Things are winding down this season and that especially holds true for Dr. Stone right now. Our heroes have just triumphed over the big antagonist of this arc and for an old man, I think the author did a good job of portraying him as a serious and intimidating threat to our science team. It appears we will settle in the typical post big conflict Dr. Stone downtime of focusing on building our next method of traversal so that we can reach the next antagonist. Before that, I want to sadly highlight something this show struggles with that bugs me and that’s raising the stakes properly.
At this point we’ve had several dangerous conflicts in Dr. Stone, but SO many times people who get injured come out unscathed that I’ve begun to roll my eyes when someone starts talking about how perilous and crazy their next upcoming fight will be. Let me be clear, I’m not saying a show HAS to have death all the time to be captivating, BUT if your characters keep hyping battle up like this is gonna be a crazy engagement with casualties, and then nobody even comes out severely harmed, I eventually lose that sense of danger. I know the cast will emerge victorious and with no real wounds. Minor spoiler but this happened once again this season with Ginro who suffered a major stabbing and was then healed. This is the exact same fashion as Ukyo who suffered a big wound and then turned out perfectly fine in the first major battle. Dr. Stone is already a show with a very large cast, it wouldn’t hurt to let a few lives be claimed in these so-called fierce battles of science. Or if the creator is unwilling to do so since this is supposed to be a pretty educational series, at least don’t bother having characters suffer such typically fatal injuries in the first place and always talk about how severe the next upcoming dispute will be.
We couldn't let this dude go?
I’ve been harping on Dr. Stone for this today, but death baiting is an annoying and common concept in a ton of media both animated and live action. It’s okay when done scarcely to keep the audience on their toes, never knowing when a battle will go well or not for their favorite characters, however it’s all too easy to rely on it too much. I still remember the death bait of Nezuko in the last season of Demon Slayer. I unironically want to put that down as the worst anime scene of the year because it destroyed the only real potential emotional weight that season had in the first place. When Nezuko “died” my jaw dropped and I thought it was such an amazing way to grow Tanjiro as he would now have to train to be a Hashira simply because it was the right thing to do and to truly focus on saving other people, rather than training for the still-technically-somewhat selfish reason of trying to prioritize saving HIS sister from demonhood. Fast forward a few minutes later and she’s perfectly fine, just kidding guys. I couldn’t believe it and not in a good way.
Y'all are lucky Nezuko is too cute to stay mad at!
TL;DR Oftentimes I’d rather just go through the pain of feeling an enjoyable character die than seeing them get hurt, everyone acts like this is the end, and then we end up healing them anyway and everything’s gucci. Obviously a death bait can add to a show’s writing when done properly and with intention, but all too often it’s simply a way to artificially raise the stakes and try to have viewers stay on the edge of their seats. And by god it works… until it doesn’t. Have you seen the anime mentioned today? When’s the last time you saw a death bait? Does the concept bother you or is it a non-issue for your viewing experience? Learn to love a cast, watch someone get stabbed in the heart, and be “amazed” by their miraculous recovery in the comments below!
