During my seventh grade year of middle school, I stumbled upon Land of the Lustrous, an anime that was created using 3D animation. People often have the assumption that anime done in 3D are bad and that animators should just spend the time drawing everything out. I used to be one of those people and would actively avoid 3D animation like the plague. However, after seeing so many people saying that Land of the Lustrous was amazing, I decided to give it a shot…and I am glad I did.

Land of the Lustrous follows humanoid gems who fight against Lunarians, people from the moon, who try to break the gems and harvest their bodies to create decorations. The protagonist Phosphophyllite is a weak gem with one of the lowest hardnesses. They’re always breaking and have to constantly be repaired.

I remember watching the first episode going, “This animation looks really weird but the story seems interesting. I’ll continue watching.” And it did not take much longer for me to fall in love with the art style and animation.

This anime sparked a passion in me for wanting to do 3D style animations and led to me taking a 3D animation class from my Freshman year to Senior year of high school. It’s also what led me to becoming more interested in animation as a whole and taking an animation minor.

From its unique style of animation to its amazing story telling, I was constantly hooked while watching. I enjoyed getting to know the characters, admiring the smoothness of the animation, and always wondered, “What happens next?” My biggest disappointment when watching this anime was that it didn’t (and still unfortunately doesn’t) have a season 2. The source material concluded in 2024, so I can only have hope that they’re preparing a season 2 and are waiting to give it an announcement.

Maybe this anime could’ve been even better if they decided to use 2D animation, or maybe not. All I know is that if they ever decide to animate a second season or make a movie, I hope they stick to using 3D animation.

Do you have a favorite piece of media that was created using 3D animation? Let me know in the comments below.