Manga: Land of the Lustrous

Land of the Lustrous Vol 1
Rating: 3/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

An elegant new action manga for fans of Sailor Moon and the litany of comics and animation that it inspired, Land of the Lustrous is set in a far future Earth, where humanity's distant descendants live on in a small group of sexless crystalline beings who must fight off an invasion from the Moon. 
The young gem Phosphorite can't seem to do anything right. "Phos" has nothing but a big mouth and guts. Cinnabar, a classmate, is a loner, shunned by the other gems because of the toxins emitted from their body. But when they get together, they will learn that they both have an essential role to play in the fight against the Moonfolk, who are intent on coming to Earth to abduct the gem folk and destroy their world. 

So I was a bit worried that I was the only one who didn't really get this, but after having a nose on GoodReads it appears I'm not, which makes me feel better. I feel like this is one of those series where you need to give it a volume or two to really get in to it. 

LotL is straight in there with the interesting history about the Lustrous and what they are and how they came to exist. There's a mysterious leader that you're curious to know more about and then we have Phos our main character. Phos's great, although Phos seem's to annoy every single character! Phos just wants to be a soldier but is assigned a different task instead. I felt for Cinnabar and I'm intrigued by Cinnabar and the solution that there might be for Cinnabar. Cinnabar has a body full of toxins that are given off and so Cinnabar is kind of shunned a little bit. Diamond was great and such a sweetheart. Most of the others I don't really have an opinion on at this stage. 

Things started to get really interesting by the end of the volume and I'm intrigued by Phos's new talent and I'd definitely give volume 2 a go to see where this is going....but. Yes, there's a but. The beginning was a bit slow and although it was intriguing and has left me intrigued about their enemy and the other Lustrous etc...for the most part I had no idea what was going on, and I got confused multiple times. The gems aren't all that distinctive from each other so sometimes it was hard to tell them apart, and you know...it was confusing. I'm still not entirely sure how everything works, and some of it didn't make sense...yet. I'm sure things will become clearer as the story goes on but for the first volume it left me feeling confused and not entirely sure what had gone on in the first volume. I'm hoping the second volume will pick up and straighten things out.