Dr. STONE SCIENCE FUTURE ‒ Episode 28

© Kome Studio, Boichi/SHUEISHA, Dr.STONE Project

Even though it's now well into its eighth and final cour, Dr. Stone still surprises and delights with the sheer range of material it explores. While I'll always love the show for bringing all kinds of science and engineering concepts into the popular entertainment sphere, I've come to appreciate its feel-good mix of loopy humor and heartfelt emotion. Every episode is a gift for goofy reaction shots, as these colorful characters continually bounce off one another. The show is certainly never boring!

From a science perspective, Senku's main project this episode is laying the groundwork for building the Stone World's first computer. With the development of reliable semiconductors at least a decade away, how else can one build a diode, the fundamental unit for building logic gates? Why, with brutal, repetitive grunt work, of course! Wrapping tiny metal donuts in copper wire is good enough to regulate the flow of electrons in an electric circuit, and Senku demonstrates how logic gates perform simple arithmetic automatically. On the surface, it doesn't seem that impressive for a circuit to be able to add one to a previous value, but it's that basic property upon which the most terrifyingly complex supercomputers are built. Now, with production underway on hundreds of thousands of these handmade diode-substitutes, Senku's well on the way to building a Nintendo Famicom, upon which to play Dragon Quest! (And then, presumably, a supercomputer able to calculate orbital trajectories…)

While we spend most of this week with Senku's group, we do get to glimpse a little of what Taiju gets up to after returning to Corn City: namely reviving his beloved Yuzuriha, and everyone else. Surprisingly, there's little conflict between the Kingdom of Science people and Xeno's military goons, courtesy of a detailed letter from their master. They're building a moon rocket alliance! In order to maintain communication over long distance for such a complex project, Morse Code isn't sufficient, so obviously now's the time to invent the fax machine! (Though it seems that in the modern world, only Japan seems so rigidly attached to this obsolete technology… It seems par for the course for a story by a Japanese author to be so excited over the humble fax.)

The episode's emotional core arises from the relationship between the overbearing Ryusui and his quieter mathematician brother Sai. Sai has spent most of his childhood, and subsequent adult life fleeing not only his family, but most of all Ryusui. It's hard not to blame him – the flashbacks we see of child Ryusui show him to be uncontrollably energetic, and vocal about his desire to own everything and gain power. Yet with Sai, it wasn't so much that he wanted another possession, he wanted a brother. Someone to play with, an intellectual equal. It takes an intervention from both Chelsea (in tone-deaf meddlesome mode) and Gen, plus a quiet moment playing chess together with his brother for Sai to finally accept Ryusui's invitation to join him on his journey with Senku. The final moment when the ship is about to disembark and we see Ryusui's expression switch from melancholy resignation to joy is surprisingly powerful. I may have wiped a tear or two away. After last cour's lonely Suika storyline, and now Ryusui and Sai's brotherly reconciliation, I wonder what further emotional terrorism Dr. Stone may have in store for us before the end?

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Dr. Stone: Science Future is currently streaming on Crunchyroll on Thursdays.