User:CitadelArchives009/Dr. Stone

Article Draft

Model Article: One-Punch Man

Production

Riichiro Inagaki first began working on Dr. Stone with the initial idea of creating a shonen protagonist that was considered a relatively normal character unlike many others within the genre. He decided that his best approach with creating Senku was to create a character that was ambitious and chose to actively push themselves through hard work in order to fulfill their goals. He also wanted to create a character that closely resembled the character Agon Kongo from his own manga serialization Eyeshield 21 in terms of personality and characteristics and felt that it was appropriate for the chosen setting. Inagaki was personally fascinated by the topic of science as a child and sought to create a science-based story for entertainment purposes that also featured common themes and messages that would be compelling for the audience. In regards to influences, Inagaki stated that Video Girl Ai was a series that had a significant impact on the story's development.

Inagaki works remotely with his illustrator Boichi in which the former sends his own created storyboards to the latter through his own editor. By the time the pair began working on the series, Inagaki was already quite familiar with Boichi's work as an artist and initially struggled with expressing his ideas for his collaborator to illustrate, often times being uncertain about how to draw some of Senku's inventions and how to make them feel impressive. While developing the setting for the series, Boichi grew captivated imagining how to create the look of a futuristic Japan set 3700 years after humanity had turned to stone. He settled upon the idea of creating a vast beautiful world in which Japan's nature was left untarnished due to the loss of humanity's influence.

When asked about scientific accuracies, Inagaki revealed that both himself and Boichi have conducted research into the subject during the development of the series while also receiving help from a consultant.

Adaptation

Director Shinya Iino expressed that one of the challenges with adapting the series into animation was determining how the backgrounds would appear in a different medium. He would go on to state that Boichi had provided his assistance by sending his own rough sketches as a way to facilitate the adaptation process. Iino would also state that the theme of science featured in the manga captured his attention to the series as it wasn't a theme that was featured in many other shonen series.

Reception (Improving for Article)

Manga

The series was also well-received for how original its premise was compared to many other titles in the post-apocalyptic genre. The characterization of Senku also received praise for how revitalizing he was presented as a shonen protagonist, primarily due to the fact that he relied heavily on his intelligence rather than physical strength.

Anime

Kari Byron of Mythbusters praised much of the scientific accuracies presented in the show while also noting some of the liberties the creators took. She also commented that Senku's character shared many similarities to members of her own team.