At the end of this month, we’ll be heading over to AnimeJapan, Japan’s largest official anime convention, for a whole weekend of special stalls, events, and stages. One of the events I’m most looking forward to checking out is the Dr. STONE anime event stage, as we’re only a couple of months away from its premiere in July and we’ve not had much in the way of information yet bar an initial premiere trailer.

That being said, we got the exciting announcement today that Mecha Senku will be making it’s debut at the event as a mascot character, which I’m very much looking forward to checking out. You can see the work in progress costume build below:

The character of Mecha Senku is, as you can probably guess, a robot version of the series protagonist, and it’s been appearing in various omake and splash pages of the series recently to explain the many scientific concepts and processes that come up in the series, which often prove both fascinating and useful.

But while Mecha Senku has only really ever been a minor character - if you can call him that at all - in the manga, the announcement of his debut as a mascot character during the upcoming AnimeJapan stage event has got me thinking that he may be more of an important character for the anime adaptation.

It wouldn’t surprise me if production studio TMS Entertainment is planning to use Mecha Senku from the very beginning of the story in special explanation segments, which might perhaps come at the end of each episode, like MADHOUSE’s 2011 Hunter x Hunter did in its early arcs. This would help them explain some tricky scientific concepts to viewers, as well as fill a little bit of time in each episode.

In any case, I’m looking forward to seeing what comes of this unexpected addition to the upcoming AnimeJapan stage event. Besides the debut of Mecha Senku, I’m expecting to see a new PV as well as a more concrete release date. Perhaps we’ll also get some inclination as to how the anime adaptation will tackle the slow start of the original so that it can get to the good stuff faster.

In the meantime, you can read the Dr. STONE manga via VIZ Media, who is translating the series weekly as part of their English language Weekly Shonen Jump.