Tsukasa’s desire to rid the world of adults remains true as Senku is working diligently to hide the truth from Tsukasa: he wants to wake up Yuzuriha and find a way to defeat Tsukasa with as an effective method as he can. Of course this guy fist fought freaking lions and we learned very quickly in the episode that this guy can and will use his super human capabilities to stop arrows that move at 200 miles per hour. To put it simply: this dude is the antagonist and he even kills the parents of children right next to their stone children bodies. I can’t with this dude but he’s so freaking cool I just can’t bring myself to outright hate him.

Once again the over the top elements of Taiju really show us an awesome element of the show. It really wouldn’t be the same kind of show unless Taiju was freaking out, Tsukasa was smart but not as smart as Senku, and Yuzuriha simply added a layer to the slapstick that made it enjoyable. As usual the elements of this show focus on savagery versus science, but what makes this a good theme is Senku seems to do it for his obsessive love of science and the puzzle work that it focuses on. Of course once he learned arrows wouldn’t do the trick he immediately took everyone to a volcano and the race is on for him to make gunpowder before Tsukasa finds them- otherwise they’re screwed! I mean the guy can catch arrows in the wind. If anything it feels like he is overkill as a villain.

But I’m not going to complain. He’s super cool. I also like that we learned a little about what the freeing agent does when Yuzuriha was shown to still have her foot covered in stone, and pointing out that the cracks in the statues are sort of sealed when the solution meets the stone covering. Overall I am very engaged in the thematics and while I’m enjoying the race between them, I would like to feel a little more like Senku and the crew are on equal footing with their opponents instead of having a giant beast they can’t defeat on their heels. But you know, I guess having a monster with a face and evil qualities is a much more appealing villain than actual lions.

The race is on! Can they find gunpowder or – will Tsukasa just kill them and end the show in one episode? Hah. Jokes on you guys, this manga goes on way longer so they’re definitely not gonna die until at least 5 more episodes-

Oki