Dr. Stone's journey into a petrified future has reached its end.
As reported by Twitter user @aitaikimochi, the latest issue of Weekly Shonen Jump confirms that the popular Dr. Stone manga series will reach the series' climax on March 7. The final chapter will be released with a longer-than-average 26 page length, one page of which will be published in full-color. The manga previously announced the beginning of its final arc last September. The publication of the final chapter will also mark the fifth anniversary of the series' original premiere. In a statement released to the magazine, illustrator Boichi said, "The past 5 years with Dr. STONE has been astounding, amazing, thrilling, and dynamic!"
Dr. Stone begins in the year 2019, when all of humanity is suddenly turned to stone by a mysterious flash of light. Senku Ishigami, a 15-year old genius, suddenly wakes up more than 3000 years later, when most of civilization has been reclaimed by nature and the vast majority of the human race remains petrified. Using his immense knowledge of chemistry and engineering, Senku sets off to cure humanity and rebuild society with a renewed focus on science. However, some of the newly revived humans disagree with Senku's ideals, and the scientific prodigy is thrust into a conflict to determine the future of humanity.
The manga was created by author Riichiro Inagaki and artist Boichi in 2017. The series has been both a commercial and critical success, achieving a circulation of over 10 million copies worldwide and winning the prestigious Shogakukan Manga Award. The series has been praised for Boichi's art and Inagaki's writing, particularly their integration of scientifically-accurate facts about chemistry, biology and engineering into the story.
An anime adaptation of the story premiered in 2019. The show is produced by TMS Japan, the studio behind numerous iconic anime series such as Detective Conan (Case Closed) and Lupin the Third. The anime proved to be popular, with Netflix listing it as the 8th most streamed anime of 2019 in Japan, and received a second season in early 2021, which adapted the "Stone Wars" arc from the manga. The anime will continue with the broadcast of an animated special entitled Dr. Stone: Ryusui this summer. A third season has been confirmed to be in production and is scheduled to premiere sometime in 2023.
The anime series is available for streaming on Crunchyroll, Funimation and HBO Max. Inagaki and Boichi's original manga series is available in English in both print and digital formats from VIZ Media.
Source: Weekly Shonen Jump Issue 13 via Twitter