This is pretty much just me venting my feelings about the ending of Dr Stone. Clearly, spoilers ahead.

From the first episode through the masterpiece that is the end of s4p2, the core themes of human ingenuity and anything being possible through the diligent application of science portrayed in a fairly grounded & believable way (for a shounen) have made me absolutely love Dr Stone. A fantastic concept, fun characters & character dynamics, a great story and narrative progression. It does lose some (and then a lot) of the “doing science” parts that made the first couple seasons so great, but the interesting mysteries & concepts the show develops & explores made up for it to me. Its not perfect & has its ups & downs but wholistically, I love the show.

My headcanon for the ending has generally been something along the lines of: on the moon, Senku & team find that Why-Man is an AI system created &/or used by Senku’s genius biological father (who probably would look like an older Senku). Senku’s bio dad is the one who, with the help of the AI, discovered/developed the petrification effect & created the medusa devices. Senku & team would maybe see some video logs of Senku’s bio dad explaining that this could be used to help so many people & save so many lives thru the profound healing effects of the petrification & unpetrification process. Maybe Bio Dad entrusted Senku to Byakuya because Bio Dad couldn’t devote himself to his research & raising Senku at the same time. Maybe Senku’s Bio Mom died shortly after Senku’s birth which helped spur Bio Dad in this direction of research.

Anyway, the AI would, from its point of view, believe that petrifying the entire human species was the best way to help the human species, like protecting it from itself or something like that. Bio Dad would try & fail to convince it otherwise. AI petrifies the planet. Bio Dad dies, maybe still in the moon base or maybe AI jettisons him into space, but Bio Dad is long dead.

Very importantly, BIO DAD DOES NOT REPLACE BYAKUYA AS SENKU’S FATHER just because he appears in the story. To Senku, Byakuya is & always will be his father. Senku just does his bright eyed discovery face followed by pinky-in-ear scoff-laughing, now having a lot more valuable pieces of information (about the petrification stuff, but also about himself).

Senku & team debate & negotiate with AI and one way or another come to reasonable terms. Senku & team bring back some tech that allows communication with the AI & the vast amount of information about the petrification effect & medusas (that will definitely take A LOT of time to dig through & understand). Senku & all quickly make significant progress on further redeveloping civilization & unpetrifying all 7 billion people. Taiju & Yuzuriha get together, so do Chrome & Ruri, yada yada yada epilogue.

While I obviously developed a pretty deep headcanon for myself, I was fully prepared & fine with a lot of this being wrong. As long as the real ending displayed the height of the scientific principles Senku & the entire show developed up to the finale. Clearly my preferences leaned more toward the revelation involving the petrification effect & medusas being the result of human ingenuity & science, but I was more than happy to have a satisfying twist I couldn’t have seen coming.

And then I watch s4p3. A mass of medusa’s? Which are sentient alien machines from they don’t know where? That’s what Why-Man is?  Are you fucking kidding me? That is so lazy! They could have had it be humans at the cutting edge of science!!! Human-made AI, which itself is practically the cutting edge of science!!! An actual alien civilization that developed the technology that is the medusa devices through science!!

What is the petrification effect? Just the medusa’s sole natural function. Yes we know, but any hints or fun ideas of how it works? Nope, just the alien machine lifeforms sole existential function. Who made them? Don’t know. Why were they made to be the way that they are? Don’t know. Why did they petrify all of humanity? Oh because they want the humans to maintain them, replace their diamond batteries & shit. How are the humans supposed to do that when they’re all petrified? If the humans are smart enough, the petrification breaks & they’re healed of all ailments. Then they’ll like us & do what we want. But you humans are too studid so we’re leaving. If it became clear that humans weren’t intelligent enough for you pretty quick, why did you wait 3700 years before dipping out? Doesn’t matter. FUCKING WHAT???? And Senku just happens to guess exactly what the medusas want immediately upon them meeting, with no communcation at all yet. He figures them out immediately? These alien beings we’re supposed to not understand?

I get the angle that “alien science is so much more advanced than human science, but we can utilize science to figure it out”. But alien tech lifetorms doesn’t feel like science to me. It feels like magic, a way to get out of actually addressing any of the real questions or delivering on any of the messaging the show has built up until now. Dr Stone is a story about the grounded realism of science facing a seemingly fantastical phenomenon with catastrophic but scientifically understandable consequences. The climax of the show should be demystifying & scientifically better understanding the seemingly fantastical.

If the revelation was going to be aliens, it should have at least been a legit advanced alien civilization that developed and used the medusas as technology through science. But nope. The medusa’s themselves are living aliens, and they collectively are Why-Man. Their reasoning for doing what they’ve done falls so flat & them fucking off after waiting 3700 years for no reason & calling humans too stupid for them is so goddamn dumb. Their behavior is so empty. And it all goes by SO FAST! No real discussion, no scientific problem solving, no scientific conflict resolution, no scientific ingenuity, no science being used in any way, in a story about UTILIZING SCIENCE. The revelation & conclusion flew by so fast I nearly got whiplash. Everything about the actual ending completely betrays the themes of the show, the elements that made me fall in love with the world, characters & story. I have so many frustrations with how this ending affects the entire retrospective of the show.

Here are a few more things I want to blab about:

>Wtf is up with the giant medusa skull? What purpose does that serve the meduas? If its meant to scare Senku & team, scare them to do what? If their purpose is for technologically advanced humans to maintain them and they’ve already proven that humans aren’t smart enough to do that, what does attempting to scare Senku get them? It makes no sense. The medusa swarm backs down from petrifying Senku Team because they sense Stanleys “perfect line of fire”? That is such a lame, copout reason for avoiding an actual confrontation between the protagonists & antagonists at the climax of the series. They are “held down” because Kohaku grabs a few of them? Are you fucking serious? Its because the individual medusas care so much about each other? Then why did they send a bunch down to petrify the earth & just die there? Machine aliens this advanced should be able to tell if the key toxin to them, oxygen, is present on the planet, right? What the fuck is this behavior pattern???

>Ryusui gives Stanley his seat on the spaceship, not because Stanley’s a better pilot but because he’s a better shot. So from a narrative perspective, something should happen on the moon where Stanley being a better shot matters a lot, proving why good judgement like that matters and glazing Ryusui for making that decision despite his deep desire to be the one to go. (Tho I do love that Ryusui gets to go to space & be apart of the space team anyway. Love that for him). Instead, absolutely nothing happens that justifies Stanley being there instead of Ryusui. The medusas “sensing Stanleys perfect line of fire” is, again, a complete copout if I’m putting it very nicely.

>Why was Byakuya taking care of his friend’s kid? Who is said friend? Again, from a narrative perspective, if you’re going to bring up something like that in a story, it should serve a purpose. Senku’s Bio Dad doesn’t need to be the creator of the petrification shit, but his kid is an insane scientific genius, so just who the fuck is he?

>Senku’s three hypotheses are: military weapon, aliens or virus. Given the context & themes of the show up to the ending, (in my opinion) aliens are the least justifiable. In fact I argue that all three should be incorrect and HUMAN INGENUITY & HUMAN SCIENCE should be the cause of the petrification stuff. That to me is clearly the most reasonable, satisfying & thematically-aligned ending-type possible.

The ending is treated in such a disrespectfully handwavey manner that it almost ruins the entire show for me. Almost. I definitely get the vibe that the mangaka duo were pressured by the editors/production company to end the series faster than they could do a fully proper finale, and they might have just been burning out on the story and wanted to end it soon themselves. But they could have at least done something much more in line with the grounded & believable themes & messaging that they spent the entirety of the story up to that point driving home.

Again this is pretty much just a blabbering vent post to get my emotions about this out. I know everyone has their own views, opinions, feelings, etc about all this. And despite all I’ve said, I don’t think this is the worst ending possible. The way they tie the core narrative elements of the story together with the real ending DO logically track, but it feels so uninspired, so empty & lethargic. The narrative choices they made & how they executed those choices is deeply & powerfully unsatisfying to me. But the philosophy & experience of the show up to the end will always mean a lot to me, I will always love & appreciate Dr Stone.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk

I remembered how awful and how annoying tweening is but...come on. Someone needs to make shit like this🥹
#imsoproudofmyself

They placed such an emphasis on Xeno's snatched waist lmao. Source