Dr. STONE SCIENCE FUTURE

Episode 24

Somehow, Dr. Stone has made me feel things several weeks in a row. I wonder if this should be illegal? Poor unsuspecting viewers like me dutifully tune in week by week expecting a fun but silly science adventure serial, only to have our tear ducts mercilessly attacked and hearts beaten and bruised. Last week, Suika's sole struggle to de-petrify her friends over several years was masterfully targeted at the souls of soft-hearted shonen anime viewers. I thought perhaps that would be it, and we'd be back to status quo for the finale. Nope. Senku's first three words are enough to bring Suika (and me) to tears again: “Well done, Suika.” Cue cathartic hugging with both Senku, and next Kohaku. “I'm too old for you to hug me now,” opines the sweet little gourd girl, only for Kohaku to grab and squeeze her like juicing a watermelon. More tears.

Emotional violence accomplished, Suika and Senku get to producing more revival fluid. What took Suika five years takes Senku a single day to produce. I have to hand it to Suika that she didn't choose to melt into a puddle and give up at this point, but the not-so-wee-any-more trooper just keeps trooping. Suika is, without a doubt, the MVP of this season, single-handedly rescuing the entire human race from a petrified eternity. Not bad for a squeaky little melon-headed moe-blob.

Kingdom of Science resurrected (or at least sixteen of them, anyway), Senku predictably elects to de-petrify Dr Xeno, winning him over with the revelation that since the re-petrification event, Why Man has gone silent once more. We're led to assume that should humanity display evidence of sentience again, Why Man, whoever he is, will only attempt to re-petrify humanity again and again. Xeno agrees to take the fight to the moon, which as a handy rocket scientist, he's uniquely qualified to do.

There's also the potentially disturbing news about the true extent of Medusa's powers. As Tsukasa explains, Hyoga was definitely dead prior to the effects of the petrification beam, so the Medusa has essentially resurrected him from the dead. Perhaps this isn't too surprising, considering it revived Tsukasa himself from a near-death coma. The consequences of this are unsettling to say the least, though. While Chrome is excited at the possibility he can keep elderly engineer Kaseki alive a lot longer than expected, the potential society-wide repercussions of a technology that can conquer death are Earth- shattering. There's fertile ground for conflict and philosophical exploration of such concepts here, hopefully the next, and final, cour can capitalize on that.

Initial lacrimal overstimulation notwithstanding, this episode is a return to default Dr. Stone, with all of the cast members local to the Amazon revived, and Senku already wildly planning his next big project. Surely it's not going to be easy to build a space rocket in this stone world, so I don't expect the course of science to run too smoothly. If it did, Dr. Stone wouldn't be as wildly entertaining as it is. Despite a shaky start, this has been a fantastic season, probably the best since the show began over six years ago. I'm ten billion percent excited that it's returning in 2026 for a final send-off. How exhilarating.

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