The beginning of a new week can only mean one thing: time for new Weekly Shonen Jump! This is where Jacob investigates the latest and greatest in the magazine, telling you what’s worth your time and what’s not. You can find coverage of other series under the tag Jump Time. Here’s Dr. STONE chapter 179.
It’s sometimes easy to forget that Senku and Tsukasa were once enemies. It’s been about two years since the end of the Stone Wars arc and subsequent reconciliation between the Kingdom of Science and the Empire of Might, but such antagonism doesn’t always go away. Dr. STONE chapter 179 explores this question beautifully, adding some new elements and, eventually, putting it entirely to bed.
The journey across the Andes, towards the Amazon rainforest, and away from Stanley brings the Kingdom of Science to a massive chasm, the likes of which can only be navigated quickly using a ropeway. There’s a bunch of brilliant science in this bit, but it’s not actually relevant to the main theme of Dr. STONE chapter 179: mutual trust and respect.
The problem is that Dr. Xeno is a massive wildcard in the fragile web of relations that underpins the Kingdom of Science (pictured above), as he could spread dissent and cause some of them to turn on each other. Kohaku identifies Hyoga, in particular, as someone who could be convinced by Xeno to betray them, given that he even once tried to go up against Tsukasa.
Try as they might to avoid a situation where such a threat could arise, Dr. STONE chapter 179 quickly throws the Kingdom a curveball by having a gust of wind blow Suika off the ropeway, causing Kohaku to dive and save her. This creates a fragile situation where Hyoga, clutching Kohaku’s hand, could leave her to die, and therefore easily overwhelm the other Kingdom members who have already come over to the other side. Nevertheless, such a situation does not come to pass.
The Kingdom of Science has been through far too much together to betray each other now, and Dr. STONE chapter 179 leaves off with a beautiful splash page of Senku and Tsukasa that declares ‘our Kingdom of Science is united as one team.’ The problem with the wolf and sheep conundrum is that it assumes that the wolf can’t be reasoned with: humans aren’t like that. Hopefully, this lays the whole issue to bed once and for all.
It’ll be interesting if Inagaki attempts to resurrect this theme once again, as it is admittedly a useful way of creating drama for the story. For now, however, Dr. STONE chapter 179 stands as a beautiful self-contained story that fleshes out the dynamic between the characters, putting it to the test when it really counts. Keep up the good work.
You can read Dr. STONE chapter 179 for free via VIZ Media.