English Dub Review: Dr. STONE “A Hundred Nights and a Thousand Skies”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Byakuya decides that they need to make it down to earth if they want to save humanity. Shamil, Connie, and Lillian decided to go down in the shuttle first. They successfully land, however, they land in an ocean. Byakuya, Dalia, and Yakov see their coordinates and go after them, racing against the clock before Shamil, Connie, and Lillian run out of air. Byakuya rows a boat out to their location and rescues them, taking them all to a nearby, isolated island where he, Dalia, and Yakov had landed.

The crew winds up settling down there, realizing they’re far from society with no foreseeable way to cure the petrification. Years go on — Connie and Shamil get “married,” and have kids, as do Dalia and Yakov. However, Connie catches pneumonia, and when Dalia and Yakov attempt to set sail to find antibiotics, the sea proves too dangerous and drowns them. Connie dies, and Shamil follows soon after, as does Shamil. Byakuya and Lillian are left to raise the children. After Lillian dies, Byakuya makes sure their stories are preserved by telling the children.

Senku confirms that all the villagers are descendants of the original crew. Ruri then takes Senku out to the village cemetery, where Byakuya’s resting place lies. Ruri tells Senku the Hundredth Tale: a message from Byakuya to him, instructing him to use the friends he’s made in this village to help him save the world after he breaks out of the stone.

Our Take

Another emotional episode. Dr. STONE’s continuity in quality is really something. There really hasn’t been a single moment for the past few episodes that felt dull, forced, or predictable. This flashback was a much needed emotional connection to Senku that wasn’t previously there. Senku is a very goal-driven character. He stops at nothing until he accomplishes what he sets out to do, and because of this, it seems that he is almost unrealistically ambitious. Over the course of thousands of years, we have yet to see Senku truly have an emotional reaction to the weight of that reality, but in this episode, it seems we’ve finally gotten to see that side of him.

Even though it was only one tear, it was a needed reaction, considering Senku is abnormally level-headed. It would have been nice to see Senku have an even bigger reaction to prove his human emotions aren’t nonexistent, but we’ll take what we can get. Either way, it was a beautiful episode. It’s curious that Senku and Byakuya aren’t actually blood-related (despite how much they look alike.) It brings up the question of how Byakuya wound up becoming Senku’s legal guardian in the first place. Maybe it will be revealed, maybe it won’t. It’s just nice to know that Senku wasn’t forcibly being married to someone he was pseudo-related to.

The only complaint about the crew story was that it seemed that they didn’t even make an attempt to sail off the island in search of society, but it seems like it also tried to convey that the ocean was too dangerous. The extra explanation would have been nice, but…that’s all in the past.