Dr. Stone (Season One)
The entire human race was petrified in an instance and stood helplessly as its creations crumble around them. Almost four thousand years later, Senku finally freed himself from his stone prison and looks to rebuild society!
What did you watch?
There was a fair amount of hype around Dr Stone coming into the Summer 2019 anime schedule. Mostly, because Crunchyroll seemed to be determined to advertise it everywhere. I’ve never seen so much anime advertising in my life. Anyhow, it’s a post-apocalyptic series and those are fairly rare in the anime world so I was determined to watch it. I’m a huge fan of the post-apocalyptic genre and I’m not sure why, but watching society crumble is fascinating! Anyhow, let’s talk about the actual series and you can expect spoilers.
What happened?
Taiju was moments away from confessing his love to Yuzuriha when a green light bathed the entire Earth, turning every human to stone. The desire to tell her how he felt kept him going as years, decades, and centuries rolled by. Finally, he awoke, breaking free from the stone casing to find a different world. In among the overgrown trees and bushes, he found a message from his best friend, Senku. Then, he found Yuzuriha still encased in stone, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t wake her.
Senku found Taiju and quickly explained the situation. They had been petrified along with all of humanity for roughly three thousand, seven hundred years. So far, they were the only ones to break free. Senku, being the science prodigy had already begun to rebuild and with Taiju’s limitless energy, things were about to pick up. Then, an encounter with some hungry lions forced Senku to revive a fighter, Tsukasa who quickly defeated the lions and added his strength to Senku’s cause, but their views on the future of humanity differed.
Things came to a standoff where Tsukasa killed Senku… or so he thought. Senku disappeared, leaving Taiju and Yuzuriha to go back to Tsukasa as spies, while he attempted to create a nation of science that could oppose Tsukasa. Luckily, Senku found a primitive village and went to work at bringing them around to his cause. And with the wonders of science, it shouldn’t be that hard… should it?
What did you think?
I absolutely loved this series. It is my favourite series of the year by a long way, which is something I really wasn’t expecting after four or five episodes. At that point, it was fairly interesting but something about it didn’t really click. The threat of Tsukasa chasing them continuously started to become annoying, but then he killed Senku. In reality, he failed to kill Senku and that was when the series took a wonderful turn. Senku met up with Kohaku, a warrior from a village. Soon after he met Chrome and the cast slowly grew around them. We saw some marvellous science experiments as Senku went about creating his nation of science and it was incredibly satisfying.
What was your favourite moment?
The thing with this series was that every episode had a least one wonderful moment and each week it seemed to get better and better. As a result, I’m not sure how I’ll pick a favourite from all of it, but here goes. Seeing Senku recreating things that he’d already learnt about was impressive, especially given the limited resources, but it was still all stuff that he already knew. So, when Chrome approached Kaseki with an original idea of his own, they were understandably excited. I had an idea where they were going, but it didn’t make the process any less amazing.
Together, with no previous knowledge of one, Chrome and Kaseki invented a waterwheel. Sure, they had a different name for it, but seeing them make the transition from creators to inventors was incredible and the joy that followed was well deserved. Not only that, but their invention pushed the village forward in leaps and bounds. It really was an amazing moment, but then there were so many to choose from that all could have equally been in this spot.
What was your least favourite moment?
In the beginning, I found Tsukasa to be a very interesting character. He was an idealist who had a vision of a world free from the possessive nature of the past. To achieve this dream, however, he was ready to destroy all of the petrified adults. It’s a fairly extreme thing to do, but there was some sense to his end goal.
Sadly, as the series went on, Tsukasa’s dream seemed to change into him becoming the evil overlord complete with a dark mountain fortress and stone throne. He was now surrounded by older warriors and fighters, essentially his henchmen. I really didn’t like the way this just seemed to happen and would have appreciated some development where maybe Tsukasa was so obsessed with the idea that Senku might still be alive that it somehow changed him.
Who was your favourite character?
There is no question in my mind about this one. It is Kohaku. I love strong female characters, especially if they are able to use a sword. It’s like my kryptonite. As soon as I see them, I am helpless and destined to follow them. One of the really cool things about Kohaku is that she was widely regarded as the strongest fighter in the village. Even Magma knew that he was no match for her. Not once did anyone try to play her strengths down because she was just a girl and that was refreshing. She was just the strongest and that was that.
She was also a fascinating character who would do whatever it took to keep her sister Riri alive, even facing the wrath of her father, the village chief. I don’t know exactly how long, she’d been doing it, but Kohaku had been making a long trek daily to collect hot spring water, which Senku later revealed was probably the only thing that had kept Riri alive this long. There was a great moment between Chrome and Kohaku where she noted that they weren’t that dissimilar. Kohaku was definitely the action hero to Senku’s scientist.
Who was your least favourite character?
This one is much harder as overall that cast was excellent and there were points in some episodes where almost everyone got a small moment to shine. It never really felt like we were being overloaded and the characters generally stuck to their traits. This is another reason that I enjoyed the series so much. The only character that really seemed to betray his original development was Tsukasa and that’s a shame because early on, he was possibly my favourite character.
Other than Tsukasa, I feel like I should mention Hyoga who has been introduced as the clear villain with his tendencies to sacrifice his men without much thought. Could he prove to be more dangerous than Tsukasa in the coming season? Only time will tell.
Would you like some more?
One million percent! This series has been incredible and the science has really been exhilarating. I shouldn’t have been that surprised after enjoying How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift? and Are You Lost? earlier in the year as both had some educational aspects to them. This series really took those ideas and built on it to the max. I did wonder how they would keep things going, but it never took its foot off the gas. The series continued to build on the ideas and revelations of the previous episodes and discoveries. Luckily for me, a second season has already been confirmed and even though we don’t have a confirmed date, I can’t wait.
What have you learnt?
I’ve mentioned the discovery and invention that made this series so entertaining, but I think the number one reason that it grabbed me is the characters. It’s even more noticeable when you compare the start of the series to the point where Senku arrived at the village. In the beginning, the characters were good, but they didn’t really connect or play off one another that well. Once we got to the village, we met so many new and varied characters, but they worked well together and stayed in character. The developments felt natural and everyone reacted as you would expect them too. I think if you get the balance of the characters right, you can make anything into a compelling story. After all, plot engages our brains, but characters capture our hearts.
Other Posts in the Series
Series Information
| English Title | Dr. Stone |
| Japanese Title | Dr. Stone |
| Genres | Action, Adventure, Apocalyptic, Comedy, Science Fiction, Survival |
| Demographic | Shounen |
Anime
Season One
Season Two
Bonus Posts
| Saturday Spinoff | Kohaku Lost |
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