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I like this. It started as a very specific kind of anime--ingenue wants to find her place in a bizarre society where everyone has a role, and also discover the mystery of who wants to kill us. We watch her transformation into a warrior, into a weapon, because of the trauma of fighting this unceasing enemy. Who are they? What do they want? WHAT are they? We know nothing about them and can barely speculate. They are utterly alien and strange. The arc with the dog monster implies they have some secret connection to Adamantine/Kongo and there's much more going on. What secrets does he hold? What are the mysteries? She finally reaches the moon and the lunarians immediately reveal themselves to just be normal humans trying to troll Kongo into extincting them. They're fun loving immortal ghosts having a fun time! The entire tone of mystery, of a small enclave struggling to survive, of family and etc., yeah that all goes out the bin because everything we thought the story was about was wrong. Except for identity, and meaning, and purpose and place, it remains the fundamental message. But the story was never really about seeing their gem highschool alien-fighting club or whatever, it was ultimately Phos struggling for a sense of self and place and failing, constantly, every single time. Assuming she'd seized power and identity and purpose and having it revealed to have been entirely wrong, again and again! She's going to stay up all winter--actually it's really traumatic but it's okay now she's a soldier--actually no that's even more traumatizing, time to self-destructively find the source of everything and--and it's just guys having a chuckle, okay maybe to side with them--no she gets used again. Now she's had 1,008 years alone to reach enlightenment and all she's learned is spite. This was never a story about Gem Highschool Activity Clubs or Lunar Idol Concerts. It's a story about how Phos' life loving sucks all aboard choochoo.
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Nov 25, 2022 18:37
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Oh no really a hiatus until spring 2024 after a chapter like that?
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Oct 28, 2023 01:50
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Squidster posted:Unfortunately, what drew me to the series was the relationships between the gems. I get that the author lost interest in that community, but the loss of the supporting cast really dropped my enthusiasm. I think the second half of the comic might have worked better as a ( much much shorter ) light novel. I think this is part of the intention of the comic. It's set up to establish ideas and break them. We start with a near-high-school atmosphere with a clumsy character who can't find what club she wants to belong to,it's just they're all gems, too. There's dangers and threats, but it's fairly light hearted. Then we get the entire winter arc, we get the loss of Antarcticite, we get our status quo and our main character irrevocably changed. The entire conceit of what the manga makes you think it is keeps changing and that's ultimately I think the point of the manga. You spend so LONG wondering about the mysteries of the moon and then you GET there and--oh, it's ghosts, they're just kind of doing this to piss off Kongo. Eventually everyone's on the moon, everyone's old motivations are gone, everyone's identities have changed. Now everyone's prayed away, now the world is ending, now the universe is ending. Our main character is a Theseus' ship of identity, why shouldn't the narrative itself also go through that, to where it feels like several different stories as it gains new contexts that destroy the ability for the old contexts to persist?
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Mar 26, 2024 03:12
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I feel like everyone losing their identity on the moons and becoming different people was very much a thematic point, where Phos has spent the entire series dealing with becoming someone different constantly and was able to adapt and adjust and maintain some sense of personal continuity; but everyone else, who had only experienced being themselves as a single thing, once they reached any kind of conclusion their identities kind of hard-stopped and they were consumed by the moon. When this is finally done in a month I'm gonna have to do a reread tho because honestly I remember the entire thing so distantly it's like my memories of it are memories of someone else telling me about a thing they read. This is because I too like Phos have felt my identity been altered a dozen times and each time it's felt like a new person has taken its place, so I'm really excited to see the sun engulf the earth I guess because apparently that's what happens if you live like this
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Mar 26, 2024 06:56
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I'm GBH I'm not actually sure what's happening in this ending
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Apr 26, 2024 23:07
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