 Alright, let's get into it. So one of the anime that we need to do a Wednesday show I said what anime do we watch I look kids are all watching dr. Stone. I went and I looked on crunchy roll I looked at what we judged dr. Stone was near the top Let's watch that it sounded like the premise had possibilities everyone on earth gets turned to stone That's all I knew so I watched Enough episodes I watched a set of I watched three episodes and I said alright how much I usually we watched four But I kind of want to learn exactly this much stuff before I talk about it, and I learned exactly that much stuff I think in episode six, and I think seven episodes were out, but I decided not to watch any more ever and I'll just read spoilers when the show is done So that's my similar that's how I handled attack on Titan after the first two seasons I was like you know what I'm gonna read the spoilers to find out what the secret of space is I know the secret of space do not watch any more of that show I don't know if you even want to know what the secret of space is But I do want to know what the secret of space is in dr. Stone. So here's the deal does a high school kid He's in high typical at Japan high school Yeah, he obviously all the most of the other people in the high school are non-characters because they don't look cool Yeah, he looks cool. It's weird though the character design of these two main characters are like a cross between Yu-Gi-Oh, and Jojo's bizarre adventure. They're pretty extreme characters like crazy hair The dumb guy the real main guy who isn't the doctor Yep, he is he's not a doctor either the stone is the doctor The soap is the doctor. Well, there's another doctor. So the stone itself is that anyway Yeah, but there's it's weird because they when I saw his face And he looked weird and I realized that he is a weird amalgamation of the most generic possible anime high school protagonist crossed with Basically the golden boy face Kinda like he makes the golden boy face a lot like to the point that I think it's based on the art style of the manga creator Yep, as soon as he frowned I was like, it's just a golden boy. Holy crap Yeah, golden boy and then you they briefly introduced because he stops in the science lab for like two seconds this clearly other main character Who is like science guy who's a genius? Yep, and then they introduce the girl the main guy is into is obviously also a main character So and then you do this in about a minute. Yes, here's the thing I'll break in here as we describe this shot This was the first maker break moment for what I was gonna say about the show because my worry was There's like five episodes of build up to all the crap and introduce all the people Nope one minute the and then as soon as he's gonna confess his love to this girl Outside by the tree the girl you just saw for the first time who he's been talking about for the past Maybe minute the whole entire earth everyone every human being on earth some mysterious green wave it comes and turns everyone to stone Yep, but then but then it's just him. He's still conscious and he's just like I can't pass out What if I die and for three thousand seven hundred years? He's just laying there just trying to stay conscious, right? He really really really wants to somehow stay conscious Get out of this rock that he's been the people clearly have not been turned to stone like Medusa turns people to stone He'd there he's like alive inside a stone shell which is already terrifying now Which is also it makes no sense because that would be worse than solitary confinement You would just go insane very quickly You know in a real world that this doctor kid probably would have woken up fine And everyone else would have woken up insane Doctor kid would also know because the doctor kid with his second counting Not that any of you listening to Wednesday Geek nights have read the prince of nothing But that's some killish shit right there kind of but I still don't the anyway the point is very unrealistic. It's an anime so The one guy Concentrates on the girl that he wants to confess to the other guy just count three for four or five thousand years The other guy literally counts every single second while simultaneously having thoughts in the other half of his brain Say about the situation whatever and he's science guy and Basically, yeah, they wake up thousands of years later and no one else is awake So my second point when they wake up you've got brains guy and bronze guy teaming up to Rebuild civilization from scratch and I'll point out up to this point not only is it moving fast But it's also pretty funny like right away. That's science guys like hey I made you a love potion. I'm the science guy and he's like I would never use such a thing and he pours it out And then the kids like good thing he poured it out. That was just fucking gasoline. Yeah, I didn't make a love potion He's like I was like I was a hundred percent sure he wouldn't take it Yeah, it's like anyway, he does that a lot where he does the I'm X percent sure Yeah, and it's actually pretty like he's a pretty funny character like it's a little bit of C3 Pio It is but yeah, so this anime I see it as a combination of aspects of other anime So the the comedy Aspect right that's sort of the wackiness there that you see right really reminds me of You know not of like a chroma arty, which is sort of like the you know, no, it's it's just like You know, it's just sort of like these the you know the extreme not SD art-wise black extreme reactions Like you know someone says something and someone's like holy shit Oh my god It's like the shonen equivalent of like the SD stuff that happens in like for she right all the characters reactions to things like our Extreme and like when they're emotional It's like you know they cry and like a river of tears come out right, you know that kind of thing Yep, so this was the next point now they don't then the set the other anime I think it's a combination of right was it isn't it's not even anime Manga is it has the sort of storytelling structure of Delicious in Dungeon where it's like you're there, you know, this is this this plot that's happening, right? You know, oh the world is turned to stone. What do we do we're trying to accomplish this or trying right? But they pause and explain science things the same way the delicious in Dungeon pauses and explains You know recipes of monsters the same way that any of those, you know I guess mushishi pauses and explains a mushi made up nonsense of mushishi, right? But and that's pretty accurate to the point that the show has all these warnings at the end like kids Don't fucking eat mushrooms in the wild, right? The other thing it combines with I think is obviously attack on Titan with you know What is this the big secret of this world then obviously attack on Titan isn't the first one to do it But it does it in the you know attack on Titan way like even Jillian also has what is the secret of this world? But it's doesn't come across the same way. This is Overt ham-fisted. What is the secret of this world? but in another point what one thing that I do enjoy a lot about it is that Like in Western fandom people like especially fanboys really like the zombie apocalypse like okay Basically, all the people are gone. You got a small amount of people in their zombies everywhere What do you do like how do you survive? But in this case How do you survive like the enemy is just like the conflict is science like all right? We got to make food. We got to make shelter. We got to make fire We got to make that is a final anime that I think this is a combination of is that it is a combination of also the MMO Anime, how is this a combination MMO anime where there's no video games involved? Well, I'll tell you I hit that I may simply have replaced the MMO With a game like don't starve or even Minecraft You know any of these games the survival type games you start or You know one hour one life any of these games you start with nothing and you build up from the the only things that you can gather From the environment and create full things by combining and combining and combining and combining so fast there So it's literally like a video game like once they start picking mushrooms now They just have mushrooms all the time. We never even look at that again It's it has that same structure of one of those games and it comes across the same way as when an MMO is adapted to an anime You know say hack sign just is one of those a different game slightly different game genre Adapted to anime slash manga, right? It's gonna take all those all those elements right the the wacky comedy the Pause a side to explain science, you know the big secret of this world and the survival game and Put them all together and that is dr. Stone. It's what it's got a Susance of fist of the North Star In the sense that it's some action scenes It's a post-apocalyptic world, but the action scenes when when humans conflict with each other Which I was wondering if that would even happen. I was wondering if the show was literally just gonna be We science for 24 episodes. No, but it does move quickly to its credit So like they wake up another person like almost right away Yeah, they do not hesitate and also the girl, right? So the statue of the girl the guy finds it right away That was my warning. So if the if the statue of the girl had been a statue for more than like five or six I'm like, oh waking up the girl is gonna be like the last episode. No, he wakes her up in episode three Yep, and he was gonna wake her or something like that like right away But they wake up muscle guy instead at the wake of muscle guy because lions come So that's the fist of the North Star bit because muscle guy basically immediately turns into a fist of the North Star villain He's not really a villain. He's a good. He's good, but he's He's good He's got one bad good idea, but he's dangerous and he's making the society of muscle men Yeah, kind of like right away like I'm stronger than all of you He's like a row. He's bad, but he's not yeah, and he's I said fist of the North Star villain He's not why I thought about but there are other villains like that Yeah, but they're out. He's not one of those like Skeletor Fist of the North Star villains more. He's he's a conflicted villain, right, but This is where the show gets a little he fucking punches a lion to death and then turns its skin into an outfit like Instantly like he can just fight lions. Yeah, it's it is immune to crossbows This guy is all sciency right the science guy and he tries to excuse trying to figure out the mystery of you know Why everyone turned to stone which and how can only people and sparrows turn to stone? Yeah, right? And it you know, it's like okay, you know see everything's cool here. Everything's really legit science There's no bullshit. Why does nitric acid wake people up? Right? Well, at least at least it's not real science for the acid, you know But the thing is it's like he doesn't question his own superpowers the superpowers of his best friend The superpower of the guy they wake up or the apparent lack of superpower so far that's obvious of the girl Now, that's what I don't know. I did because like Are the little bit of Lord of the Flies here, right? We're each person trying to survive and each person is a specialty But they're all superpowered in that specialty beyond all reality Except the girl who probably has a secret superpower and they're not questioning these superpowers And it seems they did have the superpowers pre everyone turning the stone. Yeah, right? It's like whoa So that's what I wonder because in shows like Utena The weird superpower crap that happens that you might just write off as anime crap It's literally the plot it is explained specifically, but then in some other anime It's also the plot in one punch man. Yeah, but then exactly why what is one punch man's deal that anyway But in other anime. Yeah, this person just randomly has powers because it's an anime. That's it There's no explanation. That's the only thing that's like not they didn't even try to explain it My my based on the like six a few episodes I saw cuz not even there aren't even that many episodes out yet There are gonna be 24 episodes total a grand total of seven. Is that gonna cover the whole thing? Which I assume is the manga doubtful because the manga is 13 volumes. It started in 2017. It's already got 13 volumes It's ongoing. Okay So the manga is still going and there are 13 volumes of it. All right, but yeah So that's that explains what the show is the thing is I don't think I really want to watch more of this show Interesting because it's so the characters are so two-dimensional They may be the most two-dimensional characters I've ever seen. I was almost inclined to keep watching just because Despite that it was moving So fast the plot moves at a very rapid pace Already like trying to make gunpowder. Yep. It's like they move it right fucking along But at the same time waiting Despite how fast is moving based on the opener alone. They're a shit ton of characters Well, I mean you didn't if you watched two more episodes like I did yeah You'd have seen they meet someone who is not awoken by them There are other people who have already been awake when basically when they set off the gunpowder It makes smoke and then they'll see a smoke signal in the distance and like whoa other people Oh my god So on one end I'm very happy to see a lot of the things you could normally get out of it like fantasy world is a guy or out of a like Zombie apocalypse type thing, but instead it's more like kind of real kind of real science space Like it's a very different like Setting for this kind of story. I think it's just yeah, but but it's still in the end a shonen show Yes, the two-dimensional characters to think of the number one thing that turns me off the rapid pace is good because you're not sit around doing nothing You're rapidly plowing through a really flimsy kind of meh plot You're not you're not rapidly plowing through a deep meaty plot that gives you to think about it's not like escaflon a which is just like Every episode is a two-hour movie Condensed 23 minutes the thing is that I think stands out most about the show Is it definitely feels like somebody created this for Japanese children, which is all all anime is great for Japanese children almost all of it right but Spend there's so much stuff that blatantly Reeks of we are trying this show is trying to teach Japanese children how to be right? It's like, you know, oh that guy who is you know only wants to give her to the old people He's bad looks you can solve anything with science science is good. Oh, you know I'm not amazed with your science. I'm amazed with your hard work and how you know you didn't you just Patiently kept working until you you know got the job done. You see took you hours but you see the lion to death with your own hands and Right. It's like the show reeks of like pausing constantly and they say things that really sound like things that like would be after like the more you know Star or whatever to their credit in a lot of shows that teach stuff They tend don't like like my ashimana had this problem a little bit. They spend a lot of time talking about Very little when they actually explain stuff in this show. They explain pretty accurate things Very quickly and then they move on like hey Here's the chemical. Here's what it does 30 seconds later. They're fighting a lot. Did you know you can use seashells for Yeah, you can make sodium bicarbonate and you can use that for this you can use it for that and you can It's like, oh, I'm curious where they're really gonna go in the long run with gunpowder though Because gunpowder is not hard to make you know, it's hard to make a cannon. Yeah Explosives are way easier to make than things to harness explosions Right well the show is called dr. Stone and the first time they mentioned dr Stone when he makes soap and he's like this is the only thing that will keep us alive Like he's like without society we have no medicine if we get sick we're fucked the soap is our dr Stone but love it when shows say the name of the show in the show They say the name of the show again because as it turns out, right? When they're covered in stone, you'll notice all the characters of these cracks on their faces Yeah, that's because first you think it's just character design but no it's because the stone was cracked when they were turned to stone and apparently when you get unstoned that Unstoning like heals you in that part that you got unstoned in so wait They're gonna restone someone at some point I don't know maybe but there's actually the girl they unstone her and like her foot is still stoned And then they unstone the foot and then like she like her foot is like healed like somehow when it like it hurt And then when they and then it got healed by the unstoning So and they're like maybe this stone that everyone turned into is the doctor stone Maybe what turned the world to stone wasn't malevolent but was benevolent So these are my working theories having seen a little bit of this show So they already have two meanings for doctor stone if you maybe count the third one in that the science guy He's not a doctor, but it's like, you know, it's the stone age Maybe you could call him, you know because he's a smart science guy doctor stone Maybe kind of see the stone doctor doctor stone anyway So my idea number one is this is a wind of amnesia situation if any of you have watched old anime Aliens did this to see if he was actually I don't know if you saw the scene where the science guy is thinking What are the possibilities number one aliens number two evil mad scientist number three like foreign government number four Some sort of an environmental he's like going through the list of all the things that you would think of It could be an oryx and crake situation He's like he's like he's like could be a virus that did this to the to the humans And only if the virus only affected swallows and humans or bacteria that would explain the light Right, but it's like he's trying to he comes up with all the explanations It's that you're thinking of two and he runs down them all Yep, he doesn't said a lot and he doesn't know yet He's still trying to figure it out But my real thinking is either it's a wind of amnesia situation of aliens Like testing to see if humans are worthy to the world our actual world is actually a fantasy world from a long time ago And this is the world resetting in some way Like I could see that like some weird thing happening with that Uh, but everything is everything is science though. Yep. True. There is no is not a fantasy world I could see science world I could see benevolent aliens doing this to protect us from some cosmic event that was going to kill us Like radiation storms coming through and the aliens like do this to save us. That's the only thing they could think of. Yeah Anyway, so if you're the kind of anime fan who likes, you know, like the most popular You know shonen type animes Then you're probably gonna like this type of show. I like this way more than any other shonen show Yeah, I guess it's better than like a naruto or something that goes into a Tournament and drags on yeah, but it's still you know, but It's it's better than an attack on titan because it seems like it might actually be going somewhere But I don't think it's going like bocorano. It's still shallow as all fuck Bocorano was another show that was a bocorano was legit though Yeah, but it was characters in a predicament those characters were not two-dimensional true They were not two-dimensional, but it was still it was characters in a like very contrived predicament who intelligently worked to solve the problem And bocorano was going somewhere that will make you cry a lot right But those bocorano characters all had their own deep backstories with things they had to deal with Yeah, this shows backstories like you are science guy. You are girl. You are, you know A brawny guy you are fighting you are fighting guy It's literally 40 seconds on screen of a long time ago an adult hit me No, no, there actually is a whole like half an episode that shows his back story So it's more than that It's literally no, it's literally just dad bought him a bunch of science stuff and he always science Do you want to go to space because fighting guy His backstory is literally one time an adult hit me when I was a kid So I'm going to murder all the adults. Yes, but that is it is the like I said is the most Maybe even one dimensional characters. Yeah, right. They don't have it They're just literally science guy brawny guy fighting guy girl. Yep at one point that might even just be zero dimensional There's no dimension. It's just also, you know, super sexist that obviously I don't even need to be mentioned that it's super sexist that the girl The only thing that could be worse is if the girl character's superpower ends up being She only nurturing healing. Yeah, she only exists as love interest and thing to be protected defended, etc Though in the opener there are a lot of other motivation for men There are clearly a bunch of other female characters. They did the person that they met who is not Who is not, you know, thousands of years old was a girl So if I were you though, like if you're an anime fan at all just watch the first episode because If you're a anime fan who wants the high brow anime's stay far away But if you're okay with the low brow popular anime's then this is the low brow popular anime of the season And it's better than other similarly equally low brow anime's Oh god uncountry roll views are like this also liked log horizon mojin bone taboo tattoo and bleach Yeah, so that's that's it. I'm not gonna watch anymore because I've seen what I gotta see I'm gonna read I'm gonna read a spoiler when I really want to know I only want to know the big I've learned everything I need to know Except for the one big secret which I can now learn from a spoiler at some point Be careful because I know the fullness of attack on titan and Kind of wish I didn't well I don't care that if I don't waste my time watching the show that it's not a problem Yep, but I kind of wish I didn't know what attack on titan's about Also, probably no one the writer might not even know because the manga's ongoing Yeah, and you know serialized manga sometimes I'm waiting for the tournament to enter the show the science tournament could get to one Because it's already gearing up to like Punching nation versus It is gearing up to a war between brains and brawn to see whether which society will prevail right because it's a It's about that, you know, sort of dynamic, right where it's like, okay It doesn't matter how smart you are There's a strong person they rule the world Until you have society built and then people who are smart rule the world and being strong doesn't help you gain power Which is part, you know Fist of the north star mad max in a world where all technology is gone The biggest strong as shittiest dudes end up being in charge of things because they can physically force themselves into power It's an old story. All right, and That's an anime This has been geek nights with rim and scott special thanks to dj pretzel for the opening music cat Lee for web design and brand okay for the logos be sure to visit our website at front row crew dot com for show notes Discussion news and more remember geek nights is not one but four different shows Sci-tech mondays gaming tuesdays anime comic wednesdays and indiscriminate thursdays Geek nights is distributed under a creative commons attribution 3.0 license geek nights is recorded live with no studio and no audience But unlike those other late shows it's actually recorded at night