At last year's Kyoban Festival, I got to hear the Dr.STONE soundtrack live. I was already a fan of the original manga, got hooked on the anime, got hooked on the soundtrack — savoring this work from end to end. So of course I was insanely excited for this new anime, and my expectations of "how good is it going to be?!" just kept climbing without limit. And sure enough, it turned out incredible... needless to say, in the best possible way.
Dr.STONE is based on a manga serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump. It's a flagship Jump series, written by the genius Riichiro Inagaki — known for originals like the greatest American football manga, Eyeshield 21 — and drawn by Boichi, whose artistry, all gorgeous lines, captures the world of the Stone World without leaving anything out. One day, all of humanity suddenly turns to stone, and in a world where civilization has been reset to zero along with the human race, the story follows the effort to reclaim civilization step by step using the power of science, and to save all of humanity. It's a masterpiece bursting with a sense of wonder — so much so that even adults watching it think, "Wow, science was this fun?!" It makes you hope: when the kids who fall in love with science through this work grow up and start making all sorts of discoveries and inventions, maybe the world will become even more wonderful. (In fact, after Slam Dunk, the level of Japanese basketball shot way up, and there are plenty of athletes who became representatives of their sport after watching Captain Tsubasa or various baseball manga — so the power of manga and anime has already been proven!)
And so the Final Season of Dr.STONE has been airing since January... I'm sure a lot of people were waiting for this.
This installment keeps the best of the previous soundtracks while completely transforming the atmosphere
In the series so far, there were a lot of pieces with a Celtic-music approach overall — tracks that conveyed the allure of the primeval Stone World and the thrill of science advancing bit by bit, leaving nothing out for the viewer. But maybe because this installment begins with America as its stage, or maybe to express that the clock of science has ticked forward, or perhaps because it vividly captures the atmosphere of the early poker showdown and the shipboard bar — for now, a jazzy approach has become the mainstream of the music.
And this is, without any complaints, cool as hell...!!
When you think of jazz, you picture music built around improvisation, but judging from composer Tatsuya Kato's posts on X (formerly Twitter), you can tell it was recorded with quite a large ensemble. Just imagining how the recording went, and how intense the tension in the room must have been, gives me chills — but as for what the music is actually like, I really hope all of you follow and experience Dr.STONE's Final Season for yourselves.
Incidentally, he's mentioned on X that they've kept piling on more recording sessions even after the anime started airing, so knowing that new soundtrack pieces are steadily being born even now only ramps up my excitement.
Beyond that, there's plenty to listen for: the dynamic rock sound that plays during battle scenes featuring the Dr.STONE battle all-stars — including Tsukasa, who made a magnificent comeback in Season 3 — and the maximum-tension tracks that hit when the rival forces lying in wait in America, indispensable to the story, make their entrance.
Even though I'm still at the manuscript-writing stage with only three episodes aired, the satisfaction level is already this high! The Final Season is apparently going to air split across multiple cours, and considering how far the original manga goes, it'll absolutely need about as much runtime as all three previous seasons combined — so I'm really looking forward to just how many wonderful soundtrack pieces are going to be born from here on out!
Cited from the official site https://dr-stone.jp/
