When you’re immortal and has all the time in the world, what is it that you are living for?
…I actually finished the entire series since January 2018, so this and the upcoming reviews will be from my rewatch.
In a nutshell: Phos meets sea slug and got new legs, Shinsha is even more sad.
The world of Houseki no Kuni, when disregarding that the Lunarians exist, is actually a textbook example of a utopia. There is no hunger or illness or thirst and everyone is immortal. They can keep living forever as long as there is sunlight. What will the residences do, then? Spend hundreds of years making the same pattern of uniform, over and over and over again? Walking along the same shore, night after night after night, looking at the same scenery for eternity? In that life, the only thing that keeps the mind alive is the arrival of a new member of the family, which happens every few centuries, but that is an awfully long time. One can easily go insane from boredom and lack of purpose.
This is where the Lunarians come in. The Lunarians are what gives the gems in their utopia a purpose to live. Suddenly they have a reason to be on patrol and make swords and make uniforms. They have something to look forward to, once tomorrow comes. It is this imperfection, this sole threat to the utopia, that actually keeps the residences alive spiritually.
If you’re thinking, well, when there are no Lunarians, the Gems could focus on something else, such as advancing new technologies and perhaps becoming the new ‘humans’. However, will there really be action without a driving purpose? Why would the Gems need more technology when they’re perfectly happy the way they are? Also, judging from the fact that Yellow Diamond has been alive for 3,000 years and they’re still stuck with the same sword designs used to slay Lunarians three millennia ago, I doubt there will be any changes. The Gems without the Lunarians would just laze around and disintegrate back into the sea. Lack of purpose is what kills humans inside, leading to suicide, and since Gems are descended from us, it’s reasonable to assume that the same might be the case for them.
Although Cinnabar does not have much screen time, they are what drives the things Phos does. Phos, who initially had no purpose whatsoever in life and isn’t good at anything, is suddenly motivated by Cinnabar’s lack of a happy job and started looking forward to ‘tomorrow’ stating frequently in episode 5 that they will ‘try even harder tomorrow.’ For what? So that Cinnabar can stop thinking about going to the moon. Cinnabar became Phos’s purpose.
‘Purpose’ is very important, since without it, Cinnabar started getting self-destructive, wanting to get taken to the moon, the Gem’s closest concept to ‘death’. This could mean that without any purpose to live, other Gems could start heading in the same direction. That’s why Lunarians need to be in the picture.
I love that one scene where Ventricosus and Phos discusses death. Death is what makes you appreciate being alive, but it is extremely lonely. Phos seems to forget about the ‘appreciate being alive’ part as they lose more body parts and friends, becoming more and more indifferent. The Gems have no concept of death, just that they can’t hear when you call anymore, which makes this scene really neat.
Also, Houseki no Kuni’s animation is so fluid and beautiful. The small gestures and movements of the Gems, the lighting effects, and the CGI is so well-done it deserves an award and a huge sales number of Blu-Ray copies. When I went to Japan and asked about Houseki no Kuni in animate (that was August 2018) they only had a few keychains. Where did all the merch go…? I looked in Akiba and other obscure stores around Chiba. Nothing at all. Not even a copy of the OST. Boo…
There is probably a million things to discuss about this anime, but I will leave it at that for today. Next part…sheesh, do I really have to rewatch that bit with Antarcticite?
bonutzuu 