Manga Review: Dr. Stone written by Riichiro Inagaki, art by Boichi
It is 2019, and young lug Taiju Ooku is finally going to confess his love to his crush, Yuzuriha Ogawa (who it’s hinted likes him back.) Taiju’s encouraged by his best buddy, science whiz Senku Ishigami, but Senku’s attention is drawn to the puzzle of a certain species of swallow abruptly turning to stone. Before Taiju can spit out the words, he and every other human on Earth turn to stone. His determination to get back to Yuzuriha keeps him conscious in that stone body for approximately 3700 years before he breaks free. Taiju is now in an overgrown wilderness dotted by statues.
Taiju quickly discovers that there is one other living human, Senku, who had managed to break out some months before. With Senku’s encyclopedic knowledge of science and Taiju’s gift of limitless endurance, the two slowly create a decent if extremely primitive place to live. Senku’s observations before and after the petrification wave reveal how to create a depetrification serum, after many trial and error experiments.
Unfortunately, due to a crisis situation, the first person the serum is used on is Tsukasa Shishio, a superstrong martial artist who enjoys the primitive world he’s been revived in, and doesn’t want technology or the adults who he despises to be revived. In the end, Senku has to fake his own death at Tsukasa’s hands in order to avert immediate disaster. Taiju and the now revived Yuzuriha go with Tsukasa to form his Kingdom of Might, while Senku strikes out on his own to investigate signs of other living humans.
Sure enough, there is an entire village of unpetrified people, who Senku must find a way of convincing to become his Kingdom of Science!
This manga ran from March 2017 through March 2022 in Weekly Shounen Jump. It started fairly strong, with nice art (especially if you admire womanly hips), a fantastical premise, and realistic seeming science factoids. But it really jumped into high gear once Taiju was sent offscreen for several chapters and Senku became the main character. His cleverness and sly use of scientific knowledge allow him to become the leader of Ishigami Village (and yes, that name looks familiar) and turn its people into enthusiastic science fans.
One of my favorite bits from the early chapters is that every Ishigami villagers is named except one. His name turns out to be a huge spoiler which leads into a new plot arc many chapters later.
I like the optimism of this series. Even though humanity has seemingly lost all their technology and tools, they are able to come back bit by bit with the right knowledge, determination and a heaping helping of luck. Especially early on the science and progress felt plausible.
On the down side, there’s some heavy-handed coincidences that make for shortcuts in the process of reviving human civilization, and towards the end of the series progress starts being made way too swiftly to keep suspending belief. (But then it does need to move on to the explanation for the initial disaster, which goes into science fiction territory.)
Also, I am not too keen on Ryusui, a young capitalist who gets revived later in the series and becomes a co-protagonist. His greed and overbearing personality rankle me, and I did not see him get the humbling I felt he deserved. Many other characters could have used his spotlight.
Overall, though, this is a strong series that has a mostly satisfying run. You could write a sequel, but it doesn’t need one. (Perhaps more side stories about characters who were shuffled off-page at various points?) Recommended to shounen manga fans who like science.
And of course, there’s an anime:
