Dr. Stone: Stone Wars

Dr. Stone: Stone Wars

Dr. Stone: Stone Wars anime series cover art
Dr. Stone: Stone Wars

Season Overview

Dr. Stone: Stone Wars (ドクターストーン STONE WARS) is the second season of the Dr. Stone anime series. Compared to the 24 episodes of the first season, this season is considerably shorter, at only 11 episodes. But, I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

Spoilers Incoming

The Stone Wars season covers the “war” between Senku’s Kingdom of Science and the Tsukasa Empire, lead by Tsukasa, of course. The only thing is, it’s not really much of a war. It’s a single attack by the Kingdom of Science on the Tsukasa Empire that lasts about 1 episode.

You may recall from the first season that Senku’s plan for defeating the Tsukasa Empire is to use information warfare. If Senku can create a radio with which to contact Taiju and Yuzuriha, he can outmaneuver Tsukasa’s forces and win the war without bloodshed.

That’s what this second season is all about. The entire season focuses on the construction of a two-way radio, sneaking one of the radios into the Tsukasa Empire, and then using it to bring Tsukasa’s allies over to Senku’s side.

This season also features some new characters who I wasn’t all that impressed with. To be fair, I don’t really care about any of the cast. But the newer characters in particular felt a bit out of place.

For example, Tsukasa’s trying to create the ultimate army of useful people, and one of them is just a fangirl of a singer. Maybe there was something else to her character, but I honestly can’t remember what. And another guy was just a former prison guard with nothing special about him. Yet, these are some of Tsukasa’s elite forces.

The Same, But Slightly Worse

The reason I think it’s good that the second season of Dr. Stone is less than half the length of the first season is that it’s basically the same thing, but slightly worse. One of the biggest problems is that Stone Wars is very linear, as I alluded to in the previous section.

In the first season, there are a lot of detours along the way to Senku’s relatively minor goal of taking down Tsukasa. Things go wrong, and Senku is forced to adapt and go down a different path temporarily. But, these detours still end in inventions that will further Senku’s ultimate goal of reintroducing modern technology to the stone world.

This type of storytelling framework was good because it kept the story progressing while also not falling into a predictable rhythm. The second season basically throws that away in favor of a direct route to the minor goal.

A tank-like vehicle made by Senku & friends from the anime series Dr. Stone: Stone Wars
A tank-like vehicle made by Senku & friends

Unfortunately, the linear nature of this season is also what leads to the second issue. Despite the fact that a lot of the science in Dr. Stone is dumbed-down, or flat out wrong, I will admit that Senku using this “science” to invent things was probably the most entertaining part.

But there’s not much of that in the second season. Senku still does invent some things, like paper armor, but nothing exciting. You could argue that the radio he makes is exciting, but the explanation is so simple that it’s not satisfying.

To be fair, my expectations for this series are probably too high. It’s just a generic shounen series. It was never going to have a great story, characters, or complex topics. So in that regard, I guess Dr. Stone is exactly what it’s supposed to be — easily digestible entertainment you can put on and not pay much attention to.

The Ultimate Twist

Something that a lot of these anime with “extremely smart” characters do is that they pull really stupid plot twists out of thin air and pretend like the protagonist, or whoever the smart character is, figured it all out. This is a major complaint I have with Death Note, for example.

Dr. Stone has its own version of this trope, and it was just as bad as any other, if not worse. Without any lead-in, it was randomly revealed that the reason Tsukasa is doing everything he’s doing is that he wants to save his younger sister who’s never been mentioned before.

When this is revealed, the viewer is supposed to be surprised by Senku’s genius. After all, he was able to figure out Tsukasa’s true motivation when nobody else could! But there’s one problem. No matter how smart Senku is, this isn’t something he could ever figure out with the information at his disposal.

The Kingdom of Science launching their attack from the anime series Dr. Stone: Stone Wars
The Kingdom of Science launching their attack

There’s absolutely no evidence to support Senku’s claim. I don’t remember the exact “evidence” he gives since this was weeks ago and Dr. Stone isn’t important enough for me to remember all the details.

But basically, his evidence was that Tsukasa is a “protector.” So, therefore, he must have been wanting to protect someone important to him, such as a younger sibling. And why does his younger sibling need protecting? Because she’s been in a coma for (thousands of) years.

You can’t get from “Tsukasa is actually a nice guy who protected me when we first met” to “Tsukasa has a younger sister he’s never mentioned who’s in a coma and he murders people in order to save her.” There’s very obviously a huge gap in that logic.

Conclusion

Although I do think that Dr. Stone: Stone Wars is worse than the first season of Dr. Stone, I’ve ended up giving it the same score: 5/10. It’s worse, but I still think it’s “average,” not “bad.” I dislike it, but that alone doesn’t make something bad.

What I will say is actually bad, though, is the OP for this season. The Stone Wars OP is very bad. The song doesn’t really match the visuals, and the visuals are garbage. I’m sorry if you like the OP, but it’s just not good.

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My review of Dr. Stone: Ryusui is available now.

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