"an anthropomorphized Ship of Theseus"
November 22, 2017 11:22 AM Subscribe
While the show is currently halfway through, Land of the Lustrous has already announced itself as a singular vision. The only other show to surpass it this year is David Lynch’s magnum opus Twin Peaks: The Return. But where Lynch rewrites the rules of history and structure, Kyogoku redefines cinematic motion. We are lucky to witness something so bold, so utterly new this year, and nothing looks and feels more unlike anything else than Land of the Lustrous.Carol Grant looks at the beauty and horror of Houseki no Kuni/Land of the Lustrous, a CGI anime show about sentient non-gendered jewel-people fighting off Lunerian invaders who want to harvest their bodies.
This looks really cool. Really, all you have to say is "It's like Steven Universe meets Nier: Automata" and I'm already 100% on board.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 11:51 AM on November 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 11:51 AM on November 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
I would love to see it, but too poor for Amazon's straming.
posted by Samizdata at 12:07 PM on November 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Samizdata at 12:07 PM on November 22, 2017 [2 favorites]
Huh. I saw the first episode and it didn't grab me at all. The CGI isn't suddenly Camelot; it's less bad than a lot of anime CGI, but it's still in weird-floaty-puppet-show territory along with Blame, Sidonia, and the like.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 12:17 PM on November 22, 2017
posted by Sing Or Swim at 12:17 PM on November 22, 2017
Really, all you have to say is "It's like Steven Universe meets Nier: Automata" and I'm already 100% on board.
It's actually a little more reminiscent of the original Nier than Automata, in my opinion. (saying any more would be spoilery)
I found Sakugabooru's post about the show's production to be pretty interesting reading. One thing that jumped out at me while watching the show was that the character animation seemed unusually fluid and expressive. It turns out that's because the voices were recorded first, and then the characters were animated based on the voice actors' performance. That's opposite to how almost every other anime series is produced — normally the voice lines are dubbed in at the very end, when it's too late to make significant changes to the animation.
posted by teraflop at 1:37 PM on November 22, 2017 [4 favorites]
It's actually a little more reminiscent of the original Nier than Automata, in my opinion. (saying any more would be spoilery)
I found Sakugabooru's post about the show's production to be pretty interesting reading. One thing that jumped out at me while watching the show was that the character animation seemed unusually fluid and expressive. It turns out that's because the voices were recorded first, and then the characters were animated based on the voice actors' performance. That's opposite to how almost every other anime series is produced — normally the voice lines are dubbed in at the very end, when it's too late to make significant changes to the animation.
posted by teraflop at 1:37 PM on November 22, 2017 [4 favorites]
Forgot to mention: my only real issue with this show, nitpicky as it may seem, is the way the subtitles (which are pretty good in other respects) handle the issue of gender.
In the original Japanese dialogue, the gems use pronouns that are either non-gendered or masculine. For the English subtitles, Amazon decided to make them agender, which is a perfectly reasonable creative decision... except that apparently, someone also decided that singular "they" was off-limits.
So instead, the translators have been twisting themselves into knots trying to avoid using any pronouns at all — either by rewriting sentences into the passive voice, or by referring to characters by name over and over again, or by using awkward phrases like "that one". Occasionally none of those are enough, and they end up having to fall back on singular "they" anyway, which makes the whole exercise seem like a pointless waste of energy.
posted by teraflop at 3:21 PM on November 22, 2017 [4 favorites]
In the original Japanese dialogue, the gems use pronouns that are either non-gendered or masculine. For the English subtitles, Amazon decided to make them agender, which is a perfectly reasonable creative decision... except that apparently, someone also decided that singular "they" was off-limits.
So instead, the translators have been twisting themselves into knots trying to avoid using any pronouns at all — either by rewriting sentences into the passive voice, or by referring to characters by name over and over again, or by using awkward phrases like "that one". Occasionally none of those are enough, and they end up having to fall back on singular "they" anyway, which makes the whole exercise seem like a pointless waste of energy.
posted by teraflop at 3:21 PM on November 22, 2017 [4 favorites]
so is this a Steven Universe sequel or what
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:35 PM on November 24, 2017
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:35 PM on November 24, 2017
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posted by Fizz at 11:25 AM on November 22, 2017