houseki no kuni is a manga that was created by miss haruko ichikawa! it just finished publishing this year (2024) after ~12 years of publication!
the story follows phosphophyllite, aka phos, as they try to find their role in their life. originally wanting to learn to fight, their weak and brittle nature doesnt allow it.master kongo tells phos that their job is to compile an encyclopedia of all the living things on the earth. however, after meeting cinnabar, their new goal is to find a job for cinnabar as well.
... surely nothing bad could happen, right? :')
ive heard people call this series 'similar to steven universe' and i can't disagree more. other than them being 'gems', the themes and tone are severely distinct.
i remember seeing these 'gem-sonas' around in 2013~2014 and no one telling me what it was from. they didnt look like the su gems, but were still labeled as such. one of my friends even had a character like this and told me i wouldn't like this series.
little did they know...