Dr Stone Anime Episode 1 Review
This is a critique of the very first episode of Dr stone from the perspective of an Anime only viewer. Dr stone has been on my radar for a while since I heard about the manga and its reception I knew this would more likely than not be adapted into an Anime series.
Dr Stone Senku Character Critique
When a character is designed whether it's in video games or anime the environment in which they will interact with is often also factored into that character's design particularly if they are a protagonist. Senku's design definitely adapts him into his environment on account of the green in his hair. Green is the colour most associated with health and nature however when you have a super smart scientifical character it's hard to adapt green because aligning nature and science is often outside of the character's viewpoint and the conventional view of science. The green in Senku's hair adapts him into the foresty environment.
The red eyes definitely give off a sense of knowing because of the association with anger, it's easy to feel like someone angry know's and anger makes people think they know things, Gilgamesh from the Fate series also has red eyes and although angry an arrogant posses knowledge is able to understand humanity and the gods. Of course unlike Gilgamesh Senku does not seem to have a temper.
Red eyes also give the impression of evil which works really well with Senku's dark humor, when he offered Taiju- kun the supposed love potion it came out. Anyone in the science lab other than Taiju-Kun would have taken the alleged love potion. Senku is very aware of this and chose only to offer it to the one person who would reject it, he is aware of the evil he could do and an excellent judge of character not naive. In this new world, not everyone will necessarily want to work for the good.
Senku's voice actor is amazing, he matches the animation wonderfully he captures a combination of intelligence and dark curiosity I get a feel for the character just by listening to the voice actor.
Senku's Intelligence
Often when people are smart in one area they tend to lack in another area, Senku is well rounded and able to adapt what he knows very quickly and given the state of civilization he may be the most knowledgeable person on earth and without resources like books and the internet he is invaluable.
Senku is clearly knowledgable on physics given his E=MCsquared shirt and knows a lot of history based on cultures outside his own and of course he knows his chemicals. He probably does not know as much about outer space given his method of time awareness. Counting the seconds and thinking at the same time for 3700 years is one way to do it and definitely show off Senku's will power and ridiculous mental power however once free he is still relying on this method. Stars move In relation to the earth all the time with greater knowledge of stars Senku could work out the exact time by watching them, the fact he has not done this may reveal some gaps in his knowledge.
Senku is very intuitive, as I said earlier really smart people sometimes are dependant on one type of intelligence but the fact Senku is able to predict Taiju's survival off of intuition is quite impressive and before the green light he clearly he thought Yuzuriha would not reject Taiju and based on the flashback with the stone birds clearly they are two peas in a pod.
Was The Greenery affected By The Green Light?
Yuzuriha tied her bow around the tree where it's branch was broken in like a plaster on a person interestingly that same tree saved her. Was that just dawn luck or does the tree have some kind of intuition after 3700 years has it somehow evolved or does, was it affected by the light?
The Green Light And Stone
I was reminded of Medusa a green snake like entity that turns everything she looks at to stone.
The green light that turned everyone to stone is the first major mystery in what is likely to be an ongoing theme even if Senku restores everyone how do we know it won't happen again. The first victim's we are introduced to were birds perhaps that's a clue. Maybe high flyers were simply closer to the origin of earlier versions of the light that were perhaps not worldwide.
Not every animal was affected by the light which makes scientifical sense because if the bees had been we could kiss the whole ecosystem goodbye. The only known victims are humans and birds. Dogs are by some believed to be descendants of wolves so it as a nice touch when we get to see the puppy whos owner turned into a statue as a fully grown dog howling at the moon with wolves we know it's the same dog because of the collar.
It's interesting when Senku is shown inside his stone prison it's portrayed as if he is being pulled into a different dimension.
Freeing Humanity
The very first thing we see Senku successfully free from the stone was a feather which is basically the symbol of freedom we again get to see feathers freed from stone in the outro which is very symbolic. The young version of Senku was in the outro pacing intellectually with a big gift box in his room perhaps those are gifts offered to him for his intellectualism by a by the school he goes to before the blast in order to try to get him to join and make their school look good. Or perhaps he has neglectful parents who try to make up for neglect with materialistic gifts maybe that's in part why Senku is so independent having no trouble adapting to six months as the only person on earth in a sense. We all know that the first person Taiju-Kun will want to free is Yuzuriha but the outro show us she is not the only one who will be freed. Some of the characters in the outro had lines on their faces like Senku and Taiju-Kun but some did not does that mean the lineless character were freed a different way or maybe they were unaffected by the light.
The pacing was brilliant absolutely no time was wasted every scene was relevant I wrote a lot because we were told a lot in a very short period of time. The way they select who to free will be interesting because they can't free everyone at once due to food demands especially during the colder months, I suspect other than Yuzuriha they will free the most useful people first starting with Shisio Tsukasa the Strongest Primate High - Schooler.
Who Would You Free In Real life?
If the Dr Stone Petrification happened in real life who would you free.
Check Out Who I Selected To Save Here
