Our MC Senku vows to use real science to advance technology and bring back to life the society we know, which was wiped out by a mysterious worldwide phenomemon that turned all humans into stone statues.
The enjoyment of the series lies in the ingenuity and cleverness Senku and his friends display to overcome the odds by creating history-changing scientific advancements well known to us (antibiotics, long-distance communication, guns etc) using only what few resources they have available to them in a wild, hostile world full of great mysteries.
This gimmick works very well because the whole proccess of reaching these achievements is displayed like a puzzle, with the characters taking many risks and showing great effort in order to assemble all the pieces and combine them.
Watching Senku and friends succeeding in making a new invention gives the same feeling of excitement as gaining a power upgrade after a training arc in shounen, and the clever, badass ways they use these inventions to overcome whats threatening them (other humans or nature itself) feel like epic shounen battles, truly a breath of fresh air into the genre!
GREAT PHYLOSOPHY!
While almost all post-apocalyptic series tell us very edgy stories to rant about how shitty and cruel humanity is, heavily criticizing both our nature and the society we created, Dr. Stone chooses a very different path.
The phylosophical debate is represented by Tsukasa and Senku. The former is the first antagonist, which rejects the old society for being cruel, flawed and corrupted, so they should use the apocalypse as an opportunity to start over from scratch with a new society based not on science, but on his own values and principles. The latter is the protagonist, and he believes its not up to them to decide whether the old society was worthy or not, and that they should restore everything to what it once was and let humanity decide their own future.
Many viewers, like me, will agree with Tsukasa at first. After all, humanity can be very cruel, flawed and corrupted, and our current society has many flaws that we all wish we could change, so if we were in Tsukasa's place, we would probably do the same. Through Senku, the author provokes the viewer stating he will change our mindset and views on society, and to my surprise, HE ACTUALLY FUCKIN DID IT(to an extent).
The entire story of Dr. Stone is a recapitulation of 10,000 years of human world history, displayed in a way that highlights all of humanity's greatest achievements and the struggle we had to go through in order to get to where we are today, without glossing over our mistakes and shortcomings. It is very easy to say our current society is worthless when all we point out is its bad side, but what about everything good it accomplished?
Of course our society is full of flaws and problems, BUT SO WHAT? Humanity has proven time and time again it is capable of evolving and overcoming huge problems with the power of science. Look at all these major issues we've solved in the past, why would we not be able to do the same with our current problems in the future?
This rhetorical question is the heart of Senku's argument and the Dr. Stone series is Senku's experiment trying to prove to the viewer that he is right, and even though I don't agree with him 100%, it does make a lot of sense. Watching these two grand ideologies clash is amazing and gives the viewer much to think about.
CONS:
To make the invention achievements sound reasonable and realistic, the author had to make a huge sacrifice: he made nearly every character in the show look and feel extremely exaggerated purely for plot convenience. The core of everyone's character is just one quality/flaw cranked up to 11: Senku is a bottomless well of knowledge, Taiju is endurance personified, Tsukasa is so strong he can kill lions with one punch etc (they are all teenagers btw LOL), their abilities are so unreasonably outstanding its hilarious, so even though the science behind all the inventions is real, the characters really aren't, which is great for comedy but makes most of them feel shallow and underdeveloped. Senku is the one who really carries the show as far as characters go (Ryuusui is best boi though) and thats about it.
Also the first few chapters have bad pacing and a TON of exposition so it might feel boring at first, I highly recommend watching the anime to get over the slow introduction quickly and get right to the good stuff. Once Senku reaches the village, its all badass from there!
OVERALL:
Dr. Stone is a fun and unique adventure filled with excitement, mistery and 5000 iq badassery. It reminds us that humanity can be awesome and have its moments of brilliance, that we should be proud and appreciate how far we've come as a society despite how long our road up ahead still is. If you're tired of your typical shounen battle series and are looking for something fresh, Dr. Stone is the way to go.
