MANGA REVIEW | "Dr. STONE" - Volume Twenty-Five
It takes a rocket scientist to, well, make a proper rocket. Senku, Chrome, and the rest of the Kingdom of Science might have the smarts, but that doesn’t mean the answer will magically pop up automatically. As the penultimate volume of Dr. STONE shows, it takes plenty of trial-and-errors to get an experiment off the ground. They also figure out what’s fully at-stake in what will be Earth’s greatest mission yet!
As Chrome and Suika still try to figure out how to make a round-trip rocket, Senku and Ryusui attempt to bring satellites back from their era. Building them winds up being the easy part, whereas sending them up to space is another challenge all on its own. One-by-one, rockets explode, fall, and even disassemble before they even get an inch off the ground. But with every new calculation made by Sai is a step closer to victory, which gives Senku and the gang their first look at Earth in the 58th century.
This technology also gives the Kingdom of Science another key thing needed for this final battle: Why-Man’s location on the moon. Once that’s discovered, it’s now a race against time to get to space and save Earth once and for all. The Internet needs to be created, as it can connect the entire world to Senku’s plan, whereas other necessities and technological wants can be brought to life. Once the world’s fully connected, Senku and Chrome debate on whether or not this’ll be a suicide mission or a round-trip affair.
It is here where Dr. STONE shows the great leaps it has taken to bringing the world back to life. What started as a group of friends with an impossible mission has turned into a worldwide battle for survival. While we find that lives won’t have to be sacrificed for the mission, the same can’t be said about dreams. Ryusui wants to go to the moon, but he knows deep down inside that someone else might be both a better pilot and — more importantly — marksman if a battle wages out. Him sacrificing his seat shows that even he can do the right thing, even if it costs him a valuable life moment.
Thankfully, the tears don’t overtake the humor we’ve come to love from this series. From the expressions on people’s faces after one too many rockets explode to the sight of Taiju’s “smartphone”, the gags come hard and hearty thanks to BOICHI’s knack for comedic visualization. Perhaps the silliest arrives in the training montages, with Senku unable to swim and Kohaku frying her brain with a maze. But it’s all worth it for that big moment: the manned rocket launch.
Plenty is at stake for this mission, and Senku and the gang realize that. But with science on their side, failure is something that doesn’t even act as an afterthought. It’s the can-do attitude of everyone that has been the blood of this series, with this entire series being the most extreme way of teaching its readers that nothing is impossible. As the astronaut trio sits petrified in the cockpit, the timer begins. And as the world watches, the countdown reaches zero…
There’s only one more volume left to go in Dr. STONE, and the anticipation to see how it concludes is at a level of ten billion. Volume Twenty-Five sets the final stage between the Kingdom of Science and the Why-Man, as the remaining questions of the series will no doubt finally be answered. Will Dr. STONE have as perfect of a landing as a rocket settling on a moon’s surface? Knowing Riichiro Inagaki and BOICHI’s knack for detail and science know-how, the answer to that question will have readers getting excited with ease!
FINAL GRADE:
Promotional consideration provided by Chantelle Sturt of VIZ Media.
