Dr. Stone Season 1 Episode 1 Recap – Stone World

Green Light

A student named Taiju Oki tells his classmate Senku Ishigami about his plans to confess his love to a fellow student named Yuzuriha Ogawa. Senku approves dryly and thinks he won’t do it, as Taiju has been in love with her for the past five years. Senku tells him to use the love potion he’s invented.

Taiju pours down the potion, saying he won’t resort to such tricks. As he leaves, Senku explains to the class that it is only gasoline. The others seem skeptical.

Taiju finds Yuzuriha waiting by a tree on the school grounds. The other students are betting on whether or not he’d go for it. Before he could say anything, a bright green light engulfs the world and turns all humans into stone.

Taiju remains conscious inside his stone form, determined to confess his love no matter how long it takes. Thousands of years pass, and for some reason, Taiju manages to break free from the rock that encases him. He wakes up to an entirely different world.

He says a prayer to the other stone statues that have crumbled. Taiju remembers an incident at school where he found a bird similarly turned into a rock. He brought the bird to a veterinary clinic and found Yuzuriha holding a similar specimen.

Confession

After some walking, he arrives at the camphor tree to find Yuzuriha’s statue standing by an overgrown tree. He cries and confesses his feelings to her. While promising to save her, he finds a message telling him to go downstream. He finds Senku waiting for him. He woke up six months ago and started getting to work. It has been 3,700 years since they turned to stone. Senku was keeping count the whole time not to lose consciousness.

He leads Taiju into a treehouse settlement he built for himself. He’s prepared everything for their basic needs but could use more manpower. He’ll need the help of Taiju to advance their civilization. Senku knew he could count on Taiju to survive. They resolve to work as a team — Senku being the brain and Taiju being the brawn of their new civilization.

Taiju is good at hunting but can’t determine the poisonous plants from the edible ones. Senku works on identifying them and already has salt in hand.

Science

While foraging in the woods, Taiju finds the statue of Tsukasa Shishio, one of the strongest men in their high school. When Taiju enters the cave where he woke up, he finds Senku’s collection of guano water. Senku wants to repopulate the humans. He figured that the miracle fluid (nitric acid) awakened them from their stone prison, but after trying it on other bird specimens, he couldn‘t replicate the results.

Taiju thinks it’s hopeless, but Senku merely laughs, saying that additional experimentation is in order. He wants to try mixing the fluid with wine, so Taiju gives him the grapes he found earlier.

Taiju smashes through the grapes with his feet. They put it into clay pots and let it ferment for weeks before sampling them. The results aren’t as good, so Senku tries distilling them inside clay pots. Sadly, the pots break because they aren’t durable enough to withstand the heat. They start over.

The cycle of trial and error continues. After a year of development, they finally devise a working solution that manages to revive a bird from stone.

Our Thoughts

This a fascinating premise from Senku. Ancient civilization isn’t talked about too much in media, so I’m interested in where this goes. I rate it 5/5.