be Phos?
The replacement head belonged to an intelligent gem - Lapis - who thought too much, and this bleeds into Phos' psyche. He has lost important memories with each replaced body part, but also gained major insights into what little information he retains. His suspicion of Sensei grows to the point of endangering the other gems with his curiosity. Eventually he lays a trap for the Lunarians: engage in battle and willingly lose.
Thanks to the varied components in his body, Phos restructures himself and wreaks havoc when he is brought to the moon. There, he learns the fate of all the other gems who were captured - ground into dust, scattered onto the surface of the moon... all to remind Sensei of his beloved students that he failed to protect. Sensei is a praying machine built by humans to assist them into the afterlife, yet he has malfunctioned and the Lunarians don't know why. Their attacks on the gems were all to provoke Sensei into praying; however, their plans have been unsuccessful so far.
Phos strikes a deal with the Moon Prince - he will stage a betrayal so devastating that Sensei might be moved to resume his duty, in exchange of bringing back his fellow gems. And so Phos' descent into madness begins...
His first return to Land was uneventful. Nobody suspected a thing and some gems even willingly left with him. His second return was a mess; the remaining gems are hostile, so they had to retreat. Phos returns to Land alone for the third time; he gets immediately cut into pieces and buried in different places. Sensei eventually put him back together and Phos immediately tries to force him to pray, which still ended in failure. Before he could get shattered into pieces again, Padparadscha descends from the moon as a distraction while the Lunarians extract Phos.
Sanity doesn't seem to be something Phos has anymore. He is no longer the naive and clumsy gem known as Phosphophyllite. The end is near, and he knows it. Sensei knows it. The Moon Prince knows it. With the other defected gems, Phos returns to Land for the last time. There is carnage as all the gems shatter each other with no mercy, and before the end, Phos faces Cinnabar. A fitting end, if anything.
The first to go was his whole body, then his legs. Next were his arms, head, an eye, his hair, and lastly,, his other eye, a replacement plucked from Sensei. The transformation is complete. Phos sees the birth of a machine named Kongou, his creator the professor, the extinction of humanity, the meteorites, the burns, the screams-
He is all alone on the Land.
The next time Phos awakes is when his second transformation completes. He prays the gems, Lunarians and Admirabilis away, leaving only himself in the dark, depressing void. He slumbers until he is awoken again by rock lifeforms and Sensei's machine big brother. They spend years and years together in peace, until soon, the Earth will crash into the sun. Phos - no, that is not what he is anymore. The entity previously known as Phos implores the rock lifeforms and machine big bro to leave the Earth via a space shuttle left by the Lunarians, which will take them to another planet where they can begin anew. He will stay to fulfil the professor's last request.
As the space shuttle takes off, machine big bro comes back in the last second to rip something - the pure gem known as Phosphophyllite - out from the inside of the entity. The Earth burns, taking the last of humanity with it.
A flower blooms and a small piece of gem explores a brand new world...
After reading and seeing everything - yeah this is definitely a fetish thing, but less ick then I initially assumed. The physical build of the gems remind me too much of the Fatimas from FSS (now rebranded to Gothicmade) that I can't see it and not associate it with weirdness. However, their similarities really just stop at physical appearance. The other races look as normal as humanoid species can be. The gems have barbie doll anatomy and are genderless and in the rare occasion where they get naked, there's really nothing to look at. The gems usually wear the same uniform, but those who defected to the moon got outfitted with designs that came straight out of FSS, especially Phos and Padparadscha (when they returned to Land).
Shortly after finishing the manga I saw the anime adaptation. The gems are more shapely at the rear end, but otherwise their designs are so good. The 3D technique works quite well in giving the gems a real shiny and polished appearance. And because I know of Phos' fate in the end, some scenes hit harder than usual (I cried).
Aesthetics aside, phew! The story is full of Buddhist imagery, from Sensei's clothes to the Lunarian's appearances whenever they descend onto Land. The final goal of praying their whole existence away so they can reincarnate or ascend to a higher plane of existence, significant numbers such as 108 and 49, also the number of times Phos' body gets replaced coincides with the 7 treasures as described in Buddhism. Are all the replacements one-to-one with the treasures? Not really, but it's close and that's what makes the allusions interesting.
My major takeaway is that humans suck so bad. Humans are literally the worst. The three races cannot escape the machinations of man, even after they're long gone. All this happened because humans are shitty and rely too much on the machines they built. Phos may have misunderstood the professor's last words, but 'burning the bridge' to ensure the last piece of humanity does not survive may have been for the best.
And Phos... dear Phos. All he wanted to was to be useful - to be liked and to belong - but at what cost? Manipulated into becoming a god that everyone needed, yet unable to ascend alongside them, doomed to perish alone. To become something that no longer resembles what you once were, replaced both in body and mind. Despite this, deep within there is a tiny piece of him left, untouched by humanity. It breaks, fragile, but from the piece sprouted new life, from it - Phosphophyllite.
Lastly, here's the comic that started the whole thing:
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