Welcome all, to another week of Dr. STONE! And this one actually released before the next episode at that! I’m starting to catch up on stuff, a wonder what can happen once you don’t have any more papers to write for grad school. Enough about my struggles with numbers though, lets dive into Senku’s!
Picking up where the last episode left off, we have a battle of the bosses, Ibara vs Senku! This goes about as expected. Senku isn’t a physical combatant, and Ibara is clever enough that plans A, B and C fall through. Senku ends up having to think on his feet, coming up with a plan on the fly, and I really like this. Dr. STONE did a good job making this feel like a battle of intelligence despite the physical differences in the characters. From Ibara figuring out how science works through observation too having plans/practiced against the Medusa expecting to one day fight it. Both of them laying traps. using their knowledge of the land and everything that’s happened that day since the first confrontation that morning, it all worked really well. And the climax was even better.
Dr. STONE set it up as if it all came down to a physical contest of strength, the antithesis of everything the series stands for. Yet even that was actually a mind game, timing when to let go of the rope, hitting it back, Ryusui charging in to hook the radio earring on so Senku could activate it from afar directly paralleling how Senku failed to activate it when the fight first started. It made use of all the tools they had, everything the Science Squad had built, across the entire arc. There was even self-sacrifice as Ryusui charges in, so confident in Senku’s victory he was willing to put his life on the line. Compared to the conflict with Tsukasa, this felt way better.
As for after the fight, I loved how quiet Dr. STONE got. Letting Senku soak in their victory, walking across the island among all the petrified statues. The allusion to how the series started, Senku once again being the last person left, once again alone in a world of statues forced to start from scratch. Except that isn’t true this time. He isn’t alone. Not truly. The others back at the village are still there. Yeah he has to unpetrified people here, but that’s not the same as waking up well and truly alone like he did before. And I think the way Dr. STONE communicated that, communicated what it meant to him, was a beautiful moment for Senku.
So yeah, all in all this was a nice, straight forward week for Dr. STONE. Short post, not a whole lot to say, there’s nothing particularly complex about what’s going on. It’s just an all around solid episode and a great way to finish up the arc. We still have some epilogue to go, wrapping up the island politics as well as our next steps with the Medusa and the mysterious “Why Man” from Part 1. But as far as any sort of conflict goes? That’s basically it for this season.
Oh and one last thing I remembered while getting pictured, the “Math Mode” science of working through how best to apply the revival fluid with the knowledge they have, and how to time it correctly, and Senku’s ability to count seconds precisely going back to his time as a statue was all great. Lots of rewarding callbacks this season. That high five line was epic and Ibara’s VA was fantastic.
