I always kind of figured this was going to be a depressing anime season. From the earliest leading indicator (new series announcements 6-9 months prior) to the schedule itself, through the preview… It always looked weak. Bur you know, hope springs eternal. And with as many bubble series as we’ve had, I was hoping it might turn out to be at least close to average. But bubbles are popping left and right, and that’s not a good feeling. Especially with fall and winter not looking any better so far.
I really wish Dr. Stone had existed when I was about 12, and really stupid about most things – and gullible. I would have loved it then. I’m still just as stupid but in different ways, and I can’t shut off the part of my brain that laughs at how preposterous this show is. I mean, seriously – Senku bets everything that he’s going to get hit – by a guy that kills lions with his bare hands – on a tiny patch of petrification the size of a silver dollar? Not to mention the absurd convenience of having that spot right where he’d need to have it as bait…
And then he can survive without oxygen for what – 20 minutes? 30? Even if you buy the conceit that the petrification somehow protects people for 3700 years, and that when it’s removed it heals injuries beneath it (umm kay), how exactly does a non-petrified human brain survive without its body doing any breathing or circulation of blood for half an hour? I don’t have an issue with the no-drama cliffhanger of Senku obviously not being dead – series do that all the time with characters who have plot armor. But the way this has played out is really iffy. Seems to me that what Senku is actually trying to do is beat science with fantasy.
Both Dr. Stone and Enen no Shouboutai insulted their audience’s intelligence this week. I don’t feel as personally affronted by it with this series – this is just silly rather than degrading. But Dr. Stone just isn’t riveting or hilarious of fascinating enough to justify overlooking just how silly it really is. I suspect I’ll be dropping it at this point, though I’ll keep watching for a bit on the off chance that the new characters (and that’s another thing – if Senku is so smart, why does he assume he’s the only human in the entire world who revived?) inject some real life into the proceedings. Every one of those really hurts in a season is weak as this one, but in the end every series has to be judged on its own merits.
Marty
August 4, 2019 at 1:36 pmDr. Stone seems fine to me, not great but not painfully terrible. It’s certainly trying to do something different than the mold, which I can get behind. Mysterious petrification aside (which I’m guessing is a series-wide mystery), the scientific principles Senkou utilized are sound (even if the execution is a outlandish, though being a shounen jump title, I didn’t exactly expect serious devotion to realism), and the series doesn’t take itself too seriously.
If anything, the monkeys cracked me up.
Guardian Enzo
August 4, 2019 at 1:41 pmNo, not painfully terrible. But I think it raised the bar for itself with the whole “beating fantasy with science” mantra and it’s just punted on that one. We’re not talking about a series like Dragonball or even HeroAca here, where what we could call magic is an accepted reality. We’re talking about holding a series up to the standards it’s set for itself, nothing more.
Marty
August 4, 2019 at 10:19 pmI think Dr. Stone’s push of “Science > Fantasy” s a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it does place a higher-than-average bar on itself. However, on the other, it doesn’t provide a pretty attractive alternative to an anime landscape filled to the brim with fantasy-centric Isekai.
I can see where you’re coming from, Dr. Stone certainly isn’t a survival guide and it’s scientific applications are preposterous, so it does seem like it backs down from hardcore scientific realism for the sake of Shounen tropes. However, on the bright side, bunting is a better alternative to striking out.
Guardian Enzo
August 4, 2019 at 10:59 pmExcept I didn’t say “bunt”, I said “punt”!
Marty
August 5, 2019 at 3:17 amThat’s my bad. Honest mistake
Guardian Enzo
August 5, 2019 at 8:21 amVery different meaning…
Mercesoul
August 4, 2019 at 9:06 pmYeah, I kind of feel the same. The show does have a good concept, but inconsistent and illogical in execution in a lot of aspects. Senku’s phrases are irritating, Taiju is very annoying but Tsukasa is decent. Still interested to see where it goes, and I hope once the new characters come, it’ll get better. Otherwise, I don’t understand how this is still in Jump and popular. Music is pretty good, though.
daniel wu
August 10, 2019 at 6:51 pmYeah… his spinal cord may heal when it’s depetrified but his brain would have died by then. There are a lot more absurdity in this manga/anime, but whenever I pointed it out, it’s always shot down by fanboys who said that all science in this manga made sense, other than the petrify/depetrify process. Like hell it makes sense.
Simone
August 14, 2019 at 5:18 pmWell, Dr. Stone’s logic always had and will have a big petrification-shaped hole in the middle of it. It’s unabashedly a very preposterous sci-fi concept, so far off in the distance in fact it falls at the “a sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic… yep, definitely magic here” end of the spectrum. The story’s at its best when petrification doesn’t feature much, and isn’t a key plot point at least. Which has me worried for its overall ending, but as far as the upcoming arc goes, it’s actually good news, because we won’t hear from petrification for a while (except for the usual revival mechanism that’s consolidated by now).