'Dr. Stone' Is Exhilarating

Dr. Stone is basically about one boy’s crusade to bring humanity out of a second Stone Age by re-inventing modern technology one piece at a time.  How did he find himself engaging in such incredible cause? Well, it’s put into motion one fateful day, when a mysterious, blinding flash of green light engulfs the whole world and petrifies every human being in it.  Several millennia later, there’s virtually no trace of human civilization around as nature has been left uninterrupted to take over, changing the topography completely.

This is the world that the boy, an incredibly intelligent high school genius named Senku Ishigami, has found himself waking up to.  He’s seemingly the first person to break free from stone, and once he does so, he eagerly puts his mind into working on the grandest scientific enterprise of all time: reviving the rest of mankind and rebuilding human civilization from ground up.

Soon, he’s able to revive allies to join him in his task.  First is his brawny, vigorous best friend Taiju Oki, whom serves as the “brawn” to his “brain.”  Second is Tsukasa Shishio, alias “The Strongest Primate High Schooler”, a teenage, Samson-esque MMA fighter who’s so strong, he’s been able to kill a lion with one punch immediately after his revival.  And third is handicraft specialist Yuzuriha Ogawa, whom Taiju intended to confess his love to but was interrupted when the green light hit.

Everything is progressing smoothly at first, but it soon becomes evident that Senku and Tsukasa have opposite, irreconcilable visions for rebuilding the world.  This leads to the split of their party.  Senku forms the Kingdom of Science, as he continues on with his goal of regaining the technologies and other tools of science that were lost on top of saving all of mankind.  Meanwhile, Tsukasa forms the Empire of Might, which aims to make this new world exclusively for the younger generation, and thus, requires the elimination of the corrupt, greedy adults while they’re still in a petrified state.  The people who get revived afterward find themselves aligning with one or the other.  Over time, the Kingdom of Science and the Empire of Might proceed to gather strength in their own respective ways for the inevitable final showdown that will determine the fate of the world.

Although it uses some conventional genre tropes, Dr. Stone is definitely a different kind of shonen.  While it has some action, it’s not action-oriented at all (at least, as far as this 24-episode debut season goes).  However, it’s not at all less captivating than an action-packed shonen.  There’s great excitement to be had in witnessing the characters laboring for particular technological inventions (or, rather, “re-inventions”).  It’s, as Senku’s expression goes, “exhilarating.”

Whenever Senku and his friends are working toward creating a specific tool in this “Stone Age” world, they have to adhere to a “roadmap diagram.”  It functions like the tech or research tree of games like Civilization.  They must first “unlock” prerequisite components at escalating tiers before the tool is made.  This not only makes the process extremely engrossing and entertaining, but it also makes the building of these inventions realistic.  By “realistic”, I don’t mean there’s no suspension of disbelief required.  There are definitely undertakings here that are only accomplished with the help of very ideal circumstances, outrageous luck, or unbelievable coincidences.  Indeed, in real life, the things accomplished here are improbable.  Nevertheless, they are within the realms of possibilities.  And in the context of its story, they are presented logically.

When I picked up Dr. Stone at the start of the 2019 summer season, I absolutely become totally enamored with it.  After episode 3, I couldn’t wait for the next week’s episode to know what was going to happen next in the story, so I immediately sought the manga.  I ended up reading many chapters ahead.  And now, I’m caught up with it, as it has become one of the manga titles I’m following every week.

However, even though I already knew what was going to happen, it didn’t hinder my enjoyment for the anime at all.  Every aspect of its production – animation, sound design, voice acting, writing, direction, etc. – is so fantastic that it made the story more rewarding as an anime.  The hilarious and poignant moments are especially more potently executed in this medium.

All in all, I love Dr. Stone.  It’s funny, engaging, educational, heartwarming, and uplifting.  Obviously, it preeminently upholds and lauds the importance of science and the scientific method.  But by also earnestly celebrating human resilience, empathy, and relationships with the same kind of regard, it manages to connect emotionally just as intellectually.

When I ranked the summer 2019 anime I watched, the season’s Big Three was in a three-way tie.  But now that I’m done watching each one’s debut season, it’s settled in my mind that Dr. Stone is the best of the three.