Dr. STONE is definitely the weirdest anime I've seen in 2019. Who the sits down and says, "I want to make an isekai where a Dexter's Laboratory wannabe gets turned to stone for thousands of years and begins to recreate modern technology from nothing." Regardless of its flaws, I'll give Dr. STONE credit, there's nothing else like it.

#Story
Saturday morning cartoon-esque, nonsensical, but entertaining. There's nothing going on under the hood, what you see is what you get. Then again, would it have really benefited from some convoluted anime Machiavellianism? No, I don't think so. Dr. STONE does a good job of focusing on its strengths and strategically ignoring its weaknesses.

There isn't any tension in the show, it's obvious that the protagonists are plot-armored, even when they're in dire straits. They had to create some sort of "us versus them" scenario to make the show work. That need creates a exaggerated, ill-explained, villain whose motivations are hilariously under developed, to say the least.

The show relies on frequent dopamine hits of people experiencing something for the first time. It boils down to: Senku identifies problem -> Senku tackles it with modern science -> everyone stares at him dumbfounded for a little -> everyone likes Senku more once he proves it works. 24 episodes of that in one form or another, and you know what? It works. Trying to guess what modern invention he'll try to recreate, or what little quirk of physics or biology he'll use, is quite engaging.

Overall, the cour ends with a cliffhanger, and there's another on the way. Will that be the end of it? I hope so, the gimmick can only last so long before it wears thin.

Art

Oh, the art. What can I even say?

You'll love it or hate it. The male characters look normal, especially Senku, but the female characters all have varying degrees of fetal alcohol syndrome. Not really sure what they were thinking. In select scenes it looks good, even great, but honestly the women look like lizard people wearing human skinsuits, maybe they're who turned everyone to stone? Maybe they've just evolved to have their eye sockets really far apart to see predators, I don't know.
#Characters
Senku is a solid protagonist who falls somewhere in the Isekai genus of I'm-overpowered-and-you-can't-do-anything-to-stop-me. Failure is not in his vocabulary. He's the wheel that keeps everything turning, unstoppable, but boring and predictable because of it.

Chrome, Kohaku, Suika, Gen, Ginrou, Kinrou and a few others keep things interesting. The real meat of the show comes from their personalities and motivations. There are some genuinely touching moments that make watching the whole show worth it. I don't think any of them are going to be winning a "Best Waifu/Husbando" award, but not every anime has to have someone like that to be good.

As I alluded to already, the antagonist is by far the weakest character in the show. He may as well be a ghost. Some vaguely fascist, ageist, undertones and a large helping of super bitterness, and you have yourself an ad hoc villain in a show that probably didn't need a personification of evil to work.
#Enjoyment
A worthwhile watch, I certainly don't regret watching it weekly, but it fails to reach the rarefied air of its peers. I think Dr. STONE is the epitome of an 80-90 scored anime, a watermark of greatness, but not quite excellence. I await the second season with anticipation, to see if it can jump to the next level.