Back in 2020, my love for anime got jump-started. And while I didn't have the biggest idea of what I wanted, I was interested in recent shonen. So around the latter half of that year, I decided to read the first volumes and watch the first seasons of Demon Slayer, Fire Force, and Dr. Stone. Little did I know that the third series would surprise me the most.
Note
This time around this review will focus on both manga and anime since I'm caught up with both. But don't worry, though, because I will be keeping this mainly spoiler-free review, so you can still enjoy it if you want. I just really love the series, and I hope I can make you love it.
Summary
In 2019, humanity was the same as it's ever been. Mobile phones and social media are as addicting as ever, first-world problems in third-world countries are still a distant dream, and overpopulation is quickly approaching. But we aren't talking about any of those problems. Instead, we are going to tell a tale as old as time.
In one day, five years of will they won't they are about to end for resident hardworking oaf Taju Oki is finally going to confess his feelings to Yuzuhira Ogawa. However, that confession, gets on hold as a mysterious green light started to bath across the entire world.
This green light in one fell swoop effectively petrified all of humanity within their stone prison. However, despite that, Taju held on, keeping his consciousness for thousands of years, adamant about trying to keep his love alive. And when he finally wakes up, Taju effectively realizes that all of human civilization has now vanished in the presence of a new stone age 3700 years in the making.
But not everything is gone, however, because it seems that against all odds, Taju managed to awaken alongside his lifelong buddy and series protagonist Senku Ishigami, a genius science prodigy with a passion matching his intelligence.
With Taju's might and Senku's brains combined with many others, Senkuintends to bring back every modern innovation in humanity's arsenal and figure out the mystery behind the mysterious petrification event. So get excited, dear viewers, because 2 million years of human progress are about to get quickened.
Cast
Dr. Stone's cast is its strongest aspect. Despite the dozens of characters the series makes excellent use of almost every single one of them as integral parts of a grand whole and gives them more than enough wacky ticks and personality traits to make them both fun and memorable. Because of the tone and nature of the series, we get many interesting team-ups. Most of the cast of Dr. Stone has unique traits, skills, and development that fits perfectly within their backgrounds while contributing meaningfully to the overall narrative.
But let's get into the real bread and butter of the conversation: Senku (middle name escapes me) Ishigami. The man quickly has shot up the ranks to be not only my favorite new gen shonen protagonist but probably one of my favorite shonen protagonists of all time. His design and initial appearance at first convey Senku as a typical, straightforward evil genius mc with an unrivaled ego. That distinction couldn't be farther from the truth. His often villainous excitement and overconfidence are just masks hiding Sennku's humanism.
Senku's confidence as a character comes from his belief that the scientific method handcrafted by fellow humans can overcome what most would consider fantasy. His villainous attitude also comes mainly from the excitement of further development. It serves as a subtle mask to hide Senku's more emotional vulnerability when he does get scared and sad.
That last part is easily my favorite part of Senku's character overall. Unlike most genius characters in anime, Senku's intelligence, while exaggerated, is not an instant get-out-of-jail-free card and isn't some innate talent. Because Senku wasn't made smart, he was just stupid enough to try and try again until he succeeds; his and never give up attitude when it comes to problem-solving has always been his greatest asset.
Senku is a man who came into the world with nothing. Eventually, through perseverance, resourcefulness, and ambition, he always managed to make something while striving for everything. For he believes that as long as you have the will and seek the knowledge that this world is yours.
Most importantly he gets help from people better than him in certain aspects and even then mistakes and shortcomings are very common in Senku's plans. This means that no matter how over the top the creation is like a lightbulb to a missile, it all feels natural and worked up. While Senku is willing to use underhanded tactics and can be ruthless, he wishes to win over his enemies through modern comfort laced with honest truth even if his teammates would think otherwise.
On a deeper level, this shows his love of humanity. So while Senku is more than happy to share his vast array of knowledge with his allies and make their lives better despite being illogical distractions he also believes even if he were to meet his end, science, civilization and by extension, humanity would be still able to eventually revive itself. He's just more than willing to speed up the timer a little.
Outside of that, the main players in the anime include the endlessly energetically, simple-minded Taju, the reserved but resolved Yuzuriha, the seamstress, and lovably scrappy learner/explorer Chrome. Later on, we get the manipulating mentalist Gen Asigiri, the dependable lioness Kohaku, little helper Suika and many more.
Finally, we have Tsukasa, the brawny leader, to match Senku's brain for the main series antagonist. Unlike Senku's lofty goal, Tsukasa believes that if Senku did that, he would eventually create the same cruel and unjust modern world he spent decades living under the cruel boot heel of. Thus he personally seeks to create a world with the young, poor, and pure-hearted petrified people as part of an anarcho-primitivist society, whether Senku desires it or not.
Presentation
Now, this is where we get into the bread and butter of the story. In terms of animation, TMS Entertainment's part is honestly really good to say the very least. The anime does a great job copying Dr. Stone's beautiful art from the manga. The manga is illustrated by the amazing Boichi, whose illustrations for the volume covers and characters of the series look simply divine. The man just has a real knack for both anatomy and grand structures perfectly while giving it all a larger-than-life presentation.
While Dr. Stone isn't close to the animation level of its other shonen contemporaries the anime still know how to work within their limits really well. Due to the nature of the story, the natural backgrounds of Dr. Stone are frankly beautiful to say the very least, being wonderfully illustrated and realistic.
Probably my favorite part of these lush backgrounds is that many of the scientific phenomena within this environment are often portrayed with animal-like features to make the series more memorable, like how sulfuric acid is often portrayed as a deadly siren and the like. This also goes for the building of Senku's wonderful inventions, which are aimed to be as realistically shown as possible while also being relatively fun in how they are made.
In terms of character design, Dr Stone is solid. While it can be weird to see the girls feature vastly bigger and far apart eyes and the lacking nose, the overall design of the characters is cool. One of the best design choices in my eyes for the series is the introduction of the petrification scars that often come when a modern time character manages to get revived.
Not only is it a great way for fans to keep track of who is a "modern timer," but it also can be good for characterization with Tsukasa's large round scars across his face implying his somewhat scarred nature in life. Or Gen's subtly jagged line on his face can also imply his rather devilish and often faux appearances through his devilish machinations. Combined with the creatively primitive clothing and some of the funniest, over-the-top, and diverse expressions in anime I've watched, it works within limitations.
Music-wise, the series is also a unique experience. Most of the series has a very orchestral, swelling, and folkish soundtrack that does a great job setting the mood for both the progress and set up of a grand invention. Or hell just motivate you in general Though sometimes the series can go throw a curveball through an emotional pop song or fitting hip hop track.
Various ingenious openings and endings also excite me, but I'll explain my favorite of these in the Epilogue. The only time the presentation doesn't deliver is when Dr Stone is in the baseline fights, which are often so brief and so simply short that I legitimately look at some of them and say shit like.
"Can we get back to the chemistry class already, I wanna learn."
But it's not really that bad of a statement given the series is mostly about edutainment not just blatant entertainment and there aren't that many fight scenes, to begin with anyway.
Overview
Despite the unique plot, Dr. Stone never feels too out of their depth due to its set formula. In both the anime and the manga, most of the narrative gets Senku dealing with physically more powerful opponents under the buffer ofsecrecy and building anything he and his teammates need to prepare for the eventual climax.
So while the inventions Senku makes like simple shampoo and conditioner may seem odd, it has a clear necessary purpose in service of an overall goal. And the best part of all of this is that no matter how crazy these grand projects can feel, Dr. Stone's iconic roadmaps can make something as complex as antibiotics seem achievable.
It also doesn't hurt at all that the manga author and artist (Riichiro Inagaki and Boichi respectively) put an unhealthy amount of work into discussing the science of Dr. Stone with their peers trying to make it both as realistic but entertaining as possible with multiple real life people praising how authentic itis combined with how interactive it feels.
Unlike other edutainment shows, Dr. Stone encourages you to try out the various inventions by explaining their importance and creation beforehand. I've learned more about chemistry in one season of Dr. Stone than in two years of real-life chemistry class in high school. This honestly says more about my education system than the series itself, but I digress. It also doesn't hurt that later down the line the more ambitious endeavors of Senku get built up on these previous achievements making them feel all the more relevant. Dr. Stone is the series where hard work and preparation are almost always rewarded down the line.
And despite the rather bleak idea of a near post-apocalyptic event Dr. Stone shockingly has a light tone. Many of the series' jokes come from the massively memeable expressions and gimmicky character interactions, making the story almost always fun with some great emotional moments. Many think it's a negative but trust me when I say it fits with the themes of the narrative.
Speaking of that apocalyptic event Dr. Stone does an amazing job of naturally interweaving its short-term plot with the long-term mystery of what really happened 3700 years ago. Like a real scientific investigation seeing each new piece of the expansive puzzle only raises far more interesting questions about this new Stone World and I love how over time we get to see the usage of petrification quickly go from a humanity's curse to a relatively interesting mechanic that leads to moral dilemmas/strategies used by protags and antagonists alike.
That being said, Dr. Stone is not perfect. For all of its strengths, I will admit its plethora of information, and small detours in the grand scheme can make it relatively hard to absorb the info when you are binging the series. And while the series is well-paced, I do think we could get more time/focus on certain locations and characters when we get introduced to the more interesting locations. But overall, the issue of the series is probably in its villains. While many of the series' antagonists do have their own complex philosophies, most of their motivations are ridiculously hollow.
Especially since we don't really get to see the truly awful part of Senku's massive revival plan and vice versa for them, leaving many of the philosophical debates that could take place in series to feel wasted. And if you're not a fan of the atypical shonen villain reform, then ooh boy, you're not going to like how most villains get handled later down the line. But this series has a habit of taking seemingly villainous traits and concepts and turning them into something good, and like I said before, the strengths of the series more than outweigh these small cons.
Epilogue
All in all Dr. Stone is a series that brings a lot of complicated emotions but I think that the best way to solidify all those emotions and explain Dr. Stone's core theme is to do a quick highlight on my favorite ending/opening within the series: Voice? by Haetena. It's a very simple opening but it says everything.
It starts off with a silhouette of a primate across a forest-like landscape. As time passes, the primate quickly morphs into a hunter-gatherer with their settlement until we get to the modern-day man surrounded by heaven-scraping skyscrapers. The scene immediately shifts to a young Senku silhouette walking as we see those same city scapes decorated in various scientific tools.
When the petrification wave hits, Senku gets trapped in stone, as we see his surroundings to millennia-old erosion and fade away into a natural forest. Through the stone, we see a far more detailed yet sketchy Senku eventually managing to wake up from his petrification. But instead of despairing over his situation, fearing his new surroundings, or even stopping out of simple hesitation, Senku decides to keep walking forward.
As the music sweels and shifts into a faster tone, once Senku gets his bearings his triumphant walk turns into an uncontained sprint ever forward as we see his environment start getting more colorful and detailed. Before the cold sting of winter even gets to him, Senku prepares in advance, dressing in winter clothing and going faster.
And once he finally manages to get to the Tsukasa Empire, we see Senku's smiling face as the simple outlines fade away to full color, as he meets his enemy's stronghold with his Kingdom of Science flag burning bright. A symbol of a blazing rocket as it points to the distant horizon above said empire. It's so simple but works so well.
I've seen many anime discuss the complexities of humanity for better or worse. And I'll happily admit that Dr. Stone is not as complex as Attack on Titan, dark as Hunter x Hunter, as climatic as Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, or even as inspiring as Gurren Lagan.
Yet I don't think any anime or hell, even any story, has better shown the strengths of the human race quite like Dr. Stone. Because it doesn't rely on paltry faux speeches about how great we could be, instead, this series lets us see the results, creation, endurance, and appreciation of things we were allowed to take for granted every day. It's a series that shows our humanity, compassion, will, and curiosity as the most logically righteous things we as people could ever pursue.
For a kid that had to decide his own future in a year where everyone was losing their minds. A year that decided to try it's damn hardest to show off the best aspects for all to see. This anime was something I desperately needed to show me just how far we've come, and what we could achieve when truly pushed to our limits.
And it's definitely reminded me of how far I've come and how far I'm still willing to go to make my own mark on my future. Because we humans are very stubborn, ambitious and introspective people that continue to move ever forward long after any conventional reason has passed to make our mark far after we are gone; and if you think that's not something worth celebrating then don't worry, because Dr Stone has got you covered on that front.