Dr. Stone has a hell of a hook. One day, with
no warning or explanation, every human being
on earth is turned into a stone statue. As
the centuries pass, nature reclaims the planet,
until one other day, 10,000 years after that
first one, a teenage genius named Senku Ishigami
is revived by unknown means. Finding himself
stuck in a now prehistoric world, he immediately
sets out to discover how he was revived, save
the rest of humanity, and use his vast scientific
knowledge to rebuild civilization from scratch.
Unfortunately, one of the first people he
revives is the brutishly strong Tsukasa, a
modern day caveman seemingly built to live
in the new, untamed jungles of Japan, who
doesn’t want to return to the way things
were, and would rather revive only the young
and pure to live out their days in this unspoiled
world. He has no qualms about killing the
old to build his utopia, or anyone else who
gets in his way.
In a battle of brawn, Senku doesn’t stand
a chance against Tsukasa and his growing “kingdom
of might,” but with his brains, and a bit
of help from the few primitive humans who’ve
somehow survived into the present, he might
just be able to build up his own “kingdom
of science” and fight back.
Before this, I didn’t really read manga
before watching their anime adaptations, but
that premise was just… too intriguing to
pass up. And as I found out, it’s got a
LOT going for it beyond a solid high concept.
Dr. Stone is the series that finally turned
me into an weekly manga reader, and almost
two years later, its anime adaptation has
become one of my favourites of 2019. Today,
I’d like to shine a light on what I see
as the series’ biggest strengths, in the
hopes of figuring out exactly what’s so
great about Dr. Stone.
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Right off the bat, this series sets itself
apart from your standard Shounen Jump fair
by taking its focus away from fighting. There
ARE a fair number of battles in Dr. Stone,
but they’re not given all that much screen
time. Instead, the story is mostly about Senku’s
preparations for those battles; gathering
resources, concocting strategies, and inventing
the tools he needs to win before the fight’
seven begun. This remains interesting, even
in the absence of over the top action, for
two reasons.
Firstly because everything Senku does is based
in practical real world science, it’s just…
inherently interesting to see how he solves
problems. As the series is starting out, his
experiments have a primitive-technology-esque
survivalist appeal; there’s something immensely
satisfying about seeing man bend the world
to his whims with simple tools.
Once Senku has a proper lab set up, though,
the appeal shifts from primitive procedure
to seemingly impossible scientific spectacle.
In short order, he begins performing near-miracles;
like introducing electric light to the stone
world. It’s almost the stuff of fantasy,
yet, because we see every step it takes to
get there, we know it really works. At least
in theory.
The emphasis on research and planning over
action also allows the series to place a greater
focus on interactions between its characters;
working with both strong comedic chemistry
between senku and his friends, and uneasy
tension between them and potential foes. It’s
not quite as psychological as, say, the promised
neverland, but it’s fun watching all of
these personalities bounce off each other
either way.
Senku’s a particularly wonderful protagonist,
precisely because he’s not particularly
wonderful. He’s a schemer, a bit of a sleazebag,
and more than a little arrogant about his
intellect. And while he does think that restoring
humanity is generally the right thing to do,
the main thing that motivates him to do it
is his dream of going to space one day, which
ain’t gonna happen without a lot of help.
In contrast to your standard idealistic shounen
hero, he’s more of a cackling mad scientist
type, but he still helps people because that’s
the easiest way to get them to help him. So
we as an audience get to enjoy watching a
character enact kinda villainous plots, without
the moral guilt of rooting for a monster.
That makes for a fun change of pace from your
typical adventure anime, although if you’re
looking for a more conventionally sympathetic
hero to root for; y’know, the save the world,
do anything for love type, both his naïve
and strong-willed best friend Taiju and the
bright-eyed stone-age “sorcerer” Chrome
fit that bill nicely. And there’s plenty
more characters to fill any other niche you
might hope for. Ishigami village alone has
40 inhabitants with their own names and recognizable
designs, and there’s even more memorable
faces among the villains.
You’ve the manipulative mentalist, Gen,
the tough as nails tomboy Kohaku, who for
the record is best girl, the adorable and
always helpful child slash mascot Suika, the
Strait-laced, no-nonsense village guard Kinro
and his lazy, all-nonsense sidekick Ginro,
Magma and Mantle, who are basically caveman
versions of Gaston and Lafoue, Kaseki, a passionate
elderly craftsman with steady hands supported
by the buffest body in the whole village…
I should probably stop just listing characters,
but that’s not even all the IMPORTANT ONES.
Dr. Stone’s cast is HUGE, and while it kinda
has to rely on tropes to give that many people
distinct, appealing personalities, it does
a damn fine job of making everyone we spend
any significant time with feel like a unique
3-dimensional human being. It’s hard NOT
to find at least one favourite here.
Solid writing carries a lot of that weight,
but the show and manga’s bold aesthetics
are just as key to its appeal. Korean artist
Boichi’s character designs are wacky, exaggerated,
expressive and instantly memorable; (also,
for the most part, crazy horny). Yet that
cartoony edge is blended with a meticulous
attention to detail, with shading and texture
work at times comparable to the art of Yusuke
Murata. His style lends the manga’s world
a unique, off-kilter personality, while making
it feel impressively tangible.
Those complex designs don’t exactly lend
themselves all that well to animation; as
an anime Dr. Stone is a fair bit stiffer in
motion than My Hero Academia or Demon Slayer,
but it makes up for that in other ways. It’s
got some of the funniest reaction faces you’ll
see all year, for starters. The background
art that depicts its lush, rocky world is
consistently gorgeous and highly detailed;
and in keeping with the scientific subject
matter, the show’s animators went to great
lengths to make real processes, like blowing
glass and crushing shells, look as authentic
as possible.
And that attention to detail is important;
because as much as Dr. Stone wants to simply
tell a fun adventure story, it also aims to
educate its viewers about the wonders of science.
Though don’t let that scare you off – it
takes a very different approach to education
from other shows with similar goals
From western mainstays like Bill Nye and the
Magic Schoolbus, to anime like Cells At Work,
the vast majority of Edutainment tends to
be episodic. And that makes sense – if your
goal is to teach, it’s logical to focus
on delivering memorable, self-contained lessons
over telling complex ongoing stories. But
science kinda… is a complex, ongoing story.
All of nature is connected, and every invention
that we use today is the product of people
building on other people’s discoveries,
stretching back for millennia.
Dr. Stone accelerates that timeline by…
quite a lot, but its story reflects that process
of innovation and iteration... senku’s ultimate
goal is to rebuild civilization from scratch
the same way we did it the first time. The
interpersonal conflicts of its narrative create
the need for specific inventions that then
become the focus of individual episodes and
chapters, but once we move past the absolute
basics, like rope and soap, EVERYTHING that
the kingdom of science creates is made by
building on what they’ve accomplished before.
The series’ trademark “roadmaps” help
to track this progress, showing step by step
how the raw materials senku and co gather
and the technologies they develop with them
enable further innovations. And while this
approach does make it a bit harder to put
everything you learn from an episode of Dr.
Stone into a neat and tidy box in your head
like you can with Bill Nye, the trade-off
is that all of the facts you learn from the
series have lasting narrative significance.
Which is significant, because our brains are
a lot better at retaining details from stories
we’ve been told than they are at remembering
isolated facts.
If you’re invested in the characters and
world of Dr. Stone, you have as good a reason
to remember how Senku, Kohaku, Chrome and
Suika used magnets to gather iron sand from
the river, what it took to smelt that into
usable iron, and how they then used lightning
to turn that into a magnet, as you do to remember,
say, the differences between quirk types in
my hero academia. Or how flight works in dragon
ball.
What’s more, because certain subjects – like
magnetism and electricity – tend to be applicable
to a lot of the goals that Senku sets out
to accomplish, the series allows its audience
to develop a more comprehensive understanding
of those subjects than they’d gain from
a single episode about them. In much the same
way that you probably have a better understanding
of how Crazy Diamond works and what its limitations
are than you do of, say, aqua necklace, or
Superfly.
I can’t say with any certainty that this
is a more effective method of teaching science
than Bill Nye’s approach. It’s certainly
nowhere near as efficient, since Dr. Stone
spends a lot more time developing its characters
and plot than it does imparting useful knowledge.
But I can say that I’m more emotionally
invested in this series than I EVER was in
the Science Guy or the Magic Schoolbus.
Because of that, on top of teaching me more
about how the modern world works, Dr Stone
has really helped me better appreciate everything
that world has given me, and the hard work
and human ingenuity that it took to build
it. As someone who can barely see past the
end of his own nose, the moment where Suica
puts on her glasses and sees the world clearly
for the first time in her life brought tears
to my barely functional eyes. And that’s
just one of many surprisingly emotional scenes
that result from Senku’s research.
That, I think, is where Dr. Stone’s real
educational strength lies: beyond simply conveying
information about our world, it has an incredible
ability to inspire a sense of genuine awe
at the impact that science has had on it,
and on us. By resetting earth to a realistic
primitive state, Dr. Stone effectively frames
scientific knowledge as a world-shaking Shounen
superpower. And an attainable one, at that.
When you’re a kid watching Shounen Anime,
it’s only natural to want to be like the
heroes on your screen. But, given that most
Shounen stories are escapist fantasies – with
an emphasis on fantasy – they don’t always
offer many practical outlets for that motivation.
Beyond Naruto-running everywhere, I mean.
A lot of shounen heroes are good role models
who can inspire viewers to be better people,
but often only in abstract terms.
Things change when these kinds stories are
used to present activities that kids can actually
participate in. Many a child (or *ahem* grown
adult) watching Yugioh has gotten caught up
in the hype and bought a booster pack or two…
hundred. And the power that anime has to get
kids excited about real things isn’t limited
to glorified advertising. Haikyuu caused enrollment
in japenese boy’s high school volleyball
to surge by over ten percent in just 4 years,
simply by showing kids that volleyball could
be cool.
In a similar manner, Dr. Stone uses the tools
of hyped-up shounen storytelling to demonstrate
how interesting, fun, and rewarding scientific
research and experimentation can be. And it
further amplifies the coolness factor by demonstrating
it through an apocalyptic adventure story.
As opposed to, like, a… science fair tournament
arc, I guess?
It will take more time to see what effect
that’s having than it did to observe Haikyuu’s
impact on high school volleyball, but I think
that Dr. Stone could potentially inspire a
LOT of kids to pursue careers in science and
medicine.
It’s impossible to estimate how many at
this point. But considering how far we’ve
gotten with only .1% of the global population
working in scientific research today, just
bringing in a few thousand more could have
a significant positive impact on humanity’s
future. And… yeah, this all very hypothetical
but… how many manga or anime can you honestly
say that about, hypothetically or not?
Even for those of us who don’t end up in
science, though, Dr. Stone conveys a really
powerful and positive humanist message: that
people, even, as chrome would put it, baaaad
dudes like Ginro and Magma, have the potential
to do great things. That it’s not just morally
right, but also rational to help others achieve
that potential, because what benefits the
group benefits us as individuals. And based
on that – at least, according to Senku’s
calculations – all SEVEN BILLION of us are
worth fighting to save.
The series isn’t flawless, mind you. In
cheerleading for modern science, it does at
times threaten to present the modern world
as some kind of perfect utopia – which it
definitely isn’t – and I don’t always
agree with its specific philosophical stances.
But that core theme is something that I can
1 Million percent get behind. And if you’ve
got a kid who’s even 1 percent interested
in science… I think this is one of the best
pieces of educational media you could EVER
expose them to.
But it only works on either level, because,
above all else, it’s just a blast to watch.
Or read. It tells a compelling story with
a brilliant high concept driven by unconventional
conflicts, it’s gorgeous to look at, and
it is packed to bursting with interesting,
likeable characters. If you like Shounen anime,
and, really, who doesn’t, Dr. Stone is about
as fun and fresh as it gets.
This video was brought to you by crunchyroll,
the premiere anime streaming platform, where
you can watch Dr. Stone, Demon Slayer, Attack
on Titan, Sword Art Online, My Hero Academia,
and plenty of other hit anime (along with
a metric ton of cool, more obscure titles),
with new episodes releasing right when they
air in japan. And anime’s not all they offer!
In the spirit of education, Crunchyroll has
created a “bonus episode” of Dr. Stone
offering a behind-the-scenes look at how the
series was produced. It’s a fantastic little
documentary that highlights the creative passion
behind this anime, and the lengths its production
team went to for the sake of scientific authenticity.
And if you’ve ever been curious about what
goes into making anime in general, it also
runs through all the little steps required
bring just one shot (out of around 300 per
episode) to life.
You can check that out for FREE on crunchyroll’s
youtube channel, link in the dooblydoo, or
you can watch it as part of the series using
your Crunchyroll premium membership. Which
also grants access to the hundreds upon hundreds
of other great anime in their catalogue. If
you don’t have crunchyroll premium yet,
you can try it for 14 days, by signing up
for a free trial at crunchyroll.com/basement
Those are the reasons I like dr stone, but
if you’ve got your own, or reasons that
you don’t, for that matter, I’d love to
read about them in the comments down below,
along with anything else you wanna say. The
extra comments and likes you guys have been
leaving have really been helping the channel,
so again, thank you so much for that.
I’m Geoff Thew, Professional Shitbag, Signing
out from my mother’s basement
