Dr. STONE SCIENCE FUTURE

Episode 18

Diamonds aren't only a girl's best friend; according to Dr. Stone, they're the Why Man's power source of choice too. Last week's episode ended with Senku's party discovering a golden ziggurat seemingly comprised entirely of Medusa devices, which they soon discover are all quite literally out of batteries. Without a recharged energy source, the Stippled Knot Triquetra-shaped Medusa devices won't be petrifying anyone any time soon, therefore won't be much use as a defensive weapon against Stanley.

While Senku bought some time with his aircraft sabotage and motorbike trip across the mountains, Stanley remains in hot pursuit, though his ship will need to navigate treacherous waters off the extreme south of the South American continent before heading north to the mouth of the Amazon river. This time, Senku's scientific attention is focused primarily on building a “stealth ship” so his team can return to base undetected by Stanley's radar. Chrome finally gets a chance to shine, and even out-think his leek-haired mentor, suggesting they use the spent Medusa units as anti-radar coverings to their newly-built, oddly-angular wooden ship. It seems the in-universe explanation for the Medusas' unusual shape is that their sharp angles deflect radar waves instead of reflecting them back to their source. It's nice that Dr. Stone manages to work in an explanation of how modern stealth technology works, although it's a little disappointing that Senku's application of the tech in the Stone World relies on blatant fantasy rather than real science.

Similarly, the Corn City team's lab-grown diamond quest seems more than a little far-fetched. At least we're shown them trying and failing several times before eventually succeeding at growing tiny sparkling gems using alcohol fumes, electricity, and a tungsten filament. (Don't do this at home, kids. Seriously, don't.) Senku's point about the beauty of science being replicable by anyone with basic instructions does certainly hold true, but his only instruction to them over the radio is the singular word “alcohol!” That they could successfully intuit the entire Chemical Vapor Deposition process for diamond production from merely this seems unlikely. I wonder if they'll have managed to grow sufficiently-sized diamonds by the time Senku returns? Perhaps they'll also have perfected the method for weapons-grade Uranium enrichment in the meantime.

Kohaku continues to develop new and improbable superhuman abilities in that her eyes now apparently function at the electron microscope level of magnification. This results in the pupils of one of her eyes constricting to such a terrifying degree it makes her look like she's had a stroke. Note to the animators: unless your character has some kind of horrific brain injury, both pupils are supposed to constrict equally.

At least we're inching closer to Dr. Stone's central mystery: what caused the petrification of humanity in the first place? Senku's assumption that the myriad Medusa devices fell from space (undetected by radar) into the Amazon basin does suggest some kind of extraterrestrial origin for the phenomenon. Perhaps we'll learn more as the season progresses.

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