Hah gotcha Magma is totally not beaten last episode and instead pulls a dirty trick to win against Kinro. This makes no sense because the tournament and village seems to have rules, but cheap shotting a man to win a contest to become chief is totally fine. #morals I genuinely don’t understand that shounen logic because the chief of the village is willing to let his daughter, an important priestess who is the only one who knows important traditions from their past, marry some creepo who cheats in fights and has no morals. There isn’t like a moral standing in that one, guy? You hate your other daughter for wanting her sister to live and you’re cool with this douchebag who beats up people???? The science of this show always seems to check out but the shounen tropes are the same as ever. This was probably one of the only times I felt the show was executing a plot element that made no sense in order to make a plot they wanted happen.
Anywho, this means of course that Kohaku will have to beat him in a fight, right? Except that’s not the case: She doesn’t make it back in time and the only thing standing between Magma and Ruri are Chrome, Ginro, and Senku. I think sometimes the way anime creates plot points that the viewer is meant to follow along with can be foiled by unbelievable aspects or moments that make us raise our eyebrows. A good example is the village chief ignoring any issues with the way Magma fights and still pretending he has rules so he can expel Kohaku from the tournament. But the rest of the episode lends itself to what Dr. Stone does best: using the mind of science and the thoughtfulness of mental manipulation to create a favorable outcome.
Gen returns this episode and allows Chrome to get away with a long pause in combat (for science!) and ultimately set Magma on fire. He does this by convincing him he is a sorcerer who returned from the dead: and to be fair he did almost get murdered so this feels like an appropriate way to freak someone out. Good on you, Gen, facing your would be murderers and helping someone set them on fire! We should all be so lucky as to set people who try to kill us on fire.
Of course it’s a shounen trope that the guy who wants to be with a girl has to beat up her evil love rival. That’s fine. But dude, we learned about convex lenses and how to set things on fire with them! Convex. Lenses.
Oki