Dr. Stone Episode 8

Dr. Stone Episode 8

Stone Road

Alright, so I think this episode’s title is supposed to referenced the antibiotic roadmap Senku drew, because there was no other sort of road present in the episode. But even though I figured that out, it’s still a terrible episode title that doesn’t really make sense.

Also before I actually begin the episode review I want to point out that Senku said “10 billion” five times in this episode alone.

Although I’d say the previous episode was really the start of the new arc in Dr. Stone, this episode adds the first sub-goal into the mix. We already knew that Senku wants to take over the stone village so that he can fight against Tsukasa, but now he also wants to do it to learn more about the world in which he’s in.

It’s revealed that Ruri, the sickly priestess of the village, has knowledge from before the petrification event. She’s the one who told the other villagers about gorillas, though none of them have ever seen one, and she also knows about Momotaro, a Japanese children’s folktale character.

My assumption is that she knows about these things due to a tradition of passing down “history” orally. I’m guessing that’s why she’s the priestess. Each priestess probably passes down the story of humanity to the next, and over the generations the details have become lost.

But Senku doesn’t know this, so he needs to gain access to Ruri in order to ask her about how she came to hold this long lost information. And to do that, he needs to create an antibiotic in the hopes that it will cure her illness.

There are two ways to create antibiotics, one resulting in penicillin and one resulting in sulfa drugs.

Antibiotic Roadmap

Senku chooses the sulfa drugs route because although it will take a lot of work, it’s the guaranteed way to make an antibiotic. Making penicillin relies on chance — at least in the stone world which doesn’t have any modern technology.

So let’s break down the roadmap Senku devises to create sulfa drugs from scratch. There are five ingredients necessary to create the final product. These are:

  • Chlorosulfuric Acid
  • Ammonia
  • Aniline
  • Sodium Bicarbonate
  • Acetic Anhydride
Senku's antibiotic roadmap from the anime series Dr. Stone
Senku’s antibiotic roadmap

The easiest of these final ingredients to acquire is ammonia, which is found in urine. The next easiest is acetic anhydride. To get this, alcohol must be turned into vinegar, and then the vinegar can be turned into acetic anhydride. The third ingredient is aniline, which is derived from coal.

The other two end ingredients are a bit more complex to create and all require sodium hydroxide. The first step to creating that is to acquire iron, which we saw Senku & friends fail to do in this episode. With iron they can make powerful magnets, which when combined with copper and phosphorus can make electricity.

To get sodium hydroxide, electricity and salt are needed. Once they have sodium hydroxide, they can go back and create carbonic acid from alcohol and fuse it with the sodium hydroxide to get sodium bicarbonate.

Finally, by combining the sodium hydroxide and sulfuric acid, sodium hydrogen sulfate is created. Salt and sulfuric acid can also be combined to get hydrochloric acid. When sodium hydrogen sulfate and hydrochloric acid are combined, chlorosulfuric acid is made — the final ingredient.

Detective Watermelon

A new character is introduced in this episode who helps Senku, Kohaku, and Chrome as they work toward making the antibiotics. Her name is Suika, which means watermelon. And why is this her name? Because she wears a watermelon rind on her head.

It’s not explained why she does this, but it’s implied that it’s because she doesn’t like the way she looks. Suika also understands that the other villagers don’t like her because of her unique headgear, and yet she seems not to realize that it’s something she can take off.

She says, “I can never make myself useful to anyone because I have this thing on my head.” It’s too bad therapists don’t seem to exist in the stone world, because I think Suika needs to see one. She clearly has some sort of social development disorder which should be worked out.

But, Suika does still have her uses. For one, she’s an extra body to help with manual labor. Sure, she probably won’t be doing any heavy lifting, but there’s still a lot of other work to be done so every additional set of hands helps.

She’s also the perfect person to perform reconnaissance missions. Somehow — I don’t really understand it — she can disguise herself as a watermelon thanks to her headgear. Either she somehow fits her whole body inside it, or she buries her body so only her head is showing. This wasn’t exactly made clear.

Stone World Ramen

So how does Suika’s detective work come into play? Is she going to be sent to spy on Tsukasa’s village? Not quite. Instead, she’s tasked with infiltrating the stone village and learning what the villagers want. With this information, Senku can win them over to his side and start up his nation of science.

The first piece of information Suika relays to Senku is that there are three sisters, Garnet, Ruby, and Sapphire, who all want a boyfriend. Unfortunately, Senku is married to science and doesn’t have time for beautiful women, so he can’t help with this request.

However, she also has some good information. It turns out that multiple villagers want more food — specifically food that isn’t the grilled fish they normally eat. This is a problem that can be solved with science.

Senku's stone world ramen from the anime series Dr. Stone
Senku’s stone world ramen

By using foxtail millet as his grain, Senku makes ramen for the stone villagers. He admits that it doesn’t taste all that great because he was improvising with the recipe, but it’s still better than anything the villagers have had before.

With this “invention” he plans to win the stone villagers over so that he can use their manpower to continue making the antibiotic for Ruri. Then, once she’s all better, he’ll be considered the savior of the village and hailed as a hero, not an evil overlord who came to conquer them.

Conclusion

Overall I don’t actually think this episode was all that bad, which is strange considering the fact that Senku said his catchphrase five times. Also, I don’t really like Suika and I view her as barely a character, but what do you think? Is Suika a good addition to the group? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of the next episode is available here.

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