The land of jewels

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The land of jewels
Original title 宝石 の 国
transcription Hōseki no Kuni
genre Science fiction
Manga
country JapanJapan Japan
author Haruko Ichikawa
publishing company Kodansha
magazine Afternoon
First publication October 2012 - ...
expenditure 9
Anime television series
Country of production JapanJapan Japan
original language Japanese
year 2017
Studio orange
length 24 minutes
Episodes 12
Director Takahiko Kyogoku
music Yoshiaki Fujisawa
First broadcast October 7, 2017 on AT-X , Nippon BS , MBS , Tokyo MX
synchronization

The Land of Jewels ( Japanese 宝石 の 国 , Hōseki no Kuni ) is a manga series by Haruko Ichikawa that has been published in Japan since 2012. It was adapted as an anime television series from 2017 and belongs to the science fiction genre .

content

After six meteorites fell on the world and the people disappeared, only 28 gemstones in human form live on it together with their teacher. The sexless gemstones address each other (in the German version) with the pronoun xier . The individual gemstones, which are ageless and have the appearance of young people around 15, shine in the light of the sun in the color of the respective stone, but this can only be seen in their hair and eyes due to a white powder layer. For several thousand years, the gemstones have been in conflict with the inhabitants of the moon, who hunt the gemstones to make jewelry and consumer goods from them. Some of the gemstones have already fallen victim to them, so those who remain have to fend off the attacks with skill and their obsidian swords.

The jewels

are intelligent humanoid beings made of various animate gemstones which are brought to life by certain inclusions to stay alive, or better, to stay active, they only need a light source. Since the light decreases in winter, the gemstones retreat to a kind of hibernation every year, leaving the defense to a few, as the attacks of the lunar inhabitants also decrease. The gemstones are sexless and ageless and actually cannot be killed because they can be put back together from their individual fragments, even tiny ones. In terms of their appearance, they resemble androgynous children, or teenagers with a white skin made of mineral powder, a shape given to them by their teacher after they emerged from the rock on a beach. The teacher is also the oldest among the precious stones and differs from them by the black robe of a Buddhist monk, his bald head and the fact that he is the only adult among the precious stones. Depending on the time of year, the gemstones wear school uniforms and carry out various activities, such as patrolling to counter attacks by the lunar inhabitants, sewing clothes, archiving events, making weapons, treating the injured, etc. Life mainly takes place in a hollowed-out stone dome, which serves as a school building and housing. The gems are divided into degrees of hardness, which does not serve the purpose of a hierarchy of command, but rather indicates how well a gem can perform a task, such as fighting.

Magnification brilliant

His magnificence brilliant is the master of jewels. It differs from the younger jewels in that it is the only adult and, instead of the school uniform, wears the robe of a Buddhist monk, just like it has the shaved skull. It was he who taught the jewels everything they needed and who continues to instruct and guide them. He is able to drive away the inhabitants of the moon and spends a large part of the time meditating. Despite his cold appearance, he is very concerned about the other jewels, especially phosphophyllite, which keeps getting into trouble. The inhabitants of the moon seem to have a special interest in brilliant.

Phosphophyllite

Phosphophyllite, or Phos for short, is the softest and most fragile of the gemstones and is assigned the task of creating a natural history encyclopedia of the known world. But since phosphophyllite does not know what it is useful for, cinnabarite should help. Cinnabarite excretes a poison (mercury) which is also harmful to the other gemstones and therefore lives in isolation. Together they get to work and get to know each other better. However, their task soon takes a back seat when the lunar people attack the House of Gems for the first time and then winter approaches.

Cinnabarite

Cinnabarite differs from the other jewels in that xier excretes a poison (mercury) that is harmful to them, which robs them of their shine, which is why xier does not live in the school building, but outside in a cave far away. Because of this problem, xier does not go on patrol during the day, but at night, which is actually not necessary because the moon dwellers do not attack at night. Xier befriends Phos when she saves him from the inhabitants of the moon.

Bort

Is a particularly resistant form of diamond and at the same time the best fighter among jewels. Xier wears long black hair and shows a somewhat friendly, almost arrogant demeanor. If xier is annoyed about the performance of the fight or the recklessness of the others, xier recklessly rebukes them. Phosphophyllite is far too often a source of resentment, but this gets better as Phos becomes a better fighter

Rutile

Rutile is part of the medical staff in the jewels. Xier knows best about the ailments of this kind and is particularly good at making broken jewels whole. Rutile almost always wears a white coat and has been working for centuries to bring Padparadscha, which was incompletely created, back to life, which at least temporarily succeeds. Padparadscha had previously fought with rutile in a team of two.

alexandrite

Is a gem that is excessively devoted to the collection, and categorization, of sightings of the lunar inhabitants. Alexandrite has extensive knowledge of the different types of lunar inhabitants and the data on each individual appearance of the same. However, this information is second-hand, since xier is not allowed to look at the lunar inhabitants since xier otherwise falls into a berserk-like state.

The inhabitants of the moon

come to earth every few days to hunt the gemstones and to carry them off to the moon in whole or in splinters. The gemstones distinguish between new and older "models" for the attackers, whereby these are numerous figures based on Buddhist motifs which float on a cloud above the ground, if they are hit by the weapons of the gemstones they dissolve in smoke up and disappear without leaving a trace. The main weapon of the inhabitants of the moon are arrows with points made from captured precious stones. In addition, the attackers also use numerous other devices and tricks to achieve their goal. It is said that the inhabitants of the moon hunt the gemstones in order to use them into jewelry and articles of daily use like the arrowheads mentioned, but everything seems to be much more complicated than the gemstones initially think.

The Admirabilis

are the biological and therefore mortal inhabitants of the sea. They have an animal shape that gives them the appearance of molluscs, and a humanoid shape that is partly reminiscent of sea snails and jellyfish. They are involuntarily in the service of the lunar inhabitants and try to kidnap phosphophyllite.

publication

The manga has been published by Kodansha in Afternoon magazine since October 2012 . The publisher also brought out the chapters in nine volumes. While the 1st volume sold about 20,000 times in the first week, the 8th volume in Japan reached over 130,000 sales in three weeks. Volume 9 sold over 90,000 copies in the first week.

A German translation has been published by Manga Cult in six volumes since October 2018 . The editorial team decided to use a number of non-gender pronouns to express the gemstones' gender neutrality in language. The xier pronouns, which were developed in 2013 by Anna Heger, were used.

ECC Ediciones publishes a Spanish translation, Glenat a French and Kodansha Comics an English.

Anime series

In 2017, Studio Orange produced a twelve-part anime series for Japanese television. The main writer was Toshiya Ono and Takahiko Kyōgoku directed. The character design comes from Asako Nishida and the artistic direction was alternately taken over by Airi Ando , Hisako Akagi , Takahiro Koyama and Yūji Kaneko .

The 24-minute episodes were broadcast in Japan from October 7 to December 23, 2017 on AT-X , Nippon BS , MBS and Tokyo MX . Subtitled versions were created in English, French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese and were published by Animax Asia and various streaming platforms.

synchronization

role Japanese voice
Cinnabarite Mikako Komatsu
Phosphophyllite Tomoyo Kurosawa
brilliant Ai Kayano

music

Yoshiaki Fujisawa composed the music for the series. The biasing song is Kyōmen no Nami ( 鏡面の波 ) of Yurika and uncredited following songs can be heard:

  • Kirameku Hamabe ( 煌 め く 浜 辺 ) by Yuiko Ōhara
  • liquescimus by Tomoyo Kurosawa
  • Kyōmen no Nami (orchestral version) by YURiKA

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Japanese Comic Ranking, July 22-28. In: Anime News Network. August 1, 2013, accessed November 5, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Japanese Comic Ranking, December 4-10. In: Anime News Network. December 13, 2017, accessed November 5, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Japanese Comic Ranking, October 22-28. In: Anime News Network. November 1, 2018, accessed November 5, 2018 .
  4. ↑ The Land of Jewels Vol. 1. Manga Cult. P. 195 (editor's note).
  5. ↑ Anna Heger: Article: Pronouns without gender 3.2. September 16, 2013, accessed July 20, 2020 .