Boy it’s been a long week. That’s not a bad thing mind you! I’ve been staying out very late watching anime movies at festivals and surviving through my work days on a few hours sleep and next day buzzes. Yay successful adulting! If you happen to work with me, I have most definitely not been doing any of those things. I’m a serious and professional individual. Cough
How have you guys been? Good? Great???? Much like my Grancrest reviews, my Dr. Stone posts are getting less than stellar comments and few likes but crazy views. I’m assuming, people are at least trying to see it online or something. Instead they found this post…sorry. I do sort of describe the episode though. That’s pretty much the same!
What I thought Would Happen
After last week’s cliffhanger, I figured Senku would talk himself out of confrontation or Taiju would save him last minute and they would all escape Tsukasa, then spend the rest of the episode hunting for the source of the smoke signals.
Maybe just finding out the truth, or an important clue, at the cliffhanger end of the episode.
What Did Happen
Senku died. I still think it was a toothless threat and useless cliffhanger cause obviously her can’t stay dead but he did stay dead way longer than I though he would. For a second I though they were gonna weekend at Bernie’s it (look it up kids!).
Anyways, Tsukasa kills Senku with a blow to the neck but Taiju manages to outsmart him (now that has got to hurt) and runs away with Yuzuriha and Senku’s body. After finding a seemingly safe spot, Taiju and Yuzu try to find a way to reanimate their friend and actually figure out that he had a small petrified patch on his neck that could regenerate him if the use the potion of life on it.
As he is slowly reviving (I assume) we see Senku have a flashback to when he first awoke alone in the new stone age and how he managed to survive before Taiju came to.
What About the Characters
The first half of the episode was mostly dedicated to action and tension building so we didn’t have much time to check in with the characters. Tsukasa remains a sort of Mary Tarzan (get it, it’s a me Tarzan you Jane joke… you know what, it’s not very good. Forget I said that) but we get a wistful fantasy flashback distorting last week’s showing of Senku’s childhood to include him and for a second, he seemed almost interesting. A painfully lonely boy who never quite managed to put his bountiful skills for any sort of personal satisfaction. Anyways, we leave him behind in act one.
Having Taiju and Yuzu alone together and in a stressful situation that can only be resolved by brains was unexpected. What’s more, it was pretty good. Both were forced to focus, work together and find a solution. This meant that for the most part there were none of those silly theatrics and explosions, and the series even managed to decently justify Taiju’s stroke of genius, making it believable that he would come up with the solution. Meanwhile, they gave Yuzu enough agency to actually be the action hero and created great teamwork between the two which may be the most romantic thing yet.
However, the episode was really a vehicle for Senku as was last week’s episode, really. He basically starred in a one-man show for the second half of the episode. We don’t learn that much more about his character as he has been decently developed already but he remains pretty interesting. This said, he is limited in range and although I quite enjoyed this solo adventure, I don’t think he can carry another episode (or half episode) by himself.
What I Liked
Separating out the characters and giving them all clear and immediate goals focused everyone. Although the episode itself had a lot of goofy, silly moments, the characters were more sombre and determined. It really toned down the aspects I enjoy less about them. In fact, if they were always like this, I would enjoy this cast.
The miracle of Senku’s survival had actually been properly set up a few weeks ago, in a way that made sense now that it comes up again. This almost never happens so I have to give credit where credit is due.
The second, fantasy flashback to all the characters as kids was just as cute as last week and possibly even more charming, even if it did have a slightly painful undercurrent. I wouldn’t have minded if it went on a little longer.
I had mentioned that the Robinson Crusoe desert island survival bit was my favourite part and I was disappointed we skipped it in episode 1. So there you go, me! It had some so so moments but also some really fun ones. The video game references made me giggle.
What I Liked Less
With all the emphasis on Science!, they sure seemed to skip over a few important details this week. For one, how did Senku break through the petrification? He was outside with no chance of bat guano dripping on him.
Also, did he actually understand the monkeys? Were they speaking Japanese? How did he know the term “shiny monkey” I get that it’s probably just a gag, but it still bugged me.
As much as I liked flashback Tsukasa, present Tsukasa remains way to unbalanced a character to provide proper contrast as a villain. I think scary weather would be more effective.
Closing Thoughts
Honestly, if this was a standard episode, I would be pretty happy. Some jokes didn’t really land and you had to gloss over some bits for it to make sense but on average, it was an enjoyable and fairly interesting episode. It ended way before I thought it would which is a good sign. This said, because it has the legacy of some pretty bad episode (and we’re just at ep 5 – it’s been a real roller coaster), I can’t quite let my guard down!
I figure introducing smoke signal girl will be pivotal. She’ll either be a breath of fresh air or a nail in the coffin!
Mood: Steady as she goes
