As we’ve seen in recent years, artificial intelligence has been an ongoing conversation from the numerous websites that have used A.I., to the strikes that have been going on in Hollywood. While recent media like Gareth Edwards’ The Creator are not direct reactions to these ongoing issues, they are stories about how humanity has reacted to the whole idea of artificial intelligence and where that could take us, which is what is at the heart of Netflix’s Pluto.
Naoki Urasawa’s manga of the same name – in collaboration with co-author Takashi Nagasaki and the estate of Osama Tezuka via his son Macoto Tezka – reimagines the futuristic world of robotics from Tezuka’s Astro Boy. Whereas Tezuka’s manga is a sci-fi spin on the classic tale of Pinocchio, with elements of the superhero hero, Urasawa’s manga reinterprets the story as a suspenseful murder mystery starring Gesicht, a Europol robot detective trying to solve the case of a string of robot and human deaths. During his investigation, Gesicht seeks the help of numerous scientists and robots, including the Japanese boy robot Atom.
While there have been anime adaptations of Urasawa’s work, they are not common and considering a Pluto adaptation had long been in development since 2017, fans hope for an anime that does justice to the source material in the same way that the seventy-four-episode-long anime of Urasawa’s Monster achieved. Instead of episodes that are traditionally around twenty minutes long, Netflix has produced a season of eight one-hour episodes that adapt the entirety of Urasawa’s manga.
This uncommon approach to anime might be too much for some viewers as each episode is densely packed with not only the central murder mystery, but each episode having their own subplot that expands upon this world. If you are planning a binge of the whole show, make sure you have as much energy as the robots have.
In fact, it is when the series takes a detour from the main narrative is where Urasawa’s themes are best conveyed. While it is obvious seeing the 39th Central Asian Conflict as Urasawa’s own reaction to the 2003 Iraq War, we also see how the many characters, biologically and mechanically, are affected by the consequences of war, from the machines who look back on their role as weapons of mass destruction, to the war-orphaned children that are still traumatized. Whether it is Atom’s scene-stealing sister Uran bonding with a homeless artist, or Professor Ochanomizu trying to repair a broken robot
Ideas such as the laws of robotics and the machines becoming more human than human hark back to Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick. Pluto somewhat continues the themes of human psychology that Urasawa explored in Monster, showing that there is a dark side within everyone and the will you have to confront it.
As an animation production, Studio M2 are committed to staying true to the source material, even maintaining Urasawa’s character designs. If you have any of Urasawa’s manga, you will know he is not one to illustrate action, relying more on suspense and character expressions. Although you shouldn’t expect the mecha spectacle to rival Gundam or Macross, the stellar 2D and 3D animation and Toshio Kawaguchi’s compelling direction deliver the variety of emotions like all the show’s inhabitants are experiencing.
Long in development, the wait is worth it as Netflix’s Pluto is a masterful anime adaptation of Naoki Urasawa’s instant classic manga, which pays respect to Osamu Tezuka’s creation as well as finding new layers.
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