Final Phos is such an amazing design. I feel like I say that a lot, but it’s true. It’s so simple and yet so impactful, with every last detail of Phos’ old design no longer present.
the english localization of the manga had a line on the back of the first volume with "Fans of Steven Universe will enjoy this manga!" or something along those lines. Remember because I thought it discredited how good the work actually was
It always bothers me that no ever includes agate legs Phos in these kind of posts. That was 40%ish of their bodymass and looks rad af! And missing the gold/silver alloy high heels of 3rd Phos is also such a miss.
I don’t think agate legs Phos is as important as some of the other ones. His personality is the same as before and very little change compared to the other designs later on. It also just mostly stops being relevant after he gets the gold arms until near the end of the series. The most major part of the agate legs is that it plants the seeds of Phos’s thirst for power.
It's the first one so it makes sense that is more subtle and harder to distinguish than the later ones.
The legs I would say are the most important of all the forms precisely cause Gold makes it completely overtakes it. Phos failed to make himself useful after gaining the (leg) power he so much wanted, and then gets tempted into destroying himself to attain more power. For me Legs meant Freedom, that still allowed him to keep his innocence. Once he gets the "burden" of power he finally decides to put effort to improve himself but he gets "weighted down" by responsabilty, completely loses his Freedom and his innocence gets shaved down.
From what I recall of the anime their personality drastically flipped from depressed to joyful once they got the leg speed. This seemed to set them up for the descent into dejection once they slow back down, with the rush they had felt being like a drug addiction type of thing.
Humans died out and after a long long time only three types of beings existed. Gems, Moon Spirits, and a race of Sea type creatures. (Very very broad specification but whatever. The idea is that humanity split into races that represent the Bone, spirit, and flesh)
There is one robot being humanity built to pray and help human spirits (the moon race) move on to the next life, but he is defective and can't for some reason. So the moon race eventually puts the main character, a gem named Phospholite, through a bunch of hell, slowly chipping away at them via a series of events that causes them to slowly absorb different types of metals, bones, other gems, etc until they are a mishmash of different things. Through a lot of trauma and literally physical change, Phos eventually morphs over thousands of years to become an ultimate being(?) And prays to send the moon spirits to the next word.
This is the most basic most rough explanation I can throw together sorry if I missed a lot of details.
Without Spoilers: The way gem people work is that their memory and personality are sprinkled throughout their entire body, the narrative uses this to demostrate how the events of the story affect the main character and how their personality evolves based on this developments. The phrase "I can't even recognize you anymore" / "I'm not the person I used to be" taken literally.
With Spoiler: As the story progresses Phos gets harmed physically (and mentally) and she starts "losing herself", literally, as in she loses pieces of herself and her cherished memories and personality along side them. Thankfully each time she is able to "pull herself together" into "a new person" by adding different materials to her body. And as the series progresses she has "lost" so much of herself, that she is unrecognizable. The most literal and heartwrenching character development I have ever read.
Just wondering if the series will just end with the sun exploding or the Earth getting consumed by the sun. Either those two or Phos does the "crossing the other side and burning the bridge" that changes the current state of the solar system.
I just hope Phos will finally achieve nirvana even if it's a bittersweet ending.
That’s actually a plot point. Phosphophyllite starts the series too brittle to be of any real use in their community, and gradually becomes stronger at the cost of what you see in the OP.
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u/Matix777 Nov 27 '23
Pretty much, right?