Dr. Stone Reboot: Byakuya

nathandouglasdavis Dec 29, 2021

4

The story does an aboutface about a third of the way through and completely changes focus. On some level, I can appreciate that the author was probably trying to show how Rei was connected to the main storyline. But on the other hand, the way it was done made it feel like the author was purposefully trying to dupe the readers (and I don't appreciate being yanked around like that). Like, that author could've included all of that get-back-to-earth jazz, but simply changed the focal character from Byakuya to Rei and that by itself would've made it obvious that this was moreso a story about Rei than one about Byakuya. Also, on that note, it's a bit misleading for this mini-series to be titled after Byakuya when it's (again) moreso about Rei than Byakuya. And since the synopsis doesn't even mention it, Rei is the robot you can see on the front cover. The storyline is very similar to Hotel. The feelings of sadness in the readers are primarily caused by Rei's naivety and pure devotion to seeing Byakuya again, but honestly that ignorance about the length of human lifespans just feels dumb and makes the entire thing feel like a contrivance. I can appreciate the ingenuity shown by Rei in making repairs and stuff (though I would've preferred if Rei hadn't compared femself to Senku), but I feel like we could've had a story about a resourceful robot without needing it to be built around this tear-jerky false hope and pointlessness. Who is Rei as a character? What personality does fe have, beyond being loyal to Byakuya? Why hasn't Rei grown as a person and as a thinking being (and contemplated feir existence and shit) during the millennia fe's been alive?

sybrant Mar 13, 2021

10

This manga is pretty amazing! It's a tearjerker for sure but it's completely worth picking up and reading. The character that it follows is super adorable. I recommend it for any Dr Stone fans. ^_^ Spoiler(ish?): I really have to wonder if Senku and Rei will ever meet. I'm not sure how it would come about but I'd love to see it.

KneelingAngel Jun 6, 2021

5

Well.. I started reading this story with the wrong expectations. I thought this would be more about Byakuya and how he restarted humanity with the others. Maybe tell us how him and Lilian got together, something like that. Maybe tell us a little more about his history with Senku... But no. This story was about some random robot that he made and took to space with him. It was very upsetting when I realised that this story was about a robot surviving in space- this random robot which (so far) has no reason to be there. The whole space station thing staying in space for thousands of years also doesnt make much sense to me and made it clash with the main story of Dr. Stone. Maybe a little harsh to word it like that, but that's just my opinion. To word it easily: I did not like it. However, while the story was pretty disappointing and left me unsatisfied, the art is amazing Boichi did an amazing job with the art. It was great to see some snippets here and there of the characters we love, I had just wished it was more about them. Hopefully the main story will give us more history about the past and Byakuya.  In my opinion, there is no reason to read this story if you want more insights in Dr. Stone. The first few chapters show a little how the crew get's to earth, but that's about the only thing that gave some background information. The rest of the story was  meh. Just read the main story of Dr. Stone. This side story was kind of unnecessary.