In addition to healing injuries, the state of petrification also appear to have the effect of reviving a person from death. Just as how Senku and Tsukasa’s lives were brought back through the use of the petrification state, Hyoga who was stated to have died by Tsukasa was returned to life when revival fluid was used on his statue. The initial malicious characteristic of the petrification may not be such. Rather than ending humanity, could the source between the petrification 3700 years ago be the result of a desire to save it? If the petrification can heal and restore life, was the mind behind it intending to restore a certain life? ‘Why-man’ may not be as antagonistic as initially suspected.
Why-man is likely an AI with the task of observing Earth and keeping the transmission of its message active. Unless of course, Why-man is a person and they are using the petrification state to freeze and awake themselves at certain intervals. If Why-man can control the petrification power, they will have the choice of when to be petrified and when to be revived. But if that is the case, what is their purpose? Why go through the effort of turning all of humanity to stone? And why does it only affect humans and swallows? There is certainly more to the story but the main question remains, why create a weapon that can petrify other humans? Was it to buy humanity time? While humanity is petrified, the AI active on the Moon could be tasked with developing infrastructure. If this were the case, why keep humanity petrified for 3,700. If the power is one Why-man can control why not wake humanity up after 200 years?
Alternatively, another possible explanation for the source of the petrification could be the result of an alien race experimenting on humanity by resetting their progress back to zero or just merely testing the petrification device. The fact that the technology present in the petrification devices suggest that whoever created them possessed science and understanding beyond the human level at that time. And considering the moon likely served as a base of operations for that entity leads me to believe that an alien race factoring into the initial petrification wave isn’t out of the realms of possibility. The one problem that I do have with an alien race is the lack of set-up done within the story so far. I can understand an AI, I can understand a human using the petrification state to keep themself alive over 3,700 year. But the revelation of an alien race being responsible would need more set-up. Which could happen given the stage the story is currently at. The introduction of a foreign party could very well lead to humanity (those that are revived) working together to save themselves from that entity. I still believe ‘Why-man’ is an AI that has taken on using Senku’s voice. Whoever ‘Why-man’ is, it is going to be exciting seeing Senku and Co. travel to the moon.
Turning back to the events in the chapter, I loved the Suika and Kohaku’s hug. Regardless of Suika growing older, Kohaku still views her as a treasured friend/family. Suika is still younger than Kohaku, which makes their relationship even more older sister/younger sister like now. After four years, Suika finally has the moment she has been dreaming about. All because of the little steps she took one a time in order to reach a point where she could recreate the revival fluid.
Hyoga being revived was quite the development. I suspected that he could have been alive even if Tsukasa had expressed he died – it is not like Tsukasa could check Hyoga’s heartbeat. But when you take into the time elapsed from when Hyoga was shot to the activation of the petrification weapon, it was a sizable window. In that time a weakened Hyoga without medical attention would have likely taken his last breath. Hyoga remaining alive after having the revival fluid used on him confirms the suspicions Senku had. On top of healing the affected person, the petrification and revival can return a person back to life. There are likely limitations that still apply such as the time between when a person passed to be petrified but until more information is provided, it is hard to know what those limits exactly are.
How will Senku test this and how will the Science Kingdom use this to their advantage going forward? If this becomes a power the Science Kingdom can freely utilise, will we see more brutal and merciless antagonist in the future? Antagonist that end up killing some of the supporting and main characters forcing the Science Kingdom to use the revival properties of the petrification state? This development also confirms that the majority of the characters in North America when fighting Xeno’s people were killed before being petrified. Once those characters have revival fluid used on them, they will really have been revived from death.
Chrome overhearing the conversation between Senku and Tsukasa is curious. What purpose will this serve? How will Chrome’s actions deviate from the rest of the group going forward? And will a schism eventually result between Senku and Chrome? As long as a person is whole in their petrified state, they can likely be brought back to life. Will there be any new characters introduced that require the revival fluid to be revived from not only the petrification state but death? Very much looking forward to the next chapter.
12Dimension 