To Modernity

I have a lot to say about Dr. Stone episode 19, and it’s not good. But let’s start off with a quick recap of the major event which took place in the middle of the episode — the Kingdom of Science was attacked. And not only was it attacked, but most of the Ishigami Village was burned to the ground.

The village is made up of three main sections. We have the science lab which is located in the forest on the mainland, the village proper located on the large island, and the priestess’ house located on the small island. The village proper was what burned down.

However, the bridges connecting the islands and the mainland were also burned, leaving Ruri, Jasper, and Turquoise stranded on the small island. I don’t think we ever saw them regroup with the rest of the villagers at the science lab. It’s unclear exactly how they’ll escape from that island, but I guess they’ll have to climb down and swim.

During this attack we also met a new member of the Tsukasa Empire, Homura — the pink girl who lit everything on fire. She’s sort of interesting because her character is actually featured in the second opening of the series. You may recall seeing her eating cotton candy in a tree.

So why does that matter? Well, my 200 IQ prediction is that Homura is going to defect from the Tsukasa Empire in return for cotton candy. In fact, we even see that Senku is the one who hands the cotton candy to her just before the shot of her in the tree.

And yes, that’s exactly what Gen did in return for some cola. This is probably going to be a recurring theme.

The People’s Republic of Tsukasa

So aside from the fact that the citizens of the Tsukasa Empire apparently have affinities for sweets, we actually learned a lot of other information about them and their way of life. Some information we already knew, but it’s explained more in this episode.

The first big piece of information is that Tsukasa isn’t an anarchist, he’s a communist. We already knew that because his big gripe with the previous generations is that they own property. Tsukasa believes that property ownership is inherently evil and that society should share everything.

I wonder if he even shares the girls who make up his apparent harem, or if property ownership is okay in that one instance.

But, as I mentioned last week, Tsukasa really doesn’t have a reason to be anti-science. He can be anti-capitalism and he can be anti-Senku for wanting to revive the capitalists, but there’s nothing about science specifically that goes against his beliefs. He simply hates it because the plot needs him to.

Also, I’d like to point out that the kind of communism the Tsukasa Empire subscribes to is even more flawed than real world forms of communism. It’s not simply that everyone works for the common good of the state. As we learn from Tsukasa’s #1 fangirl, the citizens of the empire don’t need to work at all.

So it’s a communist society of people who believe they don’t need to contribute. What?

That’s not how communism works. The second someone stops contributing they should be removed from the empire. But the problem is, if Tsukasa did that, it would imply that the empire owned property of some kind. So how exactly does this society function?

Geography Doesn’t Work Like That, Part 2

Along with learning about the extremely flawed version of communism the Tsukasa Empire uses, we also saw the empire for the first time. Before this, the only real image of the empire we got was inside the cave Tsukasa uses as his thrown room. Now we get to see a bit more of the surrounding area, and it makes no sense.

You may recall in my review of episode 17 I had a section titled, “Geography Doesn’t Work Like That” in which I discussed the geography of Ishigami Village. Well, as the section title implies, get ready for round 2.

First of all, Tsukasa’s thrown room isn’t unique. It looks like every member of the empire gets their own little cave to live in. The member of Tsukasa’s harem pictured above has even furnished hers with a nest made of straw. And it looks like all of these caves are in the side of the same cliff.

But the problem is that this isn’t an ordinary cliff face. It’s a giant latticework of stone pillars. That’s not how geography works.

This cliff face would have had to be man made in order to look the way it does, and I’m ten billion percent sure that nobody from the Tsukasa Empire made it. In fact, they wouldn’t be able to make it unless they worked on it for decades at the very least.

We also see that the cliff face has multiple rope bridges connecting it to what I assume is a similar cliff face on the other side of a ravine. However, this still doesn’t explain how people get up into their latticework caves in the first place.

The Kingdom of Cell Phones

Moving back over to Ishigami Village and the Kingdom of Science, Senku has decided that his next major invention is going to be a cell phone — well, multiple cell phones. According to him, communications networks are the most powerful piece of military technology ever created.

Now, he’s not exactly wrong, but in the next section I’ll be explaining a much better option.

So anyway, we’re given a roadmap for the production of cell phones (pictured below) and Senku makes it seem like this is going to be a piece of cake. Let me assure you, that’s not the case. Also, the cell phones he creates aren’t going to look anything like modern cell phones, probably.

I would have gone with something like a simple walkie-talkie, but Senku is apparently creating something with a back-lit screen. I still think it’s going to have to be too large to be mobile though. And if he actually creates a handheld cell phone, that’s simply unrealistic.

Also, how exactly does Senku plan to make a cell phone actually work? If it’s a true cell phone like he claims it will be, not a simple radio frequency walkie-talkie like I suggested, then it won’t be able to connect to the other end without major infrastructure.

If you’ve ever driven through the middle of nowhere and tried to use your phone you’ll understand this issue. Modern cell phones aren’t meant to simply transmit and receive radio waves — they rely on “cells” with cell towers in them. So, like I said, this probably won’t resemble a real cell phone.

The Geneva Conventions are so 3,800 Years Ago

Let’s pretend we’re in Senku’s position. We’re a super genius who’s building our Kingdom of Science to fight back against the Tsukasa Empire. But, let’s also pretend that we’re not the protagonist of a shounen series, so we can actually go about doing this in a realistic way.

The first human deaths (other than statues) we’ve seen so far came in this episode. You’ll recall that Hyoga knocked the men working under him out of a tree and into the hydrogen sulfide gas.

I bring that up because killing those who oppose you is a great way to ensure your Kingdom of Science prevails. So with that in mind, why not skip making cell phones and instead make an actual weapon? I’m not saying that a nuclear weapon is necessary, but there are plenty of weapons which would do the job.

In particular, chemical weapons are readily available in the stone world with Senku’s knowledge.

The issue of the Tsukasa Empire could be solved in a matter of minutes if chemical weapons were developed. All you’d have to do is send word to Taiju and Yuzuriha to escape, and then fire away. The entire cave system would be filled with gas and there would be nothing anyone could do to protect themselves.

You could even use biological weapons. I’m sure the people of Ishigami Village have some diseases which would be deadly to the people of generation 0. Start a smallpox outbreak in the Tsukasa Empire if you have to.

Conclusion

So what did you think about this week’s Dr. Stone episode 19? Do you think the Tsukasa Empire’s failed version of communism would ever actually work? What’s your explanation for the bizarre geography of the caves? Do you think Senku is going to make a modern cell phone? And, how would you fight back against the empire? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤ down below and 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. Also, come join us on Discord if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

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.

Stone Wars

The Tsukasa Empire has finally attacked Ishigami village, and it happened for the exact reason that I mentioned two months ago. After Gen reported back to Tsukasa that Senku was “definitely” dead despite not finding a body, Tsukasa determined that he couldn’t take the risk of Senku still being alive.

This was an obvious development that was pretty necessary for the story to progress. At some point Tsukasa was going to have to learn of Senku’s survival. After all, he’s the antagonist and Senku is the protagonist, so they need to confront each other eventually.

But before I get into the rest of this week’s episode, I want to pose the question: what happens after Tsukasa is defeated? I haven’t read the manga, so as far as I know he already has been defeated. But let’s think about this from the perspective of where the anime is currently.

Tsukasa and his followers, mainly the newly introduced Hyoga, are the only antagonists in the series so far. You could argue that surviving against nature works in an antagonistic way, but the villagers of Ishigami village are a bit beyond nature giving them any trouble.

So if Tsukasa is defeated, would the series end? Is he the one and only big, bad villain? Would Hyoga take over as the next main antagonist? It’s possible, but I see him more as the antagonist of this next arc. Or, would an entirely new antagonist be introduced?

My guess is either the first or third option, and I’d prefer if the first was the case. Based on the premise of this series, it’s not one that can really go on forever. At the same time, introducing new antagonists after the previous one has been defeated causes a disconnect in the story.

Hyoga-chan

But what about the remaining option? What if Hyoga became the next antagonist of the series after Tsukasa was defeated?

Hyoga wouldn’t be the same exact antagonist as Tsukasa — we’ve already seen that. He may have some of the same ideals as Tsukasa, such as not wanting to revive any of the former adults, but his methods of going about accomplishing this task would be different.

Despite not having a real reason to be this way, Tsukasa is anti-science. The most advanced piece of technology we ever actually see him use is a spear, and that’s not all that advanced considering the technology of Ishigami village before Senku arrived.

Hyoga, however, embraces the technological advancements of science. This is evident by his construction and use of a Kuda Yari, which is a more advanced type of spear. I’ll be discussing the Kuda Yari in more detail later on in this review.

The other major difference between Tsukasa and Hyoga is how they use their brains. It’s already been established that Tsukasa is extremely smart. But his smarts aren’t quite the same as Senku’s book smarts. Instead, Tsukasa is a smart fighter who’s able to figure out what his opponent is likely to do next.

However, while Hyoga is certainly a good fighter, his real skill lies in tactics. He’s able to accurately asses match-ups between two sides, and isn’t afraid to retreat if it means victory later on. He also has an appreciation for those who are able to outmaneuver or outsmart him.

Fake Guns

At one point in the episode Senku fakes having a gun. He loads gunpowder into a container and ignites it at the same time that Magma throws a rock in the direction of their enemies. This, along with Gen’s acting, was enough to convince the Tsukasa Empire warriors that guns had been invented in Ishigami village.

Specifically, these would have been matchlock guns, which as Gen mentioned, aren’t exactly the most reliable during a storm. However, Senku also refers to these imaginary guns as rifles — and states that he has ten billion of them. Those are two lies which kind of give away his bluff.

I don’t think I need to explain why saying he has 10 billion of them are suspicious. But as for the rifle aspect, rifles, especially considering the technology at hand, refers to guns with rifled barrels. Riffling is a set of spiraled grooves in the barrel which causes the projectile to fly farther and straighter.

I’m not saying that it’s impossible for Senku to have invented rifling, but that’s an extremely significant step up as far as technology is concerned. It’s simply less believable that Senku would have rifles compared to standard guns at this point.

But why doesn’t Ishigami Village have matchlock guns (with or without rifling)?

As far as I can tell, Senku does have all the material he needs in order to build a gun. Most importantly, he has gunpowder and material strong enough to be the barrel of said gun. So why not actually make one? The only reason I can think of is because it would quickly end the series.

There would still be technological advancements to achieve, but there would be no more conflict unless an enemy acquired some guns as well.

Katana vs. Kuda Yari

And now comes the part some of you may have been waiting for, the discussion of Hyoga’s weapon, the Kuda Yari. Interestingly, this will be my second review which takes a look at weaponry in as many days.

So I think we all know that the katana is basically the pinnacle of sword technology. That’s not exactly true because there are different kinds of swords meant for different forms of combat, but whatever, let’s pretend it is. So how would a katana match up against a Kuda Yari?

The short answer is that it likely wouldn’t end well for the Katana user — sorry. The only real reason Hyoga lost the fight was because his weapon was sabotaged by Gen and broke as a result.

The Kuda Yari is an advanced take on a spear in which the shaft sits within another, hollowed out pole. This has a number of benefits over the traditional spear, which were actually featured — though to an unrealistic extent — in Hyoga’s fight against the Ishigami villagers.

Of the two main benefits, the first is that the Kuda Yari can thrust farther and with more force than a regular spear. We see this depicted when Kinro is stabbed in the stomach by it (which he definitely would have been more injured from).

The other benefit is the spinning of the tip. This was extremely exaggerated when it was depicted in the anime, but the idea is sort of still there. Really the circular motion would only have a diameter of a few inches, but this causes the wounds inflicted to be much more severe.

Conclusion

Overall, this wasn’t the worst episode of Dr. Stone. Aside from the fact that Senku said his “ten billion” catchphrase, I don’t really have any complaints. It also wasn’t the best episode, but it doesn’t have to be.

So what did you think of Dr. Stone episode 18? Do you think Tsukasa is going to be the final antagonist of the series, or will there be others after him? Do you like Hyoga as the antagonist of this arc? And, what are your thoughts for why Senku hasn’t invented guns yet despite having everything he needs? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, be sure to click the like button ❤ down below and 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. Also come join us on Discord if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

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 and the benefits you’ll receive for doing so, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the next episode is available here.

A Hundred Nights and a Thousand Skies

I’m sorry in advance to any die hard fans of Dr. Stone, but this is going to be a rough review for you. There are a lot of problems with this episode, as well as a fair amount of things I just personally took issue with. So let’s get some of my personal grievances out of the way up front.

The big one has to do with the idol character. I don’t know any of their names other than Byakuya, so I’ll just be describing them — I hope that’s good enough for you. So what’s the problem with her? She breaks out into song too often. And by too often I mean the fact that she does it at all.

This isn’t an issue I have specifically with Dr. Stone. If you’ve read my series reviews before you may have come across this complaint in the past. I know for a fact that I brought it up in my Children of the Whales review, and I’m sure there are others. Characters breaking out into song is just one of those things I hate.

The other part of this issue is that when she breaks out into song, it’s in English.

I get that she’s supposed to be an American (if I remember correctly), but she normally speaks in Japanese, so only having her singing be in English is a bit conflicting. It’s similar to how in Vinland Saga we get Danes and Englishmen both speaking in Japanese, but neither of them understands the other.

There are a lot of bad ways to represent multiple languages, and this is one of them.

The Beginning of the End

Let’s take a break from my complaining and get into some of the specifics of this episode which I want to discuss. Namely, the origin of the petrification event and then the eventual downfall of the founding generation.

Last week I mentioned that the petrification event appeared to have originated in North America, specifically the Southwestern United States. But it turns out that’s not actually the case. Byakuya uses social media posts to determine the area initially affected was located in South America.

Now, from the image we got of the petrification expanding across the globe, it still looks like it’s coming from farther North than that to me. But let’s assume Byakuya is correct. That means it originated south of Panama, so maybe Venezuela or Colombia.

That’s potentially important information. Remember, when I originally thought the event started in the United States, my thoughts were on weapons or even aliens as the cause. Those are both still possible, but what if it has something to do with an ancient civilization?

From what we’re told, it wouldn’t be the Aztecs or Maya. And from what we see, it wouldn’t be the Inca either. But there were many civilizations in ancient Latin America. Could this petrification event be connected to a prophecy or something else related to one of them?

After all, stone technology prevailed in South America for far longer than other parts of the world. And we know how this series is all about stones. I just figured I’d bring that possibility up and you can decide for yourself whether or not it’s plausible.

The Founding Generation

The founding generation has some interesting things about it. But first, let’s just appreciate the fact that the men and women who made it up paired together just as I predicted last week — not that what I predicted was that all that hard to guess based on appearances.

But what I really want to talk about here are their fates. And to do so, let’s go backwards starting with the longest lived, Byakuya. He was the final survivor and the one who passed down the 100 tales, or whatever the history lessons were called. We don’t know when he died, but that doesn’t matter.

The idol was the second to last one to die, and she died at a surprisingly young age considering how healthy she appeared. We don’t know the cause of her death, but considering she didn’t look as bad as the two to die before her, I assume it wasn’t from pneumonia.

The young blonde guy died shortly after his wife, the brunette girl. We know the brunette died of pneumonia, and we can assume he died of the same thing considering the similarities in their illnesses. They did have children before dying though, with Kinro and Ginro being their descendants.

The final pair are very interesting. This is the older couple who were married before they even went into space. They leave the island in search of medicine for the brunette while she’s sick. However, they never return. It’s implied that they died before they could make it back, but what if that’s not the case?

What if they simply couldn’t get back for whatever reason? Like if they got lost. Could they have started another village somewhere else? I want to say no, but it’s possible.

Geography Doesn’t Work Like That

If I had to pick one thing that bothered me the most about this episode, it’s the blatant disregard for how geography works. It’s heavily implied that Ishigami Village is currently in roughly the same location it was when it was originally founded. However, the geography is vastly different.

And I might not have to mention this, but 3,700 years is not a long time as far as geography is concerned.

The village was founded on a relatively small island and the cemetery was along a sheer cliff which dropped off into the ocean. But in the current story, the village, while still on an island, is extremely close to mainland Japan — like 50 meters close. And the cemetery is now in the middle of a forest nowhere near a cliff or the ocean.

How is all of this possible?

There are two explanations. One is that the current Ishigami village is actually far from its original location. The other is that it simply isn’t possible and geography was thrown in the trash. Sadly, I think it’s the latter which is the case here. Unless Senku finds something within the cemetery to prove otherwise next episode, that’ the conclusion.

Now, there are some other explanations for this. For one, volcanic eruptions can drastically expand land masses. But how plausible is that considering the fact that the village is still there? It would have been wiped out if the amount of volcanic activity needed to change the landscape this much actually occurred.

So, like I said, I’m hoping the village isn’t in the same exact spot, but I think it’s going to turn out that it is.

The Greatest Anime Trope of the Past 3,700 Years

The last thing I want to bring up regarding this episode is the inclusion of one of the most iconic tropes in all of ecchi anime. And of course I’m talking about the “not related by blood” trope.

It was revealed that Senku isn’t the biological son of Byakuya, and therefore isn’t directly related to anyone currently living in Ishigami Village. This would normally mean there’s no taboo against him ending up with any of the women, such as Kohaku. But, technically this trope has no real effect this time around.

Senku says that because they’re hundreds of generations apart, they aren’t closely enough related for it to matter in the first place. He’s right that they’re so distantly related that it doesn’t matter, but he’s a bit off with his estimation of the generations. It’s more like 150 – 175 generations.

However, the big question for me then is, why was this brought up to begin with? Setting aside the fact that Senku and Byakuya look extremely similar and so it’s suspect for them not to be related, why would this be included in the story?

If it doesn’t matter from a procreation perspective, the only reason I can think of is because we’re going to meet someone else who makes this fact matter. Perhaps we’ll meet the biological son/daughter of Byakuya. Or maybe we’ll even meet a biological sibling Senku never knew he had.

Honestly though, regardless of why we were given this piece of information, I don’t see anything good coming of it. Best case scenario is that it doesn’t matter. Worst case scenario is it transitions into the evil, long lost sibling trope.

Conclusion

I think that’s everything I wanted to discuss about this episode, so let me know what your thoughts are in the comments. What do you think caused the petrification event? What happened to the missing members of the founding generation? And why does it matter that Senku and Byakuya aren’t related by blood?

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤ down below and 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. Also, come join us on Discord if you’re interested in discussing anime with members of the community.

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.

A Tale for the Ages

Alright, so can I start off by saying that this was a bad episode of Dr. Stone? Is that fair? I think that’s pretty fair. Yes, we got a bunch of information in this episode, but no, that alone does not make an episode good. Also, a lot of the information we received was already fairly obvious.

I guess we should start off with why the village is named after Senku. His father is the one who founded the village, so it’s really named after his father. But you also may recall that I predicted the village was founded by someone related to Senku weeks before we knew it was even named after him.

So no, that’s not exactly exciting information.

But there is one thing that’s still not quite clear. We know that Senku’s father founded Ishigami Village, but we don’t actually know if anyone who lives in it are his descendants. For example, I predicted the line of priestesses may be related to Senku, but we don’t know if that’s the case just yet.

Byakuya Ishigami

Byakuya Ishigami was Senku’s father — he’s long dead now. But before he died he set up Ishigami Village so that his son could one day bring humanity back into the technological age. Now, what’s interesting about this is that Byakuya was never actually petrified in the first place.

He had just recently achieved his dream of becoming an astronaut and was aboard the International Space Station when the petrification event occurred. Because of this, he and his fellow crew mates were spared. I’ll get to the rest of the crew in a little bit.

But the fact that Byakuya was an astronaut is sort of a big deal. I mean, that in itself isn’t a big deal, but the fact that he was never petrified is because we now have an origin for Ishigami Village. The village was not founded by someone who awoke from the petrification, it was around from the start.

And since we know there are direct descendants of the original six village founders currently alive, that means their lineages have successfully lived on for 3,700 years. That’s very possible, but is that the case for the entire village? Is everyone currently in the village a direct ancestor of the founders?

Or, did some other people who were previously petrified awaken and join the village? In earlier episode reviews I considered that something along those lines could have happened. After all, we have no reason to believe that Senku was the first person to awaken, even in just that region of Japan.

The Gang’s All Here

From what we see of the six crew members aboard the ISS, it seems pretty obvious that most, if not all, of them have living descendants. Let’s also not forget that there are three men and three women aboard the space station, so they pair up rather nicely for repopulation purposes.

I don’t remember all of their names, but two of them are already husband and wife, so obviously they would be a pair. The next pair is the angry guy and the brunette. They seem like they’re probably the ancestors of Kinro and Ginro.

We’re then left with Byakuya and the pop idol who’s obviously Ruri and Kohaku’s ancestor. It’s obvious that the idol had children, and Byakuya is the only one left. Though it’s still possible that perhaps she paired up with the angry guy instead. I just don’t see that being the case.

In the next episode we’ll probably see the actual founding of Ishigami Village, how the crew decided to go with Byakuya’s family name, and how the repopulation of the world began. I would think that the next episode would also be the end of this flash back and that after that we’d be back in the present timeline.

And can I just mention that although I hate all of the present timeline characters aside from Chrome, somehow these flashback characters are all worse.

Petrification Event

Aside from learning that Ishigami Village was founded 3,700 years ago and not at a later date, the other big piece of information we got had to do with the petrification event’s origin. As shown in the picture below, it appears to have originated in North America.

In this picture we can see South America, with the petrification spreading outward from its epicenter to the North. It looks like it could have potentially began somewhere in Texas, but it could turn out to be anywhere else in the United States. Who knows, maybe it originated from Area 51 in Nevada? Or even Roswell, New Mexico.

I am interested to learn more about the origin of the petrification event in the future. I doubt the series is going to leave it as a mystery which Senku fixes without learning anything about it. Was it man made? And if so, why did they make it?

It doesn’t appear to be a virus. It doesn’t appear to have been an accident. And it doesn’t make much sense in how it only affected swallows and humans. Those first and last points go together. If it was a virus then that final point would make more sense.

But how is Senku going to learn how this whole thing started? Is he going to travel to the US? Did the founders of Ishigami Village figure it out and pass down that knowledge? Or is someone else who has knowledge of the initial event going to wind up in Japan?

Conclusion

What are your thoughts about Dr. Stone episode 16? Did you enjoy the bad storytelling and worse characters? Was the new information we learned about the world worth it? Were you shocked by any of these mundane revelations? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, click the like button ❤ down below and follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama. Also, come join us on Discord if you’re interested in discussing anime with members of the community. And I’m also trying out another social media platform now, Vero @DoubleSama, so you can follow me over there as well.

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.

The Culmination of Two Million Years

I know some people won’t like me saying this, but overall I wouldn’t call this week’s episode of Dr. Stone good. Did it have some good parts? Yes. But most of the episode was made up of what I like to call “shounen gags.” You know, the little “jokes” that the 12 year old boys the series is made for probably love.

And I guess that actually means this is a great anime if it knows its target audience that well. But I still don’t like it. It’s cheap entertainment that’s used to mask the fact that this series doesn’t have much going for it otherwise.

But that’s not what I want to discuss this week. After all, there are other aspects of this series which are far more deserving of discussion. Specifically this week I want to focus on Ruri’s illness and Senku’s family name. However, we need to cover some other things quickly before we get to those.

First of all, let’s just point out that Senku did make Gen’s cola for him. Now that this has been done, we can be certain that Gen won’t rat him out to Tsukasa. After all, Gen isn’t about to give up his cola supply so easily. Now that he knows Senku can actually make it, his allegiance is sealed.

But, as I’ve mentioned previously, there’s no way Tsukasa believed Gen’s report that Senku is dead.

The other thing I want to touch on is that Senku successfully created the sulfa drug. This is one of the most important inventions he could ever make, so that’s kind of a big deal. The only problem is that it’s not exactly the easiest thing for him to mass produce at this point in time.

Village Chieftain

In order to obtain the final ingredients for the sulfa drug, someone from the Kingdom of Science had to win the Grand Bout. Luckily, the final three combatants, Senku, Chrome, and Ginro, are all on that side. However, some things happen and Senku ends up winning by default over Chrome.

That not only means Senku becomes the new village chieftain, but also means that he officially gets married to Ruri in Chrome’s place. But, Senku being Senku, he decides to immediately divorce Ruri because who needs girls when you have science?

And now that I’ve gotten that summary out of the way, why was Senku made the new chieftain? Have you thought about that?

Technically speaking he was made the new chieftain because he cured Ruri’s sickness, but the villagers were prepared to make him the new chieftain after he won the Grand Bout. The only thing is, there’s already a perfectly healthy and capable chieftain there. So why would the winner of the Grand Bout immediately take over?

You’d think that winning would put Senku next in line for that position, not immediately put him in it. But, there is a reason, and I’ve mentioned it in the past.

The stone village is actually a matriarchal society in which the priestess holds the highest position. The title of village chieftain is simply given to whichever man happens to be married to her. And since the current priestess is unmarried, the previous chieftain retained his position until a time when he could be replaced.

So although it seemed like the village was giving Ruri away for marriage, the Grand Bout was really a competition to see who’s worthy of standing by her side. The village chieftain is simply the head guard of the village.

Ruri’s Illness

We learned that Ruri’s mystery illness was actually bacterial pneumonia. All things considered, that’s one of the best possible outcomes as Senku explained because it’s treatable. But, let’s just appreciate for a moment the fact that Ruri had this infection for years.

Maybe you don’t know, but it’s not very likely for someone to survive with this condition for that long. Sure, you might be able to treat the symptoms like Ruri was thanks to Kohaku, but there are so many other ways for it to kill you.

For one, the infection could spread to other organs, causing them to shut down. There’s also the shortness of breath factor which could cause asphyxia at any time. And let’s not forget that Ruri was also coughing up blood, meaning it’s only a matter of time before she ruptures something.

The longer she has the illness for, the worse her combined symptoms would become. And that’s why it’s amazing that she somehow lived for years like this. We don’t know how many years it’s been, but either way, it’s an impressive feat considering they had no medicine whatsoever.

But I’ll let the improbability of Ruri’s survival slide.

Really what I thought could have been done better about this part of the episode was the conclusion. After taking the medicine Ruri’s condition gets worse, but then Senku let’s everyone know that just means the drug is working. This was pretty anticlimactic.

Why not say that she’s having trouble breathing due to an allergic reaction to the medicine? After all, allergic reactions to sulfa antibiotics are possible and anaphylaxis is a symptom. Senku could have then scienced up a way to save Ruri from this new threat on the spot.

Ishigami Village

Ishigami Village is the name of the stone village. We finally have a name so I can stop calling it the stone village. But why does this matter in the slightest?

First of all, Ishigami is also Senku’s last name. And this is no coincidence considering Ruri already knew that fact. Remember back when I mentioned that the first priestess was someone who likely knew Senku, even perhaps one of his relatives? Well, that seems much more plausible now considering the village is named after his family.

The other important piece of information has to do with the name Ishigami itself. Now, I’ve already wrote an article about anime character names which covers this subject, but anime characters tend to have names that tell you something about them. You know, like how Izuku Midoriya’s color scheme is green and midori (緑) is the word for green.

Well, what do you think ishigami means? And no, it doesn’t describe Senku’s physical appearance — not all anime names do. An ishigami is actually a type of stone statue depicting a god. A god of stone, if you will.

But, ishi is also the word for doctor — as in doctor stone. When written as 医師 ishi translates to doctor, but when written as 石 it translates to stone. So, I guess you could say the title of this anime is Ishi Ishi. But it’s not really, because the title of the series is written in katakana, not kanji.

And there you have it — the title Dr. Stone does in fact refer to Senku, not the soap stone he called Dr. Stone earlier on in the series. His name is also a reference to the fact that he is the new god of the stone world.

Conclusion

What did you think of Dr. Stone episode 15? Do you have another reason why Senku’s family name is important? Let me know in the comments. I guess you could say that ishigami might also refer to the petrified humans as stone statues of gods, and that argument also makes sense.

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My review of the next episode is available here.