There have been very few moments where we see the emotional side of Dr. Stone’s protagonist, Ishigami Senku. A scientific genius, Senku’s journey as bright young teenager is abruptly stalled when all humanity is hit with a petricifaction beam and turned to stone for 3,700 years. Despite this devastation and the tireless efforts needed to rebuild civilization which makes up the main plot of the series, Senku is rarely morose. Calculated and prone to bursts of glee when it comes to new scientific discoveries, he’s different from many shonen protagonists who have their requisite bursts of rage or tears. So, when these moments do arrive, they land; albeit muted compared to someone like Demon Slayer’s Tanjiro or My Hero Academia’s Deku.
In Season 1, Senku momentarily allows himself to grieve for his father, one of the very few souls who managed to escape petrification due to being in space, meaning he’s long since passed and can’t be revived. In season two, while “killing” once friend turned enemy turned friend again Tsukasa in order to save his life, voice actor Yūsuke Kobayashi adds the right level of emotional fatigue to his performance. Now, in the third season of Dr. Stone: New World, we’re given a similar reaction in a pivotal moment in what is the best season of this peculiar series to date.
Dr. Stone: New World has spent the majority of its time on the Treasure Island arc, as Senku and co., traveled to the island to find the supposed treasure chest left by Senku’s father, recounted in the “100 tales.” While there, they’ve found much more than they bargained for, including a superb villain in Ibara, a corrupt ruler who possesses the Medusa, a tool that causes petrification and which first turned the world to stone thousands of years prior. In “Last Man Standing,” Senku and Ibara face off after the formers friends gave him a leg up in the fight, both trying to claim the Medusa as their own. It’s a wonderfully crafted sequence that allows both to prove their might. Senku ends victorious, with Ibara petrified and the Medusa in his possession, but it comes, even if momentarily, with a cost.
Because he’s once again alone, years after awakening from spending a millennia in solitude under the stars, counting the seconds that pass in order to have a record of passed time and a means to keep his wits about him. While he quickly is reminded that he’s not actually alone this time, even if he’s surrounded by the petrified faces of his friends, it’s a solid reminder that Dr. Stone, for all of its brusque animation and broad comedy, is a quiet tragedy. Or, at the very least, a story borne from tragedy. That melancholy permeates through the series, which makes it one of the genre’s very best, even if it often has to fight its own crudest impulses to achieve it.
Season 3 is often its best, not just because it retains that feeling of lost time and people adrift in new worlds but due to its action-packed narrative that never loses the scientific curiosity that drives it. The series has often been an anomaly amongst its peers, sharing very little in structural theory with its competitors such as Jujutsu Kaisen or Chainsaw Man. While it might share the same target audience as a Shonen Jump series, the pacing is much more patient, and its story is slower to unravel as it builds its world piece by piece, fitting for a series where the protagonist is constantly looking to level up by recreating versions of tools they had in the modern world. Season 3, however, does pick up on the action, mainly in how the characters must utilize their strengths to once again face off against opponents who are more combat-ready.
A science fiction series through and through, Dr. Stone’s greatest hurdle is its abrasive animation. With crude, thick lines, clunky movement, and designs for the female characters that are, to be blunt, off-putting (they all have the same face — and not in a fun Studio Trigger type of way), the animation isn’t the selling point. At least, the stuff going on in the foreground isn’t. The background animation is, by comparison, superb, as it beautifully captures the overgrown landscapes that hauntingly are populated by stone people waiting for their revival as Senku and his “Kingdom of Science” try to rebuild the world.
The series comes alive through its story and is at its best when it allows the very real tragedy fueling it to peek through. It’s never the most pressing element, and it’s part of the story that is inferred more often than addressed, but it heightens the narrative and makes their continued plight all the more engaging. They’re fighting against the very nature of the world and the complete unknown with the origin of the petrification beam, as time has been stolen from the modern characters, even if Senku kept himself awake throughout all of it. It’s why “Last Man Standing” is such a pivotal episode for the series as it both harkens back to the character’s beginnings while showing the considerable growth Senku has undergone, namely due to the community he’s helped build around him.
Dr. Stone, for its destructive backstory and the lingering touches of modern civilization, has done a tremendous job at worldbuilding so that by the time Senku realizes he isn’t alone, the moment lands. To rebuild the world means to remember the significance of community, and while it might not have gotten its own title card in its acquisition, the one built in the series is vital to the success of the hero’s journey. From Chrome, Gen, and co., freely offering themselves to the petrification team to help Senku calculate the time he needed, to Ryusui throwing himself at Ibara to connect the device that would help Senku petrify their villain of the season, to Ruri checking in via their rustic phone at the very end, the people surrounding Senku make the series and it’s protagonist stronger. Borne from tragedy, yes, but the series and it’s heroes seek to heal it, and Dr. Stone New World best captures that essence.
All season of Dr. Stone are available to stream on Crunchyroll.
Images Courtesy of TMS Entertainment and Crunchyroll.
Based in New England, Allyson is co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of InBetweenDrafts. Former Editor-in-Chief at TheYoungFolks, she is a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics and the Boston Online Film Critics Association. Her writing has also appeared at CambridgeDay, ThePlaylist, Pajiba, VagueVisages, RogerEbert, TheBostonGlobe, Inverse, Bustle, her Substack, and every scrap of paper within her reach.
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