Best Anime Like Dr. Stone

Key Takeaways

• 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 continued its adaptation of the manga’s “Source of the Petrification Saga”, following on from the Dr. Stone: Ryusui special, where Senku and company had to revive and then placate the top sailor, Ryusui Nanami, before they could set sail for their next venture, where they may find out more than they bargained for if the manga’s “Truth of the Petrification Saga” arc is anything to go by.

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 his fists. But there are similar anime that focus on science and survival, and these are the best anime like Dr. Stone.

Updated November 16, 2024 by David Heath: Things have been quiet on the Dr. Stone front in the past year, as fans wondered when the manga’s last saga would get adapted to animation. Their wait is now over, as the trailer for Dr. Stone: Science Future hit the internet. It’ll be the anime’s final season, as Senku’s crew finishes sailing across the sea, featuring new characters in Dr. Xeno and his sniper, Stanley Snyder.

The first of three cours will hit schedules and streaming platforms in January 2025, kicking off the new year in style. Still, as of this writing, it’s two months away. Fans will still have to keep themselves busy during that time and find stuff to watch during those cour breaks as well. So, this list has been updated with a few more series that resemble Dr. Stone in its premise, content, themes, or more.

1 That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime

Slime Creature Helps Bring Fantasy Realm Up To Date

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.

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.

2 7SEEDS

Cryogenically Preserved People Wake Up After The Apocalypse To Restart Humanity

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 5 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.

3 Blast Of Tempest

Shady Protagonists Try To Save Humanity From Turning Into Iron By Mysterious Phenomenon

Dr. Stone sees humanity get turned to stone, and 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.

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.

4 No Game, No Life

Siblings Save Fantasy World Through Their Senku-like Smarts

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.

5 Food Wars: Shokugeki no Sōma

It Does for Cookery What Dr. Stone Does for Science

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.

6 Appare-Ranman!

Engineering Genius Tries To Win Cross-Country Race To Get Home

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.

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.

7 Science Fell In Love, So I Tried To Prove It

If Dr. Stone Was A Romcom Instead Of A Shōnen Series

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.

8 Log Horizon

30,000 Japanese People Have To Reform Society Within A Video Game

Log Horizon focuses more on the survival aspects of Dr. Stone but with more of a sci-fi twist. In it, the MMORPG Elder Tale has taken the world by storm, providing millions of players with different things to do. But something strange happens when 30,000 players in Japan download its 12th expansion pack, ‘Homesteading the Noosphere/Novasphere Pioneers’, and end up physically transported to its world as their in-game avatars.

Since it’s a fantasy game, they’ve essentially been sent back to the medieval era, and with no obvious ways of getting back home, they have to figure out how to survive in Elder Tale for real. Shiroe has an advantage in that he knows the game inside and out, but it’ll take the support of his friends Naotsugu and Akatsuki, among others, to survive in the long run. Log Horizon might not do much for Dr. Stone fans who prefer its science themes, but it might click with those who fancy its videogame-based takes on its premise.

9 The Promised Neverland

Kids Try to Survive on Their Own Without a Scientific Genius in Their Midst

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.

Still, that first season is top-notch and would suit fans who’d like something that has Dr. Stone‘s survival premise, but with more of a horror edge. 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.

10 BTOOOM!

A Way of Living in a Video Game World Without Being an Isekai

Log Horizon has its players getting sucked into its digital world, but gamers don’t need to be isekai’d to live their favorite games, as Ryota discovers in BTOOOM! He mastered the game while living unemployed with his mom. Then, one day, he wakes up to find himself on a remote island, where he essentially has to play the game in real life by fighting back against weapon-toting goons with only a few allies by his side. Like Himiko, a fellow BTOOOM player whose avatar was married to Ryota’s.

While it’s also about survival, the series focuses more on the brawn than the brain, as Ryota and Co. have to shoot back against their enemies instead of figuring out a field of science. Many of them are grimmer figures than Senku’s friends and frenemies. But it has a similarly complicated plot of conspiracies and shady organizations in its background, as someone or something has to be running these real BTOOOM games for some grim purposes.

11 Steins;Gate

Eccentric Genius Accidentally Discovers Time Travel

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, as all “Mad scientist” Rintaro Okabe wanted to do was 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. Like Dr. Stone, Okabe has to find a way to keep his friends and humanity at large intact from a potential disaster. Only his time-twisting situation is more complicated, though no less easy than rediscovering agriculture and immunology.

12 The Disastrous Life Of Saiki K

Science Whiz Tries to Get One-Up on His Psychic Brother

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. 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 as Senku & co fumble their way into recreating society, but if fans are after more science-based laughs, they’ll get plenty out of Saiki K. All of its seasons are on Netflix, while Tubi and Funimation just have one season.

13 Cells At Work

Personifications of Blood Cells Try to Keep the Body Going

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 the 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 shōnen anime fans and real 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. It’s one of the few series that’s closest to Dr. Stone as it offers shōnen shenanigans with a realistic approach to science.

14 Moyashimon: Tales of Agriculture

Agriculture Student Talks to Microorganisms to Get Ahead in His Studies

• Produced by Telecom Animation Film and Shirogumi.
• 22 Episodes across 2 Seasons (Moyashimon and Moyashimon Returns).
• Available on Crunchyroll (2 seasons) and Apple TV+.

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 series formerly exclusive to Crunchyroll.

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.

15 Silver Spoon

Boy Learns to Appreciate Science Without the Apocalypse

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.

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!).

16 Ascendance Of A Bookworm

Girl Advances Fantasy World Through the Power of Literacy

Yes, another 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.

17 Parallel World Pharmacy

Man Advances Fantasy World Through Modern Medicine

Dr. Stone is essentially about the surviving pockets of humanity trying to get out of a new Stone Age as soon as possible (quite literally with the statue phenomenon). Without conveniences like hygiene and modern medicine, people would end up dying from easily treatable conditions. Parallel World Pharmacy‘s Kanji Yakutani finds himself in a similar situation when, after he dies from overwork, he’s resurrected in another world.

Revived in the fantasy land by the god of medicine as Farma de Medicis, and granted his divine blessing along with his old memories, Kanji gives the common folk the kind of medical treatment only the rich in their world could get, if not better. However, he also has to figure out new workarounds for conditions he can’t fix with homemade pills or first aid. It’s basically Ascendance of a Bookworm with medicine, which brings it closer to Dr. Stone‘s scientific focus.

18 How A Realist Hero Rebuilt Tthe Kingdom

Machiavellian Metropolitan Management

Dr. Stone stood out from the shōnen crowd because Senku and Co. tried to save humanity by practical means instead of using power-ups and fisticuffs. Punching people really hard isn’t going to help them find fresh water, build shelter, grow crops, or disinfect wounds. It’s a refreshing take on the genre, though it wasn’t the only one to ground its premise like this, as How a Realist Rebuilt the Kingdom does something similar with medieval fantasy worlds and economics.

Kazuya, a humanities student with dreams of becoming a civil servant, is left distraught when his grandfather dies. With no morale or hope, he suddenly finds himself whisked away to the fantasy world of the Elfrieden Kingdom. Its king, Albert, wants him to be his kingdom’s champion and take down the opposing demon army. Not keen on sword-swinging, Kazuya finds a different way to stabilize Elfrieden: administrative reform! Like Dr. Stone, the series takes an important-but-dry subject and revamps it as the source for new and unique adventures.

19 Are You Lost?

Master Survivalist Teaches Her Friends to Hunt and Forage While Left on a Desert Island

• Produced by Ezóla.
• 12 Episodes across 1 Season.
• Available on Crunchyroll.

Kentarō Okamoto’s story Are You Lost leans towards the survival aspect of Dr. Stone‘s premise rather than science. Its protagonist, 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.

20 Astra Lost In Space

Kids Try to Survive in Space and On Multiple Worlds Instead of One

• 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, it’s Dr. Stone meets Star Trek: Voyager as the kids find new worlds and civilizations while trying to survive in space.