Dr. STONE SCIENCE FUTURE

Episodes 1-2

These first two episodes of Dr. Stone are all about getting us to where we need to go for the story to continue—both metaphorically and literally. Thus, the first episode of the season is all about reintroducing us to the characters and their role in the party. This is done through a poker game where we see the skills of the main four characters in action. Ryusui uses bravado while Gen supports him with slight-of-hand and manipulation. On the other side, Kohaku uses her keen vision and speed to support Senku while he puts his scientific plan for victory into action. It's a fun and effective way of reminding us just how special our heroes are. Of course, the poker game is more for show than anything else—a trick to make the rest of the crew go along with Senku's plan to push for America in a mere 40 days.

Crossing the Pacific is no easy task. The faster you go the harder it is—not only on the technology but on the crew. Besides Ryusui, none of our heroes are deep sea sailors and the psychological impact of 40 days of backbreaking labor at sea is intense. Because of this, Senku, Ryusui, and Gen put together a three-part plan to preserve morale: Food, fun, and psychologically altering substances. Basically, they increase rations, get the crew into gambling, and get them drunk.

The second episode covers the entire 40 day journey. However, it ends up feeling disjointed and flat. Basically, the first episode set things up as if the voyage would be high stakes and stressful—with danger around every corner. Instead, there is only a single problem encountered: cloudy weather. While this looks to make it impossible to navigate as they had planned, it literally only takes Chrome a few minutes to figure out Viking sun stones and get them right back on track without any noticeable time loss.

So, instead of focusing on the actual sea voyage, the episode instead devolves into a series of largely unrelated events. The best of these is Matsukaze's backstory. Through it, we get a hint as to what the Why Man's true motivations are. In practice, he could have dropped a single petrification device and turned everyone on Treasure Island to stone. Instead, he dropped many smaller ones. Why? Perhaps because his goal isn't the genocide of mankind, but is rather a test of sorts: Can mankind overcome their base instincts to use technology for personal gain and instead use it for peace and cooperation? In other words, the Why Man won't destroy humanity outright, but he will give them the tools to do so themselves and wait and see if human nature will take its course.

Unfortunately, the other big event of the episode makes little sense. Matsukaze wants to become stronger and asks Tsukasa to train him. The issue is that Tsukasa is more about raw power than weapon techniques. Thus, they come up with the idea to depetrify Hyoga once again. This is, frankly, insane. Hyoga is dangerous—physically strong, tactically intelligent, and is more than willing to betray anyone for his goals. Depetrifing him on Treasure Island was a gamble born from a hopeless situation. Doing it for no other reason than training Matsukaze seems like the dumbest move Senku has ever made. However, he then immediately one-ups himself by depetrfying Homura and Moz at Hyoga's request. With Homura, Hyoga gains an ally loyal only to him. And as for Moz, well, he's a hedonistic despot as well as likely the second strongest human alive aside from Tsukasa—he has little to no reason to play nice.

All in all, this puts a huge damper on the second episode. On a mission where the human race is at stake, introducing three antagonistic wild cards and expecting them to fall in line just because you want a spear trainer for your newest ally seems so breathtakingly stupid that it nearly shatters the suspension of disbelief. Not everyone you defeat is going to meekly become your ally—and expecting this to happen is the height of foolishness.

Episode 1 Rating:

Episode 2 Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• Aren't a lot of our heroes high school aged or younger? Is it really a good idea to get them addicted to alcohol and gambling?

• The whole bit with Francois making signature drinks for everyone is cute but gives little actual insight into the characters.

• How can Chrome remain so dense when it comes to Ruri and her feelings?

• Senku seems to think having a gun and Tsukasa is enough to keep Hyoga in line. However, guns can be taken away and I doubt that even Tsukasa could take Hyoga, Homura (with a gun), and Moz in a fight.

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Dr. Stone: Science Future is currently streaming on Crunchyroll on Thursdays. i4th4303 o euu iui eup