Two Authors, One Story
Pluto is Urusawa's take on "The World's greatest robot" chapter of Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy, and I feel the need to preface this. It's not necessary to read it, hell I would even say to not read first because it practically spoils "Pluto", given Urasawa's story is a sci-fi murder mystery, while Tezuka's story is a battle shounen. That being said, I want to give a bit of appreciation about how well Urasawa reimagined the whole story.
Tezuka's story, while looks more like a battle shounen on surface with giant robots whose abilities are just superpowers, there's an interesting level of depth in his characters. Pluto, the story's main antagonist, is a killing machine designed to destroy all seven powerful robots, but that doesn't make him an evil character by nature. You see, Pluto is a victim of surroundings. And the story gives snippets of moments to let you feel Pluto's doing what it does because it has no other choice. The story lets you feel this inner turmoil the characters are going through. Urasawa took this inner depth and brought it out to the limelight with a different tone to the story.
"A brain capable of error is called Perfection"
"Pluto" argues that robots achieving manhood is akin to man achieving godhood, a sentinence. That the most human is to be the most flawed, which is ironic considering AI is meant to be flawless. Pluto explores this idea of a flawless machine understanding human flaws, with all the good and bad that brings with it, in a murder mystery plot. Gesicht understanding his hidden hatred, Epsilon understanding sadness, Atom who bears them both, and Pluto understanding madness. There's also a mention of grief with a few other robots as well, but one less explored idea of this is "murder". Is it inately human to kill someone? Brau1589, one of the Urasawa's characters that are not in the Tezuka's story, personifies this idea, that there's no flaw in wanting to kill someone. Most of the story keeps this as an anchoring point that connects to Gesicht and Pluto, but I feel like it doesn't explicitly explores this idea, which is bit of a missed opportunity. Overall though, it tells an interesting duality between humans & robots, is same as flaws & perfection, and how they are tied to each other.
A Reimagination
One thing I especially adored between both works is the difference in how Abullah is handled, which are different in tone.
A big twist is that Abullah, creator of Pluto and Goji, creator of Bora, are the same person, and a robot. Both work in different ways and the difference in how this twist is handled is in the info. Tezuka's twist is about Abullah being a robot. The undertone of this twist is that a robot was able to create a machine that can kill its own kind, and just once but twice. It really sells the idea that he embodies human flaws in his core.
Urasawa's twist is about Abullah being unaware that he has another personality within him, despite being a robot. What I like about Urasawa's twist is how it ties into the show narrative of perfect tobot. A robot capable of lying, even to itself.
Tezuka speaks about society with it being grand and powerful in its message questioning the world, while Urasawa speaks for oneself being a bit more personal, questioning about the self.
Entertainment
This is where I go light on my words and speaks like a regular anime fan. "Pluto" is definitely a great anime to watch. Despite having 1 hour length episode, it keeps you enganged in its story & characters with some great visuals & music aiding it.
Though, from an entertainment perspective, I found the last 2 episode being the most boring, especially episode 7. Epsilon getting an entire episode was bit of an stretch tbh, his character arc is really similar to the regular pacifist protagonist trying to protect his loved ones. He is not a waste of space though, his interactions with Pluto are deemed necessary for dramatic progression of the story, but I think it didn't need to go that long. Brando's story is similar to Epsilon and his arc was neatly wrapped in half an episode.
The Anime also shifts in tone near end, starting as sci-fi murder mystery to giant robo battle shounen. While it's something it couldn't avoid considering what it's adapting, I wish it could've had a bit more smooth transition in tone than a sudden one.
Conclusion
I think Urasawa did an excellent job in breathing new life to an already well made arc. Few hiccups aside, it also stands well as it's own IP (Independent Piece).
Overall, a great work. I'll be looking forward to Urasawa adaptations in future, meanwhile I'll try to complete Billy Bat.
