OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)The Kingdom of Science successfully infiltrates Xeno’s hideout and captures him, but negotiates his return in exchange for an alliance with his group. The crew then split off, with one staying behind to build Corn City and revive one million people while the rest go off to South America.OUR TAKEAnd that wraps up the first part of this final season of Dr. Stone! To my pleasant surprise, they actually managed to find a good stopping point for the show to go on break! However, it does kind of feel like things wrapped up with this specific conflict a little too easily, with all the hostilities basically halting once Xeno is captured and they negotiate for his escape. Well, all hostilities except for Stanley, who is apparently still so pissed at them that he will hunt them to the ends of the earth, which will supposedly provide at least a little bit of the action for the remaining story. Like I’m all for a non-violent solution and all, but I guess I was really expecting there to be a bit more sacrifices to this before a deal was settled. Now Xeno’s side knows the recipe for revival fluid and the plan to revive more people, which apparently was enough for some of them to just not want to fight…aside from Stanley. And Xeno’s not exactly on the side of the angels quite yet either, as he still seems to hold some more maniacal tendencies, but whether those will still come into play remains to be seen.I’ve been spoiled a little bit on where this story goes and, without giving too much away, things definitely get a bit more dire for the cast in the future. I was actually expecting something like that for how they would close out this first third, but maybe they’re saving that for the end of the second. But in terms of how these past twelve episodes have gone, they have definitely provided every principal member of the cast with new challenges and worthy adversaries to face. And it’s probably good that they have an alliance with Xeno’s group now (again, aside from Stanley for the moment) considering their ultimate enemy is the enigma that is Why Man, someone or something that is highly unlikely to be able to be negotiated with. Until they have to deal with that, it’s good to see that the Kingdom of Science is more on the side of leaning towards to peaceful solution, even when their enemy literally tries to assassinate Senku out of nowhere. As for whether this alliance will hold or end up helping them, we’ll have to check back in July when Dr. Stone resumes its final season!
