WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Dr. Stone.

Dr. Stone is a hit "edutainment" manga/anime series starring Senku Ishigami, a genius high school boy with a fierce love of science and discovery. One day, a mysterious energy wave swept across the globe and petrified every human being, and 3,700 years passed before Senku freed himself from the stone. Now he must invent the future, one gadget at a time.

The Dr. Stone series is renowned for its scientific accuracy and its shonen-style storytelling despite the relative lack of action, magic and martial arts, but newer fans might wonder how this series got its name. Senku may be smart, but he's not actually a doctor, and there is no other character named Dr. Stone either. Nonetheless, that term did come up in the series, and for good reason.

The Healing Power Of The Stone

dr. stone senku with taiju

At first, Senku viewed the mysterious certification phenomenon as his worst enemy -- understandably so, since that certification wave froze human civilization in its tracks and allowed all of mankind's creations to crumble to dust as nature reclaimed the Earth. Senku broke free from sheer willpower and soon formulated a "revival fluid" to free other people from the stone, including the fearsome Tsukasa Shishio. Every day, Senku saw hundreds more petrified humans but had no way to free them from their stony prisons. But soon, the stone did Senku a favor, and he sought ways to make use of it again.

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Senku and Tsukasa couldn't reconcile their differences, so Tsukasa dealt a would-be lethal blow on the back of Senku's neck to kill him painlessly. Taiju and Yuzuriha thought him dead until Senku recovered thanks to a leftover piece of certification stone on his neck. That piece had softened the blow, and once removed, it healed the flesh underneath, saving Senku's life. Thus, Senku dubbed it "Doctor Stone."

Later, near the end of Season 2, Tsukasa became Senku's ally again and suffered mortal wounds to defeat his and Senku's enemy, Hyoga. Senku couldn't heal Tsukasa, but he did cryogenically freeze him, buying them time. Senku planned to find a certification device and use it on Tsukasa, allowing the stone to heal him once Tsukasa was broken free.

Tsukasa agreed to the plan, and later in the manga's storyline, the plan worked. Tsukasa was fully healed with petrification, and Senku and his allies even pieced together shattered human statues and allowed the stone to heal the people inside. Even when someone had an arm broken off, the stone would fully reattach it if everything was in place while the revival fluid was poured on them. Having one's statue shattered was no longer a death sentence, which gave Senku's team a serious edge against the petrification kingdom.

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Senku & Byakuya Ishigami, The Other Stone Doctors

Byakuya Ishigami in Dr. Stone. Anime.

More symbolically, Senku Ishigami and his foster father Byakuya could also be considered "Dr. Stone," even if they weren't certified doctors or geologists. Senku and Byakuya both formed the bedrock for the future of human civilization, thousands of years apart, and it helps that their last name, Ishigami, includes the character for "stone." Ishigami village got its name from them too -- a piece of that bedrock for humanity's rebirth.

Not long after the global petrification event, Byakuya and his ISS teammates returned to Earth in a Soyuz capsule. Byakuya dedicated the rest of his life to laying the groundwork for Senku's future success, from creating the Hundred Tales to gathering rare and precious resources for Senku to use in the future. Byakuya succeeded, and millennia later, Senku continued the work that Byakuya had started, including listening to the Hundred Tales from Ruri, who had memorized them all. With this head start, Senku and the villagers truly became the bedrock for the future of human civilization, including Senku's use of those resources to make more revival fluid when he otherwise couldn't.

In this way, Senku and Byakuya truly became miraculous doctors, using their resourceful intelligence and optimism to heal and revive a foundering human race. Both characters are constructive and helpful people who want what's best for others, and combined with their names and roles in the story, that makes them the real Dr. Stone.

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