This week’s episode of Dr. Stone: Science Future delivered an absolutely jaw dropping twist concerning the identity of the mysterious main villain “Why Man.” This episode abandons the grounded edutainment elements of previous episodes and goes full Star Trek level science fiction. The reveal is one of the most memorable twists we’ve seen in 2020s anime. Seriously, watch the episode before reading this recap or the twist will be ruined. You have been warned. Okay, why would you be reading a recap before watching the episode? Okay, let’s recap the big shocking twist of this episode.
The episode begins with the Kingdom of Science stepping foot on the moon and celebrating man’s first trip there since 1972. The crowd at home watching the moon mission on television begins to go wild. The trio rides in a dune buggy and heads out to confront the main villain. Kohaku hears Senku tell her to release the petrification device and she complies despite this order seemingly making no sense. It turns out that the “Why Man” has the ability to clone voices and was the real one who gave the order. She quickly chucks the petrification device as far away as possible to make sure she doesn’t turn to stone. This is made easier because the moon has 1/6th the gravity as the Earth. The Kingdom of Science finds out the “Why Man” is operating at a very historically important location.
Said location was the legendary spot where astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted the American flag on the moon. Because of the sun’s rays, the stars and stripes are no longer on the flag, but the flag remains a landmark demonstrating humanity’s accomplishment. Suddenly, a swarm of levitating petrification devices swarm our heroes. Senku says that he has deduced the identity of the “Why Man.”
The twist is that the petrification devices themselves were the villain. They are sentient bio-mechanical extraterrestrial lifeforms with a hive mind. The meaning of their cryptic messages “why” and “do you want to die” is finally revealed. The petrification devices speak in Borg-like voices and reveal that their goal was to give humanity eternal life. Well, if being a statue for eternity counts as eternal life. Getting stoned isn’t for everybody. The aliens have been searching for life forms to form a symbiotic relationship with and chose humanity for this purpose. Humanity’s ability to travel beyond Earth, as evidenced by the flag on the moon, was evidence that humanity was a very intelligent species.
The aliens explain that they regret this decision as it took thousands of years for humanity to re-invent space travel and they are upset that humanity has resisted petrification. Senku explains that of course petrifying humanity would send it back to the Stone Age. Also, from the long villain monologue, we learn that that people wearing feathers and headpieces are the aliens’ way of forming a symbiotic relationship with humanity and makes petrification easier. The aliens’ main weakness appears to be oxygen and that is why they primarily operate on the moon and how the petrification device was able to go off on its own when it was sealed in a vacuum a few episodes ago. Senku knows what he must do, he must negotiate with the extraterrestrial life forms and get them to leave humanity alone.
Wow, what a twist. These aliens have a modus operandi of the kind of aliens Kirk or Picard would regularly encounter. The petrification plotline was the one major way the show broke away from real world science, but the reveal that the main villain is something as fantastical as what we got is something shocking. Those who love the grounded nature of Dr. Stone might be profoundly disappointed, but as someone almost as obsessed with aliens as Okarun from Dan Da Dan, this was an awesome twist in my opinion. Next week is the end of this monumental shonen series that has bucked the trend of following the battle shonen playbook and has done something very creative and different instead. I will really miss Dr. Stone as it has been of the best anime of the entire decade.
