English Dub Review: Dr. Stone – Science Future “Ushers of an Exhilarating Future”
OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
Senku speaks with Why-man, the collective intelligence of the Medusa devices, to determine if the two species can co-exist.
OUR TAKE
And here we are, at the end of the road. The final episode of Dr. Stone after seven long years, with our bold protagonist Senku making first proper contact with Why-man, the one who caused all of this petrification craziness in the first place. The negotiations themselves are rather brief, with Senku proposing that the two species work together, and the collective Why-man declining and venturing off into space to find another species to share their “gift” of petrification. However, one Medusa decides to stay behind out of curiosity. I guess this is Why-boy? Why-kid? Either way, it gets a face put on its capsule so we can anthropomorphize it better. With that, the threat of petrification is officially over and humanity can further progress in getting itself back to where it was before. But is that really the best option, considering how crappy modern society is? Well, more thoughts on that later, as now we get to see everything wrapped up in a nice little bow. Taiju and Yuzuriha finally get married (multiple times so everyone has time to see it), Chrome and Ruri also get engaged rather unceremoniously, everyone finds jobs in the new world that fit their skill set, and Tsukasa and Hyoga ready themselves for legal consequences of their actions as soon as the courts are back in order. But that’s not all, as Senku reveals he’s been working on something truly exhilarating: a time machine, made to potentially save the lives of those who died during the thousand years of petrification because they weren’t able to be. And after everything this group has accomplished, why the hell not?!
Well…I’ll tell you why not, and it’s part of why this finale unfortunately breaks its streak of 10 out of 10s. Having watched seasons of this show multiple times, I understand that the ultimate theme and goal of this story is to show that humanity can achieve seemingly unsurmountable odds if we can overcome our differences and come together. And since this is the end of the story, we don’t need to see them try to explain their version of time travel in physics terms, it’s just meant to be another example of how this ideal human civilization is able to advance now that it’s unencumbered by the threat of petrification. But even just bringing it up and thinking it will work to petrify Byakuya and the others on the satellite so that they can be among them in the present seems to forget the key factor that them NOT being petrified is the only reason characters like Kohaku, Ruri, Chrome, Kinro and Ginro and numerous others even exist. So unless Senku is planning to pull Byakuya and his crew from another timeline altogether, that just sounds like another disaster waiting to happen.
My other issue with this ending is probably also one I’m overblowing or overthinking, but it’s the fact that this new civilization seems to be just about recreating what things were like before everyone got stoned. To pull back to Tsukasa’s extreme ideology from the start of the story, bringing back those who were close to dooming the planet before just gives them a chance to do it again. That doesn’t mean killing them or leaving them petrified as Tsukasa has come around on not restoring to, but this new civilization is a chance to start things fresh and, at the very least, avoid making the same mistakes as before. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any indication that things will be significantly changed from the model they had before, but that could just be because the conflict was dealing with Why-man. Still, I would have liked some small epilogue arc revisiting this to show that there’s things to look forward to in this humanity’s future besides characters we like just being in charge now. But as the ending title card proclaims, this is both The End and To be continued, so there’s nothing saying we can’t check back in with these characters and this world if the author is up for it.
And even with those two peeves, I do still like this ending quite a bit. It feels like a true culmination of everything that came before and used every lesson learned along the way, all to face the ultimate enemy and not fight them, but communicate with them. It’s a shame that those negotiations broke down, but one of the Medusa staying behind shows that not all is lost, as well as being a window into what humanity can achieve next. Both in the world of this story and our real world, things are increasingly uncertain, which can be frightening, but the only way to overcome it and grow as a species is to embrace it. Tackle everything we don’t know and uncover what we can, then use it to find out even more ahead of it, and so on and so on. Dr. Stone is the story of how that simple curiosity and urge to find out can bring down walls, find wondrous treasures, and take us all to heights we couldn’t have dreamed of, if we only choose to help those next to us. It’s an exhilarating idea that I couldn’t be more excited to put to practice, and I encourage you to do the same.
