This is the only episode of Dr. Stone that made me feel like it was executing a plot that makes no sense. Magma was not taken down in the previous episode but turns the table by cheating to win against Kinro. The tournament have rules and laws, but cheap shotting a man to win the fight to become chief is fine. This could been in many shounen shows, but the logic makes no sense. Just because the chief of the village is happily letting his daughter marry the cheater with no sportsmanship. He seems to have no morals. The chief of the village hates her other daughter because she wants her sister to live and he is ok with this dork who beats up people. The science of this show always have good explanations but the shounen tropes lives up to its reputation. They wanted a result and in order to achieve that they makes this nonsense.
Anyways, since Magma won the round this means Kohaku should be his next opponent, right? Except that it’s not going to happen, because Kohaku doesn’t arrives at the fight location, now the only contenders left to face Magma and Ruri are Chrome, Ginro and Senku. I believe that the writers makes the part of plot absurd intentionally to let us wonder about it and make us raise our eyebrows. A good example can be found when the village chief avoided the fact how Magma won the fight and still pretending he has rules so he can disqualify Kohaku from the tournament. But the remaining of the episode proceeds itself to what Dr. Stone is best at: using the logic of science and mesmerize the mind to invent something favorable.
Gen makes an appearance in this episode and grants Chrome permission to get away with a long pause during fight eventually setting Magma on flames. The trick behind is that he made him believe he is a mage who revived back from his demise: and since he actually almost faced death once, so this makes an exceptional way to scare the enemy.
In this episode we learned something unique something only Dr. Stone could have teach us and that is about convex lenses and how to set things on fire with them. Of course it’s a shounen trope where the hero who wants to be with the beautiful girl has to beat up her evil love rival.
