Pluto

Remaking Tezuka is a tall order. Urasawa's execution was flawless.

Dr. Tezuka himself introduced "The Greatest Robot on Earth" as being one of the more popular chapters from the Tetsuwan Atom series. The robot Pluto was a more complex character. Tezuka went on to say how upset readers were when it was all said and done; they wanted more - and fortunately Urasawa gave us more and then some.

The characters in the original work, the seven strongest robots in the world, had very simple substance and short existences within the original 180 page story (aside from Atom of course). Urasawa takes the blinks of life they had within Tezuka's work and stretches them out giving them so much more depth. Especially evident in his portrayal of Gesicht, who he reframes as the main character.

Some might say an "unfortunate flaw" in this remake is that it is a remake. The thought being that those who read the original story wouldn't enjoy the suspense of Pluto as much because they would already know the outcome. In spite of having read the original first, however, and with Urasawa being a master of suspense, Pluto still left me without a clue of what would happen next.

In order to truly appreciate Urasawa's take on Pluto, you should read the original Astro Boy chapter "The Greatest Robot on Earth." You must see for yourself how he was able to take Tezuka's work and, not necessarily make it better, but make it an amazingly good and different thing all on it's own, just as Doctor Tenma revived his Tobio.

(P.S. You might also want to read the "Blue Knight" arc from Astro Boy too. Our Tezuka fan-boy managed to weave that one in as well with his Brau-1589.)

"Even if the world ends, I won't let you go."

At first when I started reading this manga I assumed it was going to take a generic Blade Runner theme of "What does it mean to be Human? Are the robots any different than us?" and while it did incorporate some elements of those themes those are more so a side point to some bigger and more important themes; that being what is born from hatred, why do we hate, and from such unspeakable malice are we able to forgive?

I will be alluding to some spoilers involving characters later on in this review so I will be going into my issues/praises now.

Issues:

The ending was kind of abrupt, and will go into more detail in the spoiler section later, but that was really the only problem I had. I can understand why someone would be disappointed with the fights as the majority of them you aren't able to see and are over in an instant but I feel like that helps the stories mystery and will be much more of a personal preference. I also feel like this was one of the "less visually impressive" Naoki stories, but that's because it doesn't really try and be a visual masterpiece and knows when to flex it's muscles while still restraining itself; it's minimalist but but solid.

Prasies:

Uhh, all of it. But to be exact with my praises, the mystery of Pluto is fascinating and one of its strongest suits and I commend the reveal. Not only that but I respect Naoki-san for not sticking with a generic Blade Runner plot, and while he definitely used some of those elements like with the anti robot KKK but it only uses those as a means to a much greater end with the mystery of Pluto being much more akin to the mystery of what it means to forgive when all you love has been destroyed.

All in all I highly recommend this manga. It's short and sweet, it doesn't drag it's feet and make you feel like an idiot because you couldn't see the twists but with enough information you're able to piece the information together alongside detective Gesicht. Clocking in at only 65 chapters it never feels like it's being rushed to meet deadlines and it feels like the perfect length for such an impactful manga.



"It filled my Heart with emotion... My robot heart..."






SPOILER SECTION AHEAD





Of the two main antagonists I thoroughly enjoy Abras story, but I feel like the Teddy A.I. wasn't given much room to be a particularly interesting enemy and while they were present the entire time it didn't exactly make sense why it was so infatuated with killing the 7 most advanced robots while seeking to the destruction of the Human race. Maybe this is something that just went over my head and the Teddy A.I. was actually in cahoots with Abra? I kind of get the President wanting them gone since he wanted Thracia to be the most powerful country but I don't really think Teddy was written the best he could've been, but oh well. He received a fitting end at the hands of the infamous human killing robot Brau who sacrificed himself to kill the secondary antagonist; but I still feel like it was just a little TOO abrupt and if anything needed maybe one more chapter.

I haven't read Astro Boy or seen the series. So, none of the characters were new to me before I started the series.

The story gets off to a strong start. A murder mystery in a robot dominated world. Cool! But unexpectedly, it is also full of pathos, regret and deep sadness. Just in the first 2 volumes, there are several scenes which are incredibly emotional and gut-wrenchingly tragic. And then from the third volume, the story expands. There is a war, a dictator is overthrown, there is an anti-AI league, a horticulturalist goes missing, there is a mysterious teddy bear, apocalyptic earthquakes occur, a traumatized orphan is introduced, a melancholic scientist is pursued for his research etc. etc. So many things happen simultaneously that even with attentive reading, there are over 8-9 subplots going on simultaneously. All the while as the plot lines progresses – themes of hatred, love, sadness, forgiveness etc. are bandied about like a ball in a game of soccer. By volume 5, any sense of the original mystery has long been abandoned.

The last three volumes are such that you just want to know what the hell is going on and get the story over with. The main characters Geischt and Atom are still likable but amongst all the various plot lines spread across various chapters, the story gets cumbersome and (at least for me) ends up losing all of its charm and whatever the edge-of-the-seat feeling it once evoked.

When I started the series, by the 15th chapter I was asking myself again and again: why has this not been adapted to a 24 episode anime? Now I know why: the author tries to do too much, in too less of a space, in a very convoluted manner. And that’s disappointing since this manga had great potential which was sadly never realized.

Yeah tens across the board this manga us just that good ill keep it short but man this Manga is just absurdly good

Story: As a big fan of debate this manga really pushes some ideas about themes such as Sentience what it means to be human the philosophy behind murder and the meaning of free will. It does it brilliantly =.

Art: I mean I think its really good definitely Naoki's best artwork

Character: Every single main and side character all have there own motives and backstory no side character outshines the mains in importance there ideologies al clash at one point or another Its just genius!

Enjoyment: YEAH I ENJOYED IT its also only 65 chapters.

OVERALL: Probably my favorite manga ever I have others ranked above it quality wise nothing is quite like Pluto

Pluto is a sci-fi manga by Naoki Urasawa, the creator of such beloved series as Monster and 20th Century Boys, like the 2 works before it Pluto is a dark psychologically driven mystery revolving around themes of hatred, revenge, and death. Pluto is a remake of the late Osamu Tezuka's manga Astro Boy, specifically the "Greatest robot on earth" arc. Despite for the most part following its source material Naoki Urasawea's interpretations takes risks and adds more depth to both the setting, the implications behind the story, and most notably its characters all whilst giving the overall picture a much darker than grittier feel to it both in looks as well as the story itself ultimately resulting in an emotionally powerful and intense story that has stuck in my mind even after finishing it.

Pluto's story revolves around A europol detective named Gesicht, one of the worlds 7 most advanced robots, as hes brought in to investigate the murder of one of the creators of said 7 robots, at the crime scene there is a suspicious pair of horns brutally attached to the victim's head, suddenly more deaths of creators and even a couple of the 7 robots alike all with a pair of horns somewhere near the body, Now with Gesicht at the helm of the mystery as well as him being in direct danger its up to him to discover who is doing this and why. The Story of pluto may not have as many twists as the previous stories by Urasawa had but its none the less intriguing, it manages to throw in a new aspect of world building, back-story, or a interesting new development to the plotline whenever it feels like it may become predictable and thanks to the liberties naoki urasawa takes with his own interpretation it provides a very different and more unpredictable story than the original source material.

The characters are easily the strongest aspect of Pluto, The amount of depth given to the characters is truly a masterful example of story telling, with the 7 robots in particular even with the short screen time given to a few of them the manga provides an in depth look into their motivations, Their relationships with others, what makes them happy, what torments them, as well as giving them unique and believable personalities that only helps strengthen the theme of humanity in robotic beings that Pluto uses as a main crutch to its story. The main character Geischt in particular was a compelling character and the story arcs dealing with his control over hatred and the emotional connections he feels to others most notably his wife was easily one of the highlights of the series for me, we are consistently teased with hints of tragedy in his past and uncovering what happened in the past is one of the more minor but none the less intriguing mysteries behind pluto. Gesicht is a smart and well written character with a load of depth and even some development in him, from start to finish he was a compelling and often times tragic character that really helped carry the themes the manga tries to convey. On top of these characters is the character Atom, or as you may know him astro boy, Atom is a much different character than in the source material being a much less care free and more mature to the point character. Atom like the other robots was given a strong look into what makes the character tick and does act as a strong lead alongside Gesicht. Alongside the robots there are human characters like the much more gritty Dr Tenma, the vengeful Adolf Haas, and the more serious Dr. Ochanomizu whom add alot of depth to the story as the series progresses though I will refrain from mentioning much about them as they are best left to see from your own eyes rather than a synopsis. The depth given to the robot characters makes pluto stand out to me as one of the best examples of a story using the humanity given to robots premise done right.

As the story progresses and more of the mysteries unravel the series does transition from a mystery to more of a drama/thriller, sadly even though the last 2 are still strong the series does reach a peak with volume 4 which provides a intense and emotion filler story full of revelations and intrigue all packed with a shocking ending that left me speechless, the final pages of volume 4 with the help of the phenomenal and detailed art is one of the most powerful and saddest images i have seen in story telling. What comes after is still a tear jerking tragedy but mainly in the final volume the series it begins to feel a bit rushed mainly in some explanations, while there are no lose ends the series does require you to use your head to fill in a few of the blanks, though this comes off more as rushed and poorly written in that aspect but not enough to really hurt the series too much as it was just trying to stay true to the source material and had to take a hit as a result, though the extremely abrupt ending of the final pages is disappointing none the less. Even giving it the handicap the final volume of Pluto is its greatest weakness, but isn't so weak to undermine the story pluto masterfully told up until that point.

Pluto is an emotionally powerful series that never left me feeling bored, despite its considerably shorter length than Urasawa stories are usually it still had so much depth to its writing, characters, and themes that its becomes hard to tell its as relatively short as it it. Its a phenomenal series more than worth a read despite its hiccups near the end. Osamu Tezuka would have been proud.

Naoki Urasawa is frequently considered one of the greatest authors in modern manga. His plotting is incredibly tight and densely packed, his characters feel grounded and have complexities not afforded to most characters in manga and anime, and overall his stories since Monster have felt very adult in their themes and ideas without falling into the pitfalls common of seinen manga, who abuse the narrative freedom afforded to them by packing their stories with an excess of gore and sexual content to make their stories "edgy". For many anime and manga fans who want to show the best the medium has to offer, many will frequently point to his works.

So years back, after being blown away by Monster, when I found out he had actually penned this story, a retelling of an arc from Astro Boy, I was pretty damn excited to see what he had come up with. I was familiar with the franchise and some of Tezuka's other work, having watched several episodes of the 2003 Astro Boy anime and played the Omega Factor videogame years back, so there was an actual investment here that went beyond just reading another Urasawa story.

Needless to say, I was completely blown away by what I read.

Pluto is, at its core, a work of science fiction in the tradition of Ghost In the Shell and Blade Runner, i.e it is primarily concerned with the question of makes someone "human", and what point the line between a sufficiently advanced machine and a human actually is. Like Ghost in the Shell, the world that the story takes has had robots integrated into society for quite a while, so the story is not about them as an emerging force but rather what kind of society would exist where these beings who are becoming increasingly indistinguishable from humans, and how that grey area creates a lot of problems and interesting implications.

What makes Pluto not only work, but work very well, is two things.

The first is that it is actually reasonably intelligent. When it comes to a work like this, it can be hard to have new or interesting insights into what is essentially a very speculative future at best where many ideas have already been shown and articulated in a smart fashion in other works.

As with basically any story that deals with this "what makes a human?" theme there is some ground that is retread, but Pluto has some pretty great compelling ideas of its own to offer. It has an understanding of what it is like to live as a minority and a second-class citizen, and shows how simply because that group might be protected by the laws doesn't automatically mean everyone will accept them, because hatred simply doesn't work that way. Even when hatred is not present, contempt and indifference can be just as harmful, with many of the human characters displaying a casual disregard for any robots' well-being despite them having rights and being ostensibly their own people.

Hatred is in fact one of the central themes of the story, and it shows itself again and again as a force that cannot create anything positive or meaningful. Some people in the story hate robots so thoroughly and hold them in such contempt that they have formed explicit hate groups dedicated to maintaining human supremacy (in one of the more on-the-nose parallels they are basically the KKK for robots). But ultimately, hatred is one of the main things that define humanity and we can't simply not feel it; the point is made that any succifiently advanced robot will someday have to come to terms with experiencing it. That is one of the story's more laudable accomplishments, portraying crimes of passion, something we condemn in our regular society, as one of the spiritual rites of passage that makes a robot truly enlightened.

Secondly, Pluto has amazing narrative economy and is able to provide compelling characterization and development for characters who honestly aren't around for all that long. The mystery of the story and the way it unfolds is extremely captivating, making for a great page turner as things become more and more tangled in past political and social events. Urasawa employs a very "Steven Spielberg"-esque sentimentality to the writing, where it could have very easily felt mawkish and banal if not the compelling sincerity with which it is delivered and the general intelligence and imagination that went into the setting and ideas of the story. When the characters suffer, you will really feel for them, these Pinocchios who play at being human so well that you can't help but cry with them. The manga's cast is immensely likable and interesting, with the standout being Gesicht who is probably one of the best main characters of manga to date. They embody by far one of the most interesting aspects of the work, which is the dichotomy that comes from humans who have shut themselves away emotionally and become much more machine-like as time goes on, versus the advanced robots whose kindness, sincerity and empathy make for a fascinating contrast.

While the manga ends up losing some steam and its ending comes across as a bit anticlimactic, it ties up pretty much all its loose ends and is generally an engrossing read. While it can be easily argued that it is overly optimistic and sentimental, it has enough substance to be able to get away with most of it, similar to a smart person whose opinions you disagree with. The story can be a bit on-the-nose sometimes (it actualy references Pinocchio itself once, which I found unnecessary), but its heart is in the right place.

A final note is whether familiarity with Astro Boy or Tezuka's other work is necessary, since the series does have shout-outs and references to other works in his canon.

I think that the story is strong and does enough of a good job of explaining itself to stand on its own, but I do think that yes, you will get more out of it if you are familiar with Astro Boy in some way, whether it be the manga or one of the anime adaptations. Seeing Urasawa's take on these characters is one of the main pleasures of the series, for sure, and not one you'll be able to appreciate if you weren't already introduced to them beforehand.

Pluto Review. Originally disappointed after finishing Monster I expected this series to not live up to Naoki Ursawa's hype but amazingly...

I was right.

Pluto is a sci fi series set in about 200 years in the future give or take. Everyone is driving cool cars, lives in cool buildings and have holograms and robots at there service. The series kicks off with a murder. Someone murdered a robot and our main character needs to find out who is doing and exactly who is capable of pulling this off.

As you'd except from a series with robots they ask the questions like what is a robot what is a human. Whats the difference between a robot and a human. What differentiates them. Where do you draw line. What do you do when someone crosses it. Its something done a million times before but I do believe it works here much better as they author actually tries to dig deep into this specific scenario and honestly executing it well.

If you couldn't tell i hated it monster. Calling it a bad series is me being nice about it. So imagine my surprise when i was somewhat enthralled by the first 2 volumes of this. Like the series does an excellent job in making the robots feel alive and blurring the lines of who gets to choose what has a heart or not. The reason for this is mainly due to the charisma of the main character. He is incredibly engaging. I really liked the dynamic between him and the humans and robots he surrounded himself with. The series isn't some masterpiece but it is interesting and exciting to make want to keep reading, the story is coherent and no one spends an entire fucking episode getting gas. However most of this feeling begun to dissipate when volume 3 starts or more specifically these KKK clan wannabe's join the story.

For a story thats able to convey emotion of the robots the author is ironically incapable of making the human characters convey the same emotion. Everything beyond volume 3 just begins to dissipate. The feeling of being engaged gets removed as the main characters takes a back seat for other less interesting characters to take the stage. Its worse too as there are more human characters that shows up that no one gives a fuck about. It also starts introducing weak subplots that pull the series down.

The later half takes more of gets even worse as the main characters takes even more of a backseat. The story starts slipping and my enjoyment lessens to much more significant degree. The villain was already weak and unmemorable but when the whole story gets unraveled the twist begun to show you start noticing cracks and inconsistencies. One of the main villains the titular character Pluto just doesn't make sense. His entire story is just weak. There wasn't a single villain that really was able to stand out besides being the general bad guy.

The ending is fine but if this is Naoki's best ending im gonna be incredibly disappointed for the rest of his series. He can make great premises but his execution are just horrifyingly poor. though the epilogue ending was just... eh.

TLDR: Overall i was happy at first and then disappointed but im iffy on how to score. A part of me wants to rate it poorly but I feel like that would be unfair as it would be my bias in play. Which im trying hard not to put in. But at the same time i feel im being too nice. But considering how good the first 2 volumes of the series was.... i guess i'll barely give this one a 6/10

There’s something repetitive about how Naoki Urasawa draws. His skill at faces is arguably unmatched, in design and caricaturization. He captures real peoples’ features more than most mangaka even try to, yet his characters still feel completely at home in a comic. But when you read more than one of his stories, you start to notice the similarities. The same exaggerated noses and large foreheads, the same folds in skin and shapes of jaws. Rarely will he completely copy and paste a single design, but he’ll happily reuse the building blocks. It’s like picking random in a game’s character creator — the combination may be unique, but none of the pieces are truly new.

The same, unfortunately, can be said for his stories.

You might not have read Pluto before. But if you’ve read Monster and 20th Century Boys, and perhaps the various Tezuka works that Pluto draws from, then there is little new for it to offer you. Urasawa does not push himself to new places here. He repeats concepts he’s already done, and all he adds is an ode to his favorite things from his childhood.

That’s not to say he is lacking in skill. He may be the most well-rounded, competent mangaka in the industry, in both art and storytelling. His style is easy to read yet complex to analyze. The grounded-ness and western movie inspiration make him an easy choice for those who “don’t like anime.” That mature mass appeal makes it obvious why he’s so highly regarded, and if you quantify how many things he does right, it’s easy to agree he’s one of the best. But the more I read his works and try to qualify them, the more I find myself bothered by the underlying issues.

There’s always the detective. And the villain, whose presence looms over the story, yet is always hiding in the background. You feel the tension that the villain is going to do something next, and that it will be bad, but it’s up to the detective to figure out just what that thing is before they can even consider trying to stop it. Story progression is driven by the key questions — who is the culprit, what is their goal, what motivates that goal, and what history gave them that motivation.

It’s not saying much to point out these similarities between Urasawa’s works. Yes, they’re mystery stories. How insightful of me, to point out that they all do things mystery stories do.

But you could draw all these same comparisons between Monster and 20th Century Boys. Doing so, I find that 20th Century Boys feels like it attempts to innovate upon what Monster did, to go beyond Urasawa’s bread and butter and add some new spices. Its plot structure gave constant surprises, even if believability was stretched thin as it went on. Pluto’s plot structure feels reminiscent to the point of repetitiveness. Gesicht, the detective, goes from place to place, meeting with people that give him nuggets of information that slowly point him toward the answers. Again, it’s standard detective fare. But so many scenes filled me with the worst kind of deja vu. Doesn’t this scene feel exactly the same as something I’ve already read? Then why am I reading it at all?

One of Urasawa’s bread and butter techniques is the episodic focus on side characters, exploring their emotions before they tie into the main plot (often by dying). I don’t have a problem with him bringing this one back — but yet again, I wish he did new things with it.

One of these, early in the story, is emblematic of his writing style. A blind composer spends his aging days playing piano for himself, not for the world. His robotic butler, a robot soldier, wants nothing more than to create music, so he can appreciate beauty for himself. The composer believes a robot couldn’t never do such a thing. Real music is analog and comes from the heart.

It’s a perfect setup. Too perfect. If something like this can make you care and cry, then I’m happy for you, and I wish I could feel the same. I find it to be lacking something, and I’m not sure if I can truly explain what. It’s far too predictable, to begin with — as soon as it begins, you know that the robot will not give up, the composer will get angrier, but they will eventually understand each other better, before the robot dies in combat with the villain of the story. In theory, the concept of this story is strong, even if it completely fails to surprise me. But conforms too closely to that concept, riding on the idea of it alone, and feels like it embodies a generic idea of what a “good story” is rather than doing anything interesting. Perhaps because it plays its hand too early, makes it immediately obvious what it’s going for rather than play with what kind of story the reader should expect. I feel as much emotion reading a summary of that arc as I do from the arc in the manga itself. The execution of the concept is so clean that it’s sterile.

The characters occupy a similar space. They’re crafted well. They do everything right. But I can’t help but find them hard to care about. Gesicht is an interesting man, in the skillset you see him employ to solve the mystery, and his underlying character struggles with the traumatic secret he keeps, and whether he can truly feel things as a robot. There’s no easy mistake to point to, nothing that’s blatant bad writing. But it fails to do anything truly acceptable. Certainly not as interesting as 20th Century Boys’ Kenji, much less Monster’s Tenma.

It might be easier to see in some of the side characters. The ones it actually wants you to care about, at least. Two of them are former soldiers now working as robotic strongman wrestlers. They care about their families, and giving their audiences joy, but as the villainous threat of a robot killing the strongest robots in the world grows, they stake their pride on trying to take it down. They fail, of course. But you already knew that before I said it. And will you really care when their tragedies occur, or will it just feel like going through the motions?

Well, maybe you cared. I’m just trying to explain how I didn’t. It’s okay for us to feel differently.

Where Pluto succeeds is with its inspiration’s titular character, Atom. As well as his sister Uran, who shares many of his ethereally positive qualities. There, Urasawa feels like he captures something genuinely greater than just the sum of tropes. A iconic, archetypal, larger-than-life goodness you see in paragons like Superman. Atom feels like he’s the main character, not of Pluto’s narrative, but of Pluto’s world. I never read Astro Boy, yet Pluto felt like it communicated to me why Atom was such a big deal anyway. All of the robots, when you look closely, are as human and feeling as their biological counterparts. Just in their own way. But Atom, in truth, felt even moreso.

Atom is the focus of the final stretch of the story, and this isn’t quite a good thing. Gesicht exits the narrative in an uninteresting way. If the casualness was the point, if it was meant to be incidental in an unexpected and unavoidable way, then I don’t think it worked very well. He doesn’t leave much of a legacy, even if it does lead to one key plot development that the story needed. And then, yes, Atom is the focus, and it’s no longer a detective story. Now it’s closer to a standard action story. Not quite the cliche battle shonen, but generic all the same. It feels disjoint from the first half. Urasawa finally does something new in Pluto, but it’s simply him doing his take on another author’s work rather than innovating. But I’ll get to that later.

What I do like about the final stretch of Pluto is how well it ties together the themes. I normally hate cycle of hatred themes. So often, they’re forced, hamfisted, and never quite justify their supposed depth. If a character is so consumed by hatred, then don’t make it so easy to change their mind!

Pluto does it right. The hatred feels justified in how extreme it is, and expressed in powerful ways. It’s tied to other themes in a genius way — that hatred that gets passed on and cycled in response to atrocities is the same strong emotion required to properly focus an activate an overly-complicated AI, which is the same hatred that is testament to how in the right circumstances, a robot truly does feel as much emotion as a human. It seemingly falls for one of my pet peeves — when a character consumed by hatred is convinced too easily — but the circumstances do make sense, and Atom is the one who convinces him. The quality with which he is written makes me believe it.

Part of the reason the cycle of hatred themes work is the source of that hatred. Pluto grounds it in one of the few things it feels like Urasawa was genuinely passionate about in this story: The Iraq War. Not the real-life one, but we have the United States analogue making false claims of the Iraq analogue having weapons of mass destruction — I mean robots of mass destruction — and invading and devastating the nation. Children are killed, chances of replacing the desert with flowers are destroyed, and the invaders continue to occupy and oppress the land. It’s not subtle, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s an expression of how strongly Urasawa feels about what the US did. It conveys the horror of an unjust war, and in doing so it fully explains the anger and desires for vengeance the villain feels.

Unfortunately, there’s a major misstep in this I have to address. The story doesn’t just show the unjust war. It explains it, with the not-US President and teddy bear hyperintelligent AI. Supposedly, they orchestrated everything the main villain did. Narratively, this already makes no sense, feels entirely vestigial and tangential to the plot, and is so unsatisfying that I don’t even care that I’m spoiling it. How did they actually manipulate anything? What was their goal in doing so? It’s never explored. The villain easily could have done everything on his own, and is only less interesting because of this explanation.

But it’s even worse when you consider the political implications, and get to the reveal that the teddy bear AI was manipulating the President as well. It set up everything, going back to the war itself, because it somehow knew it would lead to the villain’s plan, which would lead to most of humanity dying so robots could take control. Again, this is already an unsatisfying, stupid reveal. But to take the fantastic commentary on a real-life war, and explain its origin with a nonsense rogue AI plot cheapens everything the story was saying. It could have challenged the true reasons behind the war, or something parallel to it. The evils of real life are evil enough without needing to fabricate a false one. Or, it could have just not included this at all, leaving it implicit, as the commentary would have worked fine without needing to explain everything. Some things are better left implicit than half-assed.

Perhaps the reason it went for the cartoonish explanation for war is that the more realistic, darker reasons would not have fit in a story tonally adjacent to Astro Boy. As I mentioned before, that’s what the final arc is — Pluto truly trying to be Astro Boy, rather than another Urasawa mystery. It does not do a bad job, but it fails to feel cohesive with what it had been before.

It’s in that recreation of Astro Boy, and Tezuka’s general bibliography, that Urasawa did truly accomplish something. For everything I think it retreads, and everything I think it fails to make interesting as an independent narrative, Pluto was never meant to be independent. It’s Urasawa revisiting his childhood, the childhood of his generation, and bringing it new life. I imagine it must be like going from Final Fantasy 7 to that game’s remake — taking something that was brisk, faster-paced, with more minimal dialogue, and filling in everything you had imagined in between as a child, to let you spend so much more time living with the characters.

And Urasawa doesn’t just bring to life the central Astro Boy arc. He draws from many Astro Boy stories and unrelated Tezuka manga, and does an astoundingly good job of weaving them together into a coherent narrative. It does not feel like the story takes breaks to tackle some other plot. It does not feel like a collection of disparate narratives, or like it makes out of place references. Pluto is as self-consistent and believable as if it had been entirely original, and I think someone would think it was, if they read it without knowing its origin story. Everything fits in the setting. I have to wonder if the reason Pluto feels so by-the-books and repetitive of Urasawa’s prior works is that he had his hands entirely full trying to make a hodgepodge tapestry feel cohesive at all. He succeeded.

But that reverence for the past is what bothers me about Urasawa’s style. His skills are undeniable, but he’s the ultimate boomer mangaka. He loves the good old days, the culture of his childhood. It’s not a bad thing to want to explore those themes — 20th Century Boys did something interesting with those ideas, by contrasting the dreams of his generation, growing up believing anything was possible, with modern cynicism. But as 20CB went on, its narrative developments grew unsatisfying and unearned, while its reverence for the magical power of rock and roll grew larger. Eventually, it just felt like it was idealizing that culture without purpose.

As talked about in a fantastic essay included in Pluto’s volumes, 20th Century Boys was telling men of Urasawa’s generation not to forget their dreams. Pluto is telling people a few things. Some of them are solid — anti-Iraq war, and some themes of robothood that are blatantly Asimovian but add a few interesting notes. But at its core, Pluto is Urasawa musing on how much he loves Tezuka. To the right people, that’s a good thing. The feat of tying so many Tezuka stories into a single narrative is, again, an impressive one. If anything similar exists in fiction as a whole, it’s certainly rare. But I’m hesitant to say that accomplishment actually makes 20th Century Boys a better story. To some, to those who grew up with Tezuka’s work, I’m sure it does. I can never read it from that perspective, and without it, the achievement does not detract, but it does not add either.

It’s not a bad thing for homage to exist in art, but this homage led to a story that felt blander than what Urasawa had written before, ripped between retreading his own work and retreading someone else’s. It might not have been possible for tributing Tezuka to have been done better than this, but I think the Tezuka tribute could have existed in a better story.

I’ve found it easier to respect Urasawa’s manga than to love them. Monster was technically well executed, but I found it hard to care about. 20th Century Boys hooked me, and had true potential that I wish it didn’t squander. It at least felt like Urasawa was still polishing his craft, and I almost love that manga, in spite of its failures. In Pluto, he stagnated. He fell back on old patterns so he could focus on recreating what someone else did, and ended up with something that didn’t do anything unique.

Quick story summary: There is a robot(?) that is killing the 7 strongest robots in the world, as well as select human robot experts. Gesicht, a renowned detective, is in charge of finding out who, or what, is causing all the murders.

Naoki Urasawa is often called one of the best storytellers to ever exist, throughout any medium. His most notable works include Monster, 20th Century Boys, and Pluto, which are all seen as some of the best stories ever to be created in manga if not in any medium, including cinema or literature.

But personally, having read all of the aftermentioned three series, I have to admit that although I didn't really enjoy Monster or 20th Century Boys as much as everyone else seems to, I believe that Pluto deserves all of the hype it gets.

I have a lot of problems with Monster and 20th Century Boys. They both seem to share similar faults: while the beginning is great, the middle starts to get drawn out far too long and the ending, for some reason, gets rushed and doesn't feel satisfying. (Huge spoilers for 20th Century Boys: How the HELL did Kenji survive? It literally makes no sense, and it also the makes no sense for him to just be fucking around for years after magically surviving Bloody New Year's Eve)

That isn't to say that I can't understand why Urasawa's works are so often praised, however. He is very good at making every chapter suspenseful, and also keeping crucial details hidden from you until the last minute. All of his manga that I have consumed so far (Pluto, Monster, and 20th Century), are prime examples of manga that you physically can't put down. In Pluto, I think this aspect of his storytelling really shines through. It is 60 chapters, but it'll be over before you know it.

I believe the biggest asset of this manga is it's length. Pluto is only 60 chapters long, which is good because unlike his other series, Pluto doesn't feel stretched out at all, and the ending actually makes sense and is satisfying. It is also a remake of another existing series, so the world makes more sense because many things already feel established. (Spoilers for 20th Century Boys: unlike, for example, in 20th Century where the dream world thing is randomly added, and never properly explained).

Another reason why Urasawa is praised so often is because of the attention to detail. I can't give too many examples out because of spoilers, but I'll say that this is a series definitely worth re-reading, if not just because of all the details you'll notice.

If you love suspenseful, mystery-driven stories that will be impossible to put down, then Pluto is definitely a great choice. If you want to check out Urasawa, then Pluto is a great choice. If you just want a masterpiece of a manga to read, then Pluto is a great choice. If you really love this, then it might be worth to also go read Monster and 20th Century Boys, although, in my humble opinion, I do think that they are overrated. (Only slightly in Monster's case, but very very overrated in 20th Century's case.)

Can robots make mistakes even though they are not programmed too.
Thats one of many questions pluto goes in too.

This Story simply said: Pluto is about the mystery behind the deaths of the most highly intelligent robots and their creators.

Story: 10
The mystery in Pluto is great. As we get more revealed about the crimes, the more questions arise. its not like everything gets revealed and thats it. No the Mystery remains untiil the very end. How Urasawa present his story is very unique and everything is somehow woven together. there is nothing wasted in pluto. One of my favorite parts is the whole part with North nr.2. it was simple yet touching and heartwarming.

Characters:10
Every character is in their own wy interisting and well characterised. Even the robots feel alive. My favorites are Uran and Atom.

Art: 7
The arts isn't really special but good enough. the panels in each chapter are well pased and there is never a moment where i felt it was dragging. it was always thrilling and enjoyable.

Enjoyment:10
I really enjoyed Plutp. The mystery was great and there was always this whiff of suspense throughout the whole story.

Overall, Pluto gets a 9/10