We’re back everyone! Welcome to the first (new show) post of the Spring season! I give to you Dr. STONE, what is in my mind the best series Weekly Shonen Jump has had in years. We have a lot to catch up on so lets dive right into it.
Right off the bat, Dr. STONE kicks off the season by asking what it is the drives science. Senku’s answer, as per the episodes title, is greed. Desire. The idea being that this greed, this desire to know more, do more, have more, is what drives us to discover and create new things. That it’s noble! Of course this is meant to endear us to Ryusui. To take what is arguably his worst character trait, his blinding greed for all things, and portray it as something positive. Personally? I’ve never thought it worked. Ryusui always came off as someone who only stuck with everyone else because Senku was the clear path to global domination. I mean, the dude is the smartest person alive and reinventing society every day. It doesn’t matter how greedy Ryusui is if he doesn’t have some way to accomplish it. Maybe this adaptation will help though.
So far though Dr. STONE is just trying to put a nice flowery bow on Ryusui’s attitude. It’s not that he wants everything, including friends. Rather it’s that he wants his friends to have everything and he will gain it for them. Or something like that. It’s a really weird way to try and portray his greed to be honest, and not something I ever thought Dr. STONE truly succeeded in. It works well enough to keep him on our side, and he has some nice play-by-play with some of the other characters like the villagers who don’t know the level of luxury he does. But I think his personality will be off putting and more than a little obnoxious to a lot of viewers. Dr. STONE has a lot of strong personalities, and Ryusui’s is definitely near the top.
Moving away from Ryusui though, Dr. STONE’s mention of desire does beg the question: Is there such a thing as bad desire? Or too much? Senku and Francois try to say that it’s noble, that Greed Equals Justice. But looking at our modern world, and even the world of Dr. STONE, I can’t help but feel like this idealized form of desire is… missing the point in a way Dr. STONE usually doesn’t. Did Tsukasa not desire something antithetical to science, in fact its very destruction? And what about Magma and Yo? Those two are pretty greedy for typically very poor reasons. I promise this will be the last time I repeat myself, but Dr. STONE’s white-washing of capitalism and its issues has always felt out of place in an otherwise very poignant series.
Luckily the 2nd half of the episode was everything I wanted from the series return! The cameras, Minami’s passion for them, what she wants them for. She didn’t want the camera out of any sort of greed or capital gain, but rather because its what she dedicated her life to, what it meant to her. It actually made me mist up a bit, hitting me right in the stomach, just like Dr. STONE always does with these sorts of “What does technology mean to you” moments. It actually made me wonder if the whole “greed” and “desire” thing was more just conceptually difficult to translate and if there isn’t nuance to it in Japanese that isn’t being conveyed. Whatever the case, Minami’s bit and the fact that they found a scientific use for the cameras to was just great. Always the highlight of an episode.
The last thing worth mentioning are the references. Dr. STONE always has fun with these, like the Freddy Mercury outfit or Kaseki looking like a gangster. Those are all great. But my favorite by far this week has to be the Einstein one. Not just because it’s a perfectly valid way to get Senku to actually pose for a picture, but because of what it means for both him and this world. Senku really is the greatest scientist to have ever lived at this point. Sure some might have been smarter in history, while others like Einstein were more well known. But by the end of this story Senku will have done more for humanity then any of them. He will become the father of the modern era. Setting that up like this is just great.
Anyways, all in all I quite liked this episode of Dr. STONE. It wasn’t perfect, there were some small bits of confusion regarding greed. And the show also still doesn’t look very good. Dr. STONE was never a particularly well animated series after all and that continues to be the case. But when it needs to really nail a scene, when the emotions are particularly important, it always manages to convey them well enough. And it did just that this week via the cameras. Knowing what is to come, I’m really excited for how some stuff will be animated. Both moments of action and intense emotion. I think we have another good season in front of us. So strap in.
P.S. The bread baking stuff was really cool to. Just so much “Humanity Fuck Yeah” in this series, hard to keep them all straight.
People complaining about manga adaptation never gets old. I will say it again. Just stick to the damn manga! It looks far better.
Well for one, I quite enjoy both the anime and the manga. They both have strengths and weaknesses. While the art is better in the manga, yes, the anime’s OST is absolutely phenomenal and I think the voice acting in a lot of the more emotional scenes is great to.
There are pros and cons to both, and I personally enjoy experiencing the series twice.
A favorite show of me also talk about Greed and Desire. It isn’t bad to want things. Human innovations are driven by “wanting” things, either money, status, knowledge or satisfaction. The issue is self-control. Like all things in life, one need to find a balance between wanting things, wanting nothing and wanting too much at the cost of other.
I completely agree that balance is important, and Senku does have a point that desire is what drives us to create/discover. I just wonder if, in Ryusui’s case, its failing to properly explore that balance and what exactly is to much.
Still good, love the show, just always gets me waxing philosophical at times.