Dr. Stone Manga Review
The next rising star
Weekly Shonen Jump, a popular anthonlogy magazine that publishes manga for boys between the ages of 12–18, has always been known for their immensely popular manga. From titles such as Dragon Ball,Naruto, One Piece and Bleach, Weekly Shonen Jump have been known for their way array of popular and criticially acclaimed manga that have captured the hearts of readers everywhere,Dr. Stone is no exception to this rule. A recent addition to the current lineup of Weekly Shonen Jump, Dr. Stone quickly grew to be something quite unique among its brethren, albiet not yet as popular as the other titles. Being a fan of this unique title, I believe that Dr. Stone that the manga is fantastic and I want to share and anaylze Dr. Stone to showcase the apsects that make Dr. Stone so unique special and quite frankly, awesome.
To begin with the examination of Dr. Stone, we need to begin with a summary of the plot. Created by Riichiro Inagaki and Boichi, Dr. Stone is a story about two students, Senku and Taiju, who are regular students living their lives and pursuing their goals. Taiju has a crush on a girl and finally wants to confess his feelings and Senku works on an experiment in the science room. One day, when Taiju was finally going to confess his love, a light appears and engulfs the world. This light then starts turning people into stone. Slowly, but surely,everyone was turned into stone, Senku and Taiju included. Being trapped in stone, they could do nothing, but panic frantically inside their claustrophobic nightmare. The entirity of humanity has become trapped, unable to escape the fate that has befallen them. Unknowingly, only humanity has been encased in stone, with pets and zoo animals being free to roam as they please and the animal kingdom taking center stage. Time passes without humanity’s involvement, a Earth without humanity has begun.
As time passes by and humanity continue to suffer in their stone nightmare, Earth begins to change vastly. Due to humanity being turned to statues, they could not maintain the foundations that they have created such as buildings, feed pets, or regulate the growth of nature. Thus, vegetation and nature takes over what humanity has built and established. Many years pass until one day, Senku is miraculously able to break out of his stone prison. When Senku realizes what happened, 4000 years have passed and Senku is confronted with a brand new world, an Earth without Humanity, in which animals have reigned dominant and nature has reclaimed what humanity built. Senku and eventually Taiju, have to find a way to return humanity to what they were before they were all stoned. Along the way, they revive a high schooler claimed to be the strongest high schooler, Tsukasa,in the world to help survive the cruel world that they have awaken to. Initially, this small band of survivors was all set and on a great start to revive humanity, however, things shifted when Tsukasa opposed the idea of having everyone being brought back to life. This opposition to the plan put Senku and Tsukasa at odds with one another. Senku wants to use his vast scientific knowledge to bring humanity back while Tsukasa wants to build an empire of incredibly strong and powerful warriors that would rule and enforce their own rules. From this point of conflict, the story kicks off with Senku building the Kingdom Of Science and build humanity’s greatest invention, the gun,to defeat Tsukasa and his empire. Since Senku is unable to defeat Tsukasa, as he is vastly superior in terms of strength and physical abilities, Senku needs technology in order to beat Tsukasa and bring humanity back.
Examining the plot of this manga, I love how original this story is compared to the lineup of manga available in Weekly Shonen Jump or even anything in post-apocalyptic fiction that’s out there. Usually in post-apocalyptic fiction, it’s usually world wars, nuclear fallout, alien invasion. zombie outbreak or asteroid colliding with Earth that would bring about the apocalypse, however, it’s not the case with this manga. Dr. Stone is a fresh entry in a fictional genre that is quite depressing. While other titles among the Weekly Shonen Jump magazine are original as well, they are influenced and hunkered down by plotlines and troupes of previous, more acclaimed shonen titles. By far one of the most origianl titles to grace the pages of the famous magazine.
When examining characters of shonen manga, I first begin with the series protagonist, as the main character will always be the hook that will bring readers to the narrative of the manga. Senku is a student with a genius level intellect and his knack for quick thinking and thoughtful forwards. His goal is to save humanity from their stone prison that has befallen the species. Senku is by far the most unique and most refreshing take on a shonen protagonist. Usually, shonen protagonists are the incredibly powerful, but narrow minded protagonists that stay mostly flat throughout the entire series. Senku isn’t one of them and in fact, the opposite of that shonen troupe. Senku relys on intellect and wit to survive and gather allies and resources in order beat Tsukasa. Senku avoids physical battles and relys on stragety and science to beat an enemy that relys soley on physical strength to beat their opponents. Senku is both serious and funny, where he gathers a group of supporting characters to help him on his quest. While Senku has had only minor character development, the way Riichiro Inagaki, the manga’s writer, writes Senku and delve into his mind and past helps a perfect characterization of Senku and help us truly understand who Senku is as a character. Tsukasa is a fantastic villain, his motivations for not bringing humanity back and his ideology behind being against science and technology make sense in the greater context. Tsukasa is menacing villain that provides a great challenge for Senku to overcome and his character is very much three-dimsensional and even continues to develop as the conflict slowly escalates and the manga progresses through the story.
Writing a shonen manga is quite the challenge as with any other medium that involves fictional writing. Coming up with a premise that will attract readers but also be incredibly creative is quite the challenge to tackle, however, titles among Weekly Shonen Jump are quite original. Mangakas bring their own style and vision to the work that makes it quite interesting to read and help captivates the audience. For example, One Piece is one of the reigning kings of Weekly Shonen Jump and the plot revolves around Monkey D. Luffy trying to become the Pirate King and find the legendary treasure of One Piece. While One Piece is a pirate story, Oda’s creativity and vision allows to be a refreshing and quite creative take on pirates that we have become use to seeing in mainstream media and Dr. Stone is no exception. Dr. Stone’s writing quality is superb, with an explanation of important story events and inventions that allows the reader to understand invention with clarity. The character writing is great as well as the character interactions and character moments are done with precision and care so it does ruin anyone’s character and allows the reader to enjoy the face to faction confrontations of certain characters. The only criticism that have with the writing is two things; Firstly, There has been no major character development yet for any of the characters. While it’s important to mention and can be a huge detriment for any story, the manga is still ongoing and relatively new, thus, it still has time to add major chracter development for the characters. Hunter X Hunter didn’t add major character devlopement for any of the main characters until later in the story, with Leorio still lacking the major character development treatment like Kurapika, Gon and Killua have been given. Secondly, the manga can be quite text heavy. While the panels are still beautiful and nice to look at, the manga can be riddled with text bubbles that will fill the panels in order to have thorough explanations for inventions and story elements. It can also be a turn off for the average reader as such complex explanations can be overbearing to read and can be quite the turn off, however, it’s important that it’s added in as it’s important for Senku’s character as he is the genius passing this information down to his apprentice Chrome who needs to know this information so he can consider himself a true apprentice.
For manga, art is absolutely esstential in conveying the story. How you format your panels as well and what you include in those panels are esstential to the flow and progress of the story. When someone becomes a mangaka of popular magazine, one must have a mastery of the manga panel as it’s esstential to their craft. Dr. Stone showcases that mastery of both art and manga panels. The artwork of Dr. Stone is visually stunning and pleasant to look at. The artwork pops out of the pages with such detail that it’s almost like looking at photograph taken on an iPhone X. When a story is set 4000 years into the future, on an Earth in which Humanity has not touched, it can become a challange to visualize and construct that world without the talent, skill and passion of an artist, however, Dr. Stone manages to demonstrate this with beautifully constructed images of vegatation choking human structures and nature claiming the land manipulated by human desire. Boichi, the manga’s artist, truly flexes his skill and craft by showcasing what he is capabable of doing each and every week with beautiful illustrations that not only tell us about the world they live in, but also help progress the story by having a good sense of panel layouts that help tell the story in structured way and not in a messy and chaotic way. Character designs are also unique with each character having their own distinct look while holding a very unique artstyle. The Boichi really knows how to demonstrate the human anatomy as he can almost perfectly simulate a vast array of human expressions and emotions with his artwork. Truly, when a reader progresses towards a moment of sadness and empathy in the story, the Boichi truly showcases the scene with incredibly detail and mastery that it will leave the reader feeling satitisfied in what they read. The fight scenes are also well done with action sequences drawn as cleanly and detailed as possible. The art in the fight scenes work well with the choice of panel layouts that give the fight scenes great action while maintaining a great pace that the reader can easily follow and not lose themselves in chaos or messiness. This showcases how meticulous they are in their craft.
Themes of any story is very important as it conveys the message that the storyteller has in mind when constructing a story. It’s vital that a story has themes as a lack of can convey a lack of importance, in other words, if a story doesn’t have any themes than why is it being told? When examining the themes of Dr. Stone, one must look at everything that the storytellers have set in motion in the manga that can tell the audience that a significant theme or themes are prevalent throughout the narrative. The themes are pravlent throughout the manga are “Technological Society vs. Primitive Society”, “Past vs. Future” and “Science vs. Strength”. These themes are prevalent as they directly oppose to each other and are exact opposites of one another. Senku, wants to build a society built on technology and progress while Tsukasa wants to build an empire that relys on incredibly physicial prowess. Can one exist without the other? Can they live in harmony or will these two idelogies always oppose one another? It’s a great question to ask, as Senku wants to destroy Tsukasa’s ideology by creating something that physical prowess can never beat, no matter how strong you are, the gun. Tsukasa wants to kill Senku and his philsophy as progress has always lead to war and unimginable death. Examples such as the nuclear weaponry are among some of the many devices that end human existence within an instant. Tsukasa proposes living a simple, modest, but primitive lifestyle in which one can live peacfully and live in the grace of the new world in which they have awoken to. Tsukasa proposes looking towards the future, the future of their new Earth instead of looking back at tainted Earth riddled with brutal wars that have ended countless lives. Tsukasa is angery at Senku as he, a man with incredible intellect, continues to look towards the past and rebuild Earth to what it once was instead of focusing on the future. However, Senku hopes that with his scientific achievement can unite Earth and return to an Earth that is glorious to live in. Senku holds a idealistic mindset while Tsukasa holds a realistic view of the world, showcasing that despite being the same age, they hold vastly different mindsets.
Dr. Stone is a manga truly of high quality and passion from the mangakas creating them. Quality writing, incredible artwork, original story, good pacing and significant themes all acculmate into something that has potinetial to be historic in a magazine filled with already historic manga that have come before it. Indeed, the mangakas behind the manga have dedicated themselves in crafting something of such high caliber. Dr. Stone will be a manga whose story I will follow to the last chapter and by the time the last panel is drawn, inked and printed on the magazine, Dr. Stone will have solidified its own legacy in the pages that featured chapters of Dragon Ball years before.
