Dr. Stone Episode 2

Dr. Stone Episode 2

King of the Stone World

Alright, who’s ready for another episode of DoubleSama destroys everything you hold dear? I don’t want to have to be the one to tell you this, but Dr. Stone isn’t good. I’m not going to call it bad (yet), but it’s definitely not good.

So let’s start with how the world has changed over the past 3,700 years since humanity turned to stone. In the previous episode we were shown that cities, for the most part, are still standing. Yet in this episode Senku is adamant that buildings such as schools no longer exist.

While it’s true that many buildings would likely be no more than piles of rubble after this length of time, a fair amount would certainly still exist. They would be overgrown and likely home to wild animals, but they would exist nonetheless. Typically these would be large buildings, but not towers, so like a school.

For this reason it’s already odd that Senku and Taiju decided to build their own shelter. They could have easily made use of ruins which are still standing. They might have to build a roof, but they would have more space and be better protected.

Also, they seem to have forgotten that they don’t need to start back in the stone age. Metal tools exist and are readily available to them (as are plastics). Think of it this way, the pyramids in Egypt are currently 4,500, so when you think of it like that, 3,700 years isn’t all that long. Kitchenware would still very much exist, and the same is true for other stainless steel objects.

Finally, we have the lions. I’m going to be the one to sadly inform you that there would likely not be roaming packs of lions in Japan. Not every zoo in Japan has lions, and of those that do, how many would have their lion enclosures open at the exact moment the petrification event happened?

Further, if any lions did escape, it’s likely they wouldn’t have a large enough population to survive for very long assuming they found enough food to last a single generation. Yes, Japan has Sika Deer, but that’s basically it as far as large animals the lions could hunt.

Senku mentions that there would be all the pets of Japan for the lions to eat, but how many of those pets would be out for the lions to get? Most of them would likely die indoors of starvation. There simply wouldn’t be enough lions to create a stable population, and if there were, there wouldn’t be enough food to support them in the short term.

Ultimate Life Form Kars

Now that I’ve debunked some of the claims made within the episode, let’s talk about the “strongest primate high schooler.” Already we can see that he has a terrible nickname. What does that even mean? I get that he’s strong and a high schooler, but why did they add primate in there? Primal probably would have been a better word choice, but still not great.

Oh, and did you notice how at the beginning of the episode Senku joked about accidentally reviving a mass murderer first? Yeah, nice foreshadowing there. If it wasn’t obvious to you that this guy was going to be bad news even before Senku dropped that hint then I don’t know what you were thinking.

He looks like Ultimate Life Form Kars, the antagonist from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 2: Battle Tendency. He’s literally a Pillar Man; of course he’s going to be an evil, mass murderer. I think what I hate the most is that the author probably thought he was being clever with that foreshadowing even though it was obvious beforehand.

Tsukasa Shishiou (petrified) from the anime series Dr. Stone
Tsukasa Shishiou (petrified)

Oh, and can I just say that Tsukasa, the strongest primate high schooler, literally killed a full-grown, male lion with a single punch. Maybe I’m the minority here, but I don’t really think someone with superhuman abilities fits in a series about science. Though I do concede the point that everyone magically turned to stone so killing a lion in one punch isn’t the craziest thing to happen.

Senku is also sure to remind us that guns don’t exist in this world so there’s no way to stop Tsukasa if he happens to go on a rampage. But I’m sure he would never do that, right?

Senku the Science Guy

In my previous review I mentioned my hatred for Senku’s hair and the fact that he has E=mc² stitched onto his shirt. Well, let me add a few more things to the list starting with his fascination with the number ten billion.

Everything is ten billion to him. It’s exactly like him stitching that equation on his shirt. He simply chooses something his chuunibyo science brain thinks makes him seem cool and runs with it. Though I’m sure the 12-year-old boys this series is written for think the number ten billion is cool too.

And on a similar note, he likes to sprinkle in other “science” words into his sentences. When he disagrees with Tsukasa, he could have stopped after saying “not at all,” but instead went on to say “not even a millimeter.” Is millimeter a “sciencey” word? Not really, but I can tell he thinks it is and that’s why he’s saying it.

To be fair, I’m not trying to say that Senku isn’t actually a genius. He knows far more about random technological advances than I do. But that doesn’t change the fact that his character is little more than a chuunibyo who thinks he’s better than everyone.

Oh, and we also learned that Senku isn’t the titular “Dr. Stone.” Instead, Dr. Stone refers to some home made soap.

Classic Shounen Move

Now that I’ve gotten more of my hatred for Senku out of the way, let’s go back to discussing Tsukasa Shishiou. As previously mentioned, the fact that he’s the antagonist of the series was pretty obvious from the very beginning. Even if you didn’t watch the OP which paints him as one, you should have been able to tell.

But it’s his motives that really exemplify everything that is the shounen genre. He hates adults, that’s pretty much it. Tsukasa is an angsty teen who doesn’t like that adults have control over him. So, in this new world he’s decided that no adults will be revived, only kids.

Adults do bad things such as own property, and ask for taxes to be paid, and make him do his homework. But nothing could possibly go wrong in a world of only kids and teenagers. Something, something, something, Lord of the Flies. I hope we meet the Piggy of the series soon.

Tsukasa Shishiou from the anime series Dr. Stone
Tsukasa Shishiou

However, it’s not just Tsukasa’s motive that’s classic shounen. It’s what effect his motive will have on the series. From the OP it looked like there’s going to be at least one older, male character, but other than that it’s all teenagers.

All or mostly teenage casts in situations where adults would obviously be the better choice is a classic shounen move. The world needs to be saved? Let’s have some kids do it even though they have no experience and clearly shouldn’t be the ones chosen.

Conclusion

So what did you think of this week’s episode of Dr. Stone? Do you still think it’s somehow the best anime of the season? Let me know in the comments. And while you’re down there, click the like button ❤ if you enjoyed this review.

Also be sure to follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama. I tweet out every time a new post goes live, so it’s the best way to stay up to date. I also sometimes put polls up over there regarding schedule changes.

Finally I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the next episode is available here.

2 Replies to “Dr. Stone Episode 2”

  1. Why is it that people call “saying it won’t happen with no evidence in support” debunking? I mean, you really have to be rather ignorant of the amount of work that is done to keep the pyramids of egypt standing year after year to use them as a trolling reference.

    This reminds me of a much older documentary “Life after People” that discussed these very issues. The facts that you’re willfully ignoring is that modern structures are made “cheaper” than ancient wonders and often aren’t suited for the regions they’re built in. You have a heck of a lot more flammable material in these modern architectures and they certainly aren’t built to stand for decades unmaintained.

    1. Let me clear some things up for you. First of all, I did not use the pyramids as an example to illustrate the fact that buildings would still be standing. Most buildings would not be standing, or at least they would be mostly destroyed. However, Large buildings which aren’t necessarily tall, and which are made out of reinforced steel and stone such as schools, would have a fairly good chance of still being around (minus the roofs).

      The pyramid reference was in the next paragraph talking about the existence of metals. We have thousands of metal artifacts from this time, which was longer ago than the 3,700 years separating the stone world from our modern world. And the metals we have in our modern world are magnitudes more durable than the bronze age artifacts of the pyramids — there is no doubt that they would still exist.

      Also, I have seen the “Life After People” documentary, I believe it was an entire series. While it’s pretty good at giving a big picture of what would happen, I do remember that some of their time frames were a bit off. Specifically I think in one episode it mentioned that all the major skyscrapers of the world would collapse within 5 years. And, let’s not kid ourselves into thinking the History Channel is a good source of information. This is the same channel Ancient Aliens is on (or was, I haven’t watched TV in a long time).

      And finally, I have multiple degrees in history. I specialized in Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern civilizations. I’m fairly confident I know what I’m talking about in this regard. You’ll notice that many of my weekly episode reviews for series discuss the cultures of these various fictional civilizations — including their technologies, political systems, architecture, art, etc. That’s kind of a major focus of much of my content because it’s something I can actually discuss thanks to my background.

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