A wave of green energy sweeps planet Earth. Instantly, each and every Man, Woman and
Child on the planet is turned to stone, no exceptions. 3700 years later, high school prodigy Senku
Ishigami and his childhood friend Taiju Oki are released from their petrification
and into a radically changed world. With
the mystery of how everyone became stone lingering, Senku puts his brilliant
mind to use coming up with ways to survive the new world and possibly find a
way to restore some of the old. Good
thing Senku is a genius who loves a good scientific challenge.
See? Now unlike Kenichi: The Last Disciple or Eden’s
Zero, THIS is a Shonen Anime Pilot I can get behind. There’s no mission to become the ultimate
figure of authority like many of the titles in that subgenre of Anime. No, the
mission of Doctor Stone is simple: save the human race well after its been
ruined in an incredibly horrific fashion…I mean, just save the world. Doctor Stone might just have one of the most
unique premiere episodes to come out of Anime in a long time…could it be enough
to get me to continue on with it?
The concept of Doctor Stone is crazy and effective: a
wave of energy turns the entire worlds population to stone and no one is
spared. Its already a terrifying idea
but it becomes more of a nightmare when you realize that everyone turned to
stone is still conscious and aware of their present state. To think they’re still alive in some way
millenia later is insane and it’s a miracle Senku and Taiju haven’t lost all
their marbles once theyre freed.
Speaking of, I like these two.
It’s almost like watching an Anime version of Pinky and the Brain but
Senku doesn’t hate Taiju, though he belittles him quite a bit. Senku is just the kind of guy society needs
after the apocalypse…even if he looks absolutely psychotic when things go his
way and he makes a new scientific breakthrough.
Taiju has got a heart of gold and while not nearly as smart as Senku, he
makes up for it with plenty of raw talent and plenty of drive, both to help
Senku and save his longtime crush, Yuzuriha (wow I haven’t seen a character
with that name since X, cool to hear it again).
This is a Shonen Anime though. So
I wonder what the action might look like.
I doubt it’ll be as generic as Eden’s Zero showed. With civilization at a minimum and technology
literally a thing of the past, I’m curious to see what kind of gadgets and
tools Senku comes up with the rebuild society.
I will say, Doctor Stone’s first episode look great. We get to see the transition from then present
day to thousands of years later over the span of a couple of minutes and the
animation does good showing the passage of time and how bad things get for
everyone caught in the path of the naturally changing world when nothings
around to keep it in check. You also get
a good sense of scale to this show, seeing streets and eventually trees and
hills litered with pertrified humans…and many of them aren’t in one piece
anymore, which makes the terror of this new reality all the more real, even
though this show isn’t horror. To be
honest through, the city that Senku and Taiju used to live in looks absolutely
beautiful imho. I’m not saying Doctor
Stone looks nearly as good as Demon Slayer (it doesn’t have Ufotable fronting
the production bill) but the landscapes fields and even the ruined cities all
look fantastic, a world only Anime could bring to life.
I’m not sure how far in I’ll get with this but I’d like
to see a few more episodes of Doctor Stone for the setting and the
mystery. Just what did cause the
phenomena that turned Humanity to stone and how can the effects be
reversed? Senku seemed to be well on his
way to a breakthrough by the end of the first episode. But even so, there’s a lot of people to free,
hopefully still in one piece. Still,
this is the most interested I’ve been in a Shonen Anime since My Hero Academia
and Demon Slayer. Guess, the good doctor
will get a shot at a second opinion.
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