Dr. Stone Episode 24

Dr. Stone Episode 24

Voices Over Infinite Distance

We’ve finally made it to the end of Dr. Stone. Or should I say, the end of Dr. Stone season 1, because season 2 was confirmed. And while I don’t particularly want to watch season 2, of course I’m going to. So when that finally comes out, tweet at me or something to let me know if you want it to come back as a weekly review.

If you’re a “fan” of Dr. Stone, that’s great and all, but I’m so glad this series is over so I won’t have to see people talking about it anymore. Yes, it’s a fine anime, but that’s all it is.

But as for this episode in particular, I’m going to have to go ahead and say it was bad. I know some of you will probably want to defend it, and you’re free to do so in the comments, or on Twitter, or over on Discord. But this was basically a recap episode as the final episode of the season.

Once the (first of two) radios was complete, I figured we’d just skip to the second one being complete and then get into some action. You know, have Senku, Chrome, Kohaku, and Magma infiltrate the Tsukasa Empire and deliver one to Taiju and Yuzuriha. But no, once the radio is done we move on to recap.

3,700 Year Old Record

By now you should know how I feel about characters breaking out into song for no real reason in anime — I don’t like it. And that was basically the main purpose of the record Senku finds, which his father and his companions had left behind.

When we first learned about the record I figured maybe we’d get a bit more backstory on Senku’s relationship with his father, but that’s not the case. Didn’t we learn at one point that Senku was adopted or something? Is that ever going to be relevant in the story?

Or was that just stated because Kohaku is technically a descendant of Byakuya, so then it would be frowned upon for Senku to end up in a relationship with her. Not that I think Senku is ever going to end up in a relationship with anyone in this series.

Senku showing off a glass record to the Ishigami Villagers from the anime series Dr. Stone
Senku showing off a glass record to the Ishigami Villagers

Unfortunately, the only flashback we got involved Byakuya & co. working together to create this record which they left for Senku to find.

However, this record could turn out to be more interesting than it seems. We don’t know what else was on it. Was it simply Byakuya’s introduction and then the song? Or was there perhaps other information preserved on this record after the song that we didn’t get to hear?

And what about the other records? It seemed to be implied that there was a record hidden within the tomb stones of each of the founders. So what information could be hidden on those records, if they exist? We’ll probably never know.

Season Recap

As I’ve already mentioned, the entire middle section of the episode basically just recapped the major events of the season. We got to see Senku finishing some of his inventions, and we had characters reminding us of what happened in the past.

I’m not sure what other series I’ve brought this up in regards to, but you should never end a season with a recap episode. Instead, you should include an “episode 0” at the beginning of the next season for those who want to be reminded of the previous season’s events.

There are many times I get to a second season which comes out years after the first, and they dive right into the action. In those cases, I’d really like to have had a quick recap. And in those cases, a recap episode in the previous season isn’t going to help. You think I’ll remember that Dr. Stone episode 24 was a recap episode by the time season 2 comes out? Of course not.

The Future of Stone

Now before I conclude this episode review, I want to touch on the future of this series. And by that I mean both the second season and what Senku has planned for the future of Ishigami village. Starting with the latter, Senku tells Chrome, and the other villagers, that there’s a whole lot more entertainment in the “future” than just music.

He mentions, games, movies, manga, you name it. And I did enjoy the visuals which were added to go along with the things he was listing off, so let’s go through those.

First we have Dungeons & Dragons; then some sort of VR video game; I’m not quite sure what’s next, but it looks like Dragon Ball was based on it; then a movie theater; 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea; Jurassic Park; then Sherlock Holmes; War of the Worlds (the original, not the US radio broadcast); a Nintendo Switch; and finally, Goku from Dragon Ball Z.

Goku from Dragon Ball Z as depicted in the anime series Dr. Stone
Goku from Dragon Ball Z

Of these entertainment inventions, which do you think we’ll see next in the series? My guess is that in season 2 we’ll have the introduction of movies. We already have recorded audio this season, so recorded video seems like the logical next step.

And speaking of season 2, it’s going to cover the “stone wars” arc, which means we’ll finally have Ishigami Village fighting against the Tsukasa Empire. Though, I don’t really see this series becoming a battle series. While there will definitely be fights, I don’t think they’ll be all that different from those we’ve seen so far.

Rather than true fights, we’ll get to see how science can defeat aggressive combatants while causing zero casualties. I bet Tsukasa won’t even be killed when they finally defeat him.

Conclusion

What did you think of Dr. Stone episode 24? Did you like it? Hate it? Do you think having a recap episode as the final episode is a good or bad idea? And, how many of the references did you pick up on when Senku was listing off all the entertainment options in the “future?” Let me know in the comments.

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3 Replies to “Dr. Stone Episode 24”

  1. The bias is strong in this one. The recap was only like 3 minutes long, if even that. Yet you acted like it was the entire episode. Not only that, it was done over the emotional music and used to reminiscence the 24 episodes, not to recap it.
    The record will actually be a plot point in the future, it wasn’t just “for a song to be played randomly”. It was also used for this episode for the village to unite not just because Senku is awesome, but because the lost civilization and science is awesome. Thanks to the record, they finally became a true kingdom of science.

    As a fan of this show and a fan of reviews, please don’t continue. You’re too biased in your opinion to watch this objectively and waaaay too negative.

    1. Almost the entire episode was recap. Recap doesn’t simply refer to the 30 seconds they showed the montage of Senku’s inventions so far. Recap refers to that and all the parts of the episode when we had characters explaining things we’ve previously seen.

      I also simply didn’t like the song, I’ll say that. But that’s fine if you found it to be emotional. However, to say that the song is what causes the village to become the kingdom of science is incorrect. They have already been the kingdom of science. Magma was really the last person to be converted. With him, the entire village had become the kingdom of science.

      As for me being too biased, I can assure you I’m not. I’ve seen a lot of anime, and while I don’t think Dr. Stone is a good anime, I don’t consider it bad either. It’s not like I only say negative things about it. It’s just that this was an extremely weak episode to end the season on. You can like whatever series you want, but to say that this is one of the better ones means that you’re probably missing out on a lot of the actually good anime out there. If you point to anything you think Dr. Stone does well, I’m sure I can point you in the direction of an anime that does it better.

      It’s interesting to see someone who can’t take criticism of an anime they like call other people biased and subjective.

  2. Honestly though, the radio transceiver never needed to be nearly as large as the plot line demanded it be, even more so because they don’t have any other radio transmissions to overpower let alone deal with filtering out. (And why does something the clearly isn’t portable need batteries? Hook it up to the generator) I’m not really certain why the antenna is so big either, isn’t the whole point of using wire so you can wrap the longer antenna in a coil and make it smaller :S It’s not a terribly complex device either (once you have vacuum tubes [or transistors] at least), though it does make me wonder how much you can cut off, whether he needs AM to get the range

    Still, and especially with him being the only person sending radio transmissions… a small Morse code transmitter would have been wonders.

    But I do think this was an interesting way to end the season, things are very resolved and we get one last quality of life invention (yet despite it supposedly being the end of manual labor we still use manual labor :S)

    Also, I don’t hate musicals as much as you do. Always found it strange how people can get in a tizzy over something as simple as a musical interlude (especially when the music itself is part of the story)

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