What do y’all think about science anime (eg. Cells at Work, Dr Stone)?
I watched and really enjoyed the first season of Cells at Work and like the premise of Dr Stone. I also love biology so I’m definitely biased lol, but what do y’all think?
Didn't like Cells at Work. Mostly because it's high-school levels of anatomy and physiology. It's fine for kids (although to be fair, even my graduate-level courses never talked about the primary cilium, and I learned about it by double-checking the show's depiction of neutrophils).
Dr. Stone I liked much more. It captured the feeling of science, even when it's generous with the capabilities of refining with primitive tools (e.g. getting access to pure ores is the only way to do anything they do in the show).
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Moyasimon: Tales of Agriculture. It is far more accurate to the science, is reasonably educational, and captures freshman-level college-life very well. I especially love how it will occasionally ditch tropes (e.g. the main character freaks out at the sexy dressed lady in the lab.... because she is swarming with ,microorganisms from not wearing PPE).
On the other hand, most other science in anime is complete and utter garbage. The rule of cool does not work with science; you have to be a crazy old guy with tenure to ever get the expertise to do dramatic things (like the guy who proved H. pylori caused ulcers by drinking a culture of it or the dude who invented PCR from an acid trip). Even then, science is littered with the bodies of people who did such things (the guy who discovered methylene blue, the Curies, the victim of the Devil's Core).
Most science in anime is some dude just hearing a cool word in english and using it in the vague way.