Highlights
- Season 3 of Dr. Stone began on April 6, 2023, continuing the adaptation of the manga's "Source of the Petrification Saga."
- Fans waiting for the new episodes can find solace in similar shows like No Game, No Life and Appare-Ranman!, which also feature intelligent protagonists solving problems with their brains.
- Other science-based anime like Food Wars, Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove It, and Cells at Work offer educational and entertaining content for viewers interested in scientific concepts.
Season 3 of Dr. Stone began on April 6, 2023, and continued its adaptation of the manga’s “Source of the Petrification Saga.” It follows on from the Dr. Stone: Ryusui special, where Senku and company had to revive and then placate top sailor Ryusui Nanami before they could set sail for their next venture.
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The series has come a long way since the scientific genius Senku started using his wits to rebuild humanity after it was left petrified for 3,700 years. It caught on because its hero fought with his brain, and aided humanity with a scientific approach rather than with his fists. But there are similar anime that focus on science and survival, and these are the best anime like Dr. Stone.
Updated November 11, 2023 by David Heath: Fall 2023 is looking to be a busy season. Tokyo Revengers and Spy x Family are back for their second seasons, Pluto made its anime debut to rapturous acclaim, and Dr. Stone: New World returned to deliver the second dose of its third season back on October 12, 2023 via Crunchyroll. But that isn't Senku and company's only home as the show will also return to Toonami on November 12, 2023.
So, whether viewers are streaming or channel hopping, they shouldn't miss the show. Still, they may like other shows like Dr. Stone, with a cast that uses their scientific know-how to save the day. Luckily, there are plenty on offer with their own quirks and features, and they've been added to this discussion with a few extra details to make them easier to look up.
16 That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
MyAnimeList Score: 8.14/10
- Produced by 8bit.
- 48 Episodes across 2 Seasons, plus the 122-episode Slime Diaries, a 3-episode ONA, and a movie.
- Available on Funimation (2 seasons), Hulu (1 season), Crunchyroll (1 season), and Amazon Prime via Crunchyroll (1 season).
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime is about a modern-day man called Satoru getting reincarnated in a fantasy world as a Dragon Quest-like slime creature called Rimuru. Dr. Stone is about humanity essentially starting from scratch after being petrified for millennia. While an isekai that focuses heavily on magic and fantasy might sound incompatible with Dr. Stone's science-driven narrative, these shows are a good match for each other.
But like Senku, Rimuru seeks to help the fantasy world move with the times. After freeing the dragon Veldora, the two work together to form their new nation of Tempest, developing technology no other country in the world could match. They're willing to share by allying with these other nations, but some would rather crush Tempest where it stands. As magical as the show is, it's a good fantasy option for Dr. Stone fans.
15 7SEEDS
MyAnimeList Score: 6.56/10
- Produced by Gonzo (Season 1) and Studio Kai (Season 2).
- 24 Episodes across 2 Seasons.
- Available on Netflix.
Dr. Stone's sci-fi survival premise isn't just limited to shōnen and seinen strips. 7SEEDS made its debut in the shojo manga magazine Bessatsu Shojo Comic before making the leap to the josei magazine Flowers a year into its run. This suggests its premise of 5 groups of 7 people being put into cryogenic preservation to help humanity survive a meteorite crash soon got too mature for young girls and shifted to a magazine for young women instead.
The anime focuses on the groups waking up years after the meteorite's impact. No one knows how long, but it's been long enough for Japan's islands to experience entirely new seasons, and for entirely new forms of life to evolve. The groups not only have to learn how to survive against new threats but learn to survive with each other too, which is easier said than done. It's a comparatively more serious and realistic take that contrasts neatly with Dr. Stone.
14 Blast of Tempest
MyAnimeList Score: 7.91/10
- Produced by Bones.
- 24 Episodes across 1 Season.
- Available on Crunchyroll and Amazon Prime via Crunchyroll.
Dr. Stone sees humanity get turned to stone, then they break free and try to figure out how that happened retrospectively. While Blast of Tempest sees them almost turned into iron statues in media res. But that's getting ahead of the show's premise. Hakaze, the exiled witch of the Kusaribe Clan, implores Mahiro to stop her clan from reviving the Tree of Exodus. In exchange, she has to help him find who killed his sister Aika and their parents.
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The first half of Blast of Tempest ends with a tense battle of wits, a death, and a resurrection that you have to see to believe.
The Tree and its fruit are capable of inducing Black Iron Syndrome, which gradually turns humans into iron, and leads to two cities going under quarantine. But stopping this isn't as simple as 'destroy the tree' or 'stop the Kusaribe clan'. Aika is more involved in the plot than Mahiro knows, as is his longtime friend Yoshino. Hakaze isn't all she says she is either. It makes for a compelling mystery that forms the heart of a compelling show.
13 No Game, No Life
MyAnimeList Score: 8.07/10
- Produced by Madhouse.
- 12 Episodes across 1 Season, plus a movie.
- Available on Hulu and HiDive.
On the face of it, No Game, No Life isn’t 1:1 exactly like Dr. Stone. It’s about two shut-in step-siblings, Shiro and Sora, who get isekai’d from Earth to the world of Disboard by its god Tet. It’s up to them to save the last remaining human kingdom of Imanity from the fifteen other magical races, and the only way to do that is through playing games.
Though it opts for games and probability rather than science, the premise is similar to Dr. Stone as the lead (or leads in this case) save the day through smarts more than brawn. Everything in Disboard is decided by games, and both Shiro and Sora are the best players around. Just as humanity has hope in Senku in Dr. Stone, Shiro & Sora provide the same for Imanity, even when they meet their matches.
12 Appare-Ranman!
MyAnimeList Score: 7.25/10
- Produced by P.A Works.
- 13 Episodes across 1 Season.
- Available on Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Hulu.
Appare-Ranman goes back to science and has a genius as its lead. But humanity isn’t on the brink this time. Only the dreams of Appare Sorrano, a gifted engineer in late 19th century Japan. He wants to go across the sea, through the sky, and to the moon, with only his chaperone, Kosame Ishikki, bringing him back down to Earth. His ambitions get them stuck in the middle of the ocean, then shipped over to Los Angeles.
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With nothing left to lose, the two enter the Trans-America Wild Race, where they could potentially win a cash prize big enough to get them home. Provided Appare’s newly built automobile can hold up against the other racers. It plays out like a mixture of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run, with the 19th-century setting and a transcontinental race across the States, with Dr. Stone’s science and adventure, with a whimsy of its own.
11 Food Wars: Shokugeki no Sōma
MyAnimeList Score: 8.15/10
- Produced by J.C Staff.
- 86 Episodes across 5 Seasons, plus 5 OVAs.
- Available on Amazon Prime via Crunchyroll (5 Seasons), Crunchyroll (3 Seasons), Hulu (1 Season), HiDive (1 Season), Spectrum TV (1 Season).
While it’s not strictly mentioned in Food Wars, there is a science to cooking. Making the perfect dish is akin to chemistry, requiring careful measurements, experimentation, and knowing how elements connect, clash, blend, or repel each other. But the similarities between Food Wars and Dr. Stone lie in their leads’ passion for (and the shonen-ification of) their unlikely fields.
To succeed his father as head of the family restaurant, Sōma must test his cooking skills at the Tōtsuki Culinary Academy via their shokugeki cook-offs. The winner gains acclaim and all sorts of prizes, while the loser risks expulsion. Sōma is as keen on cooking as Senku is about science, with both shows having an educational streak, as Food Wars uses real recipes and depicts the food as closely as possible to the real, finished dishes.
10 Science Fell In Love, So I Tried To Prove It
MyAnimeList Score: 7.36/10
- Produced by Zero-G.
- 24 Episodes across 2 Seasons.
- Available on Crunchyroll (2 Seasons) and Amazon Prime via Crunchyroll (1 Season).
If science can be used to win races, make alcohol, or save humanity, can it also be used for romance? Anyone who wants more science than shōnen might like to give a romcom like Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove It (aka RikeKoi for short) a go. Just as the title suggests, it tries to tackle the subject of love and romance in a more analytical way with its leads Shinya and Ayame, researchers at Saitama University.
They work so well together that Ayame reveals she might be falling in love with Shinya. He feels the same way despite being less used to intimacy. So, they both agree to approach it scientifically, measuring their heart rates in situations and collecting the data to come to their conclusions. It balances out their stiffness with their more fun-loving coworkers and a cute, cuddly bear mascot that pops up to explain scientific concepts.
9 The Promised Neverland
MyAnimeList Score: 8.50/10
- Produced by CloverWorks.
- 23 Episodes across 2 Seasons.
- Available on Hulu (2 Seasons), Crunchyroll (2 Seasons), Funimation (2 Seasons), HiDive (1 Season), and Amazon Prime via Crunchyroll (1 Season).
Kaiu Shirai and Posuka Demizu’s dystopian tale The Promised Neverland needs no introduction. The original manga was widely praised, and the anime’s first season was a breath of fresh air that brought out the story’s psychological horror and thrills. The second season still got plaudits for its suspense. Yet it was such a steep drop-off in quality that it was compared to the infamous final season of Game of Thrones.
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Still, that first season is still considered to be top quality, and it's the only season available on HiDive and Amazon Prime's Crunchyroll channel. It's about a bunch of kids who live happily at Grace Field House. But their innocence is shattered when a girl called Emma discovers they’re being raised to be fed to demons. Grace Field isn’t the only orphanage doing this either. With her friends, Emma breaks out to save the others and make a living in the wilderness.
8 Steins;Gate
MyAnimeList Score: 9.07/10
- Produced by White Fox.
- 24 Episodes across 1 Season, plus a 4-episode ONA and movie.
- Available on Crunchyroll, Amazon Prime via Crunchyroll, Hulu, and Funimation.
The Steins;Gate anime succeeded where other visual novel adaptations faltered. It’s been praised for its takes on human nature, PTSD, gender identity, and more, becoming one of the 2010s best-received anime shows. Not bad for a story about a guy who discovers time travel via a microwave oven.
“Mad scientist” Rintaro Okabe just wanted to make a mobile phone-operated microwave. Instead, he and his colleagues Mayuri and Daru discover it can send text messages back in time. Whatever message they send back changes the present, shifting Okabe’s timeline until he’s left in drastic dilemmas that threaten his friends and the rest of the world.
7 The Disastrous Life Of Saiki K
MyAnimeList Score: 8.41/10
- Produced by J.C Staff
- 48 Episodes across 2 Seasons, plus a 2-episode special, and a 6-episode Reawakened series.
- Available on Netflix (2 seasons plus Reawakened), Funimation (1 season), and Tubi (1 season).
This one may seem perplexing at first, given that psychic powers are more science fiction than science fact. Based on Shūichi Asō’s manga, The Disastrous Life of Saiki K is about Kusuo Saiki, a high school student trying to live a normal life while hiding his vast litany of psychic abilities. He has to wear glasses to stop his vision from turning people into stone, and antennae to control his powers.
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But science is represented by his older brother, Kusuke, who makes up for his lack of powers with his engineering genius. Though he can cancel out Kusuo’s mind-reading skills with his “telepathy canceler,” he often comes up short when they go head-to-head against each other. Dr. Stone can be funny, but if fans are after more laughs, they'll get plenty out of Saiki K. All of its seasons are on Netflix, while Tubi and Funimation just have one season.
6 Cells At Work
MyAnimeList Score: 7.55/10
- Produced by David Production.
- 21 Episodes across 2 Seasons (Cells at Work! and Cells at Work!!).
- Available on Crunchyroll (2 seasons), Funimation (2 seasons), and Amazon Prime via Crunchyroll (1 season).
For something more grounded, Akane Shimizu’s Cells at Work mixes shōnen comedy with human biology. Like Once Upon a Time…Life, the anime tells its story through anthropomorphized takes on the human body’s different cells. It focused on newbie red blood cell Erythrocyte, who delivers oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nutrients around the body.
Clumsy as she is, she often gets saved by Neutrophil, a sullen-looking but gentle white blood cell that kills any pathogens that threaten the body. The show has received acclaim from shonen anime fans and actual scientists alike. Dr. Satoru Otsuka of the Emory University School of Medicine praised the show for its depiction of cancer cells and their effects on the body.
5 Moyashimon: Tales of Agriculture
MyAnimeList Score: 7.55/10
- Produced by Telecom Animation Film and Shirogumi.
- 22 Episodes across 2 Seasons (Moyashimon and Moyashimon Returns).
- Available on Crunchyroll (2 seasons).
One of Senku’s advances is helping humanity rediscover agriculture, using calcium carbonate in crushed seashells to reduce the soil's acidity enough to grow crops. It’s a neat detail that few other shows would mention, and they're the kind of details that populate Masayuki Ishikawa’s Moyashimon: Tales of Agriculture, a Crunchyroll exclusive (for now).
Tadayasu Sawaki is a first-year student at an agricultural university studying to aid his family’s mold-starter business. But he has a special gift: he can see and communicate with microorganisms. From acetobacter aceti (used to make vinegar) to trichophyton rubrum (athlete’s foot fungus), he can talk to them all. This skill earns him plenty of friends, but also enemies who want to find their own way to the top of the tree.
4 Silver Spoon
MyAnimeList Score: 8.09/10
- Produced by A-1 Pictures.
- 22 Episodes across 2 Seasons.
- Available on Funimation (1 season).
Talking to literal fungi and bacteria is a little odd, though no more strange than humans being perfectly preserved in stone for nearly 4 millennia. Even so, if fans want a more down-to-earth take on agricultural science, Hiromu Arakawa has them covered with Silver Spoon. Yes, the woman behind Fullmetal Alchemist went from fantasy alchemy to ordinary farming studies.
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Unable to attend his first choice of high school, Sapporo city slicker Yūgo Hachizen moves to the countryside to attend Ōezo Agricultural High School, or “Ezono” for short. He thought he’d be in for easy studies and an escape from his strict father. Instead, he learns agriculture is no easy ride, and gradually appreciates science and those who work in its field (often literally!).
3 Ascendance Of A Bookworm
MyAnimeList Score: 7.99/10
- Produced by Ajia-do.
- 36 Episodes across 3 Seasons.
- Available on Crunchyroll and Amazon Prime via Crunchyroll.
Yes, an isekai made it onto this list. But Ascendance of a Bookworm isn’t that far off from Dr. Stone’s premise. Instead of bringing science back to the masses, it introduces literacy instead. Urano Motosu, a lover of books, was about to become a librarian when she was crushed to death under a pile of books during an earthquake. As she lay dying, she wished she could be reincarnated in a world where she could read books forever.
Instead, she awoke as Myne, a frail 5-year-old girl in a world where only the nobility had access to books. Using memories from her old life, she decides to print her own books and spread the joy of reading to all kinds of people. It's a joy to watch for viewers who can access Crunchyroll.
2 Are You Lost?
MyAnimeList Score: 6.60/10
- Produced by Ezóla.
- 12 Episodes across 1 Season.
- Available on Crunchyroll and Amazon Prime via Crunchyroll.
Kentarō Okamoto’s story Are You Lost leans towards the survival aspect of Dr. Stone's premise than science. Its lead, Homare Onishima, isn’t particularly knowledgeable about chemistry, agriculture, biology, or the like. But she knows how to stay alive on a desert island, which comes in handy when she and her friends Asuka, Mutsu, and Shion end up on one after they survive a plane crash.
Homare may have what it takes to survive, even if it involves eating cicadas and hunting her prey. But the others don’t, so Homare has to show them what to do to stay alive. Through her teaching, each of her friends finds their strong suit, which helps the group thrive until the rescue crews can find them. Or rather, if they can find them.
1 Astra Lost In Space
MyAnimeList Score: 8.08/10
- Produced by Lerche.
- 12 Episodes across 1 Season.
- Available on Hulu, Funimation, Crunchyroll, and Amazon Prime via Crunchyroll.
Kenta Shinohara’s Astra Lost in Space tells a similar tale to Are You Lost?, with a group of kids trying to survive in remote conditions. In 2063, space travel has become so common that the kids from Caird High School can take a craft to another planet for summer camp. But suddenly, an orb of light attacks the kids and transports them to the depths of space.
Finding an abandoned spacecraft, Kanata and his friends get it into working order, call it Astra, and plot their long journey home. But since that’s over 5,000 light-years away, the kids have to visit different alien planets along the way to replenish supplies and make the most of their resources. Basically, they have to learn how to survive in space and on new worlds the hard way.
