Dr.Stone kicks off with humanity being petrified, stuck in time like rock showpieces until Senku wakes one day and tries depetrifying the rest.
However, one question baffled everyone: how did humanity get petrified in the first place? Was it the result of some manmade experiment gone wrong? Or was it the work of some Villain? And Who is the Why-Man?
In this article, we will unravel the mystery shrouding the petrification of humanity and learn all about the Why-Man.
1. Who is Why-Man in Dr.Stone?
Ryusu calls the series’ main antagonist, Why-Man. It is not the name of a human. Instead, it refers to a web of biomechanical parasitic organisms with extraterrestrial origins composed of an AI that runs their commands.
This extraterrestrial being was given this name when it first communicated with the Kingdom of Science through radio waves. It continuously screamed “Why!” to ask humanity why they didn’t take their offer to live eternal lives.
The Why-Man was transmitting these signals from the moon, where they had settled.
They appear as beings out of Edgar Allan Poe’s gothic stories, with gaunt skull-like appearances with trench-like hollow eye sockets with piercing pinholes. Their terrifying limbs appear like an eerie static transmission.
They can act in unison or as separate units and are called Medusa due to their appearance.
2. Why did Why-Man Petrify Humans?
The Why-Man had petrified humanity to fulfill their goal of survival. To carry it out, they proposed a mutual relationship with other beings, petrifying them to grant eternal life and healing in exchange for their survival by exchanging their diamond batteries when worn out and advancing them.
The Why-Man searched the cosmos for a worthy benefactor by looking for signs of their intelligence- in the form of Electromagnetic Waves.
It caught a whiff of the EM waves from the earth as we use it to operate radios to communicate, microwaves to heat food, X-rays to see our bones, Gamma Rays to kill cancerous cells, etc.
The Why-Man used its petrification devices to petrify humanity about the 21st century, waiting for a response, as beings with higher IQs break free from the stony state faster than the low IQ ones.
However, that didn’t happen for around 3,700 years, so the Why-Man abandoned humans as a doomed cause and left to reside on the Moon.
One day, Senku broke from that state and began restoring humanity. He shared his accumulated knowledge and began another technological revolution by reinventing the Radio.
The EM waves produced by this radio were captured by the Why-Man (collective entity) on the moon, and it transmitted consecutive “Why” messages.
It was trying to ask humanity why they didn’t choose eternal life in exchange for being maintenance workers, where they would change their diamond batteries and advance their technology further in the cosmos.
3. What Did Why-Man Do after Humans Started Depetrifying?
Once Why-Man received the EM signal from Senku’s Radio, it transmitted EM waves to trigger the remaining Why-Man Medusas. This produced another petrifying beam and froze humanity, assuming humans understood their part of the deal.
To stop this threat to humanity, Senku joined forces with his rival, American scientist Dr. Xeno, to build a spaceship that would reach the moon, where the Why-Man resided.
Senku, Kohaku, and Stanley’s team arrived on the moon and discovered a black spot of withering medusas (collectively, the Why-Man). This is where the mystery unravels, and the Why-Man reveals its purpose and deals with Senku and his team.
4. How did Dr.Stone End? Was the Why-Man Defeated?
In the final chapter (232) of Dr.Stone’s manga, Senku defeats Why-Man and persuades them that humans don’t want to accept their “gift” of eternal life in exchange for the symbiotic relationship.
With this declaration, the Why-Man Medusa assumed that humanity didn’t have enough IQ to realize the value of their gift, so they left in search of higher beings who would accept it.
However, one of the Why-Man’s units, the Medusa, stayed back on Earth because it was curious about humans and the extent of their intelligence.
This was perfect for Senku, as he could use this medusa’s knowledge to depetrify the remaining humans by building a time machine, which could prevent the first wave of certification.
5. About Dr. Stone
Dr. Stone is a Japanese manga series written by Riichiro Inagaki and illustrated by Boichi. It was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump on 6th March 2017 and ended on March 7, 2022. Its chapters have been collected in 26 tankobon volumes.
Every human on the planet was turned into Stone after a mysterious flash of light hit Earth. Four thousand years after Senku, a student is confronted with a brand new world, an Earth without Humanity.
Now animals rule the world, and nature has reclaimed the planet. Senku and his friend Taiju begin trying to find a way to restore humanity.
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