Reviews

So, I took several days to cool down and now I'm ready to talk about Pluto calmly. I'll preface it with my thoughts on Urasawa. I've read 20th and 21st Century Boys and watched Monster. I had problems with all of it. Generally speaking, I don't like how unfocused his story can get, how some characters get enough development to become proper characters but not enough to do anything worthwhile with them. Most of his stories could be significantly trimmed down to focus on what matters. The degrees to which these problems manifest themselves in his works vary a lot as well. There is also a question of realism and plot holes. Urasawa writes stories that want to be taken seriously but all of them have elements that rip you out of the story, be it military personel not shooting a terrorist because he is is playing his guitar really well, a pregnant woman about to give birth climbing through ventilation shafts and over fences or a robot dog having a hearbeat.

However, despite my problems with Monster and 20th Century Boys, they both have something to offer. 20th Century Boys has good character chemistry and a generally interesting story with nice atmosphere (until 21st Century Boys ruins most of it) and the art is pretty good as well. Monster has some phylosophical questions that, while not perfectly explored or presented, are interesting and the character of Johan is... Well, a double edged sword as he is is the biggest selling point and the biggest problem of Monster. Pluto though...

Pluto has all the problems of Urasawa's writing in one messy package. There are no plot holes, there are plot craters. The whole technical aspect of the show is utterly nonsensical. Watching it made me angry. Despite Pluto being 8 hours it barely develops any characters beyond the basics. The story is simple and would've been enough in some battle shounen but is woefully basic and unfit for a show (I haven't read the manga, I'm only talking about the adaptation) like Pluto that is trying to be something serious, intellectual and profound. Pluto could've told a story of robots and humans, of how artificial differs from real or how close they can get, of what it means to be human, it could've been filled with political intrigue, sharp twists and mystery, instead Pluto does a bit of everything which amounts to nothing in the end. It has one main message of "Hatred is bad", barely any interesting characters, no intrigue, no logic, no point. And I have to mention that I was gonna give it a 6 but the last episode was such a dumpster fire I had to lower it. I wanted it to be over with so bad and it ended so unceremoniously I literally went "That's it?".

Long story short, Pluto is a waste of potential, animation and setting. The only value it has is production value. I would only recommend it to people who can "turn their brains off" while watching.