Hello all, I hope you’re enjoying your weekend. I have decided to try and bring my reviews back under control a bit. It’s ridiculous to my episode reviews ramble on longer than full season ones. I’ve always had trouble staying concise so I am challenging myself to do so starting right now!
Ahem: Here is my review for Dr. Stone episode 6. See straight to the point! That wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t so easy either but I think I can do this. All I need so to focus on the task at hand and not start of on some completely unrelated subject… oh crud.
What I thought Would Happen
There wasn’t really many directions this episode could take. We had to revive Senku. I figured that’s what would happen, together with a heartfelt and tearful reunion, potentially some wacky joy antics. After that they had to tackle the Tsukasa problem but I thought we would not see him this episode.
If the revival happened early enough my guess was that they would all start hunting for the smoke signals again but I also thought that they might decide to stretch out the revival for the entire episode which was fine as well,
What Did Happen
Sort of a mix of both my guesses. We had an extended before OP scene which finished off Senku’s flashback showing his early days alone in the stone world, that finished off in a parallel scene of Senku trying to revive Taiju in the past as Taiju is trying to revive Senku in the present.
After the indeed tearful and heartfelt reunion, Senku, Taiju and Yuzu immediately start thinking about the Tsukasa problem. Tsukasa is an unreasonable character. By that I mean he’s sort of narrative breaking because he doesn’t quite make sense within the established parameters of the universe. This said, the fact that our three heroes are very preoccupied by his existence and desire to murder them, is perfectly reasonable within the universe. So far, things were happening as they should. What I did not expect is for them to split up, Senku looking for the smoke signal folks while Taiju and Yuzu are mounting some type of intelligence operation against Tsukasa. Yeah I just read that sentence and even I have trouble buying it.
The last scene shows us that the smoke signal girl actually ends up running into and attacking Tsukasa. She’s no match at all but we find out that she seems to be a sort of human reboot. A new generation of human born into the stone world rather than someone from 3700 years ago. It’s not far fetched to think there may be more. After a crushing defeat by Tsukasa, this girl gets rescued by Senku and promptly falls in love….sarcastic awwwwww
What About the Characters
A good chunk focused yet again on a solitary Senku and although he’s not much for character growth or even development, he is a decent front man and I think he can carry a scene especially when he doesn’t have to deal with spastic comedic relief sidekicks. However, we did get to see his devotion and in fact admiration of Taiju which was surprisingly touching. It seems the main couple of Dr. Stone is Taiju and Senku. I’m o.k. with that.
Taiju also had a brief chance to be on his own and I’m happy to report it went well. A bit like Demon Slayer, these characters seem better when their away from each other. Which is why the idea of splitting up for some time was a rather pleasant surprise. Yuzu and Tsukasa got much less time and were mostly just true to themselves and that’s fine.
Finally, we got the new blue eyed girl. For now she’s more or less an empty vessel. We know her background, which I’ve described above. She calls Senku a sorcerer cause primitive folks think science is magic and all that and she is now in love with him. Granted he saved her life so it’s not exactly without reason. I do hope they make something out of the girl because she’s very much an extra at this stage.
What I Liked
I liked the flashback. It sort of addressed my questions from last week. For one it confirmed that the petrification only affected humans and sparrows, which is a question I’ve been asking since the beginning. This is a very specific detail so it had to lead to something and I really want to know. It also showed us that Senku does not know how he broke out of the stone but he wants to know. Their not just playing a wizard did it card.
I quite liked Senku’s theories for how the petrification happened to begin with. Number 1 being my vote. And I also thought the almost cheesy friendship scenes were adorable. I’m easy to please.
After the OP….As I mention I think splitting up Taiju and Senku is smart. I also enjoyed the girl and Tsukasa’s fight. It was visually fun to watch. Her very existence implies a lot of things (i.e. more primitive people). We’ll see how that goes.
Oh and pulleys are awesome! About time they got a shout out!
What I Liked Less
It was the last scene but I’m just going to mention this right now, the intro duction of a love interest. They could still use it as a purely comedic device and I hope they do but I don’t want to see everyone pairing off. Cause I have no heart apparently.
I both like and dislike Tsukasa. In a vacuum, I have nothing against the character. But I do think he unbalances the story. They’re also turning him into a moustache twirling villain. He was supposed to be an ideologue. Ruthless but not in fact evil. His treatment of the girl was a lot colder and more callous than the character they were building up and that makes him less interesting to me.
Closing Thoughts
I didn’t dislike this episode. It makes me wary for future ones but this one was fine and went by very quickly! If this keeps up, I might actually enjoy the series.
I think I ended up with more words than last week… Ok so starting next week….
Mood: Comfortable
I think the whole point of Tsukasa is and always has been that he is an idealist. From his perspective, he is consistently following his goal of a good civilization. That’s why Senku can say Tsukasa is a good man and a murderer in the same breath.
As for Kohaku, I don’t think he’s trying to kill her so much as keep her out of his way in the most efficient manner possible. He doesn’t bother to check if she’s alive after knocking the tree on top of her, because he doesn’t care.
So Tsukasa seemed consistent as a character to me. Though granted I have the advantage of having read all the manga, which may color my view.
Anyway, love reading your reviews as always!😺
In the anime to me, he feels like a plot device more than a character so far. That’s not horrible but it’s not my favourite writting tchnique either
Fair enough. I think his character does round out before *SPOILER*.
I look forward to it!
“he feels like a plot device more than a character so far. ”
I can see why you’d say that. He’s more a force of nature and less a human. Senkuu tried to hit him with a cross bow and failed. Kohaku looked pretty handy (and _fast_!) with her knives, but he effortlessly caught her knife between his fingers.
Unless he is wearing a metal suit and is named Tony Stark, that’s border line impossible!
I’d be interested to read what you think it would take to make him a rounded out character. How would you change him?
Failure might be a way. Just a little one. They gave him a bit of background with the fake flashback which went a long way to humanize him but without more context it’s pretty limited. Also his ideology is a bit vague if it’s going to be his defining trait. I would love to hear him explain it in more detail. He’s a Senku level genius, surely he has more to say than adults are bad cause wars and stuff
He knows he’s currently imitating that behavior after all
This is one I still haven’t picked up yet and I really like the idea of it! I am actually genuinely excited to read about it and find myself actively rooting for it to turn good. There isn’t a lot of pink alcoholic beverages for me to drink to make the bad episodes go by faster. I must say I don’t find your post long at all. Sweet read and the points you make always translate well onto me.
I’m glad to hear that. hope you like it should you decide to pick it up