Dr. STONE Episode 1 – Stone World is one of the new summer release anime that I’ve been keeping a n eye out since I saw the first reveal trailer. Prior to that, I’ve heard buzz about the manga being great so I’ve been anticipating its anime debut for some time now. After watching the first episode, I can say that this anime might be one to definitely give a try.
Alright, to give you a rundown of the plot for the anime:
Typical student Taiju tells his science-loving friend Senku that he is finally about to confess to Yuzuriha, who he has secretly been in love with for five years. Right there, we got a sense of what types of personality these two have and their dynamic as friends. It was funny that Senko was willing to give his friend gasoline in disguise as a potion, knowing he wouldn’t drink. It shows that Senko is able to make calculative decisions with precision, something I feel is akin to power levels. So if Senko gets something wrong, you know shit is about to go down
Meeting under a camphor tree on the school grounds, just as Taiju is about to confess, a bright light appears in the sky. Taiju pushes Yuzuriha to the tree to protect her, but the light suddenly petrifies all of humanity, with every human on Earth turning into stone. We never learned what caused it, but it is interesting to note that all animals survived the blast, except a certain type of bird as we’ll see later in the anime. What that sginfies remains to be known.
Most humans begin to lose their consciousness while all traces of civilization decay, but Taiju remains alive as the years progress by his motivation of freeing both himself and Yuzuriha. Eventually, Taiju breaks free from the stone and finds a message carved into the tree that leads him to discover that Senku has also escaped from stone, keeping his consciousness alive by counting how long he has been petrified.
Thus Taiju learns that the date is now October 5th, 5738. Together, Taiju and Senku begin to rebuild civilization using Senku’s scientific knowledge. They create Nital; a corrosive solvent that destroys the stone casing on people.
And that was the bulk of of the episode. I really enjoyed both Taiju and Senko’s personality. Senko’s in particular is entertaining to watch as he just casually explains everything that he’s doing to Taiji. His smug smile and somewhat condescending attitude is going to be the best parts of the anime. Of course, thanks to the anime’ opening, we know that there’s going to be more human awakening as the anime goes on, with possible tribes been formed based on ideology or common interest. So I’m hoping that they’ll be another super smart kid that’s going to prove to be Senko’s rival. That way, things will be quite interesting as we get to see not only brawn vs brawn, but brain vs brain too.
I also find the concept of this Dr. STONE to be interesting in the sense, that essentially, humanity has to restart from scratch, but this time, with all the knowledge and experience gathered throughout the years. Overall, the first episode was great. Visuals were really good and the humour was alright. Of course, this is only the first episode, so we’ll have to see more to get a good sense of what this anime is all about.
