Manga / Dr. STONE

Now this is exhilarating...

"It took humanity over 2 million years to crawl out of the Stone Age to the Modern Age. We need to do that in a sprint. I swear I'm going to take back the world! Through science, I'll figure out what happened to us and how we broke free... We may be a couple of high school kids, but we're gonna rebuild civilization from the ground up!"

— Senku

Taiju Oki is finally prepared to declare his love to his crush, Yuzuriha Ogawa, but just before he can do so... the world ends, with the entire human race (and one species of swallow) turned to stone by an unknown cause. For thousands of years, the petrified Taiju holds to his determination, forcing himself to stay conscious so that one day he can express his feelings to Yuzuriha.

October 5th, 5738 AD. Taiju revives and breaks free from his stone shell. He finds that his frail but brilliant friend Senku woke up some months ago, and with humanity functionally absent for thousands of years, nature has reclaimed the entire planet. However, Senku has already put together a grand plan — with his brains and Taiju's brawn, they'll solve the mystery of the petrification and rebuild civilization from zero... with SCIENCE.

From the writer of Eyeshield 21, Riichiro Inagaki, and the artist of Sun-Ken Rock, Boichi, comes a science fiction adventure series in Shonen Jump. The manga was serialized from March 6, 2017 to March 7, 2022. In October 2019, it received a 9-chapter spin-off titled Dr. STONE reboot: Byakuya written and drawn by Boichi and detailing what Senku's father Byakuya did in the aftermath of the "stone beam".

It received an anime adaptation in 2019 from TMS Entertainment with Yūsuke Kobayashi as our spiky-haired Science Hero. Funimation produced an English simuldub with Aaron Dismuke as Senku, which joined the Toonami lineup on August 25, 2019. Season 2, which adapts the "Stone Wars" arc, premiered on January 14th, 2021. A third season split in two parts began on April 6th, 2023, with the second part scheduled for October of the same year.

On March 6th 2022, the manga ended with 232 chapters. In 2023, a short Sequel Series, Dr. STONE: 4D Science was released.

The series also had a crossover in April 2020 in Last Cloudia, titled Science-user from Another World, which ran from April 30th to May 21st. Senku and Kohaku could be summoned during this campaign. The campaign has been followed up on May 14th with Tsukasa Shishio's Challenge which added Tsukasa himself to the roster.

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Dr. Stone uses the following tropes ten billion percent:

#-B

• Accidental Aiming Skills: On their adventure on the Treasure Island, Yo tries to show his marksman skills by shooting at three bottles, only for his bullet to miss and hit a poisonous snake instead. While everyone thought he was aiming for the snake the whole time, he knew he had to practice. It was justified as Senku said earlier that the gun had low accuracy, meaning it was trouble even for a trained police man.
• Achievements in Ignorance: In chapter 165 and 166, when the Americans invade the Perseus, their guns and grenades do nothing to faze Moz and Matsukaze, who fought in the Post-Petrification world without these weapons and have no fear of them, allowing them to fight off the invaders until Stanley joins the fight.
• Actor Allusion: While the statement was also in the Japanese version, Senku talking about equivalent exchange in episode 6 was sure to get more than a few raised eyebrows from dub viewers.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • The anime adds in a few minor scenes here and there to make the story flow better and add exposition. For example, when the group is collecting iron sand in Episode 8, Chrome suggests recruiting some of the other villagers to help out but Kohaku points out that they won't be able to get any volunteers because the villagers still see him and Senku as "suspicious sorcerers".
  • The first episode of Season 2 covers chapters 60 and 61, but before that, there's a mini-story where the Kingdom of Science prepares cup noodles to use as rations during the assault on Tsukasa's empire.
  • The Treasure Island arc in the anime expands more on the true Master through flashbacks, showing him as both a kind father to his infant son Soyuz and a Benevolent King and sage to Kirisame when she was a child.
• Adult Hater: Tsukasa, the Big Bad of the first part of the story, is a teenager who believes that the adults of the old world were corrupt. He destroys the statues of most petrified adults he encounters, only sparing a small handful that he thinks could be useful to him.
• Advice Backfire: During the Moz VS Hyoga fight, Moz keeps trying to prevent Senku and the gang from escaping and is continuously striken down by Hyoga. Hyoga taunts him by telling him that he will never be able to beat him if he tries to stop Senku AND fight him at the same time. Moz follows his advice, stops trying to stop Senku and turns his undivided attention to him. And then proceeds to show him how good of a fighter he really is when he is not distracted. The subsequent look on Hyoga's face tells it all. Oh, Crap! indeed!
• After the End: The series takes place 3719 years after humanity was petrified by an unknown cause. Senku and Taiju decide they will rebuild civilization from zero, and discover the cause of the petrification.
• Almost Out of Oxygen: The first of the ISS astronauts to attempt to return to Earth end up missing their intended destination by a country mile and land in the ocean, with their Soyuz crew capsule upside-down so they can't get out, and a limited supply of oxygen. Since everyone on Earth has been Taken for Granite, Byakuya has to land on a nearby island and use a rowboat to rescue them.
• America Saves the Day: Senku's plan to undermine the Tsukasa Empire. He uses a genuine recording of a world famous American singer, Gen impersonating her, and the poor audio quality of their phone to hide the difference to convince members of Tsukasa's army that America has already recovered and is working to restore the rest of the world. He expects the combination of America's might, a return of old world comforts, and Tsukasa's vision of a new world becoming futile to sway enough people to his side to enact a bloodless coup.
• Anchored Ship: Pretty much the case for Yuzuriha and Taiju. Taiju is in love with Yuzuriha, and it's heavily implied she would return his feelings, but Taiju decides to hold off his confession, as he feels that it might pressure her into agreeing since they're basically the last people alive.
• And I Must Scream:
  • Downplayed. The petrified people are shown to still be conscious, but this is only temporary: the moment you stop thinking, your consciousness starts to fade.
  • The idea that someone could remain immobile but conscious forever is deconstructed (at least from a physical perspective; the psychological consequences of this trope are surprisingly downplayed). As Senku points out, the human brain consumes around 400 calories each day even with no other bodily activity, so to remain conscious forever, the brain would need to obtain energy from somewhere, which is something the trope usually ignores. Senku and Taiju remaining conscious for 3700 years made their bodies start breaking down the petrification from the inside to use as fuel until they could eventually break free (although Taiju's body being exposed to the bat guano helped him, since his brain wasn't as active as Senku's).
• And the Adventure Continues: By the time of the story's end, Senku still hasn't attained his goal of reviving all of humanity. There are just too many statues, many of which have been lost or damaged beyond repair. However, he's shown working on an invention that could potentially help him save all of humanity, like he promised he would... a Time Machine. We're left with one possible flowchart for how he could build such a device, which involves using the Why-Man's properties to achieve results that would be impossible with modern technology alone.
• Anthropomorphic Personification:
  • Sulfuric acid is depicted as a beautiful green-haired woman who transforms into a grotesque skeletal figure, representing the dual nature of the scenic green acid lake near the village and the highly-lethal fumes it emits. Senku even nicknames her "Ryuu-san"^note A pun on "ryuusan", the Japanese name for the acid. It is instead "Sal" for sulfuric acid in the Viz translation., and "she" pops up as the shorthand image for sulfuric acid in Senku's scientific roadmaps.
  • Something similar happens in Chapter 89, where a storm cloud appears in the form of a massive dragon as Senku, Chrome, and Ryusui fly into it.
• Anime Hair: Senku's hair is bigger than his head. Made even more ridiculous by the mostly-realistic hair of the rest of the cast.
• Apocalypse How: Either Class 3a or Class 3b, though it's uncertain which. As far as they knew, Senku and Taiju were the only humans to emerge out of the stone on their own accord, though they do have a means of restoring undamaged statues with the potential to slide it back to Class 2. It may also be Class 4 considering species other than humans were affected by the petrification. However, it's not all that bad; we find out early on that pocket societies were able to form, and our heroes weren't the first ones to wake up. Kohaku and her village, for example, had been born into the new world and haven't seen a lick of electronic technology, let alone soap.
• Apocalyptic Montage: Naturally, of the minutes after the petrification wave.
• Apocalyptic Logistics: Deconstructed. When Senku wakes up after 3700 years Taken for Granite, he has nothing but his own wits and strength to make tools, shelter, and clothing, hunt and gather food, and make fire, let alone achieve his goal of rebuilding civilization. It's not until Taiju revives too, and adds his manpower, that they can start moving beyond basic survival needs and actually work on science, like creating nital to revive petrified people. After Senku moves to Ishigami Village, he uses his scientific know-how to recreate lost technology, like metalworking, glassblowing, and ramen, but he still has no infrastructure and is limited by manpower (the main reason he made ramen was to get labor from the villagers, like running the bellows to get the furnace hot enough). As he introduces more and more technology, each new innovation builds on the last, and he's able to enlist the entire village for help after becoming chief, turning battery and wire creation into a cottage industry. Chrome and Kaseki's waterwheel removes the need for manual electricity generation, and during the "Stone Wars" arc, Senku repurposes the coal-burning furnaces to make a steam-powered car.
• Arrow Catch: Senku uses a crossbow to shoot an arrow at Tsukasa in an attempt to ward him off, but to his surprise, Tsukasa catches it in mid-air. Though he had already begun planning for it at that point, it's this event that really drives Senku to start developing a gun.
• Arc Words:
  • "Stone world" and "Kingdom of Science".
  • "Dr. Stone" has several meanings over the course of the series, ranging from soap (essential for fighting off infection) to sulfonamide antibotics (made largely from inorganic substances, e.g. 'stone') to the petrification process itself, which acts as a Panacea that can even undo death.
• Art Evolution: In the first chapter, Senku and Taiju looked more like twenty-somethings than high schoolers. Which is understandable, Boichi was working on Origin, which is a seinen with an all-adult cast.
• Artistic License – Biology:
  • For a series that largely backs up its science and doesn't rely much on artistic license, there are a few notable exceptions where plot needs are more important, such as the fact human beings can't actually survive being petrified in solid stone for thousands of years.
  • Ruri's disease, from which she's suffered for most of her life, is eventually diagnosed as pneumonia caused by the bacteria pneumococcus. But bacterial pneumonia isn't a chronic illness, meaning that it should have gone away on its own long ago if Ruri managed to survive for this long.
  • The population of the village descended from six astronauts, three males and three females. However, three of each sex is not enough diversity to build a population. In the absolute best scenario, you could have no inbreeding for four generations, after which genetic disorders and deformities will slowly kill subsequent generations.
  • Foxtail Millet does not contain any gluten proteins. This makes it nigh impossible to make it into noodles like Senku does without using another grain (like wheat flour) as binder to provide the missing gluten. The resulting noodles would not be green as depicted, and would taste very different from regular ramen noodles to Senku and Gen. Of course, this is addressed - both Senku and Gen consider the product pretty awful and crumbly. There's a guy who made them for real, and they were pretty similar to what's shown in the anime.
• Asshole Victim: The first statue Tsukasa smashes is implied to be the dock owner that assaulted him for taking seashells.
• Author Appeal: Boichi's love for fanservice and a sexualized version of the female body can be seen in this work, mostly in some of the covers that focus on Kohaku.
• Back from the Dead: In Chapter 197, the revival fluid works on not just Senku and the others but also Hyoga, who Tsukasa knew was killed in their fight against the Americans back in chapter 188. Senku suggests that a similar event happened after Tsukasa broke his still petrified neck, and he theorizes that the combination of the Medusa and the revival fluid can not only heal life-threatening injuries but also undo death itself.
• Batman Gambit:
  • After depetrifying Tsukasa, Senku develops a habit of cracking his neck or otherwise touching the area. This is a ploy to subtly encourage Tsukasa to attack him at that location if they ever come to blows, because there's a tiny fragment of remaining stone there that can save his life.
  • In chapter 121, Ginro is stabbed through the torso by Minister Ibara after discovering that the master is a statue, an injury that would be fatal without immediate intervention. Kohaku passes the discovery to Amaryllis to share with Senku and the others, before taking Ginro to the highest point and starting to shout about the master's true identity, knowing Ibara will order Kirisame to petrify them to hide the truth. She did this knowing that Senku will find the means to unpetrify them, and thus healing Ginro's injuries like the process had for Senku and Mirai.
  • In chapter 176, Dr.Xeno convinces the heroes to use him as a shield against Stanley and the Americans when they line up on their motorcycles, with Xeno tied at the far-back cycle. He uses this to send a morse code message to Stanley. Chapter 183 reveals the message was about how the Perseus crew will be heading to Araxa, with Xeno knowing they will need the metals there for their rocket to the moon.
• Battle of Wits:
  • Senku and Tsukasa's conflict consists more of them trying to out-smart each other and deduce the other's plans than it does direct physical violence. This is Invoked by Senku though, since he's well aware that Tsukasa is more or less an Implacable Man and fighting him barehanded would be suicide.
  • Chapter 18 "Sorcery Duel" is a curb stomp version of this as Senku is easily able to demoralize Chrome by instantly explaining the science behind the so-called "sorcery". This culminates into an arithmetic showdown which is so one-sided the entire match begins and concludes between panels.
  • Chrome's fight with Magma in the Tournament Arc (Chapters 37-38) is also this. In a standard Shonen series, Magma would have won hands down. In this series, Chrome attempts to light Magma's clothes on fire with a pair of glasses.. Unusually, this show does acknowledge that usually prescription lenses, which are concave (curved inwards) would not work for this purpose. However, Chrome solves this problem by goddamn crying and sweating onto the len so that the water would build up a curve on the other side, turning the len into a convex (curved outward on both sides) one. He still needs to stay still for 60 seconds for it to work, so Gen (who the villagers think is a sorcerer) claims that he's cast a spell that will make Magma's heart explode if he moves even an inch, then adds that he can only maintain it for 60 seconds. As Senku rather smugly points out, the judge won't call it interference because it's no different than an audience member jeering, but Magma isn't willing to take the risk (and since he's tired from the previous fight he's looking for an excuse to catch his breath). End result: Magma catches fire and Chrome "helps" put him out with a well-placed Groin Attack that sends him off the platform and into the ocean.
  • Chapter 123 has a big one between Gen and Moz. It's even in the title of the chapter. Gen wins by subtly manipulating Moz into not killing the entirety of Senku's party and striking a temporary deal with them in order to bring Minister Ibara down. And he makes Moz think it was all his own idea, while it was what the entire party wanted to achieve all along.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Men who are de-petrified tend to have crack "scars" on their faces; women tend to have their scars in more out-of-the-way places that are usually covered by their clothing, like Yuzuriha's shoulder, Homura's inner thigh, etc.
• The Beforetimes: The series is a Post Apocalyptic story that takes largely several thousand years after the "modern" world" and has people both revived from modern times and characters descended from a small group of survivors, who have no memory or knowledge of the "modern" world at all. But on occasion, Senku finds treasure stores his father, one of the survivors, went through great lengths to preserve for him.
• Best Her to Bed Her: Played with. The village tradition is that whoever wins the Grand Bout becomes the new chief and marries the priestess. The current priestess, Ruri, is ill, and the strongest man in the village, Magma, openly talks about murdering her once he becomes chief and has no further use for her. Ruri's sister, Kohaku, refuses to let anything happen to her, and fights against Magma herself. So it's more like "best her sister to bed her".
• Beyond the Impossible: Not only did Senku count off the seconds for thousands of years while frozen, but he was also actively thinking to himself about the situation at the same time. To get an idea of how ridiculously difficult this is, just try thinking about anything constantly for 5 minutes while also actively counting. To do that for thousands of years is some insane multi-tasking. For contrast, Taiju, the second person the audience is aware of that de-petrified on their own, only managed a similar feat because he was in the midst of confessing his love to Yuzuriha and he had no idea what was going on when he "woke up".
• Big Bad:
  • Though initially framed as an ally, Tsukasa quickly becomes the main antagonist when he begins killing petrified humans against the others' wishes. He becomes simply an Arc Villain following his defeat and Heel–Face Turn.
  • Following the defeat of Tsukasa, the Kingdom of Science discover a new enemy: the Why-Man, who has intentions of petrifying all of humanity.
• Big Ball of Violence: Yo and Magma get into a fight and this ensues when Yo laughs at him for believing the world is flat.
• Big Damn Heroes: Yo out of all people performs one in Chapter 131, when he shoots Minister Ibara in the hand, making him drop the petrification weapon and rendering him completely vulnerable and powerless.
• Bittersweet Ending: The end of the manga shows Senku is nowhere near close to his goal of reviving the entire world population even given everything he has been through. There are just too many people on Earth; many of which are either missing or damaged beyond repair. However it is implied he has started work on something that can prevent this entire calamity: a time machine! Something that wouldn’t be possible even with modern technology but now concievable thanks in-part to the Why-Men.
• Blood from the Mouth: Invoked and exploited. When Chrome is making his escape from the Tsukasa Empire, he takes a couple of plants he recognizes from his experiments, chews them up together, and spits the resultant red liquid into his jailor Yo's face while claiming that he has a terminal case of pneumonia. Yo freaks out and is distracted long enough for Chrome to land a decisive blow and escape.
• Bloodless Carnage: Invoked during the Stone Wars arc. Senku made a promise to not spill any bloodshed against the Tsukasa Empire and kept to it.
• Boarding Party: The American forces use a submarine to sneak towards the Perseus and deploy their men on board.
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: In Chapter 52, Ginro does this himself when he gets caught up in Senku and Gen's critique on the cotton candy. The routine shown is called Nori-Tsukkomi (Play your own straight man), and when Gen ask how the villagers know this, Senku suspects his father added it to the 100 Tales.
• Both Sides Have a Point: In Chapter 143, Senku and Ryusui argue about which route to take from Japan to America. Senku argues for a Great Circle Route, a northward curved route that will take 40 days to complete, right before winter and gives them enough time to harvest corn. Ryusui argues for the Rhumb Line, a straight path over the latitude of the Earth that while will take 70 days, it'll be far more manageable for the amateur sailors of the group.
• Bookends:
  • The war between Senku and Tsukasa starts and ends over soap. Senku being able to produce it reveals to Tsukasa he's incredibly resourceful and a hindrance to his anti-science ambitions. In the end, Senku uses soap to produce nitroglycerin-powered explosives and forces a stalemate with him.
  • At the end of the story, Taiju brings cake from his wedding with Yuzuhira to Senku, who predictably preferred to bury his head in work then to attend it. Senku quips that it sure was interesting and that he was loudly cheering for them from there in his laboratory — and then he notices he's said this before, while looking far more bored, when Taiju was preparing to confess to Yuzuhira at the very beginning.
• Boring, but Practical: In Chapter 199, the crew collect rare ores with the ultimate goal of creating a rocket ship. They smelt them into superalloys... which they use to make canned food. Unfortunately, they don't have a sufficient quantity and quality of minerals to go straight to their exciting ultimate goal (plus, there are loads of other steps to deal with first), but cans allow them to preserve large amounts of food, which is absolutely vital if they want to revive people en masse.
• Born After the End: Ishigami Village is entirely populated by people born after the petrification beam that turned all of humanity into stone and have never been petrified themselves. Accordingly, they have very little idea what society in the 2000s was like, even though everyone who has been revived retains their memories.
• Brains Versus Brawn: This is everywhere. The three main protagonists of the series, Senku, Taiju, and Yuzuriha make up a Beauty, Brains, and Brawn trio. Even before the world effectively ended, Senku and Taiju were a Brains and Brawn duo since they were childhood friends. The main antagonist of the first arc is Tsukasa who decides to oppose Senku's idealized Kingdom of Science by creating and leading the Empire of Might, hoping to keep a low-tech and therefore egalitarian world in order to avoid the creation of weapons of mass destruction and warfare. He is later dethroned by Hyoga (for a while), who is a more straightforward Social Darwinist.
• Brick Joke:
  • In Chapter 1, Senku offers Taiju a "Love Potion" that's actually gasoline. In Chapter 95 (the series' two-year anniversary), Senku refines oil into gasoline and when Taiju smells it, he asks if it's another love potion and if Senku has someone he likes. Senku laughs and finally admits to the prank.
  • The Treasure Island arc has a rather large one: In Chapter 112, Senku announces that his plan to capture the "Medusa" weapon is to bait the enemy into throwing it, then snag it out of the sky with a drone. In the intervening time the plan goes to hell thanks to Minister Ibara's machinations, coming down to a real-time battle of wits between him and Senku. In Chapter 136, Senku is cornered on a cliff and Ibara throws the "Medusa"...at which point Ryusui snags it out of the sky with a drone.
  • In chapter 100, Ryusui suggest that a casino should be built on the Perseus, which the others shot down. More than 40 chapters later, a poker tournament is done between Senku/Kohaku and Ryusui/Gen to decide the path of the Perseus to America, right before opening the new casino to maintain the crew's morale.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • After over fifty chapters of absence, Taiju and Yuzuriha reappear with Taiju yelling into the cell phone that was buried at Senku's "Grave".
  • In Chapter 88, Senku had to freeze Tsukasa to preserve his injured body until they find a way to petrify him so he can be healed when he gets unpetrified. Come Chapter 141, Senku uses the newly acquired petrification device and the restoration fluid to restore Tsukasa to a healthy condition.
  • In Chapter 146, former enemy Hyoga is unpetrified to aid the heroes in weapon training against the Why-Man. In terms of his cooperation, they also restore Homura and Moz.
• But What About the Astronauts?: Three days prior to the Stone Reckoning, a group of astronauts left to go on a long-term residency at the International Space Station. One of them was Senku's (adoptive) father, who founded Ishigami Village and told stories of his son to the following generations.

C-D

• Call-Back:
  • At the start of the series, during the initial conflict with Tsukasa, Senku plans to defeat him using gunpowder, pointing out that even his Super-Strength would be no match for a bullet. While this never comes to pass, and the war between them is ended through other means, it comes back in full force when they have to deal with the US military members serving under Dr. Xeno. In chapter 188, Tsukasa is easily able to overpower their own champion-level martial artist, but goes down immediately when one of the other soldiers just shoots him.
  • In chapter 13, Senku, after making himself clothes and supplies following his unpetrification, introduces himself to a bunch of befuddled monkeys as a human being. In Chapter 194, years following the second world-wide petrification event, Suika is unpetrified and introduces herself to befuddled new world monkeys as a human being.
• The Cameo:
  • President Donald Trump appears during some panels, as a victim of the petrification. Definitely an aversion of No Celebrities Were Harmed.
  • Kurita appears in a visual gag in chapter 25, along with a character drawn in the style of Sun-Ken Rock.
• Cast of Snowflakes: After 17 chapters of having only 4 main characters, it's quite shocking to suddenly meet 40 new characters, all with distinct designs.
• Catchphrase: so many characters have them
  • Senku has four: "10 Billion Percent", "Not One Millimeter", "This is Exhilarating" and "Get excited, people (or whoever)".
  • Chrome's catchphrase, yabai, can mean bad/awful/crazy/awesome, but is translated as "bad" (or "BAAAD"). An unofficial translation uses "insane" which works a bit better at conveying both positive and negative meaning.
  • Luna's morale mantra to her self is that she's "capable girl".
  • Hyoga: "You've done well". Invoked by Dr. Chelsea, even.
  • Dr. Xeno likes to call clever things "elegant".
• Celebrity Survivor: Quite a few of the survivors were famous before the stone incident, including Tsukasa, Gen, Byakuya, and Lilian.
• Cerebus Ret Con: In the first chapter, Senku was working on an experiment that led to him making gasoline out of plastic bottles. In chapter 157, we learned that he was using a wing of a petrified swallow in that experiment to test if it was as porous as pumice or zeolite, the latter which is normally used in the hydrocarbon conversion.
• Charles Atlas Superpower:
  • Kohaku possesses monster strength in her tiny frame, which she credits to training. Apparently, her village has more like her.
  • Tsukasa inexplicably has Super-Strength and Super-Reflexes, being able to catch arrows out of the air, kill a lion with his bare hands, and chop down an enormous tree with one swipe of his spear. Not bad for a teenaged MMA champion.
  • Taiju is tough enough to tank a hit from Tsukasa and not go down instantly, something Tsukasa said has never happened before, and also has endless stamina.
• Chekhov's Gun: In Chapter 157, one of the American event staff at the gathering Dr. Xeno was a part of had a ring hidden in his mouth. In Chapter 158, we learn the petrification preserved the ring, which turned out to be made of platinum and allowed Xeno to mass-produced Nitric Acid, allowing him a greater head-start in technology such as machine guns and planes compared to Senku.
• Chekhov's Gag: In Chapter 25, we find out that Senku is allergic to lacquer, which makes him swell up (Gen describes him as looking like Anpanman. Over an in-universe year later in Chapter 144, Senku beats Ryusui in a game of poker by marking the cards with lacquer, knowing that he'll react to it and it won't be detectable.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • In Chapter 119, along with the petrified members of the Kingdom of Science, Taiju brings back from the ocean floor a statue of a complete stranger with petrified long hair covering his face. 20 chapters later, based on the markings of the petrification device on the statue's arm, Senku uses the revival fluid to awaken him as Matsukaze, a warrior that lived on the Treasure Island centuries ago, who tells Senku and the others how a great number of Petrification Devices fell from the sky and turned his entire village to stone.
  • In Chapter 138, the Why-Man tries to use the heroes' radio to sent a command to their acquired petrification device to petrify all surving humans on Earth, but luckily fails since the radio was too far from the Medusa. In Chapter 191, when the Perseus crewmates in America are nearly killed trying to get their newly restored petrification device from the Americans, Joel sneak his communicator watch near the device, relying on the Why-Man's frequent broadcast of "12,800,000 meters, 1 second" to activate the Medusa as their final trumpcard.
• Chekhov's Boomerang:
  • Every now and then the "Dr. Stone" known as soap becomes relevant, such as when Senku blows bubbles to surprise villagers or notes how glass production uses some of the same ingredients. It then comes up again as an ingredient in nitroglycerin, which Senku concocts during the rematch against Tsukasa to force both sides and their allies to a draw.
  • After it is set up with glasses, Suika's mask comes in handy three times over the course of the village games.
• Cliffhanger:
  • Chapter 159 ends with Senku hastily crafting a "bulletproof vest" by pouring water into a bag of starch, as Stanley fires his sniper rifle. The final panel shows Senku holding the punctured bag and being blown away by the impact, while blood and starch-water mixture splash around the room. "Next chapter hits Aug. 2!" (2 weeks after the chapter's release, instead of the usual 1 week).
  • Chapter 190 ends with Tsukasa, Hyoga, Kohaku, Taiju, and Ryusui either fatally wounded or dead (which happened in previous chapters), while the diamonds that could power the Medusa and save everyone are destroyed in an explosion and Joel's Medusa (even if it could reach South America in time) is confiscated. The surviving fighters launch an all-out attack on Stanley's army, which severely outmatches them in weaponry. And the next chapter is delayed by a week.
• The Coconut Effect: In chapter 187, Chrome's remote-controlled record player is used to simulate gunfire and confuse Stanley's troops. However, recording actual gunfire turns out to be unconvincing, so Senku instead smacks a plastic container to make a more convincing sound.
• Combat Pragmatist: During the Tournament Arc, Senku's team has to fight VERY dirty to stand a chance of defeating Magma, the strongest of their opponents. Their original plan was to focus on having each fighter wear him down with non-stop Groin Attacks so their strongest combatants (Kohaku and Kinro) would be able to finish him off. When the brackets didn't allow that, they compensated with even more dirty tricks, such as using performance-enhancing drugs, having Gen trick Magma into thinking he's been cursed, and setting him on fire by using a lens to focus sunlight. Oh, and groin attacks are still involved: when Ginro goes against his friends' plans and tries to win the tournament himself, Senku takes him out by using Suika's helmet as a fulcrum to multiply the force with which he strikes his gonads. Of course, Magma himself isn't exactly a fair fighter either, with him pulling an I Surrender, Suckers on Kinro (making him ask the referee for a rules clarification, only to hit him from behind), and having his lackey kidnap Suika so Kohaku would miss her bout and get disqualified.
• Combat Stilettos: They aren't exactly high heels per se, but the sandals all the villagers wear seem like they'd have the same effect. The bottoms are narrower than the soles, similar to Okobo, and the only reason the villagers don't trip over themselves all the time is probably that they've been wearing them their whole lives. Homura's outfit has knee-high boots with a similar tread.
• Comically Missing the Point: After the Perseus crew received a time message from Ruri for their navigation, Kohaku thinks that the gem Chrome was searching for in Chapter 148 is a gift he's looking for Ruri. Chrome replies that he doesn't know what she's talking about.
• Competence Porn: The building montages are full of this trope.
• Cool Car: The Kingdom of Science's mobile science lab, an armored amphibious wheeled vehicle large enough to hold several people and contains all the materials Senku needs to develop new technologies to solve the Problem of the Week during the Treasure Island arc.
• Cool Boat: The Kingdom of Science's Perseus, a motorized sailboat powered by a gasoline engine, with facilities such as state-of-the-art (for the story's setting) sonar and radar instruments, metal anti-fouling hull plating, greenhouse and livestock bays to ensure a steady supply of food, and a garage for the aforementioned mobile science lab. Fitting the expedition crew's goal of solving the mystery of the Petrification, the ship is named after hero from Greek mythology who slew Medusa, the Gorgon monster that turns its victims into stone.
• Cool Old Guy: Kasaki may be a little standoffish at first, but once he sees the potential of glass and realizing Senku isn't going to waste his time, he quickly becomes an essential member of the Kingdom of Science due to his crafting know-how. He also starts warming up in general as shown when he gives Ginro a pep talk and makes him a gas mask to encourage him to go help Senku and Chrome harvest sulfiric acid. He still maintains a gruff and grumpy demeanor, but it's easy to see he enjoys the company of the rest of the group, having found the crafting budies he always wanted.
• Cosmic Deadline: Time skips increase noticeably in frequency and duration after Superalloy City is established and any potential human threat has been petrified, with major projects like building several cities around the world, inventing the internet, and building several test rockets being done in only a few pages so the plot of reaching Why-Man on the Moon can advance faster.
• Dashed Plot Line: In the first few chapters, all we see from Taiju and Senku trying to perfect the depetrification formula are a few snapshots from a year-long excursion. Half a year goes by during the Tournament Arc as well, but we only see things related to the tournament itself or Senku's progress on the cure-all.
• The Dead Have Names: Near the end of the second story arc, Tsukasa goes to honor the people killed in the "poison gas attack", showing that he remembers all their names and demonstrating that he is a good person deep down. Conversely, Hyouga (who's actually responsible for their deaths and pinned it on Senku) doesn't know who he's talking about. Taken a step further when it's revealed that Tsukasa even remembers the faces of all the statues he's shattered despite supposedly wanting them dead.
• Deader than Dead: If a person gets petrified, they can be revived by Senku's formula. Things get trickier if the statue is smashed into pieces, but a skilled worker like Yuzuriha can put them back together precisely enough that the formula can still work. But if crucial pieces are missing or get worn down too much, as is the case with the Puppet King of the Petrification Kingdom, there's no way to bring them back.
• Deadpan Snarker: Senku, who often snarks at Tsukasa and frequently takes (friendly) shots at Taiju's intelligence.
• Decoy Protagonist: Taiju is framed as the protagonist in the first few chapters, with Senku as his smarter co-main character. He then gets Put on a Bus after the introductory arc as Senku takes center stage.
• Defeat Means Friendship: A very typical Shounen trope, but happens in ridiculous amounts. So far, every antagonist barring Minister Ibara has joined or at least nominally allied with Senku sometime after their defeat. Yes, this includes Magma, Tsukasa, Hyoga, Moz, Xeno, Stanley, and all other citizens of the Empire of Might, the Petrification Kingdom, and America.
• Determinator:
  • Both Oki Taiju and Senku. Taiju was determined to get out of his petrified state to see his love interest, Yuzuriha, again, and Senku was counting the seconds for all those thousands of years knowing he will get out.
  • Even further is why Senku's a scientific genius. He wasn't born smart like Tony Stark, he just kept testing and learning because he wanted to be smarter.
• Deuteragonist: A unique example in that the chosen deuteragonist changes depending on the arc. Early on it's Taiju, and the Stone Village arc has it shift to Chrome. After Ryusui is revived he takes this seat. Through all of this, Gen remains the Tritagonist, being the most developed member of the cast outside of Senku and receiving a lot of focus, yet never really stepping into a major plot role.
• The Discovery of Fire: After Senku wakes up from 3700 years of being Taken for Granite, he spends several months figuring out how to make fire with sticks (he ends up using a bow drill). Once he's mastered it, the monkeys who were watching this strange hairless monkey run away in fear.
• Distant Finale: In the final chapter, after the astronauts returning to Earth and receive their medals, there's a time skip of several years, during which the modern world has mostly been rebuilt and Taiju and Yuzuriha are finally getting married.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: The Whyman, who was also responsible for petrifying humanity thousands of years ago, was the Medusa devices themselves.
• Doing In the Wizard: Senku, naturally. From the very first episode, the mystery of petrification is slowly investigated using the scientific method.
• Don't Try This at Home:
  • Every episode of the anime ends with a disclaimer warning viewers not to imitate the science shown:
    "This is a work of fiction, but the plants, animals, and production methods described are based on reality. Foraging and making things on your own accord is extremely dangerous and, in some cases, illegal. Please do not imitate without expertise."
  • Mecha-Senku pops up after they make gunpowder in episode 4 to tell the audience that yes, this is the actual recipe for gunpowder, and to never actually make it yourself.
• Double-Meaning Title: Or in this case, Triple-Meaning. Firstly, early in the series, Senku refers to soap as "the stone of life — Dr. Stone", since hygiene is an important way of warding off disease (especially in a world that lacks modern medicine). It also refers to Senku himself, the smartest and most scientifically advanced person in the Stone World whose last name, Ishigami, means 'stone god.' Thirdly, it can also refer to the petrification process itself since it has the ability to restore even conditions that modern medicine can't, like reattaching lost limbs or clinical brain-death.
• Driving Question: What was the light that caused the petrification apocalypse? Currently, it's connected to a device called Medusa, which is what caused the light from long ago and that's used by an island as a means of control. It's revealed that there used to be hundreds of "Medusa" in the past that fell from the sky, and are connected to the Whyman.
• Dumb Muscle: Taiju, but he's the most outwardly nice person. Averted with Tsukasa, as he's very smart, just not as smart as Senku.
• Dump Stat: In Chapter 147, Gen says this about Senku, who while having high intelligence, willpower, and effort, has zero luck.

E-F

• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Tsukasa's characterization was hit with this a few times.
    • He used to engage in the same comedic reactions Senku and Taiju would do, but after The Reveal, he became a completely serious character. This aspect was removed in the anime.
    • His comments about his sister Mirai seemed to imply that she was dead, particularly the line about how he has nobody precious to him. Come chapter 78, we learn that she's still alive, albeit was diagnosed clinically brain dead.
    • He openly despised adults and part of his goal for the Empire of Might was exterminating them. That aspect of his character was not only dropped, but he was also willing to work with adults.
• Edutainment Show: Many episodes contain factual information on chemistry, physics, and architecture woven into the plot. You'll learn, for example, about how to create homemade Soda, how to make super magnets, the different methods of generating electricity, and about how to make glass and how it bends light.
• Emperor Scientist: Senku Ishigami is a benevolent example after waking up in a stone-age world thousands of years after every human on 21st century Earth was petrified. Senku uses his knowledge of science, ranging from engineering to cooking to medicine, to aid his comrades, and uses it to elevate a small village he discovered into the Kingdom of Science. His ultimate goal is to use science to bring back all 7 billion petrified humans.
  • On the reverse end of the spectrum is Dr. Xeno, a NASA scientist that woke up in post-petrification America and uses his science to form his own empire, complete with airplanes and machine guns. He believes that science can be used to control the masses, and even in the 21st century, he was open with his co-workers about how he would use his knowledge to conquer the local humans if he was sent to the distant past. As a matter of fact, he was Senku's science mentor in the 21st century, and his talk about how science can be used to harm people inspired Senku to research how to use science to help people, such as traveling to Africa to study how to fight Ebola when he and Xeno discussed plague-carrying missiles.
• The End of the World as We Know It: The series begins with a flash of light that petrifies humanity for thousands of years, effectively ending all civilization and almost everything humans built with no one to maintain any of it. Senku comments a few times early on that they're living in a "Stone World" now and previous rules of how the world work no longer apply.
• Enemy Mine:
  • The battle between the Kingdom of Science and the Empire of Might truly ends with Senku and Tsukasa joining together to defeat the psychotic Hyoga.
  • During the Treasure Island arc, thanks to Gen's silver tongue, The Starscream Mozu makes a very fragile alliance with the Kingdom of Science.
  • Following the second petrification event and his revival, Dr. Xeno recognizes the threat of the Why-Man, and agrees to cooperate with Senku to create a rocket to the moon and stop him.
• Epic Fail: When the village finally manages to build a cell phone (which is actually just a large, unwieldy telephone that's bigger than Senku), they realize that they need to build a second unit. Cue Face Fault from the villagers.
• Establishing Character Moment: In the first episode Senku offers Taiju what he claims to be a pheremone-laced potion when he learns that Taiju means to finally confess his love to Yuzuriha. Given Senku's cocky and aloof attitude the viewer might assume he's a ruthlessly pragmatical person with little thought to morals, but in reality he knows Taiju would never try to use such a shortcut (which was, in fact, an experiment in refining gasoline), and when Taiju does try confessing his love to Yuzuriha Senku is the only one of the onlookers to correctly guess that Yuzuriha would not reject Taiju. Whatever fronts he puts on, Senku understands and cares about his friends' affairs and wellbeing.
• Eternal English: A surprisingly Justified example. Senku and the other revived people have no trouble communicating with the villagers despite thousands of years; the tankoban Q&A segment for Chapter 60 suggests that Byakuya insisted on keeping the stories exactly the same in order to minimize linguistic drift so that his descendants could still communicate with de-petrified modern people...but then it also suggests that this is far too clever for Byakuya and he just did it for Rule of Cool. This is similar to the Real Life practice of passing formal Arabic verbatim from generation to generation.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Happens very frequently with Chrome.
  • In Chapter 52, when Ginro says that Senku's gears can let him run the cotton-candy maker all day, Chrome realize that an always steady power source can do the same, hence he and Kaseki building a "Contraption That Keeps the Cotton Candy Coming", or, a water wheel.
  • In Chapter 97, when Ryusui describes that radar can see through anything, Chrome wonders if they can see through land as well, leading him to realize they can be used to find iron in the mountains.
  • In Chapter 122, Chrome, knowing how difficult it is to travel through night, realizes that Moz wouldn't have gone to the trouble of following Amaryllis if he didn't know that she, Kohaku, and Ginrou were spies. This leads to the other commanders realizing that since Moz never told Ibara, he wanted to see if the Perseus crew is capable of removing Ibara for his benefit.
  • In chapter 181, when the Perseus crew sadly note that their Stealth Ship is still partially detectible by radar, Chrome then realizes that with the advanced technology of the 21st century, they should have detected the thousands of Medusa's falling into Earth's atmosphere, leading to them realizing the petrification devices are designed to be invisible to radar, which leads them to covering their stealth ship with the power-less devices they found earlier.
• Evil Luddite: Wanting to kill Senku (and anyone wanting to make humanity progress technologically) firmly places Tsukasa as this.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: In Episode 4, Senku, Yuzuriha, and Taiju are trying to formulate gunpowder. When Taiju starts mixing the ingredients, Senku realized too late, thanks to thinking about how fire is started, that Taiju's stone tool happens to be flint, which combined with Taiju's strength, is enough to ignite their gunpowder batch. This forces them to start over, while also creating a huge smoke cloud that alerts both Tsukasa and Kohaku of their location.
• Exposed to the Elements: Kohaku always wears a Minidress of Power that only reaches her mid-thighs, though the slits in the side go up even further. Even in winter it's the same hem length, just lined with fur. Most of the men also have their arms exposed, though their tunics are generally longer.
• Eye Pop: A frequent occurrence, usually when Senku explains something scientific to the villagers (and Gen), or tells them how much work they'll need to do to achieve the next step in the Technology Tree. Senku himself gets it when he hears a dumb question.
• Facial Markings: Many of the people who awaken from petrification bear a few black marks on their bodies as a result of the rocky coat's properties, those being areas it could not heal. Senku, Taiju and Gen are prominent examples, but not all of them have these marks on their faces (Ryusui's are on his right forearm and Mirai's are on her hair). In the Treasure Island arc, the marks disappear from those who get petrified again and return thanks to the coating's restorative properties, but after the crew returns, Gen invokes this by having all present-day people use body paint in the exact form as the scars as the humans' "war paint" against the Whyman.
• Failure Montage: Chapter 215 has one where the Kingdom of Science's effort to launch a rocket keep ending in either it flying off course or exploding. Though Senku and Xeno's smiles show they aren't too bothered by the streams of failed launches as they modify the rocket.
• Find the Cure!:
  • One of the first story arcs is inventing sulfa drugs to cure Ruri's pneumonia.
  • Later, Senku's goal is to save Tsukasa after he is mortally wounded by Hyoga. Because the wounds are lethal, the only way to cure him is to petrify and restore him, so Senku sets off to find whatever petrified all of humanity.
• Finger Poke of Doom: When fighting Hyoga, Senku makes a taser out of wires and batteries, tied to his little finger. Just one poke sends 100,000 volts through him.
• Fist Pump: When they part ways, Taiju raises his fist as a farewell gesture to Senku. Senku returns it by raising his "Science Flag".
• Fling a Light into the Future: As a love letter to science, this is a major theme of the series: humans acquire knowledge through science and pass it on to the next generation. Doomed characters from the Kingdom of Science will often use their last moments to pass crucial information to their teammates. And Senku's dad spends decades gathering rare materials for future generations.
• Fluorescent Footprints: Senku distracts Homura with a flash grenade long enough to grab her, but she easily overpowers him and runs off. Senku then reveals that he only grabbed her to plant scheelite dust on her, allowing him to track her footprints by making them glow with his new invention, a black light.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Some big ones for Tsukasa: In Chapter 4, he tells a story about a little boy who wanted to collect seashells for his sick sister and got beaten up by an adult who claimed ownership of the beach. In Chapter 11, when he imagines what could have been if he'd befriended Senku back in school, one panel shows him carrying a bucket of seashells and another shows Senku, Taiju, Tsukasa, and a younger girl walking together. This obviously teases an …And That Little Girl Was Me aspect to the story, which isn't confirmed until Chapter 78 (the end of the second story arc), where we learn Tsukasa's primary motivation in life is trying to help his younger sister Mirai, who was rendered braindead at a very young age.
  • When explaining the uses of calcium carbonate made from ground-up seashells in Chapter 4, the first use Senku explains is using it as an agent to "supercharge" soil. Eighty-seven chapters later, Taiju does just that, ensuring his wheat field grows while Yo and Magma's fields are fallow; the calcium carbonate makes the soil more pH neutral, allowing wheat to grow, while the soil in the other fields is too acidic to support wheat.
  • In Chapter 61 Gen suggests a way to trick Tsukasa using the phones by imitating Lilian's voice telling that America has recovered from petrification and is sending help. 90 Chapters later, Kingdom of Science arrives to America and encounters Dr. Xeno's group.
  • It’s only for a couple of chapters, but the conspicuous absence of Suika from any of the panels of the people staying behind, after the Perseus has been launched, foreshadows that she’s stowed away on board the ship.
  • In a flashback told in Chapter 106, Amaryllis who escaped the petrification by Kirisame said that petrification is said to be only part of said abilities by the island leader's bloodline within Treasure Island and what's strange to her is that Kirisame, one of the two Co-Dragons, were able to use it via item and throw it like a grenade. This leads to The Reveal in Chapter 120 that the actual leader has actually been petrified all along and that Minister Ibara had something to do with it.
  • In Chapter 115, we have a flashback where a dying Byakuya looks at the reflection in a river of the night sky, and we see the International Space Station. When Dr. STONE reboot: Byakuya came out, we are introduced to the robot Rei, who kept the ISS running much longer than the one year lifespan Byakuya thought it had when he and the others made their way to Earth.
  • In Chapter 148, the Perseus crew were lucky to find a cob of corn inside an aligator's stomach in America, and in the following chapter find a few stray corn kernals in the swamp. In truth, modern corn cannot last long without intervention from humans. In Chapter 149, they fall under attack by an English-speaking human wielding a machine gun.
  • In the outro for the anime adaptations 3rd season 'Where Do We Go?' at 0:55 an image of a glowing skull is briefly shown. The skull is actually a blatant depiction of the Whyman's true form, which is revealed in chapter 228, down to the glowing black spots in the eye sockets and mouth.
• Fox-Chicken-Grain Puzzle: Ukyo lampshades this puzzle (with corn in place of grain) in Chapter 179, comparing it to leaving Dr. Xeno behind with a crewmember unable to hold him in place in between ropeway trips.
• Fun with Acronyms: In Chapter 161, Chrome comes up with a machine that can create tunnels quickly. He calls it the "Diggerific Rotating Impelling Land-Eating Loop-Knife" or D.R.I.L.L. Of course, the modern-day survivors point out that drills were already a thing that existed before the petrification event.

G-J

• Gambit Pileup: The climax of the Treasure Island arc is essentially Senku and Minister Ibara playing real-time chess with one another. Senku's original plan is to bait Kirisame into using the petrification weapon and snatch it out of the air with a drone. Ibara finds out because he took Kohaku's radio-receiving earring, and counters by moving the islanders onto the Perseus so they can just petrify the entire island. Senku decides to go to the abandoned village, get the petrified Head, and show him to turn the islanders against Ibara...but Ibara counted on this, so he smashed the Head into pieces before leaving.
• Genghis Gambit: Suika thought that Ginro's unexpected and ridiculous desire to become chief (and proclaim everyday all-you-can-eat ramen and a harem for every man) was a way to unify the entire village against him so that Senku would be seen favorable as chief. In truth, his sleezy side took over when Ruri says she cannot favor who becomes the chief, making him think he has a chance to become chief. Kohaku and Kinro promptly deny it (this scene is not seen in the anime).
• Genius Bruiser: Tsukasa may be unparalleled in a fight, but that doesn't mean he can't think quickly on his feet and deduce what Taiju and Senku might be doing (and he's right almost every time). He also has enough knowledge of science to remain right behind Senku.
• Genius Breeding Act: In chapter 134 we find out that the wives of the island head in the Treasure Island Arc were originally selected based on their memory skills, in order to properly pass down the 100 Tales without making any mistakes that would alter their meaning from generation to generation. A rare instance where this is portrayed as a positive thing as it's what results in Soyuz having Photographic Memory to begin with.
• Glad You Thought of It: A very interesting subversion. During chapter 123, at the end of the Battle of Wits between Gen and Moz, Moz decides not to got full Blood Knight on Senku's party and strikes a temporary truce with them in order to bring Minister Ibara down. The subversion is that Moz wasn't given the idea to cooperate outright, but was subtly manipulated into it by Gen through a combination of sociological tricks, Half-Truth, Blatant Lies, and Reverse Psychology.
• Godzilla Threshold: Senku and the rest of the Perseus Crew officially cross it in Chapter 129. Moz performs a Face–Heel Turn and goes full Blood Knight on the crew, their Secret Weapon, the gun, is easily incapacitated out of the battle, and Kinro is no match for Moz's skills and strength. When Gin asks Senku if he has any scientific tricks up his sleeve like the last time they were cornered like that, Senku simply replies that he has none. In short Senku is Out-Gambitted and cornered. He has no choice but to revive and release Hyoga in order to join the battle (hopefully) on their side.
  • Senko and co. decide to go even further in having to stop Xeno and his soldiers from killing them all in Chapter 191. Just how far you ask? Using Why Man's voice on one of the Petrification devices to petrify the entire planet again.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Most of the de-petrified heroic characters have subtle scarring on their face and upper body. Hyoga, on the other hand, has a gigantic patch of black scar tissue around his mouth, which is why he wears a mask. When he joins the Kingdom of Science and chooses to defend Senku and the rest of the Perseus crew, he takes off his mask to reveal that his scars have been completely removed due to his second petrification and revival.
• Goroawase Number:
  • 14 comes up a lot because it can be read as "Ishi" (stone). Senku's birthday is January 4th, which Byakuya set up as a holiday for Ishigami Village named "Stone Day". Additionally, the 14th of the 100 Tales reveals that Byakuya hid a recorded message for Senku within his gravestone.
  • One of the visuals showing a modern-style cell phone has the model as "SEN 9". 9 can be pronounced "ku".
• Gotta Catch Them All: In order to build their space shuttle and reach Whyman on the moon, the Kingdom of Science must go to five places around the world and get the resources, namely Corn City (aka North America), Superalloy City (aka South America), Math City (aka India), Rubber City (aka Indonesia/Southeast Asia), and Aluminum City (aka Australia).
• Green Aesop: A slight one, but Senku and the crew have never built a single stationary heat engine. The two power stations in existence, the Ishigami Village Hydroelectricity Plant and the Treasure Island Wind Power Plant, are both powered by renewable energy. The three steam engines and the internal combustion engine he built are all intended for vehicles.
• Groin Attack: Happens a few times (mostly in the Tournament Arc), always visually represented by an egg breaking. In fact, Chrome specifically trains himself to attack Magma's "weak point" because he can't win in a straight fight; the fact that Chrome loves Ruri while Magma is more than willing to let her die (or even kill her himself) to become village chief was presumably also a strong motivating factor.
• Handshake Substitute: Senku is fond of fist bumps and high fives.
  • After seeing him high-five Chrome, Kaseki asks for one as well.
  • In Chapter 61, when Senku, Gen, and Chrome agree on the "Fake Lillian" plan, they combine this with a Team Hand-Stack.
• Hard-Work Montage: Episode 23 of the anime compresses the final steps of the cellphone's construction into a montage set to "Good Morning World", the show's first theme song.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: In Chapter 137, After using it for so long to control the Petrification Kingdom, Minister Ibara is turned to stone by his Medusa device.
• Hollywood CB: Justified with the "cell phone", since it's the only wireless communications system in the world. Plus it was designed by Senku, and both ends have an antenna in a high-up place to get enough range.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Weaponized by one of Dr. Xeno's soldiers against Gen to keep him from hearing about Xeno's scientific weapon.
• Hope Spot: In Chapter 159, once Dr. Xeno realizes that the Kingdom of Science's leader is his old friend and student Senku, Stanley asks if he really wants to go through with the assassination plan. Xeno flashes back to the good times they shared in the old world...but then tells Stanley to take the shot, since he knows Senku would actively oppose his plan to rule the world via superior science.
• Hope Springs Eternal: A grand and philosophical sense happens when Senku first meets Chrome and learns that he had spent years gathering crafting materials to burn, mix up and combine the compounds in various scientific ways believing it to be "Sorcery". Even if Tsukasa manages to kill Senku; he will never truly be able to kill Science because "There will always be some idiot willing to try anything, just to see what happens".
• Hourglass Plot: At the beginning of the series, Tsukasa's primary motivation is to find a cure for his terminally ill (brain dead) and comatose sister Mirai despite it being beyond modern medical science. She gets restored by Senku, just in time for Tsukasa to be terminally injured (stabbed through the chest), forcing Senku to render him comatose (cryogenic stasis) until they can find a cure that's beyond modern medical science (the petri-beam). Mirai even remarks on the situation, saying that Tsukasa spent years looking after her and now she'll spend however long it takes looking after him.
• How Do I Shot Web?: In Chapter 132, Yo's gun runs out of bullets, but he manages to find an even stronger weapon: the Medusa. At first, he's happy, but that quickly fades when he realizes he doesn't know how to use it.
• Human Popsicle: After Tsukasa is dealt a mortal blow, Senku is forced to build a refrigeration unit until they can find a way to save him, using the Petrification event.
• Humans Are Morons: This turns out to be a problem for Why-Man, who thought most or all petrified humans would use enough brainpower to revive themselves naturally, and then successfully figure out how to fix the damaged petrification devices or manufacture more of them. Even the best minds of Earth take over 3700 years' worth of brainpower to revive, and by then all traces of civilization has fallen into ruin by then, giving them more important issues than figuring out how or why they were petrified.
• Humble Goal: A bit of a recurring theme in regards to recruiting people onto Team Science, since it provides just as many small comforts as life-changing marvels. What's the appeal of all Tsukasa's ideals when compared to the ability to eat ramen and drink soda, or listen to a record?
• Hypocritical Humor: In Chapter 100, Gen declares that if someone they consider essential doesn't want to join the crew of the Perseus, he'll just manipulate them into coming along anyway. Shortly afterwards his name is called and he doesn't want to join the crew, but Senku manipulates him into coming along anyway by saying that his skills are essential.
• I Ate WHAT?!: When Senku is mixing the chemicals to make the cure-all drug, he tends to describe them in horrible terms (such as remarking that the Yakuza used sodium hydroxide to dissolve corpses), which makes Kohaku sternly ask "And you're going to feed this to my sister?!" She has the same reaction a few moments later when Senku and Chrome "collect" ammonia by urinating into a jar. Both times, Senku has to explain that they're just using the chemicals to make the final drug.
• Identical Panel Gag: In Chapter 31, Kohaku teasingly suggests that since Chrome can't marry her older sister Ruri, maybe they should get together instead. Chrome dismisses the idea by saying "You're not alike at all, Ruri is a lady and you're a gorilla." The very next panel is the exact same, except Chrome is now sporting multiple Cranial Eruptions as he says "See, you're a gorilla."
• Identical Stranger: The final chapter has Taiju and Yuzuriha getting briefly confused when, after returning from a multi-year Time Skip, they see a scientist who, from behind, looks almost exactly like a grown-up version of Senku... until she turns around and reveals herself to be a woman. A woman who still looks exactly like a Gender Flip of Senku, and who's just as scientifically knowledgeable as he is.
• If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: In Chapter 116, the Evil Chancellor of Treasure Island realizes that there are intruders and sets up a test to ferret them out. He takes the petrified Ryusui (assuming that he's the leader) and orders the harem candidates to take turns smashing him, figuring than anyone loyal to him wouldn't be able to do it. Kohaku almost exposes herself, but Senku gets her to completely break Ryusui into small pieces so they can ship the fragments back to Senku in his drones (and she breaks them precisely so it's easy to reassemble him), then they use nitric acid to bring him back to life.
• I'm Going to Hell for This: Gen, Senku, and Chrome all agree that they're going to hell for their plan to impersonate the long-dead pop singer Lillian Weinberg in order to give Tsukasa's army false hope that America is back to the modern age, which would weaken their resolve for just long enough for them to capture Tsukasa and Hyoga, at the cost of making everyone else super pissed-off at them once the truth comes to light.
• Implacable Man: Tsukasa is invincible in the new age for all intents and purposes, as he's far too strong, fast, and skilled at fighting to be stopped by anything short of gunfire.
• Improbably Quick Coma Recovery: Anyone who's revived after spending 3700 years Taken for Granite wakes up just fine (as long as their statue is intact), and the revival process even heals injuries and diseases, such as Mirai, who had been medically brain-dead for years before being petrified, wakes up and is fully conscious as soon as she emerges. Tsukasa wasn't even fully out of his stone shell before asking "What's the situation?" and then exploded out of the stone to fight the lions.
• The Immune: Thanks to the Why-Man's innate focus on humanity's purported genius, most other species wind up unaffected by the petrification.
• Inexplicably Identical Individuals: The final chapter has a female scientist who looks almost identical to Senku explain how the Why-Man works.
• Infinite Supplies: Once Senku acquires any material or technology for the first time, he can get any amount of it offscreen whenever he wants. Even if Senku is far away from the original location, he always has the right ingredients for crafting with him. This also extends to materials that are explicitly stated to be rare or difficult to get, it becomes a non-issue once Senku finally manages to get some.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Kohaku is given a dress so she can infiltrate a harem. She immediately begins to strip in front of Amaryllis, Senku, Gen, and Soyus. When Amaryllis is astonished by this Kohaku simply responds with, "Oh, are you worried about these guys. They don't mind at all."
• Insufferable Genius: Senku is always ten billion percent certain that things are going to go his way. He offered Taiju a Love Potion, knowing full well that his honest friend would never use it — good thing too because the "potion" was actually gasoline he'd made.
• Item Get!: Every time Senku achieves something, an RPG-style text box comes up to celebrate it.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Despite his Insufferable Genius tendencies, Senku is an idealist who wants to rescue humanity and rebuild civilization. He also values his friends like Taiju and Yuzuriha, and appreciates that they have skills and abilities that he lacks.
  • Tsukasa, after observing Senku's actions, realizes that he wears his heart on his sleeve just as much as Taiju does, as he doesn't always take the optimum course of action and goes out of his way to save people. He's just more socially awkward. In fact, when Senku saw Taiju's petrified body, he was actually really happy to see him before returning to his smug facade.

K-N

• Katanas Are Just Better: On the verge of being attacked by Tsukasa's thugs, Senku has Kaseki create some katanas for the village in order to fend them off. Of course, it works flawlessly, cutting through the invaders' wooden spears with little trouble. Interestingly, the series rejects one of the classic myths of the katana (the "folded hundreds of times" part), with Senku explaining that scientific analysis has shown two folds is all you really need to get most the impurities out.
• Knight Templar: Tsukasa. He murders the petrified bodies of any older person he sees out of the genuine belief that older people are inherently evil and the world would be better off with just young people. This, of course, is what turns Senku and Taiju against him.
• Last-Second Word Swap: When Kohaku asks Kinro and Ginro what they think of her sister Ruri, Ginro says she's got "huge ti... er... huge tides of cuteness that just wash me away...". When Kinro admonishes him for only caring about her appearance, he responds "I said I dig her big ol' ti... tides... didn't I?"
• Lethal Chef: When Ryusui and Senku try to cook bread, it comes out black and inedible... for the modern-day people among them, at least. The natives of the Stone World have never seen bread before, so they eat it just fine, even though it's burnt to a crisp. After realizing that inedible bread won't make good provisions for their trip to South America, the two of them realize that they need to wake up an actual chef.
• Lethal Joke Item:
  • According to Senku, humanity's greatest invention is cellphones. While this seems nonsensical at first, realizing its existence in relation to the setting sets up a whole new dynamic that makes it absurdly useful: long-range telecommunications means that the intel advantage Senku will have over Tsukasa and his army will be vast, making it easy to outmaneuver Tsukasa's larger, tougher enemy army.In fact, when Tsukasa spots it, he immediately recognizes what it's for, destroys it, takes the remains of it with him, and presents it to Senku.
  • During the Tournament Arc, Suika's watermelon helmet becomes this, specifically because of the lenses in the eyeholes. It first allows Kinro to actually see well enough to put up a fight against Magma, and Chrome is able to use the lenses to set Magma on fire and ultimately defeat him. and in the final match between Senku and Ginro, Senku uses the melon as an impromptu lever to crush Ginros' balls and snag his victory.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!:
  • Chapter 169: After capturing Dr. Xeno and revealing the recipe of the Revival Fluid to the Americans, Senku takes Xeno and his current team (consisting of Taiju, Kohaku, Chrome, Gen, Suika, Kaseki, Tsukasa, Hyoga, Ukyo, Ryusui, Francois, Luna, Carlos, and Max) to South America to start up the next city and find clues about the first Petrification event, while the rest of the Perseus stays behind to help the revival in USA.
  • Chapter 200: Following the revival by Superalloy City in South America, the heroes divide their forces. The first group^note Tsukasa, Ginro, and Matsukaze will stay in Superallow City to help Xeno build the rocket engine. The second group^note Taiju, Ukyo, Hyoga, Luna, Carlos, and Max will head back to Corn City to revive everyone and improve corn production to provide crucial alcohol for the revival fluid. The last group^note Senku, Kohaku, Chrome, Suika, Kaseki, Gen, Ryusui, Francois, and Chelsea will continue establishing the super cities across the world and collecting materials for the rocket, finishing their journey in Japan.
• Limited Wardrobe: Everyone only has one outfit (not counting flashback sequences to The Before Times), except for their winter clothing (which can sometimes be just as Exposed to the Elements). Justified, since clothing takes a lot of time and energy to make in a stone-age world.
• Literally Shattered Lives: Tsukasa plans to shatter the petrified bodies of any older adults he comes across. Initially, Senku assumes there's no way to revive a shattered statue, but thanks to Yuzuriha's incredible precision in crafting she is able to repair them into a state they can be restored from.
• A Little Something We Call "Rock and Roll": Senku and the Kingdom of Science bring rock and roll (well, pop) to the villagers. They have a little help from the astronauts from whom Ishigami village is descended, who recorded a glass disc with music from one of them, pop star Lillian Weinberg. Senku builds a record player, and for the first time in millennia, people hear Lillian's music again. There's only the one song recorded, but it's enough to bring the villagers to tears (and Gen is very good at imitating voices, so he can recreate some music).
• Loophole Abuse:
  • In the Tournament Arc for the hand of the village priestess Ruri. The rules to participate state that one must be over the age of fourteen and unmarried. Using this, Kohaku and Senku are able to join, despite Kohaku being a girl and Senku not being a part of the village in the first place.
  • Later, Gen manages to buy time for Chrome by telling Magma if he moves too much, his heart will explode. Which would be cheating in the tournament, being a direct outside influence - but only if his heart explodes. Otherwise, it's just jeering and taunting from the crowd. Senku specifically uses this to placate the judge.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Defied. Upon reaching what is Kamakura and coming across the mostly-intact Great Buddha statue in a field bare of trees, Taiju speculates that it's divine influence that kept the statue intact and kept the area clear. Senkuu explains the Buddha is made of bronze and therefore doesn't break down as easily, and that said bronze leaks copper ions and poisons plant life.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Most of the major characters have names with some kind of important meaning behind them; to name just one example, almost every single one of the villagers' names comes from earth sciences, such as Kohaku (Amber), Chrome, and Magma.
  • The ship the heroes build in the third story arc is named Perseus, after the Greek hero who slew Medusa; Ukyo helpfully explains the reference for the villagers since they wouldn't get it.
• Minimalist Cast: It's the case in the first two volumes, as only a few people seem to have broken free by themselves after everyone was turned into stone. Taiju and Senku are the first two, and they free Tsukasa and Yuzuriha soon after. But then we're introduced to Kohaku and her village of 40 people.
• Moment Killer: A non-romantic example. When Taiju finally gets to speak with Senku again in Season 2 Episode 3, it's a very emotional moment, to the point that Taiju is only able to say "I..." and "Senku!" until the two words mash together into "I am Senku!" At this point, the music immediately cuts as Senku points out "No, you're not. I'm Senku."
• Mundane Utility: Discussed by Senku when he says that not only could the source of petrification to not only cure Tsukasa of his fatal injuries but also to petrify fish so they can remain fresh for as long as possible. Lampshaded by Ukyo of how a calamity that started the story can be turned into an everyday convenience.
• Murder by Mistake: Attempted by Magma. Upon hearing about a "sorcerer" (Senku) who might interfere with his plans, he sees Gen pull a magic trick that makes him think that he's the sorcerer and nearly kills him with a spear. It's only averted because Gen is paranoid enough to be wearing the equivalent of a Bulletproof Vest and packets of fake blood under his clothes to trick anyone who might attack him.
• Naked on Revival: Almost all the people revived from stone are this, since whatever clothing they were wearing rotted away in the intervening 3700 years. Defied in a few cases like Yuzuriha's, where Taiju insists on dressing her before they use the "miracle water" in order to preserve her dignity.
• The Nameless: When the 40 villagers are first introduced, all of their names are given save one. In the third arc, he reveals that his name is Soyuz, named after the Soyuz spacecraft that the astronauts returned to Earth in, and that he and the inhabitants of Treasure Island are their direct descendants.
• Never Learned to Read: The entirety of the village is illiterate, having regressed to oral traditions in order to spread wisdom. In the third arc, Senku used some of his free time during the year it took to build the Perseus to try and teach Japanese to the villagers. Kohaku seemingly didn't learn since she has to resort to pictographs at one point, and Ginro openly blew off the lessons (to the surprise of nobody).
• Never Smile at a Crocodile: In their first venture into California (which has become a swamp thanks to the tilt of the Earth's Axis), the Perseus crew runs into a bask of crocodiles, each as big as the mobile lab. Thankfully, the warriors of the crew make short work of them.
• New Life in Another World Bonus:
  • The "other world" is technically just Earth, but after humanity has been petrified for 3700 years, nature has covered the whole world, making it nearly unrecognizable. Thankfully, most of the major characters who are de-petrified bring extremely useful skills with them:
  • Senku, the main character, is a Teen Genius with extremely advanced knowledge in practically all fields of science. He knows how to make increasingly high-tech items from scratch, survive in the wilderness, identify useful materials, etc.
  • Taiju has near-limitless stamina and strength. He's too kind-hearted to use his strength for violent purposes, but he can easily take care of the large amount of manual labor needed to build up society.
  • Like Taiju, Tsukasa also has enormous strength. Unlike him, he's much more willing to use this power against others, making him the group's main combatant... at least for the short time he's with them, as he quickly becomes the Big Bad.
  • Yuzuriha has amazing manual dexterity. On top of making her a great seamstress, she's also able to reassemble petrified humans that have been smashed to pieces, allowing them to be revived.
  • Gen is The Social Expert, boasting profound knowledge of human psychology. Once he joins the Kingdom of Science, he's able to persuade others into joining his cause, and manipulate or bluff enemies.
  • Hyoga was another combatant with practically superhuman skills similar to Tsukasa. His skill with the kudayari spear makes him practically invincible in combat.
  • Ryusui was an expert sailor before the petrification event, and his talent for navigation proves useful when the Kingdom of Science wants to expand or travel to new lands.
• Nice Guy: Taiju. He desires the well-being of everyone around him and attempts to resolve situations as peacefully as possible.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • In an attempt to deduce the invader from the harem, Minister Ibara takes the petrified Ryusui and has the women smash him to prove that they're not the invaders. However, the Kingdom of Science takes advantage of this by having Kohaku smash Ryusui into bits and ship the parts back to them where they reassemble and revive him. Ibara himself later sees the result of this mistake when he later encounters Ryusui and recognizes him as the statue he had the harem smash.
  • When Hyoga is revived and released by Senku, he goes on a speech about how he simply wants to to do a "culling of humanity" and only "pass on superior genetics". Moz attempts to lure him to his side by telling him he also practices selection by only choosing the prettiest and cutest girls on the village. It only demonstrates to the newly revived Hyoga that Moz is just a shallow Harem Seeker and prompts him to perform a Heel–Face Turn by lending his strength to Senku instead.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: In chapter 185, Suika and Francois are tasked to wait outside the Perseus crew base so they can depetrify everyone when the repaired Medusa petrifies the heroes and the Americans. However, the army-ant bug spray on them scares a poisonous spider off a tree and onto an American soldier, who it bites and nearly puts her into shock. Suika takes the nitroglycerine vial Senku gave them to go over to the soldier and places a swab of it on the bite mark, restarting her heart. But Suika is soon spotted by Stanley's men at the end of the chapter. Subverted in the next chapter, as this gives away the position of Stanley's unit..
• Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught: Chapter 144's poker game comes down to this, with Gen using all his sleight-of-hand tricks to try and cheat in Ryusui's favor while Kohaku (siding with Senku) uses her exceptional eyesight to try and catch him. After catching him a few times, Kohaku declares that Gen isn't allowed to move his hands at all during the game. In the final hand, Gen is still able to use misdirection to slip Ryusui four Aces, but Senku counters by having Kohaku use her speed to pull marked cards out of the middle of the deck, giving him a Royal Straight Flush.
• Not Quite Back to Normal: Some de-petrified characters still have a few bits of stone on their bodies after being revived. Some of Yuzuriha's toes are still stone, as are a few strands of Senku's hair and a spot on his neck, which allows him to be revived after Tsukasa kills him via Neck Snap.

O-R

• Old-Fashioned Fruit Stomping:
  • The earlier chapters has Senku and Taiju stomping fruit to make wine to distill into brandy for making revival fluid.
  • While Senku is making stronger lightbulbs, Kohaku and Ruri are seen stomping grapes into wine.
• Oh, Crap!: After arriving at the fated 'Treasure Island', Senku, Gen, Kohaku, and Soyuz set out to make first contact with the islands inhabitants. Gen and Soyuz briefly return to the ship to make contact, only to discover that the entire crew aboard the ship had been petrified in the time they were gone, prompting the two to simply shout in terror at the revelation and it's implications.
• One-Man Industrial Revolution: Senku introduces certain modern mechanics, food, and systems to a civilization much earlier than they would have done it themselves under their circumstances.
  • Ultimately, though, the theme of this trope is averted. For all of Senku's knowledge, he by himself is stuck at little more than a stone age level of technology, needing the unique specialized skills and raw manpower of others to go further, such as Taijuu's raw manpower, Kaseki's craftsmanship, Chrome's collection of metals and knowledge of where to find more, Yuzuriha's precision were all key to getting them past the industrial revolution, and further advancement is predicated on accessing the resources and skills of people from all over the world as more and more specialized skills are called for to keep pushing onwards closer to the modern age.
• Only Mostly Dead: Tsukasa seemingly kills Senku with a Neck Snap, but it turns out Senku had been drawing attention to his neck for months, conditioning Tsukasa to strike there. When Taiju and Yuzuriha find Senku's body, they realize there's a tiny stone fragment left on the back of his neck, and pouring miracle fluid on it heals his broken neck and revives him.
• Only Six Faces: A limited example, but it's been noted that female characters are mostly differentiated by hair, eyes and clothes. Compare Homura◊ with Sapphire or compare Ruri, Kohaku, Lillian, Sapphire and Yuzuriha ^note While Kohaku and Ruri are sisters, the anime implies Lillian died before she gave birth to any child, which means the two are not related to her.
• Oral Tradition: Ruri, the priestess of Ishigami Village, has the responsibility of remembering and reciting the "Hundred Stories" compiled by their ancestor Byakuya Ishigami more than 3000 years ago. Many of these include useful information about the natural world, but they also include a mashup of Momotarō and Fist of the North Star.
• Out-of-Character Alert: In Chapter 166, Ryusui realizes the Stanley he and Senku were in a dog-fight with was an imposter when she failed to land a hit on either of time while only a couple feet away.
• Panacea: It's revealed that the process of un-petrifying an individual can heal terminal injuries they had prior to petrifaction, including a broken neck in the case of Senku and being full-on brain death in the case of Tsukasa's little sister Mirai. Senku later discovers the process behind the petrification, successfully petrifying and then reviving Tsukasa, healing him of the stab wound he got from Hyoga.
• Pale Females, Dark Males: Most females of the series are noticeably lighter skinned than the males, most of the men being olive-complexioned or frankly tanned.
• Perma-Shave: Most of the older men (Kohaku's father and Kaseki, for instance) have beards, but Senku, Tsukasa, Gen, and Magma don't. While Senku, Gen, and Tsukasa may still be young enough that they wouldn't be growing facial hair, Taiju is the same age and he grows a beard which he has to shave with sharp shells. We also see Chrome with stubble after he's spent several sleepless nights inventing the waterwheel, so presumably the villagers know how to shave. Also, none of the female characters have body hair.
• Phone Call from the Dead: Subverted. The phone hidden at Senku's empty grave allows Taiju and Yuzuriha to talk with him, but they know he's not dead. Lampshaded by the narration jokingly calling it a "communications device to the spirit world".
• Pietà Plagiarism:
  • When Senku and Taiju revive Yuzuriha, Taiju holds her in his arms in a similar pose. Unlike most versions of the trope, she's actually just woken up from healing, rather than dying.
  • Later on it's played straight, with Taiju holding Senku in his arms just after Tsukasa broke his neck.
• Pink Mist: An Imagine Spot in chapter 154 shows the entire top half of Taiju's body exploding after being shot by Stanley's sniper rifle.
• Pit Trap: The Empire of Might builds pit traps around the cell they're holding Chrome in, so the Kingdom of Science can't use their tank to stage a rescue.
• Placebo Effect: Throughout the Grand Bout, Ginro is seen chewing on leaves. The leaves are an ingredient to a drink Senku concocted as a form of improvised doping, which Ginro also drank before anyone else could. Ginro is convinced that if the original drink was potent, the raw ingredients should be even more so. Senku stops Chrome from telling him all the raw ingredients will do is give him the runs, citing a combination of this being Ginro's first time ever being hopped up on the caffeine he's been ingesting and his own gullibility convincing him he's invincible. Indeed, Ginro wins... and immediately runs off in a Potty Emergency from the aforementioned runs.
• Plucky Girl: Yuzuriha, after being unpetrified, she adapts to the situation pretty quickly.
• Pragmatic Hero: Senkuu has absolutely no qualms about taking an axe to a bronze statue of a Buddha to create a mirror for his primitive sextant, despite Taiju calling him a blasphemer.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: When Senku just made the mobile lab run over Ibara, he drops this line: "You wouldn't know, since you're not a modern timer, but it's dangerous to play in traffic!" [runs over him again]
• The Prima Donna: Lilian Weinberg's first appearance in Chapter 43 shows her whining about the cramped conditions on the space station and treating the actual astronauts like crap. It's quickly subverted, however, and she's shown to be a very down-to-Earth girl who put on that attitude as a joke.
• Present Day: Humanity was frozen in stone in the year 2019, two years after the manga's debut. Flashbacks to the de-petrified characters' early lives (namely Senku's) also accordingly take place in the 2000s and 2010s.
• Put on a Bus: After helping Senku recover from Tsukasa's nearly-fatal attack, Taiju and Yuzuriha are tasked with keeping an eye on Tsukasa's activities while Senku goes on to find Kohaku's tribe.
• Pyrrhic Victory: In chapter 188, Kohaku, Tsukasa, and Hyoga are able to destroy the Americans' communicator, giving the Perseus crew an advantage in their final battle. However, the trio suffered life-threatening injuries, relying on the faint hope that their friends will activate the Medusa in time to petrify them so they can be healed afterwards.
• Race Against the Clock: Senku claims that it only takes 20 seconds for an enemy to get over their Oh, Crap! panic and start to think naturally, so the assault on the Cave of Miracles has to be completed in less than 20 seconds. Chapter 75 has a timer counting down to zero as they attack.
• Ragnarök Proofing: Mostly Averted. Very very little remains of modern society three thousand years after everybody turned to stone. So far the only remnant of modern society seen that still exists in the Stone World is a bronze Buddha statue. On the other hand, the people turned to stone have no wear on their bodies, despite thousands of years of exposure to wind, rain and waves. With the curious exception of Yuzuriha's headband, which somehow remained intact through her petrification.
• Reclaimed by Nature: Right at the start of the series, a montage shows the passage of time through Taiju's eyes. Foliage begins to grow over structures all over the world until eventually metal begins to decay and stone structures literally crumble away. 3700 years later, there's almost no trace of anything humanity ever created.
• Refusal of the Call: Quite literally in Chapter 100. When calling up the crew of the Perseus, Ryusui states that "only the resolute" should join; those who are unable or unwilling to make the journey can stay in Ishigami Village without shame. Though Senku and Gen talk about manipulating anyone they deem necessarry into joining, Ryusui points out that forcing someone to come along against their will is a recipe for disaster. While a few background characters stay behind, the only named character to refuse is Ginro...but only as part of a plot to ingratiate himself to the girls of the village, and he ends up on the ship anyhow.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Hyoga gives a truly great one, in the style of a Patrick Stewart Speech, to Moz after he manages to beat him. In the end, all of Moz's Smug Super arrogance, all of his natural strength and fighting genius can't compare to the wisdom passed down by ages of human training and perseverance.
• The Reveal:
  • Kohaku's village is called Ishigami village - which is also Senku's surname.
  • In Chapter 120, the group finally discovers the true identity Treasure Island's leader: A person who was seemingly petrified and only partially restored, since the right side of his face is an exposed skull while the left side is intact (and bears a resemblance to Soyuz).
  • Chapter 228: The Why-Man isn't a single being but rather the Medusa devices themselves. The devices are mechanical organisms that see the petrification as a benefit for intelligent species like humans.
• Romanticism Versus Enlightenment: The crux of Tsukasa and Senku's stances respectively, are whether that Modern, 21st century society is something that is good and therefore worth restoring due to the technological progress and high standards of living, or bad and should be replaced due to its inequality and corruption.
• Rule of Cool: The comic, while preaching about how science is awesome, it does employ fantastic elements that defy logic, like Tsukasa having enough strength to defeat lions with his bare hands.
• Rule of Funny: Likewise, the comic does employ other elements like Shout Outs to other works of fiction for the sake of a gag, like references to Fist of the North Star, Art Shift included.
• Running Gag: Senku will announce his next planned project, which draws a comically aghast reaction from his fellow revived humans, who know what he is talking about, and are forever in utter disbelief at the things Senku can and will build in the Stone World.
  • Chrome (and occasionally Kaseki) will unveil a brilliant new invention they've just come up with, expecting to knock the socks off of Senku and the other "Old Worlders"...only for them to casually reveal that they already know what it is, prompting a Face Fault from the sciencer. This is usually coupled with Chrome giving his invention an overly complex name that contrasts with its "real" name (cf. "ever-turning cotton candy machine" versus "water wheel").
  • The Science Kingdom's tradition: (Gen doing) back-breaking intensive manual labor.
  • Kaseki's muscles tearing through his clothes whenever he get excited.

S-T

• Scarecrow Solution: Senku has to rescue Chrome who was captured by the Kingdom of Might, but cannot injure any of the guards or he'll ruin a potential alliance with an informant. The kingdom of science builds a functional tank, but Senku replaces the gun with an air cannon that makes a sound like a bomb that scares the guards away.
• Scars Are Forever: A side effect of the de-petrification process is that prominent cracks are permanently created on the body when the stone breaks apart unevenly, creating quick identifiers to separate those who were de-petrified and those who were born into the Stone World. In the Treasure Island arc it's discovered that this is a side effect of thousands of years of weathering, causing the surface layer of stone to flake off like dead skin. When Ryusui and Taiju are re-petrified for a few days and then restored, the stone simply transforms back into flesh, even healing the scars that came with their first restorations. In Chapter 141, Gen has everyone whose scars were healed use face paint to re-create them as a symbol of their fight against the petrification.
• Scary Flashlight Face: Gen wakes Senku up with this before dawn on New Year's Day.
• Scenery Censor: Every petrified person is nude, so these are used often.
• Schizo Tech: Thanks to Senku being a One-Man Industrial Revolution we get some very wacky technological progress, with advancements leapfrogging over entire eras with borderline (and sometimes literal) Bamboo Technology. We get rudimentary mobile phones before Senku and his gang bother to teach others agriculture or reading and writing!
• Science Hero: Senku — while he may come off as an egotistical jerk, he really does want to restore as much of humanity as he can.
• Science Is Bad: Tsukasa feels that technology is a plague that corrupts humanity and seeks to eliminate Senku, the only one who can bring it back.
• Science Is Good: An overall theme, despite the above. After an apocalyptic event sees all of humanity petrified for thousands of years, science geek Senkuu must use his knowledge to help bring the world back out of the stone age. Scientific advancement is treated as the true potential of the human race, and anyone who works against it is shown to be selfishly holding everyone back for personal gain.
• Serial Escalation: It's not individual characters that get new powers, rather it's humanity itself that obtains new abilities and technologies via science, as lampshaded by the "(Insert New Thing) Acquired!" sign that appears every few chapters/episodes. Senku starts out with nothing, completely naked, and gradually amasses more and more technology such as electricity, antibiotics, telephones, motor vehicles, a large boat with radar technology capable of long-distance trips...
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Senku's ultimate project at the end of the story is to build a time machine with help from the Why-Man who remained on Earth, in order to both save all the petrified people who were lost or shattered and to keep the Why-Men from sacrificing a lot of their own kind for nothing. The crew has no clear idea of how to go about changing history, but Senku is nevertheless excited for it.
• Shout-Out: Quite a few...
  • Senku openly says that he was inspired to become a scientist by Doraemon, and one flashback chapter shows a model of the RX-78-2 Gundam in his room.
  • If his talk about "leveling up" and "game over" wasn't a big enough clue, Senku loves video games and has directly referenced titles like Super Mario Bros., Civilization, Dragon Quest, and Monster Hunter.
  • Chapter 63 almost seems like a specific reference to Monster Hunter, with Senku employing techniques from the franchise (sound bombs, a flashbang grenade, and a phosphorescent trail similar to the Scoutflies from World) to try and capture Tsukasa's spy Homura.
  • The 100 Stories' version of Momotarō looks a lot like Kenshiro, complete with his iconic chest-scars. A brief flash of the other Stories in Chapter 31 shows Ai from Video Girl Ai (partly hidden by a text bubble), a distorted version of Pikachu, and what appears to be Shin Dragon.
  • Speaking of Video Girl Ai, in an interview with Anime News Network, Boichi revealed that Yuzuriha's headdress (specifically the spiral parts on the ends) is an homage to Ai's distinctive hairstyle.
  • In episode 12, as the crew is trying to gather sulfuric acid, Ginro is holding onto Chrome with his spear to keep him from falling into the acidic lake. During the sequence, a representation of sulfuric acid's danger (a skeletal angel figure made out of poison gas from the waist down) is shown flying at the crew. When Ginro conquers his fears and lifts his spear up to get Chrome out of danger, that figure is also lifted into the air, and then dropped into one of the team's glass containers, to represent their victory over the dangerous chemical. This sequence is remarkably similar to how the Evil Containment Wave (Mafūba) is depicted in the Dragon Ball series: the target is trapped in a swirling green vortex of energy, raised high into the air, and then slammed down into a jar to contain them.
  • When Senku tells the villagers about humanity's art and culture, it's accompanied by a giant collage showing (among other things) Sherlock Holmes, Sun Wukong, Son Goku, Captain Nemo and the Nautilis, and the Martian tripods. 2001: A Space Odyssey is also name-dropped but doesn't get a specific image tied to it.
  • In Chapter 21, Kohaku turns into the Armored Titan while yelling at Senku and Chrome; this gag is cut out of the anime.
  • In another, Magma gets an Imagine Spot of himself punching out an enemy that makes him look more than a little like All Might.
  • Senku's mental image of tungsten as "the king of heat-resistant metals" is Godzilla with the English word "TUNGSTEN" making up his back spines.
  • Yuzuriha's sewing-style is less Martha Stewart, more Kenshiro.
  • In Chapter 93, when Senku is being dressed up for the first post-petrification photograph, one of the outfits makes him look like Freddie Mercury, complete with a mic stand and black mustache.
  • Chapter 100 has a sequence directly homaging JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind: when the Perseus sets sail, Ginro (who initially refused to go) jumps in the water and swims after them as if he changed his mind and wants to join them. This references Narancia's last-second change of heart after Bruno decides to rebel against the Boss. The difference is that Ginro didn't want to join the crew at all, and just faked the change of heart to score points with the ladies...but ends up getting picked up by Senku and co. anyway, making his plan a failure all around.
  • In Chapter 33, while refining sulfuric acid into hydrochloric acid, Senku adds "salt to taste" in the same manner as "Salt Bae".
  • Chapter 109 features Suika running with a stick with poop on the end of it. Her Suika Cap is also sporting little wings. The image is meant as a reference to Dr. Slump's Arale.
  • Magma's performance in the English dub is comparable to Gaston.
  • The splash page of Chapter 132 has Senku and Kohaku dressed as Ryo Saeba and Kaori Makimura.
  • In Chapter 140, when the team determines that their next huge project will eventually need an extremely powerful fighter, Magma suggests holding another tournament to decide who goes. Senku refers to that idea as a fun-filled "strongest-under-the-heavens tournament" before dismissing it. That particular phrasing is the translated name of the "Tenkaichi Budokai" tournament from the Dragon Ball series, which is often localized as the World Martial Arts Tournament.
  • In Chapter 174, when the Perseus crew sends out the Mobile Lab to distract Stanley and the other Americans, Kaseki, Chrome, Suika, and Taiju wave it goodbye. Taiju in particular is holding up the back of his arm with an 'X' drawn on his wrist, a reference to the Straw Hat Pirates goodbye to Vivi and Carue at the end of the Alabasta arc.
  • Also in Chapter 174, the final panel has Senku dressed as The Michelin Man of all things, as a celebration of them acquiring rubber.
  • In chapter 183, when Senku mentions his plans for Superalloy City an Imagine Spot shows the Tyrell Corporation building on a cityscape.
  • In chapter 205, Sai covers the walls of his room with code for a Dragon Quest game. What Senku imagines, though, is a scene from Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai of Dai, Popp and Leona fighting dragons at Bergana Kingdom.
  • The premiere of season 3 shows Senku's team exploring their new area in the style of Minecraft.
• Shown Their Work:
  • The artist managed to nail the feeling of the first time someone who was nearsighted from birth puts on glasses.
  • The science in the manga is generally extremely accurate, and it's pretty clear the author is going out of his way to avoid any artistic licenses. However, there are occasional slip ups from the author.
  • The International Space Station is very accurately depicted, due in part to the artist using about 440 reference pictures.
  • Hyoga's spear, the Kuda Yari, and the style he uses, the Owari Kan Ryu, are both real and well-documented.
  • Senku and Xeno deduce the origin of the petrification beam was the city of Manaus in Brazil, which is known for its industrial zone. Funnily enough, the particular coordinates they come up with match an inconspicuous street near a cemetary.
• Sibling Team: Kinrou and Ginrou are brothers and the guards of Ishigami Village.
• Skewed Priorities: Despite making constant video game references, Senku clearly never played any of the Civilization games, if his personal Tech Tree is anything to go by. However all his choices are justified somehow. For instance:
  • By reusing the design of the iron furnace, Senku made an glass furnace to produce various glasswares, eyeglasses, incandescent bulb and vacuum tubes, skipping the stove until much later. Even his bread-baking oven, created well after he created the stove, is still based on the iron furnace design.
  • Senku has forgone stationary fuel-fired electricity entirely. His lab and the village are powered by man power first, then (after getting gears and a waterwheel) run-of-the-flow hydroelectricity from a nearby river. Even the radio station he left on the Treasure Island, well after he gained a steam engine, is powered using a wind turbine. This gave him electric power without a heat engine, steam powered or otherwise. It also means that his power stations have no fuel requirement and thus very little labor to maintain it.
  • At one point while developing Ruri's cure, Senku manages to mill grain into flour. Instead of baking bread with it, he uses it to make ramen, which seems less efficient, but makes sense since Senku's plan is to use the food to convince villagers to work for him, and better-tasting food is better for that purpose. The manga also reveals that Senku doesn't know how to bake bread and needs to revive an actual chef to properly make any bread.
  • With an army breathing down the village's neck, does Senku get to work on trying to make firearms? Nope, his next step is inventing cell phones, since Senku would prefer a non-violent resolution to the conflict. Plus, without nitric acid; a key component in not only making Revival Fluid but also gunpowder that Tsukasa has control over, making gunpowder would not be possible.
  • Sixty chapters in, Senku hasn't taught the villagers anything about agriculture— they're able to domesticate animals, as seen by the presence of Chalk the dog, but there's no sign that they have any type of farming. This subject (and bread-making!) finally comes up in chapter 90, well after the conflict with Tsukasa is dealt with, now that the population spike brings the need for more food. The next chapter also establishes the soil around Ishigami village was too acidic and varied for inexperienced farmers, both Ishigami Village natives and ex-Kingdom of Might members, to have worked with before Senku arrived.
  • Senku wishes to teach science to the villagers. Writing would be massively helpful for that purpose, but the immense difficulty of teaching the villagers how to read and write, combined with the existence of more pressing matters prevent him from teaching literacy until the year-long Time Skip in Chapter 99. Him not being a good communicator of science doesn't help either, as few people from the village besides Chrome can keep up with his train of thought. Although it is obvious that as long as one can keep up with Senku, for example Chrome, he did a good job at transferring knowledge. Think primary school teacher (what it takes to teach the general villagers science and writing) versus university professor (Senku, with Chrome being his graduate student.)
  • With iron and coal mines, mine carts, steam engines and electric motors ready, it is surprising to see the folks preferring paved highway/autobahn over railway for bulk transport of mineral from the mine to the river port. Railways are usually more efficient, and since it is close to a river, hydroelectricity powered electric locomotives are cheap to operate, require no fuel and emit no pollution.
• Smashing Watermelons: The picture of the beach scene in Chapter 99 shows a blindfolded Chrome doing this, as Suika hides among the other melons.
• Solar-Powered Magnifying Glass:
  • Possibly the most badass instance of this trope during the Tournament Arc. Chrome ends up faced off against Magma and has no hope of winning in a straight fight, so he uses a lens from Suika's glasses that were left on the arena floor to try and light Magma's clothes on fire. It takes a massive string of contrivances to work — since eyeglass lenses are concave, Chrome has to fill them with his own sweat and tears to create a convex lens, then hold absolutely still to keep from disturbing the surface of the water. Likewise Magma needs to be held in place for 60 seconds, so Gen claims that he cast a spell that will make Magma's heart explode if he moves a muscle, adding that he can only maintain the spell for one minute. The plan works perfectly because Magma plays along with the bluff (he either believes it, or sees it as an opportunity to catch his breath for a minute), and because Chrome's dedication to saving the woman he loves allows him to stay stock-still and keep the water "lens" from breaking.
  • There is also a traditional example, from a flashback in Chapter 10/Episode 4, featuring Senku as a child using a magnifying glass to light a sheet of paper on fire, though he soon graduates to making thermite and a jet engine.
• Sole Surviving Scientist: The entire premise. Senku's exceptionally strong mind allows him to survive being petrified for over 3700 years. Once he's back to life, he sets out to revive all of humanity and recreate modern technology from scratch.
• Sonic Stunner: Senku invents a sound cannon for the assault on the Cave of Miracles. It's a metal dish that projects a loud sound (like a small explosion) in one direction. When they run out of sound bombs, Taiju grabs the dish and shouts directly into it, blasting all the mooks behind him.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil: The antagonists stay fresh by escalating not just in power but in theme: science vs brawn, science vs magic, science vs science, and finally, science vs the petrifiers.
• Space Is Noisy: Averted, unsurprisingly considering the story's scientific focus. In the anime, the Soyuz docking at the ISS and later, the ISS reentering the atmosphere and burning up are almost completely silent. The only sound is radio transmissions from the Soyuz's pilot, Shamil, to the station during docking.
• Spoiler Opening: The opening for Season 2 of the anime spoils that Senku will invent a car that will later be upgraded into a tank.
• Springtime for Hitler:
  • In Chapter 100, Ginro refuses to go on the Perseus when it leaves Ishigami Village, but as they start sailing away he has a change of heart and starts desperately swimming after the ship. In reality, he's faking the whole thing, believing that his seemingly desperate attempt to join the crew will make him look like a hero to the women of the village. His plan utterly fails when he gets picked up by the ship's sonar and brought on board by Taiju.
  • Ginro tries this again in Chapter 111, where he is Dragged into Drag and made to join Kohaku and Amaryllis in infiltrating the harem selection. He tries to act as boyish as possible to avoid being chosen, but Minister Ibara thinks he's a cute tomboy and picks him anyway.
• Stone Wall: Taiju can take a beating easily, but he has no skill in fighting or even the capacity to hit another human being. His solution to dealing with Tsukasa was to allow him to "beat him as much as he wanted" if it meant he would stop killing statues. Tsukasa, being The Spock, is simply confused as he can't see the logic behind that.
• Taken for Granite: This happened with all of humanity (and a certain bird species) for thousands of years. The petrified people can eventually break free in mysterious ways, such as having specific chemicals used on them. Disturbingly enough, countless people got shattered beyond help right off the bat and some of those who survived were still conscious during the whole process.
• Take Up My Sword: In chapter 160, after Senku is gravely injured by Stanley, he passes the mantle of head scientist to Chrome until he recovers.
• Tall Poppy Syndrome: In order for Tsukasa's vision of the future to be a reality, he'll kill anyone capable of progressing technology beyond the stone age. That's why Senku predicts Tsukasa will also want to kill Chrome.
• Tanks, but No Tanks: The armored vehicle that the Kingdom of Science builds is called a tank, even though it clearly has wheels rather than treads and has a single-use cannon. Semi-justified, since the terminology may be different in Japanese, and none of the villagers have ever even seen a wheel before, let alone a tank (and none of the people from The Before Times (Senku, Gen, Taiju, and Yuzuriha) who are involved in making it were involved in or interested in the military, so they probably don't care about the distinction).
• Taser Tag Weakness: Senku MacGyvers a taser out of the wires and batteries in one of the cell phones the Kingdom of Science built, using it to take down Hyoga.
• Taught by Experience: In Chapter 193, as a new wave of petrification proceeds to engulf the world once again, Soyuz on Treasure Island and Kokuyo in Ishigami Village, having been briefed by Senku on the effects of petrification, immediately orders everyone to take up defensive postures - curling into fetal positions - helping them minimize the chance of body parts breaking off while petrified.
• Team Hand-Stack: In Chapter 61, Senku, Gen, and Chrome agree on the "Fake Lillian" plan by putting all three of their fists together.
• Techno Babble: Most of Senku's tech-talk wouldn't survive a scientific verification.
• Tech Tree: Tech trees are used to represent the path to Senku's greatest and most complex inventions, such as the sulfa drug or phones.
• Teenage Wasteland: Even though few of his goons look it, Tsukasa aims to reshape the world as one by destroying the petrified adults.
• Tempting Fate: In Chapter 5, after discovering Tsukasa's murderous intentions, Senku thinks to himself that they'll have to do whatever it takes to keep him from finding out about the cave of miracles and the revival fluid...only seconds before Taiju comes running onto the scene, happily announcing at the top of his lungs that the cave has produced enough revival fluid to restore Yuzuriha. Senku's reaction to this is priceless.
• Theme Naming: Kohaku's village of 40 has names based off of various rocks, metals, gems, and minerals. All except one...
• The Power of Friendship: Played straight and also exaggerated to the Power of Society - the Kingdom of Science's greatest achievements require the cooperation of many, many people.
• This Is My Boomstick: Senku uses his knowledge of chemistry and modern technology to impress the people from Kohaku's village, but never pretends it's magic, and explains to anyone who will listen (mostly just Chrome) exactly how these things work. He coats Kinro's speartip with a gold compound, and wins over more villagers to his side with the food of the gods: ramen.
• Time-Compression Montage: An epic one in the first episode, showing millennia of Humanity's Wake.
• Time Skip:
  • Chapter 99 takes place over the course of a year as the Perseus gets built, as told through photographs taken by Minami using the camera acquired in Chapter 93.
  • Chapter 194: The Kingdom of Science re-activates a Medusa to petrify everyone on earth to avoid getting massacred by Stanley's soldiers. The story picks up several years later when Suika gets de-petrified by a device they set up ahead of time.
  • Another one follows seven years later after Suika is finally able to replicate the revival formula. By the time she succeeds in bringing back Senku, she's now 18 years old.
• Title Drop:
  • Taiju decides that Senku is "Dr. Stone" when he notes how much effort he went through trying to find a solution for petrification. Also retroactively turns the title into a Character Title since it now refers to Senku.
  • Senku also drops the title when referring to soap as a "Doctor Stone" due to cleanliness being humanity's best way of preventing disease.
  • In chapter 140, Senku mentions yet another "Dr. Stone": the Medusa, or petrification device, which can restore people to perfect health if they are petrified and then revived.
  • All the "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue in the final volume has to say about Senku is that he indeed became known as "Dr. Stone" for his hard work in restoring civilization.
  • The Bonus Chapter provides yet another "Dr. Stone": other planets, which are essentially giant rocks that can be colonized using the power of the Medusa to obtain resources not available on Earth and further improve humanity.
• Toilet Seat Divorce: After his Accidental Marriage to Ruri, Senku was rewarded with his Alcohol and Vinegar that he needed to create Sulfa Drugs to cure his new wife with. However after a serious coughing fit where Ruri was starting to cough up blood showed that time was now starting to seriously run out, and that the other Villagers were wanting him to stay to celebrate the night, Senku immediately files for divorce before grabbing the Alcohol and Vinegar before hightailing it back to his Labratory.
• Token Evil Teammate:
  • Magma following Senku becoming chief of the village. While he does not want to kill Senku, finding his science interesting and even save him from a mica pit trap, he still has ambitions to become the leader of the Kingdom of Science and is the first to suggest killing their enemies when they have the chance.
  • For the Empire of Might we have Hyoga. In contrast to its leader Tsukasa, Hyoga does not hesitate to sacrifice his allies to test for sulfuric gas, and eventually uses Mirai as bait to lethally stab Tsukasa, as part of his vision to resurrect only the talented and elite humans.
• Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe:
  • Justified, since the main characters are Japanese high school students. Senku finding a tribe of primitive humans may seem convenient, but it's eventually revealed that they're the descendants of astronauts who returned to Earth after the "Petrification Ray" event; since the ray seemed to originate somewhere in South America, they chose to land near Japan since it's on the opposite side of the planet and therefore the farthest place from Ground Zero. The reboot further elaborates that Shamil suggested they land near a well-stocked space facility in Ukraine, but ultimately the astronauts went with Japan because landing on solid ground without support is far more difficult, and the ocean provided a much safer margin of error.
  • In reboot, Byakuya describes the landing procedure to Lillian using Japanese landmarks as a frame of reference, comparing it to throwing an egg from on top of Mt. Fuji and aiming for a schoolyard in Kagoshima. Despite being an average American, Lillian understands the reference completely.
• Too Long; Didn't Dub: The English dub didn't bother to audibly translate Gen's battery making song in episode 23 for the original simuldub, but instead used subtitles. The home release has it fully dubbed.
• Traumatic Haircut: Yuzuriha gets her long hair chopped off as a threat to Senku when Tsukasa takes her hostage. Subverted though, because she claims it's better that way anyway.
• Treetop Town: The Head's village on Treasure Island is built on platforms in the branches of gigantic trees.
• Triumphant Reprise: In the anime, the first opening "Good Morning World!" plays over the cell phone components being completed.
• Try Not to Die: Chrome refuses to carry on science if Senku dies collecting sulfuric acid, as a way of forcing him to come back alive. This is followed by a flashback to Kohaku doing the same thing for her sister Ruri. Ruri and their father asked Kohaku to memorize the 100 Stories in case Ruri died, but she refused to let that be a possibility.

U-Z

• Undying Loyalty: Senku, Taiju, and Yuzuriha have all shown a willingness to die for each other, but special mention goes to Taiju, who trusts Senku so much that he'll go along with any one of Senku's plans without knowing what the plan is.
• Universal Eyeglasses: Suika is extremely short-sighted, so Senku crafts a set of corrective lenses for her, built into her watermelon helmet in place of actual glasses. During the tournament to decide the next chief of the village, her watermelon helmet winds up on Kinro's head, correcting his vision and allowing him to win his match. It also allows him to admit that his eyesight is less than perfect, but it is implied to be nowhere near to the same degree as Suika, whose lenses logically should have overcorrected. Downplayed Example, because both are near-sighted, and overcorrection generally still allows people to see clearly, especially young, healthy people like Kinro. It would be tiring (scaling with how much overcorrection there was), but for a minute or two of battle? Perfectly fine.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Taiju has none of the scientific knowledge necessary to help recreate civilization and he has no skill at all in fighting or hunting, but he's as strong as an ox and his body is built like a tank. As such, he's most useful handling the demanding physical labor that Senku and Yuzuriha can't do.
• Visual Calculus:
  • The second season intro features Senku's mind pouring calculations outwards around his classroom while contemplating. It also features Chrome and Ren admiring the science equations that swirl around them.
  • When Senku first meets Chrome, another scientist existing in post-apocalyptic Japan, he challenges Senku to a contest of mathematics. Chrome's crushing defeat by Senku is symbolized by equations falling from the sky and pinning him to the ground.
• Weak, but Skilled: Senku is by far the weakest main character, even weaker than Yuzuriha, but his lightning-fast thought process allows him to escape bad situations or overcome them through his resourcefulness. For this reason, Tsukasa quickly picks him out as the most dangerous obstacle to his plans.
• Wedding Finale: Taiju and Yuzuriha have a wedding that lasts two days in the final chapter.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Tsukasa wants to rid the world of all adults, whom he sees as corrupt, and rebuild a pure society from zero. To that extent, he spends his time destroying statues of adults so Senku cannot restore them.
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter 95. While testing out a new communications device for ocean travel, the signal gets interrupted by a message in Morse code: "WHY".
  • In Chapter 103, Senku, Gen, Kohaku and Soyuz leave to investigate the Treasure Island. On Perseus, Ukyo and Ginro realize there are recently petrified inhabitants from the island lying on the seafloor. The so-called Whyman shows up from a distance and strikes the entire ship crew down. Gen and Soyuz find out via their binoculars and are horrified, but Senku and Kohaku are ahead of them and oblivious to what ensued.
  • Chapter 149. In their first night in America, Tsukasa hears something in the cover of darkness. The Perseus Crew is forced to flee from automatic gunfire. They are already people alive in America.
  • Chapter 191. In order to defeat Xeno and his soldiers once and for all, Senku and co. decide to use the Why Man's voice on one of the Petrification devices to re-petrify the entire Earth all over again.
  • Chapter 196: Suika manages to replicate the revival formula and revive Senku. But it takes several years to do so, giving Suika a drastic change in appearance due to being the only one who could age during that time.
  • Chapter 197: Senku and Tsukasa realize that the Petrification Beam can undo even death due to the fact it revived Hyoga.
  • Chapter 209: Senku reveals that the Moon mission is going to be a one-way trip, and that those who go to the Moon will be petrifying themselves after defeating Why-Man so they can wait for the people on Earth to make a second rocket to go retrieve them, which could take a very long time.
  • Chapter 213: The making of the rocket is going smoothly, with the computer recently acquired. Senku decides to keep the Medusa device they have in a vacuum tube to help preserve it. Not long after, BAM! The Medusa exploded, petrifying Gen and Yo, the latter shattering!
  • Chapter 228: The Why-Man is revealed.
• Wham Line:
  • From Chapter 41. The wham comes in two parts, and part one hits the characters first.
    Chief Kokuyou: People of the village! As of today, this man, Senku, is the new chief of Ishigami Village!
    Ruri: This is something that I've known longer than forever... perhaps always... your name... is Ishigami Senku.
  • Chapter 95. Just as a radio broadcast was made, something starts to interfere with said broadcast making Ukyo realize only their radio waves were conflicting with another.
    Ukyo: It's not static.
  • Back in Chapter 17, a chart showing the names and faces of all residents of Ishigami Village has a blank caption for a bald-headed man. Come Chapter 101, that person finally introduces himself - he reveals he's not from Ishigami Village, and that his name is Soyuz, named after the Soyuz spacecraft that the astronaut ancestors of Ishigami Village returned to Earth in. This thus establishes there are even more people out there than believed.
  • Two in Chapter 138.
    • First, their communication is interrupted by a voice they presume to be the Why Man.
      Why Man: 12,800,000 meters, one second. ^note 12,800,000 meters is the diameter of the Earth, and the message was meant to be heard by the newly-acquired petrification device.
    • The second was when Ukyo identifies the voice through the static.
      Ukyo: That's... your voice, Senku.
  • Chapter 139 follows up on the previous chapter:
    Senku: We had fun tracing the call, and the results tell us...the signal's coming from above, a few hundred thousand kilometers away. Get it yet? Why Man is on the Moon.
  • Chapter 149 has the following phrase. The reason it is so important is that it was heard in America... in English.
    Unknown: How did they know?
  • Chapter 155 ends with the revelation that Dr. Xeno is more than just a stranger:
    Senku: When I started making rockets... Dr. Xeno... was my science mentor
  • Chapter 197: Senku and Tsukasa realize the true power of the petrification devices: they can revive the dead!
    Tsukasa: Since he lost consciousness... Hyoga himself had no way to realize that back there... he was really dead.
    Senku: Now we've got solid proof from this unplanned, death-defying experiment. The petrification... can nullify even death. Which means at this very moment, we, the humans of Earth, all of us... are now immortal.
• Wham Shot:
  • In Chapter 120, Ginro finds the ruler of Treasure Island... who is a stone statue!
  • In Chapter 121, after Ginro gets fatally wounded, Kohaku baits Kirisame into using the petrification weapon on them in order to save his life. They get to see the weapon with their own eyes, confirming that it's a scientific invention and not magic.
  • Near the end of Chapter 126, the beginning of the final battle in the Treasure Island arc, it's shown that Minister Ibara took Kohaku's radio-receiving earring, meaning he's been listening in on all the Kingdom of Science's transmissions for a while and thus has been plotting countermeasures to their plan to steal the petrification weapon.
  • In Chapter 180, the Perseus Crew traverse through the Amazon to the epicenter of the Petrification Event. And there, they find not one Petrification Device, but an entire pyramid of them that towers over the treetops.
  • Chapter 228, the Why-Man is revealed. They are the Medusas themselves, mechanical lifeforms of unknown origin.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The final volume ends with brief notes about what each character went on to do to expand their research or uphold the peace after the end of the story.
• White-and-Grey Morality: The first several arcs are built on this trope. Senku, despite his arrogance, is an unambiguously good person who wants to revive everyone who was petrified. Tsukasa, despite being portrayed as a Straw Luddite, comes across as an Affably Evil Noble Demon who genuinely cares about his men and wants to rebuild civilization without anyone who’d cause harm. This is all subverted when Hyoga betrays Tsukasa after the latter makes a Heel–Face Turn. The story begins to follow a more traditional Black-and-White Morality after this point.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: In chapter 198, after the discovery that the Medusa can undo death and can grant immortality, Chome is initially excited at the prospect. However, Tsukasa brings up that if humanity continues to depend on the petrification to extend their life, this would lead to a planet of trillions of elderly people, struggling to get by with the finite resources of the planet.
  • The answer to this question turns out to be the reason behind the Whyman's endless repeating of 'why?' From their perspective, they granted Earth the power of eternal life and they kept rejecting it and breaking out of the stone that preserved them and healed death and injuries. Why would they do this?.
• Why Am I Ticking?: Minister Ibara makes Oarashi swallow the Medusa weapon, right after he sets it to go off after fifteen minutes. He then tells him to run as fast as he can towards the center of the island in order for him to not get petrified. Oarashi foolishly obeys, and it's not until he starts getting petrified himself that he realizes what happened.
• Why Won't You Die?: It shocks Minister Ibara to no end that Senku is still alive after the petrification weapon engulfed the entire island.
• World Half Full: Even though all of human civilization and scientific progress has been wiped out, it's repeatedly established that, as long as humans themselves continue to live, they'll always bounce back. Even if super-genius Senku were to die, another bright and curious human will take his place.
• Worthy Opponent:
  • Tsukasa sees Senku as this not for his strength (or lack thereof), but for his intellect, knowing full well that he's the only person who could develop guns and put a stop to him.
  • After their fight concludes with the entire island being petrified by Ibara's Medusa weapon, and knowing that neither side would want to unpetrify them, Hyoga and Moz view each other as this, with Moz complimenting Hyoga on his Owari Kan-Ryu style and wishing to try it, to which Hyoga opens an invitation to do so.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: Whether it's on the part of the Riichiro Inagaki's story writing or a character trait for Senku, he constantly makes references to the millions, sometimes billions of years that humans have existed, such as mentioning that it took humans 2 million years to advance beyond the Stone Age. Modern humans have only existed for about 200,000 years and proto-humans not much more than that.
• Written by the Winners: Treasure Island is ruled by the chieftain who supposedly inherited the bloodline power of petrification from the island's founder. Since the island's founder was Senku's father, it's clear from the start that this is mostly propaganda. Matsukaze reveals that when the Medusa devices fell, the leader ordered them all destroyed, but a pack of brigands kept one and figured out how to use it, taking over the island
• Why Are You Looking at Me Like That?: In Chapter 106, Kohaku states that Amaryllis's plan to infiltrate the island master's harem and use her seduction to steal the petrification weapon will work on the men but not on Kirisame. Amaryllis then asks where can she even find a girl who could fight Kirisame, and the members of the Kingdom of Science turn to Kohaku. The trope is subverted in both Kohaku willing to join the infiltration, but both Gen and Senku realizing that her tomboy nature would make her unappealing for selection.
• X Must Not Win: The Kingdom of Science's entire strategy for the Grand Bout is preventing Magma from winning at any cost, since if he wins he'll become chief (and kill Ruri).
• X-Ray Sparks
  • In the anime episode "Where Two Million Years Have Gone", Senku rubs a ball of sulfur with leather and generates a powerful Static Electricity charge in himself. When he touches Chrome, the electricity shocks Chrome and causes his skeleton to show through his skin.
  • In Chapter 53 of the manga, Ginro touches the wires coming out of the battery they've just built, causing him to leap into the air in pain as his skeleton becomes visible.
  • Anime episode "Humanity's Strongest Tag Team". Senku uses a taser device on his finger to electrify his enemy Hyoga, whose bones can be seen inside his body as he is hit by 100,000 volts of electricity.
• You Cannot Kill An Idea: Senku's refusal to give up on science prompts Tsukasa to kill him, fearing that Senku's plan to revive everyone who turned to stone, including adults, whom Tsukasa views as corrupt beings who would bring ruin to the world as they did in the old one. However, Senku survives the assassination and is later inspired by Chrome's collection of items that he gathered up over the years. He realizes that even if Tsukasa had successfully killed him, he would've only delayed technology and progress for a short while, knowing that some people are innately curious about how the world works and would eventually rediscover a lot of technology lost from the old world at some point.
• Younger Than They Look: Many of Tsukasa's allies look too old to be young people. Might be justified due to Tsukasa specifically picking athletic and muscular people to fight for him, who do tend to look older than they actually are.

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