 What's up and welcome to One Take. I'm Gil and today we're talking about Dr. Stone season one episode seven. This will be a full recap and review so it's going to be full of spoilers. If you haven't seen the episode yet, go watch it and then come back and watch this video. I should point out that I don't read the manga so there won't be any spoilers from that or from future episodes. With that, let's dive into it. Before going into the recap, I'll say this was probably my least favorite episode of the series so far even though it did feature one of my favorite scenes of the series so far and there was still plenty to like in it. And it wasn't exactly a bad episode, it's just that my taste in anime usually gravitates towards storytelling that's more grounded. Not grounded in the sense that it stays away from fantastical elements like the whole world being petrified, but grounded in the sense that characters don't randomly yell and crazy things don't happen all over the screen to signal what a character is thinking or feeling. I realize that's a staple in a lot of anime but it's usually just not my taste. And Dr. Stone always has some elements of that but I felt like this episode leaned into it more than some of the other episodes. But let's get into the recap. The last episode ended with Sanku rescuing Kohaku from the tree that Tsukasa basically threw on her. Once freed, Kohaku said to Sanku, it seems I've taken quite a liking to you. That's basically where this episode picks up and I took that line to potentially signal some romantic interest. And I was curious to see how a character like Sanku, a very scientific minded, not prone to showing emotions, I wondered how he would react to something like that. And it was pretty much as expected. Sanku says, I don't like what I just heard. We just met and she's already in love in this state of emergency, which I've got to say by the way this is something I have a lot of personal experience dealing with. So I know exactly how Sanku feels here. Then Kohaku responds, I didn't say anything like that. I'm saying I like you as a person, so I'll cooperate with you. Like I said earlier, this episode has many attempts at humor, but this was one of the ones that worked pretty well for me. When Sanku was worried that Kohaku might be falling in love with him, I assumed he was talking to himself sort of thinking out loud quietly and that nobody heard him. But it turns out he was talking out loud and Kohaku heard everything he said, even though he was talking as if she wasn't there. I'll also say I don't quite believe Kohaku here. I know she's not in love with him. They just met. But I saw the dreamy look in her eyes and I saw that little smile when she said she's taking the liking to him. So I think there is some potential there for these two crazy kids. Now Kohaku agrees to take Sanku to her village where she believes there are allies that can work with Sanku in his quest to rebuild the technological and scientific society. On their way there, though, Sanku notices Kohaku lugging a heavy container full of hot spring water, which it turns out she's bringing back to town to help heal her sick older sister, who's apparently ill and sounds like she's close to dying. Seeing Kohaku struggle, Sanku of course once again rescues the day with signs by using the wheels from the pulley system he built to create a cart, which the two of them ride back to town bringing that container of spring water with them. But before Kohaku and Sanku can enter the town, they're stopped by two guards, Ginro and Kinro. Ginro is this blonde haired kind of emo looking kid, while Kinro is the taller stoic guy who's not quite Tsukasa level, but clearly very strong. Here we learn a little bit about their culture, because Ginro explains that outsiders are all criminals and have been banished from the town, and even if Sanku saved Kohaku's life, because he's an outsider he cannot be allowed in. As tensions rise, Sanku uses his soap to blow some bubbles, freaking everybody out, they all think it's sorcery. And then another character enters the scene, a character named Chrome, the town sorcerer. At first, Chrome comes off as kind of arrogant and show off-y, he basically challenges Sanku to a sorcery off, or a sorcery battle. And the first trick Chrome has up his sleeve is he lights a fire, and then by secretly throwing different materials into the fire causes it to change colors. Sanku freaks Chrome out by immediately calling out how Chrome pulled off that trick. And then they end up getting into a sort of back and forth where Chrome tries some sorcery, and then Sanku immediately calls out how he did it, and it starts to one-up him with even better sorcery, which is really just science. For me, this is where the episode started to go off the rails a little bit, because during this battle, the show kind of takes on a video game aesthetic. The battle is announced, and every time Chrome loses around, he starts screaming and yelling, and this is where all the craziness starts to happen. So the next few minutes of the show kind of lost me a little bit, but you'll see it won me back over in the end. As Chrome and Sanku have their sorcery battle, eventually Chrome gives up and agrees to show Sanku his collection of rocks, minerals, and other science-y stuff. Once Chrome starts showing those things to Sanku, they start to bond. Sanku starts showing Chrome all the different things they can do with those materials. And this is one of the scenes I really liked in this episode, because one of my favorite things about this show is the love for science and the optimism it has at its core. And here, what Sanku learns is that Chrome didn't learn this stuff from other people. He just had a natural curiosity and a desire to experiment, and he taught himself all these things on his own. We learned that one of his primary motivations is trying to find medicine to save Kohaku's older sister Ruri, and part of how he's done that is he's collected various materials that can be used as medicine, and he's actually testing them on himself. So Sanku marvels at all this and thinks to himself how great it is that no matter what happens, you can petrify the whole world's population, leaving eventually only a few humans able to actually exist in a non-petrified form. You've got Tsukasa out there trying to get rid of all technology and have a primitive society, but no matter how much you throw at humanity, that natural curiosity still exists. And no matter what you do, ultimately, humans will drive towards science and towards technology. And I love the fact that this show was able to take a character like Chrome, introduce him in a way where at first he's basically a joke arrogant over-the-top show-offy, take him from that and turn him into a symbol for that optimism. It worked really well for me. During all that, Kohaku leaves Sanku and Chrome on their own, and she goes to see her older sister Ruri. When we see her older sister, she's staying in a sort of pyramid structure and is guarded by two people who refer to her as a priestess. When they meet, Ruri notices that Kohaku's hair is a little bit different, so she assumes that Kohaku must have gotten into some kind of danger, and we see how much Ruri worries about her younger sister. And Ruri hates the fact that Kohaku continuously puts herself in danger on Ruri's behalf to try and take care of her and save her. It's not clear at first what Ruri's illness is exactly. She seems fine, but the scene does end with her going into a coughing fit and saying she doesn't have much time left. This scene was odd to me for a couple of reasons. Number one, I just had a lot of questions. What does it mean that Ruri is a priestess? Why is she staying in that big pyramid? Is it for her protection? The other thing about the scene that was a little off is that I think the show wanted us to feel something for Ruri and for her sister Kohaku, but because Kohaku plays her emotion so close to the vest and because I didn't really feel like Ruri is in grave danger, I really see her illness more as just a challenge for Sanku to overcome, and I think that's kind of how the shows communicated it, but because of the fact that I didn't really buy her illness as an actual danger and Kohaku's not really showing a lot of emotion for her sister, I didn't really feel a whole lot here in this scene. That might change as Kohaku develops as a character, but so far I found myself kind of bored during this scene and just wanted to get back to Sanku or see what some of the other characters are up to. Then we finally get to my favorite scene of the episode and maybe my favorite scene of the series so far. Sanku finally decides to tell Chrome all about the world before humanity was petrified. He tells him all about technology and science, and the way the show communicates this is by a montage. We see robots, we see rockets flying into space, we cut back and forth from this montage and Chrome's astonished face, you can see his mind is completely blown away by all this, but then as Sanku gets to the part where humanity was petrified and all this was lost, we see Chrome start to weep, to cry. He's mourning all that was lost, but then Sanku assures Chrome that nothing was lost. Those two million years of human progress still exist in Sanku's mind and in Chrome's desire to experiment and perform science. The episode ends with Sanku exclaiming that between the two of them they are going to create antibiotics, the thing that's going to save Ruri's life, Kohaku's older sister. I love this scene for a few reasons. Number one, I thought that the montage cutting back and forth between that and Chrome's face was a great way of efficiently communicating all that existed before the stone world because that's a little bit more interesting than listening to Sanku explain everything that we as viewers already know. Two, I thought it was really clever having characters exist in this world that weren't around before the stone world. It makes for a really interesting scenario like the one we saw play out here, a character learning about everything humanity had before the petrification. And lastly, I just loved the emotional wallop of this scene. We go from the mourning of everything that came before, Chrome's anger and devastation at learning about how great civilization was and learning that it was taken away from us by some unknown force. But we go from that sadness in that mourning to optimism and triumph where Sanku reassures him that they can bring the world back. And that is great. On one hand, it's just pure optimism of we're going to save the world. And on the other hand, it's a new alliance that's been formed and a relationship that I look forward to seeing grow. So even though there were a few things that didn't work for me in this episode, it ended on a very strong note. Like I said, my favorite scene of the episode may be my favorite scene of the series so far. Anyway, I think that about wraps it up. Was it my favorite episode of the season, but still lots to like and I can't wait for the next one. But leave a comment below. What did you think of the episode? Did you like that last scene as much as I did? And was I being a little too hard on the episode? Or did you agree with some of the issues I had with it? And if you liked this video, make sure to hit the like button, subscribe to our channel and hit the little bell icon to make sure you get notifications whenever we make more videos like this one. Thanks for watching.