I have an odd confession. When I was little, I feared Anime more than I did Horror. In fact, I daresay that I got into horror a lot easier than I did anime. Why? Well because the anime that I knew about was violent as hell!
Now while I didn’t want much anime, I did have access to the internet. Through which I discovered clips and screenshots of some of the most detailed and violent movies and shows that 80s and 90s anime had to offer. Movies such as Wicked City, Bio-Hunter, Ninja-Scroll, and Violent Jack were all over the internet and just the site of animated violence was enough to make me feel queasy. Of course, things are different now that I am used to such things but as a kid, I avoided most Anime like the plague.
There were exceptions of course. I got into shows such as Lupin the 3rd, Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, and Tenchi Muyo. It wasn’t until junior high that I started really getting into the harder stuff. I had a friend who lent me a collection of movies on VHS. I started off with Samurai Showdown (my first anime with blood – a quick moment of it spraying out of a character’s mouth), moved onto Ayana’s High Kick, then headfirst into Battle Angel Alita and Ninja Scroll. The former being my introduction to anime gore, the latter being my introduction to, well, everything else.
Since then, I’ve been a fan of anime. Anime such as Spirited Away, Gurren Lagann, Kill la Kill, Hellsing Ultimate, Outlaw Star, Hunter x Hunter, and so on. From the silly to the violent, from the action-packed to the psychological; anime has become another genre that I’ve come to adore.
I know what you are thinking. With an opening like that, I must be getting ready to talk about some kind of horror-anime. Something like Perfect Blue or Paranoia Agent. While I do love them, they are not what I want to talk about today.
What I want to talk about is the wildly entertaining and surprisingly wholesome anime, Dr. Stone.
Dr. Stone is an educational adventure anime that revolves around the hyper-intelligent Senku Ishigami. He is a 16-year-old high-school student with an obsession for science. It does not matter whether its chemistry, engineering, or astrology; he loves it all. So much so that he has dedicated most of his childhood to studying science in hopes of on day going to outer space.
All this changes, however, when a mysterious green light turns the entire human population of earth into stone. 3,700 years later, Senku breaks out of his stone prison and begins his tireless journey to restore the human population with his weapon of choice: science.
What follows next is a fun journey that educates as well as entertains. I highly recommend it. It really handles itself differently than other anime. Instead of having these big epic battles, Dr. Stone focuses on using science and engineering to solve their problems. Even when their enemies’ resort to violence, Senku and his crew fight back in the most peaceful and logical ways possible. It’s great.
Yet not even the wholesome Dr. Stone can escape the long-reaching claws of horror.
**Warning: The following contains spoilers for Season 3**
Season 03 of Dr. Stone finds Senku and his friends advancing in both science and technology. By this time in the show they have already conquered things such as radio communication, hot air balloon travel, and paved roads. They realize, however, that the next thing required for their Kingdom of Science is an improvement to their communication properties. This leads them to build a radio tower. To test its range, Senku and a handful of his allies take a small boat out onto the water and turn their newly boosted radio on. It is here that the horror begins.
Now, as mentioned before, this is a wholesome, comedic anime. The closest thing to a “horror movie moment” came during season 01 where the Senku and his friends discovered a lake of sulfuric acid. It is here where the show represents the deadly Sulfur Dioxide with the image of a rotting angel. She, like the Sirens of Greek myth, calls out to the protagonists in hopes of luring them to their deaths. It’s an intense scene and is admittedly rather scary. Though I would say that the fear comes from the real-world hazard that comes from sulfur dioxide; not the anime itself.
What happens on the boat, however, is a different story altogether.
After activating the high-frequency radio, Senku’s apprentice Chrome tries to contact the mainland. He wants to talk to the priestess of his village, a woman named Ruri. The radio works but as Ruri is about to respond, a stronger signal interrupts her. This signal provides a series of strange noises; noises that turn out to be a series of tapping.
Morse Code.
The team realize that the code is a single word. A single word that is repeating itself nonstop.
“Why?”
It is at this moment that I felt a chill creep down my spine. This is a primitive world. The only people alive are the ones freed by Senku or the natives of the village. Natives who have no concept of science and technology. And yet there is another signal out there in the world. A signal that didn’t exist until Senku and his team activated the radio tower.
Imagine this if you will. You are the only person alive on the planet. You have proof that you are the only person alive on the planet. Then, one day, you wake up to find a message spray-painted across your lawn.
Someone is out there.
And they are watching you.
You don’t know anything about them. Not where they came from. How long they have been there. Why they decided now to contact you. Only that they exist, and you are no longer alone.
That, my friends, is terrifying.
This is why I found the episode so scary. And what makes this specific scene so eerie is the fact that there is no build-up leading up to it. One minute our heroes are enjoying a nice day on the water, the next they discover an invisible enemy that is monitoring their activities.
So there you have it. Yet another example of unexpected horror. Tell us; what did you think of this episode? Did it send shivers down your spine or was there another moment in the show that you found as creepy?
