Dr. Stone Episode 12

Buddies Back to Back

I have a lot of issues with today’s episode of Dr. Stone. And it doesn’t help that I would rather be playing the newly remastered Link’s Awakening right now rather than writing about this series. But, I know there are some of you who actually want to read this, so I’m taking one for the team.

However, it’s also true that while there were a lot of problems with this series, there were also a lot of interesting parts that I think were executed well. We got some good development for Chrome, Kohaku, and Ginro which I really wasn’t expecting to get.

The episode focused around our scientists — and their bodyguards — acquiring a key ingredient of sulfa drugs: sulfuric acid. This is a highly dangerous acid, but that’s not the only issue. It also gives off toxic fumes which can kill a person in a matter of seconds.

It’s these fumes which are the real danger to Senku and his comrades. After locating a sulfuric acid lake, Senku realizes that it’s located in the bottom of a depression, meaning they’ll have to walk into the gas in order to collect the acid.

But fear not! For Senku knows how to create makeshift gas masks by using charcoal as a natural filter. Now, I’m not quite sure how effective these makeshift gas masks would really be considering the materials used, but whatever. That’s not one of the issues I have with this episode.

Curse of the Spring Fairy

The “curse of the spring fairy” is one of the problems I had with this episode. However, it was also one of the things I think this episode executed really well. As you can see, I’m conflicted when it comes to this particular part of the episode.

On one hand, I disliked how sulfuric acid was portrayed as a quasi-physical monster. I mean, sure, it looked really good, but we haven’t seen anything else portrayed in this way so far. It’s not like the artificial light Senku created was depicted as a shining goddess. It was depicted as light.

So, why would sulfuric acid suddenly be depicted as a decaying monster? I think this would have made a lot more sense if other scientific phenomenon had previously been depicted in similar ways. But this also brings me to what I liked about this whole depiction.

Sulfuric acid isn’t merely depicted as a monster because it’s a dangerous substance. It’s only depicted this way through the eyes of Ginro, someone who doesn’t understand science. It’s exactly how we know ancient people thought of things they didn’t understand in our own world.

Ancient myths are filled with monsters which serve to explain the natural phenomenon they witnessed around them but had no scientific explanation for. So looking at the scenes with sulfuric acid through that lens, this episode did a great job.

Like I said, the major issue here is that it seemingly came out of nowhere. I would have loved to see other scientific phenomenon also be explained like this earlier on in the series. Who knows, we may even see more of this later on as well.

All of Senku’s Knowledge

Let me start this section off with the thing I found absurdly stupid — the fact that that Senku was going to pass all of his scientific knowledge on to Chrome in a single night. First of all, this is impossible for Senku. Second of all, this is impossible for Chrome.

But, that’s not the issue Chrome has with this plan. The issue he has is that by Senku passing on all his knowledge, it makes it “okay” for Senku to die. Chrome isn’t fine with that and so he refuses to hear Senku’s scientific knowledge. I will admit that I liked this development from Chrome.

And Chrome’s character development leads into some character development for Kohaku as well. Just as Chrome refuses to hear Senku’s knowledge because it would mean Senku is allowed to die, Kohaku did the same thing with her sister, Ruri.

As I predicted literally a month ago, the job of the stone village priestess is to pass down the history of the world from before the petrification event. Once Ruri was diagnosed with her mystery illness, it was decided that Kohaku would hear the history of the world from her sister and take her place as priestess once she dies.

However, Kohaku didn’t view this plan as extra insurance for the survival of the world history. The way she saw it, if Ruri no longer needs to survive for the sake of her knowledge, she might give up in her fight against her illness. This is also why Kohaku was ultimately disowned by her father.

While I liked learning more about Ruri and Kohaku, I have to say that as a historian Kohaku’s decision stresses me out. Imagine if Ruri died shortly after Kohaku refused to hear the world history and they never met Senku.

Ginro the Hero

Then, we also have Ginro’s character development when he learns that fear is something everyone experiences and he just needs to get over it. Again, this was actually depicted extremely well, especially when we saw Senku hesitate and his hand begin to shake due to his fear of the toxic fumes.

But, this portion of the episode still wasn’t without its faults. For one, that was extremely irresponsible of Kaseki to create a third gas mask and then guilt Ginro into taking it and following Senku and Chrome. That’s a great way to get Ginro killed.

Kaseki had even just finished telling Ginro that fear is a natural instinct for a reason — it helps us survive. And yet, he then decides to toss his own advice aside and encourage Ginro to charge in to his possible death. It’s not even like Kaseki knew Ginro would be needed in the end.

The other issue with this part of the episode comes when Chrome falls and Ginro appears just in time to save him. I hate to say this, but there’s a 10 billion percent chance that Chrome would have died if this series followed real physics.

1. Chrome probably wouldn’t have been able to grasp onto the spear tight enough to save himself.
2. Even if he did grasp the spear, the shaft would have snapped.
3. And even if the shaft didn’t snap, Ginro wouldn’t have been able to hold Chrome above the acid.

Any way you look at it, this scene was a complete and utter destruction of physics (science). I thought this series was supposed to be all about realistic science? You know, aside from the JoJo villain who can kill an adult lion in a single punch and the fact everyone on Earth was turned to stone.

Conclusion

What did you think of Dr. Stone episode 12? Did you like how sulfuric acid was depicted as a monster? Did you predict the role of the stone village priestess like I did? And most importantly, are you looking forward to the remake of Link’s Awakening? Because that’s what I’m going to go play now.

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My review of the next episode is available here.