The Winter 2025 Anime Preview Guide

Dr. STONE SCIENCE FUTURE

After the battle on Treasure Island, Senku and the gang return to the Kingdom of Science. With their sights set on the Moon, they must first voyage to the Americas in hopes of beginning to harvest the required materials. Through teamwork and science, they continue the fight to save humanity once and for all!

Dr. Stone: Science Future is based on the Dr. Stone manga series by Boichi and Riichirō Inagaki. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Thursdays.

It's always a bit tough to do a season premiere for a series that comes from a long-running manga. When this part of the story came out, there had been no breaks in publication—no need to remind readers of what had happened recently in the story and what our characters were hoping to accomplish. The anime, however, has to do both this and further the story simultaneously.

For the most part, this episode does a fine job. We are reintroduced to the key aspects of the four main characters for this story arc. Senku is a scientist who will do anything to restore the world—including putting his own body and health on the line. He is a man who sees the physical realities and puts less emphasis than he should on the human factor.

This is where Ryusui comes in. He is far more understanding than Senku about the mental limits of people—that the mind breaks far sooner than the body does. Luckily, they both have Gen around. As a master manipulator, he knows everything there is to raising morale—and that the biggest trick of all is convincing people that they want to take the harder path. Lastly, we get Kohaku. She is almost certainly the fastest and most eagle-eyed human alive. But more than that, she is loyal to a fault—both to Senku and his dream.

All this is shown to us in an entertaining way—a poker game involving the four. Yet, before long, it becomes apparent that the cards themselves are irrelevant. The game isn't about who has the best hand but who can get away with cheating undetected. It's an extended scene with both a lot of laughs and a lot of heart.

But what sells this episode is that we have a conflict where neither person, Senku or Ryusui, is wrong. They are unified in purpose but not method. Senku is more focused on the big picture—they must reach the moon before the “Why Man” can stop them. Meanwhile, Ryusui is focused on the immediate—the health and safety of the expedition. After all, if they don't make the journey in one piece, that's far worse than waiting a year to continue their mission. And in the end, there's no easy answer to their quandary. They've done all they can to make Senku's plan possible, and we'll have to see how things shake out in the coming weeks.

In the words of Arthur C. Clarke, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” We crossed the point at which Dr. Stone: Science Future turned from a science show into a magic show a long time ago. What began as a thought experiment about rebuilding the Stone Age with modern knowledge has now, by the show's fourth season, progressed into a revolving door of comedic anachronisms. In the age-old shonen power level creep tradition, big-brained protagonist Senku has gone from teaching the denizens of this new Stone Age better survival techniques to mass-producing poker chips and glass beer steins behind the scenes.

The fourth season launches the viewer into a refresher course as reporter character Minako interviews everyone on the ship, giving us the who's who, and at the same time, she reminds us where we are in the New America City Arc. It's an exciting time to return to this story, right at a time when Senku's crew has left Japan and set their sights on global domination. There's even a mini science lesson as the crew debates whether to sail the ship with the curve of the Earth in mind. Even as the Kingdom of Science sets its sights on increasingly magical-seeming goals, viewers will still receive educational benefits equivalent to a fourth-grade science class, albeit very slowly and eked out over many, many seasons of shonen battle anime. (In other words, it's not a replacement at all. Stay in school, kids.)

The art style's character silhouettes are still recognizable and consistent in quality compared to previous anime seasons. Even so, after reading the manga first, I miss artist Boichi's stunning, inhumanly detailed illustrations. Though I recognize that these would be nigh impossible to recreate in animation, Senku's story feels a bit less impactful without it. However, the advantages of animation show in this episode's all-out poker battle between Senku and Ryusui, which is a blatant display of nonstop cheating that showcases each character's unique superhuman abilities. Since the scene relies on the characters' misdirection and rapid-fire movements, the animation brings the action out more than the manga could. I especially liked Gen's role in this scene and I willingly accept that this shameless contrarian has become a central member of the crew purely for the entertainment value. The scientific realism ship may have sailed long ago, but Dr. Stone's recognizable clash of strong personalities is a lot more fun.

I wasn't expecting this show about utilizing science in the Stone Age to have an episode about gambling, but here we are! Dr. Stone remains consistently entertaining by sticking to an overall theme that allows an absurd amount of flexibility when it comes to its character interactions and narrative progression. We have a new small goal every season that contributes to our overall goal of trying to restore humanity and while the overall plot is sometimes literally about getting from point A to point B, it's the process by which our characters reach those points that makes the show so entertaining. This premiere episode definitely lacked a little bit of the intuitive scientific learning that I like from the show, but it makes up for that with fun character dynamics and comedic timing (plus the little fanservice is nice, too).

Despite the fact that the cast keeps growing with each season, nothing feels stale or stretched thin. Everybody has a wheelhouse or gimmick, so you more or less know what to expect from them, but the differing scenarios allow for various entertaining encounters. Whether it's Senku's scientific rationale, Gen's mentalist trickery, or Ryusui's overwhelming confidence, our cast remains likable, even when they're all butting heads. There's a strong sense of pride and desire for things to get better, but even when everybody is butting heads, nothing ever comes off as mean-spirited. This is all for the sake of learning and making the best of the stressful situation. This definitely feels like before the calm before the storm and I like how the episode ends with an overall positive note, but that just makes me all the more invested in the next major step for our science crew.