Land of the Lustrous: Manga Volume 13 Reaction!
Added 2025-03-29 17:00:07 +0000 UTC*ROCKIN' HEADPHONE WARNINGS*
I wasn't sure what to expect with this final volume after the 12th...I could NOT have predicted this masterful conclusion! I was stunned, moved, and a sobbing MESS throughout this entire volume!
But I cannot believe how SATISFYING this conclusion is...especially for our little Phos, who's come so far in this story...this was a volume and series I will not be forgetting anytime soon. Thank you all for encouraging me to read the manga, and for taking this journey. It was LUSTROUS.
Thank you for watching with me and for all the support!
Comments
RIGHT?! It’s so weird to think that it’s the end of the series! We just started it?! I agree, this ending made up for Volume 12 for me and I was satisfied with it in the end. And I ended up LOVING the manga as a whole, so that is really neat about your story getting into it. We love the balance! And the way the mangaka treated time, yes! And the fact that these “immortal” characters are still subject to the effects of time as well. It was really well done - and how it went from 3 years to 30,000? WILD. It definitely makes you think! I don’t blame you and I don’t blame you for crying! I was a mess this volume! And yes, this volume was needed to bring everything back full circle, especially with Phos! I don’t quite like the nihilism about humanity - I think it’s a little defeatist and negative - or more so than I prefer - but I love how Phos is “saved” at the end and allowed to find their own happiness, what they always wanted. Got me right in the feels as well! If you get on the Discord, you’ll have to share all those screenshots!! I really loved this series and can’t wait for folks to keep sharing things and talking about it - but yeah, I’m glad that you read the manga with me! I love that I was able to help you get through it together with me!! Thank you! There isn’t a show “replacing” this one - I had Dororo and LOTL nearly tie in the poll, so I watched both together. But, we have three new series starting this month so it’s still going to be wild! Thank you for the comment and kind words!
Romaniablack
2025-04-09 02:45:24 +0000 UTCHahaha, that makes so much sense about the “peace” portion after volume 13! And yeah, WHO KNEW that the brother would come back in this and win my heart over!! What an amazing manga, seriously! That is WILD about the geologic timeline - time is a WILD construct! It’s wild that the series talked about our humanity and how close we are to the gemstones! :3 That is so sweet and precious about how we are created from the universe — now that makes me emotional all over again about this series! It’s wild that the universe really has no cares for us and our timelines! Thank you for the links - they really remind us of how small we are against the universe! I at least was happy that Phos got off the planet and didn’t “go down with the ship.” I would respectfully challenge if we can be happy or not - I feel that the concept of “society” keeps people from achieving what they’ve been conditioned to view as “happiness,” but I’ve seen people genuinely happy, so I can’t say that it’s impossible, but it’s fine if you disagree. :) But yeah, I hear that about the news and such, but that’s a conversation for another year - or 20 - as you said. no worries about the tangent, but yes to the vast universe! I would like to believe in that paradise as well and Phos just always being with us? That was the most satisfying part of the ending to me. Thank you for joining me on this journey with the manga - I was just a mess but YES, it was so cathartic! I’m on a trip now and with a team I coach for a week, so apologies for just now getting to this comment from my hotel room! :P I appreciate all the support!
Romaniablack
2025-04-09 02:26:19 +0000 UTCI can hardly believe that its over now. It certainly felt like a fever dream to me, when I was reading the last couple of volumes. But I did love this ending way more than I was expecting. For a little bit of context, I first watched LotL because a friend of mine recommended it, and once I decided to read the manga the one thing they told me was that the ending was a little weird, which, it is, but honestly I don't think I would have liked a less weird ending for this manga and story XD It's just a lot of food for thought and left to interpretation at the same time that it provides closure, and I love the balance. The one thing that *stuck to me like glue* after I finished this manga, that I couldn't stop thinking about, and that to this day (it's been way over a month since I read this volume at this point) I still come back to and it just continues to floor me; the one thing that I think truly changed something in me in the mid of the most chaotic story (and what made me well and truly love this story) is the way the mangaka treats *time* and it's effect. Like, I think to this point I've seen stories with immortal characters, but we feel the passage of time externally, how it affects their view of the world, yes, but how that affects how they interacts with mortal beings (I'm thinking about Heimmendinger from Arcane a lot here, and also Frieren) but the way that we aren't only told of the effects of being immortal, of the passing of time that the gems, and the lunarians to a lesser extent, experience time *but actively live it with them, seeing all the pain and change and stagnation that brings with it* is just... stunning. You can feel, to such a visceral degree the long stretches of time going by, and by the end they are *meaningless* because there's nothing to really give time meaning or importance, we have 30,000 years just pass through as if nothing. And, I don't know, that just really moves me and makes me think of how everything affects us, and how excruciating an eternal life like that becomes. I don't know, I'm just obsessed about that, and its the thing that most stuck with me through the whole story. It's the element that has made me cry. And I sort of love that it's something so different to what really impacted you, as it speaks to the breath this story has and all its layers that it was such a different experience for the both of us. Not to say that I didn't appreciate everything else, or Phos's journey, because I did, a lot. Honestly, I think the story couldn't have ended satisfactorily without this volume to frame everything. Yes, it is a very dark, somber story about Phos' breaking, but I think the end shows us how that is exclussively because we were following Phos's POV on the events, and they become very discouraged and hopeless by the end. And it's only once they meet the rocks, and Kongo's brother, that Phos starts to realize the error of thier views. I know you mention the story being maybe more nihilistic than you would have preferred, which is SO valid and I'm right there with you because I don't agree with the idea that humanity just can't be happy either, but I do think by the end we are shown how they might be saying one thing but the reality is much different, how Phos isn't precisely objective, and thus correct, about their claims on humanity and they were just much too tainted by the things they had heard - from the lunarians and even the Doctor - but the reality was different. I don't know, that's just my take on it, and nothing else. The ending being the little piece of Phosphollyte just having fun with their new friends... yeah, that hit me right in the feels as well. It's such a great parallel to how the story begins, with Phos lying in the grass, being looked for by their friends, just that insteads of there being some distaste from the friends, this little Phos is a celebrated part of the community and they get to have fun. Just a fun little fact, I have SO MANY screenshots from this last volume, because the art was so gorgeous. Really, I could continue talking about it for ages, there are so many things to say about it, and I think I'll carry those conversations to Discord, but I have to say, as a closing statement, I guess; that I loved this story so much and it remains so close to my heart. I'm not sure I would have read the manga if you hadn't continued with it after finishing the anime, so thank you for giving me that push to loose myself in this story and world. I can't wait to see what other show we watch after this <333
Alexandra Q
2025-03-30 19:48:13 +0000 UTCThis volume definitely colored how I felt about volume 12. This is where the peace I was getting came from. I couldn’t tell you that! I couldn’t tell you that you would fall in love with a computer eyeball and some rocks! They are all adorable and they had my heart as soon as I read these chapters. I’ve read this manga for the 4th time now and I just recently was able to read the last few chapters. It is a fitting end to a fantastic manga. Ok, tangent time because it’s interesting….. Size: https://youtu.be/U9WOMerccoM?si=FPiyCsSwU7amn_II Deep time: what a rabbit hole! This story deals with deep time. To give you an idea, if the history of the earth was a clock, and 12 midnight on a 24 hour clock is the present, modern humans came onto the geologic time line at 11:59:40pm! That is insane! We are made of star dust: yes, we are organic creatures. We also have inorganic components that make us alive. Iron is in our blood, minerals are in our bones, that ring that adorns our hand is made of gold. Everything around us came from a star. All these elements were birthed in the heart of a dying sun. Without the star dying, exploding and its remains coalescing into other planets, suns, comets and any number of moons, we would not exist. We are a wonder! We are literally part of this universe and we always forget that. When someone says to me they want to see an alien, I tell them to look in the mirror. The gems are the opposite of us, they are inorganic with inclusions that make them alive. The end of the Earth: it’s approximately 5 billion years from now. Life on the planet at that time will most likely be very different than it is now. This planet has had more than one mass extinction. We are currently in the 6th mass extinction event, the Holocene extinction. It is marked by being accelerated by human involvement in species and environmental manipulation. We have been here ever since we figured out how to wipe out large animals with hunting strategies. I’d argue the 6th extinction has been happening for thousands of years. The end of the Milky Way: https://youtube.com/shorts/VI0QawR0xoo?si=sCLh--_gD7gm72Or The end of the universe: I defer to Star Talk for this one. https://youtu.be/rFVdueuDD_o?si=5KJFVmkBG2XGjKNK I think this manga really did the end of Earth very well. I also think it did the end of humanity well! I am a humanist and non religious and I can get behind this conclusion to the story. Can humans achieve happiness? I don’t know. The reason I say this is because as a whole, we just are not wired that way. We can be content with our situation, we can be agreeable, even if we are over all happy, we cannot stay that way for long. We are just emotional animals. This is not a bad thing as these emotions change with personal relationships and situations. I consider myself a fairly happy person, but due to things beyond my control, I have been thrown into a pit of despair. Due to the chaos we are encountering now, at this time, the future looks bleak. One thing that makes me happy is doing something about it and family and me will be doing something about it next Saturday. I just bought markers and poster board.….. I hope we can look back in 20 years and laugh. Well, I kinda went off on a bit of a tangent there. This is a vast universe and we are a part of it. I would love to think there is a planet like the one Brother and Co end up on. It could happen! The idea of Phos being Phos and embedding themselves in the universe is absolutely the perfect ending. They will go on because that is who Phos is. Thank you for reading to us as always. I was crying along with you. It’s cathartic.
Moominkomet
2025-03-30 00:23:44 +0000 UTC
