Logbook Entry 194: Homo Sapiens, All Alone

Several moments of this chapter, especially at the beginning, give us a lot of info about the timeskip. We saw Ishigami village, Treasure Island, and Corn City as the wave was hitting them and they ducked into position. What can we tell from the way they look now?

There’s moss on Amaryllis and Senku, who are both in tropical locations where that would be more likely. Thankfully, the cows have escaped the barn and now graze in a very overgrown field. Some overgrowth at Ishigami but also one of the huts is collapsing. Suika’s statue is drowning in the Amazon’s underbrush as the forest is quick to proliferate.

The clothing is one of the biggest clues. Suika, Amaryllis and Senku’s clothes are starting to get holes. The Amazon seems like a place that would have some creatures who think clothing makes a nice meal.

Their clothes are still mostly intact and everyone is still in the same place. Amaryllis probably shouldn’t be sitting on a wooden bridge but the bridge she’s on hasn’t collapsed. Xeno’s castle looks fine and there’s still working microphones and waterwheels at the Araxas fort. Chalk was done being a puppy a long time ago but now he is truly grown up (he looks beautiful and I hope we see more of him).

None of these details tell us exactly how long it was, but it’s enough to guess it’s been years.

If Chalk and Sagara are still around, then that narrows the timeskip down to less than 10 years, reasonably more like 5 years or less (they wouldn’t make Chalk super old). The previous chapter showed at least two years of seasons in sequence. That’s the only solid info there is about how long it really was. Suika says “One year? Two years?” but that’s her guess. That might make you lean more towards two years, but that’s where we start to guess based on speculations.

Suika does have a layer of stone fragments when she revives, so there was some erosion of her statue. People who are revived within days have no erosion, and no stone fragments that come off. Senku observed that Matsukaze’s stone fragments were thinner because he was petrified for only “a few centuries”. You could assume Suika’s stone fragments were even thinner, but now we know just a few years is enough time to cause it to happen.

Suika’s helmet is somehow not turned to compost, which would have happened within weeks, so I’m gonna call that a confirmation that they do some treatment to her helmet to make it last longer (if not just making it from plastic or wood).

Even while there are plenty of signs of time moving on, everything is still frozen in that intense moment. There’s the safe at Corn City, covered in Magma’s petrified blood and shoved to the side from the struggle. Joel’s hand still holding the medusa inside. The villagers are in the same position we saw them as they were turning to stone. Senku has been smirking this whole time. Suika rushed to the tower and barely made it in time to the spot she would wait for years. The most extreme example of “hurry up and wait” you’ll ever see.

Let’s run through the journey of emotions Suika experiences on her first day as the only human on Earth. First, she’s confused a bit about reality as she assumes everyone else is revived. Her memories of getting petrified are fuzzy at first but she figures out that she needs to find revival fluid. This is when she starts to see her real situation.

After finding her glasses, she seems to only look in Senku’s pockets for revival fluid and once she remembers what happened to the bottles she was carrying, she doesn’t know what to do. She’s so stunned that she already begins to assume nothing can be done and she will die.

Her frustration reaches a point that she begs for someone to wake up, even if it’s just a hug from Kohaku. Being responsible for finding a way to save humanity has made her feel alone. Remembering Senku also started alone gives her hope that she can make it happen, which is what Dr. Stone’s message always comes down to – you can always find a way.

She’s come a long way from collecting iron sand in the river, as she kawaii-poses while jumping to her task of saving everyone. Now is her time to really be a problem solver. She has such a tricky problem to tackle as she must find someone who has revival fluid.

Suika and Francois were the first ones to leave the fort. Since then, she saw the fighters come and destroy Leonard’s transmitter and Ukyo who set them free once they reached the base. She doesn’t know Luna or Chelsea left before she came back with Stan.

Since Luna and Chelsea’s jobs were to be replacements for Suika’s original mission, they would probably have enough revival fluid for multiple people if not everyone. Suika will have to deduce this once she does a roll call and notices those two are missing. She could find Tsukasa, Kohaku and Hyoga since she was there, but she has no idea where Luna and Chelsea are.

With a break next week, we’ll get to sit with lonely Suika for a couple of weeks before she begins her search. This chapter brings a lot of hope, but it’s also heartbreaking. We’re looking forward to Suika’s work paying off.