With Dr. Stone season 3 finale set to air in December, we are anxious to see what happens next - and thankfully, we got to ask that of some of the creators themselves earlier this month at Anime NYC.

Popverse's Sam Stone took part in a roundtable interview with Dr. Stone director Shuhei Matsushita, producer Shusuke Katagiri, and character designer Yuko Iwasaa at Anime NYC, where they reflected on the twists and turns throughout Dr. Stone: New World. Working through a translator provided by Crunchyroll, Popverse asked about the upcoming season finale and the eventual series finale, given the best-selling manga series Dr. Stone ended in 2022.

Because the team now knows the ending the original creators Riichiro Inagaki and Boichi envisioned with tehe manga's end, they tell Popverse they are using it to plan ahead on the anime “to afford foreshadowing, we do have that luxury.”

Speaking in general about how they're progressed since the anime began (and with what's to come past Dr. Stone season 3), the show's creators say they love the sense of visible progression behind the story and its world, that “what they create leads to something next and that something next is always bigger.”

As the scope and story continues to scale up, the team is always trying to do something bigger and better, which is an appealing quality for them creatively.

The Dr. Stone team at Anime NYC told Popverse (as relayed through the translator) that while the production has the full breadth of the main narrative at their disposal with the manga, they are not slowing down their own work “because what the anime series brings to the table feels a little different than the completed manga.”

Knowing that there are fans who only watch the anime, in addition to those who also read the manga, the team wants the anime-only fans to also “experience those thrilling moments as much as the manga readers do.”

While Dr. Stone season 3 is planned to end in December 2023, a fourth season has not been announced or even discussed by the creators or Crunchyroll - to the point of even avoiding talk about the show's future at all.

When asked if any of the numerous new characters coming up in Dr. Stone would need to be dropped in order for the anime's pace to continue, the team said they are working diligently to incorporate them all into the story.

“We can’t drop anybody, so we want to make all the characters as attractive as possible,” the team explained. “Even if a character only speaks one line an episode, it may seem like we can cut that character, but the voice actor comes in and it’s the accumulation of those little moments that make the story, so we can’t drop any of them. They’re all important.”

Look for Popverse's full interview with Dr. Stone director Shuhei Matsushita, producer Shusuke Katagiri, and character designer Yuko Iwasaa later this week.

Dr. Stone season 3 concludes in December on Crunchyroll.

---

Here's how and where to watch Dr. Stone in order.