Ok. Now before you hardcore fans begin to go all Mob Psycho 100 on me, just take a moment to relax and catch your breath because this train is going to be a one-way ticket straigth through the inferno all the way down to the ninth circle of hell.
Starting ez, as I said earlier, the only thing good in this show is the setting and how the art manages to capture the idea of a “Stone World” which on a side note, is a very creative title for a post apocalyptic world. The only problem I have with this doesn’t exactly have to do with the setting, but rather the writing, which is that they didn’t make it clear at the beginning that it was only humans and some birds that were affected by the unusual phenomena that turned them into stone.
Now, let’s get into the filth. So make sure you get the hot water running in the shower right now before continuing.
As I mentioned earlier, I acknowledge that this is shounen and there are bound to be some “illogical” things and one of those things is the fact that Senku was able to count roughly the exact number of seconds that pass while still stone for 3700 years. Now normally I would give this a pass with the assumption that this “plot convenience” would have an important role to play in the course of this show. Unfortunately, it didn’t. The only reason it existed was to add a “hype” moment for the ultra turbo virgin redditors and lonely youtube surfers to make a big deal out of. It was that awful.
Another filthy aspect of this show is the characters---every single one of them.
Senku is a guy with some Rick and Morty level IQ. Can confirm 10 billion percent true. His entire character is completely generic with such minimal personality that honestly just appears to be cringe most times. He’s a bearable character in the beginning, but in the village arc everything just seems dull.
Taiju is the guy that packs the brawn of the duo. Just like Senku, Taiju is also completely generic in his respective character archetype and neither of them receive any development at all. It’s just the same two characters doing their thing to speedrun scientific advancements.
Not to mention, but if Senku really does have such scientific intuition then wouldn’t he want to discover the cause of the “Stone World” in the first place. I mean seriously, any real scientist would first want to discover the problem before fixing it.
Tsukasa is the type of guy that is dumber than Senku (but still somewhat smart) and stronger than Taiju. Because of this I went under the false impression that he would be a good villain. The reason he doesn’t want scientific advancement is because of a “story” about a guy that wanted seashells for his dying sister but then some adult comes by and is like “OH! You can’t do that this is my property or something.” Therefore Tsukasa doesn’t like science because it makes adults corrupt. Honestly, WHERE IN THIS STORY IS THERE ANY MENTION OF SCIENCE CORRUPTING. IF ANYTHING IT SHOULD BE CAPITALISM OR PRIVATE PROPERTY AND IT WOULD STILL BE SH*T REGARDLESS.
I’m not going to go into much detail about Kohaku, but all you need to know is that she left the tournament arc, THE VERY IMPORTANT TOURNAMENT TO DECIDE THE VILLAGE CHIEF, because of the slight probability that some child might be drowning since they were alone. That same child was alone exploring the forest multiple times but NO, now all of a sudden I care about being paranoid about a child’s safety. PLOT CONVENIENCE!!!!!!
I also want to note that the character design was one notable thing at the beginning, however, they still managed to screw the one unique thing up entering the village arc.
Overall, Dr. Stone had a good premise and setting and a few artistic scenes that can make you feel at ease, but horrible execution throughout. The entire show is riddled with an unquantifiable amount of plot convenience, appalling characters, unfunny jokes, and ofcourse---downright fake SCIENCE in a few instances for the sake of coherency in the storyline, which is utter crap to begin with anyway.
Just to clarify, it’s not the fake science that’s the worst part of the show but how the characters are written. The most important part in any show I believe is the characters and how they develop and contribute towards the overall story and that is what the writers screwed up the most.
If you really want to watch a good shounen science show, watch FMA Brotherhood. Seriously I would much rather watch this 10 times in a row if I’d known Dr. Stone would be such utter sh*t that make my brain cells melt.
EDIT: Ok, so I wrote this review like 2 years ago during the peak of my adolescent-like weeb stage, hence the plentitude of jargon only people who watch a lot of anime would understand. Looking back on this, I'm not particularly proud of my presentation in this review as I was going for a dark-comedic vibe, but, I guess the comedic part I was going for may not have landed so nicely (Comments have been equally positive and negative). To be clear, my opinions on the show have not changed much at all. I still think its trash for how it gets away with minimal animations and other stuff I mention in the main body of this review. As for the use of the term "fake science," I will agree that it is not the best use of words to highlight my point. What I meant to say by "fake science" is an issue with the writing with how conveniently everything plays out for the main characters that it just feels so unrealistic and lacks immersiveness. Although on a side note, I wouldn't be surprised if the author did in fact sneak in some plot holes. If you feel the need to go on a rant and comment on a review from almost 2 years ago, maybe you should rethink your own life instead.
