After Tsukasa almost kills Senku by striking him in the back of the neck, Taiju and Yuzuriha frantically try to revive him. Taiju immediately goes for chest compressions, but when that doesn’t work, he thinks of trying mouth-to-mouth rescue breaths. His eyes change into a sparkly old-school shoujo style and his lips protrude out from his face with a disturbingly realistic glisten. Luckily for Senku, Yuzuriha stops Taiju out of fear that they could damage their friend’s neck. It would’ve been interesting to see the “kiss” actually play out, though...

The sweet and reliable village girl Suika is almost never seen without her trademark watermelon helmet. Everyone thinks that she must have some kind of deformity to hide, but when Senku pulls the watermelon off, it turns out that she’s actually just a normal little girl. However, as soon as they see her cute face, she squints so hard that it scrunches and wrinkles into the visage of an old lady. Seeing such a weathered face on the body of a 9-year-old is shockingly funny, even though she’s only squinting because she’s nearsighted. Can Senku do something to help out?

Shortly after Senku first awakens in the stone world, he discovers that nitric acid from bat guano was the miracle liquid that dissolved the petrification around his body. He manages to find and dig up the statue of his friend Taiju, eyes misting with joy at the prospect of seeing another human being again. He gathers enough nitric acid and triumphantly throws it over Taiju’s head... but nothing happens. In his infinite disappointment, Senku’s face shifts into that of a hyper-realistic middle-aged man with puzzled eyes and pursed lips. It perfectly expresses the feeling of “What the hell just happened!?”

After being soundly defeated in a “sorcery” battle (really just Chrome and Senku showing off basic science experiments), Chrome challenges his new rival to an arithmetic competition to prove his worth once and for all. He tosses out a query of “8 x 8 = ?”, fully expecting to bowl over his opponent with ease, but Senku (along with Kohaku, surprisingly) solves it without even trying. Chrome’s shock is portrayed with a highly exaggerated horror face that looks like something out of a Junji Ito manga, or perhaps Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”. The chapped lips, sunken cheeks, and nose dribble really tie it all together.

The most iconic reaction face from Dr. Stone is also one of the very first to appear in the series, showing up soon after Senku and Taiju meet Tsukasa. The strongest primate high schooler crushes a petrified statue of an older man while he explains to Senku that he only wants to revive young people so he can create a society with no greed or property ownership. Senku’s mind whirs with ideas of how to keep Tsukasa from finding out about the revival formula... when Taiju suddenly barrels in with a full jar of fluid, loudly exclaiming that they can revive Yuzuriha now!

Senku’s look of unadulterated shock and terror takes up an entire page, and his voice actor in the anime version adds some almost inhuman groaning noises on top of it for emphasis. We’re forever grateful to Boichi for this unparalleled masterpiece of a reaction image to go along with one of the most pivotal moments of the story.