Dr. STONE is a 2019 television anime series based on the manga of the same name written by Riichiro Inagaki. It was adapted by studio TMS Entertainment and directed by Shinya Iino. TMS published the series and was first broadcast in Japan on July 2019 as part of the Summer season.
Background:
“The Kingdom of Science is Born!
One day, all of humanity turned to stone. Then the extraordinary intelligent and scientific Senku awoke from his petrified prison to find Earth in a prehistoric state. Armed with the power of science, he is determined to save humanity and begin the rocky road to rebuilding civilisation. But first, Senku must find more comrades if he is going to face off against the revived Tsukasa.”
Plot Synopsis via Manga Entertainment, December 2020
So recently I have spoken about the Weekly Shonen Jump titles getting their anime adaptations in recent years. We had the super hyped up series Demon Slayer and the thriller focused The Promised Neverland, however both of these series actually finished serialising in the magazine. More and more popular manga titles are starting to finish sooner than later, recent examples included Haikyu!!, We Never Learn and technically Chainsaw Man though it’s actually moving to Shonen Jump Plus instead.
There are a couple shonen manga series that are still continuing and one of them is Dr. STONE, which is written by the creator of Eyeshield 21 and illustrated by South Korean artist Boichi who some may recognise for his previous series Sun-Ken Rock. Dr. STONE is an interesting one because it acts like an isekai but it isn’t as it’s more or less a group of characters frozen until a certain point in time and having to introduce their knowledge to those who lived all these years. Now I know many were put off by the first couple of episodes for Dr. STONE, but the series shines a lot through the rest as soon as Senku meets the local villagers.
Dr. STONE did well enough to get a second season greenlit after the anime aired and is currently scheduled for January 2021 for at least a single cour’s worth of episodes. I’m looking forward to the series and I hope the story keeps a good pace.
During the Summer of 2019 season there were two big shows that were being hyped, Dr. STONE and Fire Force. Funimation acquired Fire Force while Crunchyroll acquired Dr. STONE and because the two distributors still had a partnership that had concluded but still tied for some titles, both of these ended up being distributed together. As such Manga Entertainment carried Dr. STONE over to the United Kingdom and Ireland for home video and we have a limited edition also.
Limited Edition Contents:
Funimation every now and then offers a limited edition box set, and they usually come with a couple physical items to make up for its price tag. As Dr. STONE is a two cour series, it was split into two parts and the second part included a limited edition option.
This unboxing also includes the regular edition for Part 1 as Manga teamed up with HMV to also provide their own little addition to the mix. I only went for the regular as HMV’s pricing is a bit dearer than I had in mind.
Dr. STONE Part 2 limited edition comes with a rigid box to house both parts of the series, as well as a 152-page artbook containing a ton of detail about the show, cast interviews, and more. Also included is a spare box containing 3 art cards, 3 keychains and 1 sticker. Funimation did not provide any exclusive artwork to either the regular or limited edition amaray cases so there’s nothing missing art-wise for the UK version of the set. In addition the front side of the box had the BBFC sticker while the rest did not which is interesting (hence why I didn’t show it for this post).
The SRP for the limited edition set was £64.99 and the standard edition was £39.99. It’s an expensive release overall, but it’s recommended if you are a big fan of the Dr. STONE series. The unit count is roughly around 1000 in print for the limited edition. The slipcover for the regular set only applies to the first print as it won’t be included in later print runs.
Physical Contents:
- Rigid Box with amaray packaging and clean artwork
- Specification and BBFC description on amaray, slipcover & info sheet
- 152-page Booklet with Interviews, Senku Notes & more
- 3 Art Cards
- 3 Keychains
- 1 Sticker
On-Disc Contents:
Distributor: Manga Entertainment
Released: 7th December 2020 (Part 1), 28th December 2020 (Part 2)
Dr. STONE Season 1 Part 1 covers episodes 1 to 12 across two Blu-ray discs, while Part 2 (limited edition) covers episodes 13 to 24 across two Blu-ray discs and two DVD discs. The encode and authoring were done by Funimation, but Manga included their logos at the beginning. Speaking of the discs the episode count is split evenly, so we have for Part 1; episodes 1-6 are on the first disc and 7-12 for the second, and then for Part 2; episodes 13-18 for the third disc and episodes 19-24 for the fourth disc.
The audio options available for the series include Japanese with English subtitles and the Funimation English dub. The white subtitles are unlockable during playback on Part 1, however they are locked during Blu-ray playback for Part 2, and the regions are locked to B for Blu-ray and 2 for DVD.
Blu-ray Specs:
| Languages | English, Japanese |
| Audio | English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0 |
| Video | 1080p High Definition Native format 16:9 aspect ratio |
| Region | B |
| Subtitles | English |
| Locked Subtitles | Part 1: No Part 2: Yes |
| Discs | 4 BD-50s |
DVD Specs:
| Languages | English, Japanese |
| Audio | English Dolby Digital 5.1 Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 |
| Video | Standard Definition in NTSC format 16:9 aspect ratio |
| Region | 2 |
| Subtitles | English |
| Locked Subtitles | No |
| Discs | 2 |
Blu-ray On-Disc Extra Features:
Disc 2:
- Episode 2 English Dub Video Commentary
- Episode 10 English Dub Commentary
- Textless Opening Song “Good Morning World!”
- Textless Closing Song “Life”
Disc 4:
- Episode 24 English Dub Commentary
- Dr. STONE: The Science Guys
- Textless Opening Song “Good Morning World!”
- Textless Opening Song “Sangenshoku”
- Textless Closing Song “Life”
- Textless Closing Song “Yume No Youna”
DVD On-Disc Extra Features:
No extras across all discs
Unboxing Photos:
Final Notes:
Dr. STONE Season 1 is available to order through multiple retailers across the United Kingdom. You can order the regular Part 1 Blu-ray and limited edition Part 2 Blu-ray & DVD set over on Amazon UK.
(Disclaimer: Amazon links are also included when available. They are affiliated so if you decide to order them, I’ll earn a small percentage if they ship which will help me with any hauls or small bills.)
The Normanic Vault 
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