Dr. Stone: New World

Episode 10

This week's Dr. Stone is all about one thing: the importance of communication. After last week's beauty contest, Kohaku, Amaryllis, and Ginro have been chosen as the Dear Leader's new “brides” but have a week of training in his personal village before they get the honor of gracing his presence. The question is, what do they do now that they're in?

In general, the mission seems to be to steal the petrification device. After all, without it, the kingdom's fear-based rule loses much of its power. In fact, rebellion in the surrounding villages could become a real possibility. However, getting the device from Kirisame is easier said than done. Kohaku may be a fighter but the other two are not—and there are more than a few warriors hanging out in the inner sanctum village.

So with that, we get to our main science bit of the episode—the invention of a flying drone. Senku figures that if they can goad Kirisame into throwing the device, they can nab it out of mid-air. After all, only living things turn to stone so the drone itself should be safe. Of course, at that moment, should anything go wrong, Senku's team will lose their only remaining fighter since they have no way to restore people turned to stone. But here's where the communication theme comes in.

Through her earpiece, Kohaku can hear Senku—though not the other way around. This is a major hurdle—especially once Kohaku discovers something that changes the entire situation. She needs a way to tell Senku what she has discovered but can't speak with him directly. And while she can technically write him a letter, Kohaku and the other natives do not have a written language.

In general, this hasn't been a problem for her people. Their tribe has been small enough that everyone knows everyone else—passing along a message wouldn't be an issue. Generational information, on the other hand, has been transmitted via oral storytelling and pseudo-religion. And while Senku has started to educate the natives on the basics of writing, Kohaku, Amaryllis, and Ginro don't even know their letters.

This, once again, is an opportunity for the story to show us that, while Kohaku may be uneducated, she is insanely intelligent—perhaps even on par with Senku himself. With nothing but the abstract idea she has learned from Senku, she creates a phonetic alphabet on the fly and completely from scratch. Using pictographs of people, places, and things that both she and Senku know, she is able to use the first sounds of each picture to form a simple sentence: We found platinum. And with this, our heroes are one step closer to making more revival fluid—and thus one step closer to victory.

Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• The thing that upsets me about this otherwise excellent episode is that it exposes some contrived writing in the last one. Gen—i.e., the master manipulator—was obviously the most logical choice to infiltrate alongside Kohaku and Amaryllis. While the stated reason for him being left out is that he's “too tall to be an attractive woman,” the actual reason is a meta-textual one: If he had been chosen, this week's episode couldn't have unfolded as it did. The driving conflict (i.e., communication) would have been moot as Gen could have easily written a letter to Senku as both are literate.

• How did the RC rat car return to Suika without anyone driving it?

• Rather than a multi-propeller drone, wouldn't an RC helicopter have been a better (and simpler) choice?

• I'm shocked none of the guards have overheard any of Kohaku, Amaryllis, and Ginro's conversations.

Dr. Stone: New World is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.