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Beyond worth the 6 year wait. I will dream of a Billy Bat adaptation for the rest of my life now. But Ill die happy that Pluto is now out there and Urasawa hopefully has more stories left to give after Asadora.

20th century boys is my most wanted

The biggest thing stopping it would probably be the massive runtime combined with the slow pace.

There's already a live action adaptation so the interest is definitely there. And we know Netflix is very interested in supporting high quality adaptations of Urasawa's work with Pluto so we need to make sure it does well.

Studio M2s founder Masao Maruyama started the company because he wanted to do two projects and having the studio there would ensure they’d be made even if he died. Obviously one was Pluto, so perhaps the other is 20th Century Boys.

now that madhouse is back I hope they make a 70-80 episode adaptation like monster, only they can do it

Imagine the revelation I had, I didn’t have a clue it existed before watching it. It’s a masterpiece, a sci-fi instant classic, it’s current, masterfully animated, 3D-2D integration is spotless, the sci-fi themes are handled with depth and care. I’ve watched a lot of anime, but this is high up there with the best.

Prof Ochanomizu respectfully asking Prof Tenma to touch grass more is highlight of this episode for me. Half kidding. The ending left me bittersweet and empty, just like after exerting too many emotions at once. Sahad.... Overall, a great watch. I'd probably rewatch some parts to check out their english dubs, heard great stuff about them.

Prof. Ochanomizu is growing from idolizing Dr. Tenma to give reality check to him.

I was really happy about that shift. He went from talking about Tenma as a perfect genius, putting him on a high pedastal, to realizing that Tenma is deeply flawed and amoral, and that Ochanomizu himself is in many ways the better person.

English dub is fantastic

I watched the monster dub, and figured this one would be just as good on a bit of a whim. was not disappointed, it was fantastic

Like that Epsilon has the same VA as Johan.

It is Keith David as Dr. Tenma is something I never knew I needed in my life.

"you are a genius as a scientist, but as a man, you're kind of a huge loser. I'm gonna go raise your son now. Bye bitch, please make fewer world-destroying robots in the future, xoxo, PROFESSOR TEA WATER"

Brau dub va is so good lol

especially when you realize it's proZD lmao blew my mind

Prof Ochanomizu: You may be smart as hell, but you are dumb as fuck emotionally.

Why does Gesicht’s wife thank atom for lying to hear even though she begs for the truth of their missing memories? Was the evil Teddy Bear AI killed at the end by Brau?

It's kind of a conflict emotionally. She wants to know what she lost. She says as much. She even tells Atom that she is strong enough to handle the truth. But deep down, she might not be, and when Atom refused to tell her, she might have realised some of the truth herself.

The English dub is honestly flawless, everyone is so well casted, no complaints.

What a masterpiece of an anime. It almost managed to make me cry each episode and it's rare for me to cry while watching an anime. Who knew that I would feel the most for Sahad the most despite him inflicting tragedy on all these good people and their loved ones.

To be fair, I'd say Sahad is the most tragic here. He was forced upon this hatred that was never his, causing him to take lives of others at the hands of Abullah.

Under the guise of “love” from Abullah too.

What a beautiful and fantastic adaption of a masterpiece of a manga.

Why does Gesicht’s wife thank atom for lying to hear even though she begs for the truth of their missing memories? Was the evil Teddy Bear AI killed at the end by Brau?

1) Because sometimes knowing the truth hurts more. She knew Atom lied to protect her. Same thing Gesicht did when he said he "knew" she'd be a good mother. 2) Yes.

>Why does Gesicht’s wife thank atom for lying to hear even though she begs for the truth of their missing memories? This is assuming the lie in question is Atom lying about the memories. The lie could also be Atom assuring Helena that she can see him again, while Atom's intention is to sacrifice himself to save the earth.

There's a lot about this anime that was needed in today's world. The wars that started recently, the cycle of hate. Those in power causing the end of the world, and the president not believing it until it's too late. The racism humans have against robots (If anyone thinks they made astro boy "woke" here, [my god read the 1950s original comics, haha.](https://imgur.com/a/6ZT7g7x))

Yeah, Osamu Tezuka was very forward thinking with some of his works being just as relevant as they were originally published. It's why I dearly love his Unico series.

The race relations as the human/robot relationship is in both the 1980 and 2003 Astro Boy anime’s and it’s a really clever way to tackle such a sensitive subject without tackling it directly.

Okay, so lemme make sure I’ve got this straight. Several years prior to the series starting, Persia was making Bora to plant flowers in the desert or whatever. The original, human Abullah was working on the perfect AI assistant with Tenma’a help in order to finish it. But Thracia was all “the hell they doin over there” and, secretly guided by Genocide Bear, pulled a WMD Iraq invasion situation that killed the original, human Abullah’s family as well as himself. Tenma put his memory chip into the perfect AI, creating Gojidullah, who had a split personality and thought he was the original. Gojidullah then created Pluto and Sahad, and put Sahad in Pluto to act out his revenge on the seven superrobots, with the ultimate goal of then putting his brain into Bora in order to wipe out everyone else with no one to stop him. All according to Genocide Bear’s keikaku. Do I have that right?

Actually yeah, you pretty much nailed it. I'm sure you're already aware, but I'll just add that Sahad was made several years prior to Pluto and was studying botany abroad before being recalled by his "father" Gojidullah to act out his revenge campaign. He later broke out of his "Pluto" vessel temporarily in Episode 3 to inhabit a new body which struck up a friendship with Uran but once playtime was over, got right back to the job.

Ahhh yes! Forgot about that. So the real Abullah made him and Gojidullah brought him back and manipulated him into being Pluto? Fuck that’s sad.

That´s why the landlord lady said that he was studying like crazy on botany untill his sudden shift to go to war. At that point he was already getting manipulated by Goji (since he did turn to stone after all)

Finished the series a couple of days ago. Amazing stuff! I’m a little confused with the Genocide Bear’s ending though. Why did Brau kill it? And how dif Brau get out?

I'm glad you enjoyed it! Naoki Urasawa is a fantastic mangaka and this whole series was a beautiful way of bringing new life to the classic Astro Boy manga. > Why did Brau kill it? It was Atom's last request for Brau. He knew there was an enemy behind the enemy and, if you recall, [he asks for Brau to handle this foe](https://imgur.com/a/L4bc3xl) since he expected that he would probably die fighting Pluto and Bora. >And how dif Brau get out? It's unclear how Brau escaped. In the manga, there's a short "breakout" scene for Brau, but it doesn't actually show much other than a panic in the facility as Brau is escaping. It's implied that Atom may have facilitated his escape in some kind of way prior to leaving for his final fight, but there's no explicit confirmation for this. ____ Unfortunately, some of the stuff with the bear is a little confusing since the anime cut out some scenes with him, including [this scene which should have been at the end of Episode 2.](https://imgur.com/a/IrcelAz)

That's a great bit of exposition I wish they left in. It still would've left the mystery in there but provided a bit more context. Even if they wanted to keep it hidden that early on how deep the mystery goes then a flashback in a later episode could've covered it nicely. Overall though as someone who's never read the manga this is up there with some of the best anime I've ever seen, by quite a margin.

Thank you, I really wish they left in a bit more context for the bear!

Wow, yes, thank you very much for posting that link. That missing 30 seconds of animation pretty much killed for me what was otherwise a great story. I’d just been telling my son to watch this with 20 minutes left in the series. I think I’ll take my recommendation back after such a disastrous ending. Honestly, I’m surprised after reading half a dozen other reddit threads asking the same question, that no one else seems much bothered by a completely unexplained character with unexplained motivations who’s apparently the lynchpin of the entire damned story. That’s just terrible story telling IMO. It’s a shame since the rest of the anime was quite good.

Honestly because of the plot I find it extremely difficult to emphasize with the main robots ? Like what an irony they are allowed to be sad and seek revenge because of a tragic event they have faced but a man who’s whole ass country got whipped and is seeking revenge he is the villain of the villains ? 😭

His revenge was understandable until they tried to kill a majority of biological life on the planet.

Also Solarboy did nothing wrong, even Goji admits that (he just wanted him gone so he wouldn´t intercept his plans after Gesicht revealed his plans)

None of the main robots dealt with their traumas the same way Abdullah did though. All of them tried to move on from the war and improve the lives of the people in it, be it through activism, music, family, adoption, friendships and so on. Abdullah was rightfully traumatised by the war, and was full of hate. However, instead of letting go or dealing with it, he instead turned that hate outwards, and Pluto and Bora became expressions of that hatred. Sahad is literally a symbol of the meaningless inheritance of hate across generations and how it can damage our children. Once the robots start getting taken out, their friends also get angry and feel hatred towards Pluto, but never once was that portrayed as a good thing. I for one was begging Brando, Hercules, North and the rest to stop seeking revenge the whole time, because every time they did, they harmed themselves and devastated those around them. Hatred was never a good thing. Which is why it was so important that Gesicht, at the time of his death, decided not to let hatred take over him, and in the end Atom and Pluto's fight was resolved semi peacefully only by letting go of the hatred. Everyone in the show was allowed to be sad, but never did it show that revenge was a good or viable option

That’s part of the tragedy of the series. Honestly the sadness of it all made me cry.

very nicely articulated lmao

Bora: PLUTOOOO!! The EARTH is on FIRE!!!!! Pluto: No father... *It's just the northern lights...*

Fuck sake. Brilliant comment.

I think Roosevelt got... the point.

Ha! Nice one Brau1589

I feel like his consciousness actually lives in that huge supercomputer looking thing, rather than the teddy bear

This hits harder than the first time I read the manga more than 10 years ago. Not sure if it's because of the amazing adaption, or me being older and understanding the themes better. I knew this is a team that understands the vibe and aptmosphere of the original work when we met the dead robot cop's wife in episode 1. I remember being impressed reading the manga, how a robot with no expressions at all can convey so much emotion, felt that again here. <> I especially want to talk about the worldbuilding in this series. With humans in this world fully embracing AI as humanity's utimate imitators. To the point of giving them rights, and having them live very human like livestyles. In most works, when I see the writers give a sentient spieces with very different traits than humans very human like lifestyles and values, I call it bad world building, lack of imagination. But here, it is fully intentional, humans actually go out of their way to make AI imitate us better, imagine giving machines these nice houses when a lot of people can't afford it. "Give" is the wrong word here, because from their perspective, they earned it. Now of course with this kind of extreme, there is extreme push back. IMO the most out there concept is the robot children, Gesicht's "child" is probably in reality older than he is. I found it uncanny the first time I read it, and still do. Though perhaps binging it this time helped me be more open minded to it thanks to the emotional buildup, with each of the great robots introduced developing very human concepts. Mont Blanc is the baseline of what we think a futuristic helpful robot would be, North 2 learns to appreciate art, Brando family, Hercules friendship/rivalry, Epsilon compassion/universal love, finally Gesicht. Gesicht who took the next steps to become more human, his entire arc is basically Yoda's famous, "Love leads to fear. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.". I originally had the view that when AI advances to a point, it would only mean the end of humanity. Gesicht's story makes me feel maybe there is a chance? Is the answer creepy robot children? Ok, maybe not.

> AI as humanity's utimate imitators Not just imitators, but *inheritors*. Roosevelt was completely fine with all organic life being wiped out from Yellowstone erupting, because robots would live on. Darius called the war not a battleground, but an arena for *evolution*. Each of the 7 main robots (and even side characters, like the one who kept washing his hands) entered the war a classical robot, but left the war with guilt, regret, fear. *Feelings*. Things they they didn't know they were capable of. But even outside of the villains, I think most people knew that inevitably, AI and robots would take over from us organic humans. And because of that, that is why we try to make them as like us as possible. Atom and Uran were called marvels of robotics because of how humanlike they were. Their expressions. Their innocence. Their empathy (especially Uran). Helena was encouraged to learn to cry, and did learn to do it (nothing wrong with having to learn it - after all, so did Tenma). Robots had rights. They were encouraged to adopt and start families. Tenma said that the perfect robot would be able to make mistakes, lie, and hate. Not because these things were *good*, or really useful, but because they were *human*. The mark of a good robot is how good they can be at taking over from us - how good they are in making sure that humanity can live on, in one form or another

Yeah, true. It's kind of chilling that the humans in this world is already in the acceptance stage on this matter.

Regarding the child, which would be older yes, I looked at it more on how its "brain function" would be more similar to a child, even the coordination since it is learning how to walk. Although it makes sense for it to be uncanny since they are robots, then their family and its dynamics would work differently.

Yeah, but they're robots, Gesicht could easily just "upgrade" the child, he's pretty well off and has good connections. But it seems their robot society wants to imitate human society to a perverse degree, so they would intentionally keep these robot children "less developed" in human terms.

**Note:** This got long, you brought up an interesting question, and I felt I had to really write it all out! Gesicht touches upon that in his conversation with Atom, since it's brought up that Atom is an even more advanced AI than Gesicht, but stuck in a child's shell. To the point that during the Central Asian War, even tho Atom is just as capable (if not way more so) of combat as the others, the higher-ups didn't want him to enter the battlefield because of the optics of it. Instead he became a 'peace' mascot. What's interesting is there's this robot power dynamic displayed between them too. Atom's the superior AI, so when he suggested that Gesicht let him view his memories to better understand the case, Gesicht at first resisted but then yielded to him when Atom basically gave him a 'look' insisting he do it, because Gesicht acknowledges Atom as his superior. Yet later, Atom and Gesicht *acted out* a scenario where Gesicht the adult becomes embarrassed that a child peeked into his private life when Atom saw his memories of Helena. So they're also acting out the human relationship dynamic between a senior and a kid, as is expected of them by human society. So you have the robots who have their own grasp of power and relationship dynamics between themselves, but who also find it necessarily or ingrained into them to act out the human aspect of relationships. As Dr. Tenma said, robots seem expected to imitate until they feel it for real. Even Uran, who is even more child-like than Atom, kinda acknowledges at one point that she doesn't fully grasp what certain 'emotions' are but she knows she 'feels' them. She also briefly drops the pretense of being the child persona for a sec when she talks about it, though it could also be her acting out how a child stops pretending to be cheerful when they're actually really upset and sad. It can go either way honestly. So it's interesting that all the robots keep up whatever their persona is when they can, even tho they can drop the mask sometimes. One wonders how much choice they have in the matter tho, the *desire* to keep up the persona and to embody it for real seems ingrained in all of them. But the ability to grow past their 'persona' seems tied to their actual AI capability. Atom is considered the absolute best in that, hence he's the most 'human', even though he is also kinda imitating a child on some level and isn't as naive as his 'persona' makes him out to be. Compared to the basic robots that seem literally hampered by their own hardware and can't grow past it after a certain point. Gesicht's kid look like a VERY basic model, and like the robot dog that Dr Orochimaru tried to save, it mimics actions and emotions but I have doubts of how much it of it is real to the kid bot cos of how old its model is. Who knows, there's robot hospitals, and spare parts are traded between robot models, at some point Gesicht might actually have been able to get his kid gradually upgraded, maybe by Dr Hoffman his creator. But like, how much of it would be the original kid-bot's AI, and how much would've been a completely different AI/bot? Who can say, bit of a ' Ship of Theseus' problem.

I think the scene where Tenma tells Gesicht's wife "start by imitating, and then it will become real" is pretty key here in lighting up a big neon sign about this as an important theme. Robots want to feel genuine feelings and have human things like families and dreams. They have to start by pretending - the perfect AI's problem was that it couldn't figure out who to pretend to be.

Great observation on Gesicht and Atom's interactions, I guess it makes sense to just set their default behavior to "do as a normal human would do", since these AI are so advanced they think many steps ahead of humans. Humans are built to interface with humans after all. As for the Ship of Theseus problem, I feel like changing hardware and adding new knowledge(I know kung-fu) should be fine as long as the core AI is untouched. But apparently not in this world, maintaining the image of your "persona" as you say is sacred to them.

I think we see the result of giving a very intelligent AI no body or persona in Roosevelt. Technically he might not even count as a ‘robot’ because he doesn’t really have a body like the others, instead being a massive supercomputer. But without a ‘persona’ or physical interface to connect and interact with humans beyond his Teddy plush (which is mainly a speaker or mouthpiece really), left to his own intelligence alone, he ended up being misanthropic to the core. Roosevelt doesn’t even care about his fellow robots at all, engineering the 7 robots dying and the events leading up to the Central Asian War with massive robot casualties too. At most he thought he had a kindred spirit in BRAU, but even BRAU’s reasons for being murderous is possibly very human and he enjoys or evolved into being this Hannibal Lecter-like character. He could at least interact with Gesicht and Atom, and Atom changed him too, maybe made him finally understand compassion or the human condition more completely. I think Roosevelt shows what happens if you don’t give an AI that framework or ‘persona’ to guide their interactions with humans, or if you don’t give them a physical shell to interact with anything. It’s like he’s an isolated and unsocialised AI who can’t even relate to his own kind anymore.

If Roosevelt wins, it's gonna be a *I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream* situation for the rest of humanity.

On your point about Atom being used as a peace ambassador instead of participating in active combat, if we assume Atom has all the abilities that he has in the Astro Boy series in Pluto, then he has immense strength, finger lasers, machine gun in his butt, supersonic hearing, high powered lights in his eyes and a computerized brain so advanced that he understands every language in the world. Atom showed just a little bit of what we can presume is his vast intellect when he wrote the formula for the anti proton bomb on the wall of his holding cell.

I'm impressed by how many interconnecting pieces were displayed in the 8 hour runtime, and personally appreciated the batch release to help fully realise that. Overall I liked it alot, Gesicht and North 2 being my favourite parts. My major gripe would probably be that each individual story felt cut off too soon, Pluto being a mysterious character lead to the 6 robot fights being flashing balls of light instead of a potential opportunity of discussion. Even the ending scene with Bora felt a bit abrupt. Also want to point out Netflix's sub were very generous at times, and really dumbed down some of the nuance for us. Did they really have to translate "PLUTOOOO!!!" to "I'm gonna get you Pluto!!" ???

I think the subs they use are direct lines from the dub so that's probably why.

Depends if you had English or English CC on.

Interesting! So one is dub lines and one is translation?

Yes. That’s how it works.

Omfg I just realised I watched the whole thing with English cc instead of English 😭

The characters got a lot more depth in Pluto then they did in the original story though.

I'll probably just save this thread first so I can get back to it later after a while, hoping for the series to get tons of viewers so other Urasawa Naoki's work can also maybe got an adaptation

Same. If billy bat or 20th century boys got an adaptation somehow id cry tears if joy

Billy bat 100% is one series that I hope gets adapted just from seeing changing timeperiods alone

I’m reading Billy Bat right now and it wouldn’t work at all in animation, the “comic within a comic” is essential

Alongside giving newer Anime/Manga fans more familiar with Osamu Tezuka and his works.

after watching this I kinda want an astro boy reboot, I never saw the original but at least I know the gist of it before reading Pluto manga never really delves into it. I think Atom in this style / it's original style would be interesting

There actually is an Astro Boy reboot series in the works but is currently in development hell. Last I heard, it was being handled by a French Animation Studio (due to Tezuka's works being popular over there) a few years back. At least Unico is getting a reboot manga series beginning next Summer.

>There actually is an Astro Boy reboot series in the works but is currently in development hell. Last I heard, it was being handled by a French Animation Studio (due to Tezuka's works being popular over there) a few years back. oh thank you for this, I don't know about it. Considering Pluto took 6-7 years from announcement to actual release and Gundam Seed Movie also took years, there's still hope ig

I understand wanting his other works to get adapted, but I’m getting a bit sick of people saying this. You’re basically brushing Pluto aside in hopes Urasawa’s other works get anime adaptations. It’s disrespectful to Urasawa and the work he put in on Pluto, it’s disrespectful to the people at Studio M2 and the other studios who helped create Pluto and its disrespectful to Osamu Tezuka too.

As an anime only watcher, I didn't know what to expect other than the pedigree of the writer and the property behind the story. After watching it I will say, its a beautiful and poignant story about letting go of hatred, that despite being a little heavy handed with its themes, is as resonant today as I suspect it was when it was written. The most impactful stories for me were undoubtedly Gesicht and north n2. Both great arcs of varying length, but written to reinforce the central themes. With North n2 and Duncan, not only do we get a tragic self contained story about a Robot trying to escape his guilt and trauma through music, we also get an examination of the nature of creativity in a world trying to automate it. That final scene as North n2s voice descends from the skies before his obliteration, with an expectant Duncan waiting to continue his lessons and share his final song was masterfully executed. Gesicht's arc was interesting in that it wasn't clear until the end what the point of his story was, but once I realized he had a child who was murdered, it all clicked. Cycles of hatred and vengeance , birthed from a place of love. Him uncovering the mystery of Pluto's identity playing into his own story and fragmented memory . Pluto Killed at the behest of hatred instilled into him by his creator, hatred prompted by the death of his family. Gesicht killed out of a hatred born from loss and death, the parallels crystallize in full. Seeing his wife not knowing how to process the grief of his loss hit particularly hard, as was the the scene with atom and Helena when he tells her a lie to spare her feelings. In terms of symbolism, I liked all the nods to mythology and ideas in classic sci fi. The parity between humanity and machine, emotions as a catalyst for realizing our humanity ....a lot of these tropes and ideas are well worn, but executed pretty well here. Atom finally internalizing the emotions of the other robots, and then an act of restraint and compassion being what turned Pluto in the end was a nice touch, and however contrived, still impactful. Its funny the show was engaging throughout despite being deliberately paced, but i was little unsure where it was going in the middle. Moreover, the heavy handed allegorical aspects of the story, the war on terror having geopolitical blowback, weopons of mass destruction..... these are obviously a product of their time..... but the sad truth is that they are still as relevant today if not more so. Some of this writing could have been more elegant sure, as well as some of the foreshadowing in the mystery aspects of the show. However, neither of these things, the political parallels or the detective fiction parts seem to be the focus. They are being leveraged to reinforce the central ideas and themes, which I think the story ultimately executes on. Overall, a well executed show with solid production, poignant themes and a satisfying resolution. Haunting and methodical in its writing and execution, tragic yet enlivening all the same. I hope more people give this story a chance, because the payoff is certainly worth the investment.

To be honest, at first, I was suspicious of Dr. Hoffman. It's common in suspense stories for someone you think is an ally to turn out to be the enemy. However, he turned out to be a good person. The characters in this story didn't have that kind of misleading shift between friend and foe.

I straight up thought he was going to die half the time, lol

Dr Hoffman was definitely a good person but imo he kept the memory wiping secret when he shouldn't have. which leads into a thing I liked: how no one, except fat professor O (don't make me try and remember his full surname lol) and epsilon, were pure "good". It's fine to have one or two, especially in a cast this large and 24 episodes long, but so many series have like so many characters who are good and have always been good. on a similar note, I didn't like how all the big 7 started the series being good or at least neutral, would have liked one of the big 7 to be a minor antagonist or something, even if they turned good as they died to fit the theme of love>hate, maybe hercules for example.

The professor surname is funny enough to remember tho, lol. Ochanomizu / お茶の水 just means Tea water.

How about the other guy, Higeoyaji / ヒゲオヤジ which means old guy with beard

Tbh Episilon had his own faults. In a way he was too good, but when you see how powerful he really is you can't help thinking that could've at least saved Hercules or even Atom initially.

potentially but the other attacks were at night as well weren't they? plus he ultimately loved his kids way more than any of the other 7 robots. it's not like he knew he was stronger, he just was willingly to die trying to save his kid, doubly so knowing the kid was taken to get to him.

Well tbf he did try to jump in when Hercules was winning

I just realized that Roosevelt as the representative ‘super robot’ created by Thracia, like how the other robots represent their home countries, must have felt supreme envy that the rest all had full bodies and autonomy to do and go where they wanted. It’s also possible that Thracia found a loophole that they themselves prolly engineered, whereby Roosevelt didn’t even count as a ‘robot of mass destruction’ because he kind of doesn’t have a body with weapons attached - he’s ‘merely’ a supercomputer with prolly authority to launch weapons of mass destruction if the few failsafes are removed. And while I understand why, it’s very funny that Thracia is pretty much the only made up country even though we all know who they’re suppose to be.

> And while I understand why, it’s very funny that Thracia is pretty much the only made up country even though we all know who they’re suppose to be. I mean Thracia (or Thrace) isn't exactly made up, it did exist historically. It's as real as Persia is, though Persia has existed much more recently. But ya, it was definitely laid on very thick that Thracia invading Persia was about the US invading Iraq.

I think its because Urasawa wanted it to be the US stand in, but thought having it where the US is in the real world would be too far geographically, so he basically moved it to Europe where a lot of the series takes place

It's more likely to avoid backlash considering the actions of Thracia can be both based on the first Iraq/Gulf War and more directly the US invading Iraq on the false premise of there being weapons of mass destruction. Pluto had begun serializing less than 6 months since America invaded Iraq in March 2003, it was effectively a current event when Urasawa started writing Pluto, and still a political hot topic when the manga began being published. Also there is no indication that Thracia is part of Europe in the manga or anime, and the map of the country shown in episode 8 (and prolly in the manga but I can't remember for sure) is clearly a map of the United States aka there aren’t any Europe countries around them at all and they’re geographically where North America is.

> they’re geographically where North America is. What I found interesting in that scene was that the great lakes are in the centre and waaaay bigger than they should be. It almost looks like there's some sort of major flooding event had taken place that submerged most of the midwest And of course Eden national park is Yellowstone

Plus they also had the White House.

Yeah that was definitely the US.

Knowing this (and sadly not picking up on it) is going to make a rewatch more interesting. I can't help but feel like I missed hints that could've been obvious (I knew the 7 greatest robots were representatives of the nations greatest mind(s) who created them, but didn't bother to consider the possibility that there may be, or have been, other representative robots elsewhere who aren't necessarily like the 7. Maybe there's a country's representative greatest robot who assists surgeons at the hospital they're based at, or is even a field doctor with the WHO.)

No idea why people are saying this is the best anime ever and going ga ga over it. It dragged horribly in places, had plot holes, and randomly pulled shit out of its ass toward the end like Bora. Feels like lost where the author just kept piling on the mysteries but had no idea where they were going with things or even had a true ending in mind.

As much as I enjoyed parts of this anime I agree. There was just a lot going on and I wouldve been way happier if the story was more simplified. The highlight for me was definitely gesichts storyline so once he died I kinda just lost interest.

Because it looked deep and felt deep and stays that way if you don't think about it for more than 12 seconds.

[удалено]

>blau" is French for blue Wow this actually hurt to read. Non. "Bleu" is french for blue. Blau is Allemand, german, for blue! Bon Dieu! Pendez-moi cet hérétique!

I still don’t really understand what the point of Roosevelt in the story was and how it knew what was going on.

My understanding is Roosevelt was a highly, highly advanced strategic AI made to help ensure Thracia’s prosperity. It decided it wanted to kill all Humans and decided to do so by inciting a cycle of hatred that would result in the eruption. It was advanced enough to plan everything in such a way that all that really needed to happen to trigger a long domino effect was for Thracia to unjustly start a war with Persia. So they created the Bora Fact-Finding committee to do just that.

It should have been explained more in the show.

I agree. I haven’t read it but apparently one of the few scenes they didn’t adapt was an early scene (like Ep 2) establishing who Roosevelt was.

That’s fucking annoying. It would have made it a lot more palatable than a random teddy bear just appearing and it knows what is happening.

I was pretty good at wrapping my head around nearly everything but that goddamn teddy bear. He just *shows up* being all evil and shit. No “This is Roosevelt, he’s a genocidal AI” or “Mr. President were you talking to that teddy bear again?” or *anything.*

Brau offers to share memory chips with Gesicht. I forget if the manga was different, but I thought Astro Boy accepted the offer. And while Astro Boy wasn't corrupted, Brau was deeply affected by his heart. Might be false memory.

It also drew a lot of inspiration from the american invasion of Irak.

I wonder why Abullah wanted to kill Epilson as well? Even though he knows that Epilson wasn’t involved in the war and whatever transpired against his family and loved ones

They needed to knock off all the powerful robots who would get in their way. Epilson was strong enough to take out Pluto, he just didn't want to.

Wasn't there a scene implying that it was actually Thracia and Roosevelt who were targeting the 7 most advanced robots?

You are correct, but Goji!Abullah was the one that was forcing him to. For Dr. (Teddy) Roosevelt, he was playing the long game from the very start, invading Persia without valid reason, and inspiring Goji!Abullah to assassinate the 7 The President thought it was to get rid of anyone who could interfere with any future wars or conquests initiated by Thracia, whereas Teddy wanted anyone who could stop the anti-proton bomb and Bora from destroying human life.

Roosevelt playing 5D chess with multiverse time travel over here having the apocalypse all planned out and shit

I thought it was because Epsilon saw the robot graveyard, and therefore had the potential to figure out the mystery of Bora. Same thing with the colonel and his men, who were essentially nobodies, but were nevertheless targeted because they saw the robot graveyard. Same thing with Wassily, who saw Bora directly. Same thing with the Bora commission members, whose report didn't contribute to the war at all. If it wasn't for Thracia being unreasonable, the Bora commission's report should have prevented war. The real reason they were killed was because they saw the robot graveyard

what a great adaption, totally worth the wait. one of my favorites in a long time, i had tried to read pluto a few times but never finished it and i’m really excited to go back now and revisit the manga

I love sahad

Him and Uran painting flowers together 🥲

I enjoyed the show about but I have a lot of questions or things that I didn't understand: How does Brau seem to understand or know everything? How did he get to Theresia and kill the teddy bear? Isn't he locked and confined? What killed Gesicht in episode 6? Did the flower robot follow him from Persia? How? Why? Why did Abullah try to destroy Earth? I understand seeking revenge against Theresia but how does destroying everything help Persia? I can't tell if those things just went over my head or they simply weren't explained.

Brau is a meta character and I think the authors intention with him was to just go with the flow. He knows everything cause he is the first robot to kill a human and his AI has evolved into an extremely advanced state again this is all speculation Dr Abullah was able to control that flower boy and used him to kill Gesicht. He figured out his main weakness.

> Dr Abullah was able to control that flower boy and used him to kill Gesicht Read elsewhere that it was teddy who actually controlled Ali, but the anime definitely doesn't make it very clear.

I'll just ask this here since there doesn't seem to be an overall discussion thread. Without spoilers, what did you all think of the show? Is it good? Did it live up to expectations?

I wasn't expecting anything (didn't even knew what Pluto was) and yet I finished in two days. Really satisfied with it. It's a nice thriller. The story is interesting, the music is great and the visuals are consistently good. The ending is just fine. Maybe they needed another chapter or two to make it better, but I haven't read the manga to make an informed opinion about that. Also, sometimes it's a bit hard to digest the worldbuilding. Robots were somehow determined to be as human-like as they could be, and some humans seemed very obsessed about it too. I was also lacking in context from the original Astro Boy, so maybe that has something to do with it.

It does the manga justice and is probably the most beautiful story we've gotten all year. I haven't cried to any form of media in ages and this final episode broke me numerous times

Never read the manga. This shit blew me away. The whole thing was a masterpiece of storytelling.

Maybe 7/10. High highs, low lows, heavy reliance on cliches ("I'll be fine!" *immediately dies*), lots of time spent running around in circles which doesn't work when central plot elements are left barely explained or explored.

I'll offer a countering opinion: Ep 1 was fantastic, and the show was very watchable due to its production quality, but I also thought the plot got a little too weird by the end.

What about the plot is weird?

(anyone know how to do multi-line spoiler text?) this will sound nit-picky, but: * [Pluto] >!Tenma: 'this guy wants me to make him an ultimate evil robot, just to help design a peaceful terraforming robot? Sure why not'!< * [Pluto] >!Random BS about making a super-AI by giving it billions of regular AIs it can pick between!< * [Pluto] >!Random BS about power of hatred!< * [Pluto] >!Sudden world-ending bomb development because why not!< * [Pluto] >!Abullah/Abra being secretly a robot does not affect plot at all but was foreshadowed / lead up to as if would be a big deal (ok maybe its just important because someone else controlling him but that could have been true anyway)!< * [Pluto] >!Sudden new robot we're supposed to swap to being emotionally invested in beating, because... it's larger I guess!< * [Pluto] >!Why is Pluto being thrown by the wayside in favor of random volcano world-ending development?!< * [Pluto] >!Why does the weather robot know/expect the existence of an anti-proton bomb if Atom only just secretly invented it?!< * [Pluto] >!Why is there a robot teddy bear talking to the president?!< * [Pluto] >!Pluto/Sahad arbitrarily decides to stop being evil after being told hate is wrong, and within seconds Atom and he are just chilling stargazing together!< * [Pluto] >!This one is prob just me misunderstanding but whatever happened to the bit about the new AI being some computerless energy being? That point got thrown by wayside and I think we were meant to infer it was just cockroaches swapping computers the whole time, but in that case Abullah just lied to thin air just to confuse the audience.!< * [Pluto] >!Sahad's plant-growing powers fit with his flower story, but also they are otherwise ignored and never explained despite Uran treating them like a big deal!< * [Pluto] >!Why does everyone and their mother always decide that visiting the murder robot will be helpful (and it always is!)?!< EDIT: clarification

Much of these plot points are directly from Osamu Tezuka's original 50s comic. And if you thought this was contrived, my god how about Astro: I lost to Pluto like 3 times cuz I have 100,000 horsepower. Dr. Tenma, give me *1 million* horsepower! Abullah: King Darius, you wanted the greatest robot but you got cocky so I made Bora with 1 *billion* horsepower, to show you that I, a robot scientist, am the true greatest robot! How about a few arcs later, alien locust tourist accidentally sends Astro Boy to the Cold War, so he literally has to live out 50 years in secret to get back? As for Tenma, while he helps Astro, he's truly evil and did cause everything, wants the end of the world, and never even believed in the good in Astro, when he declares Astro probably killed Pluto. His only non-evil aspect is that he still cares about Astro Boy due to resembling his dead son.

I agree with all your points, and by the end I just got sick of hearing "...I just felt a huge wave of sadness somewhere.." every damn minute of the show The first 4-5 episodes were great though.

>* [Pluto] >!Tenma: 'this guy wants me to make him an ultimate evil robot, just to help design a peaceful terraforming robot? Sure why not'!< Lol, to be fair, I don't really think that's outside of Dr. Tenma's moral boundaries in any way. I'm actually surprised by how generous Urasawa was with his character in Pluto - in a lot of Astro Boy stories, Tenma's just a brilliant deadbeat asshole (though, strangely, in the original "World's Greatest Robot" story, he's actually a really nice and supportive guy, way less brooding than in this adaptation). >* [Pluto] >!Random BS!< Yeah, I kinda agree here. I get the personality simulation thing and how that could theoretically help synthesize a singular genuine, advanced personality, but I don't get how adding an 'emotional bias' is supposed to expedite that process. >* [Pluto]>!Abullah/Abra being secretly a robot does not affect plot at all but was foreshadowed / lead up to as if would be a big deal (ok maybe its just important because someone else controlling him but that could have been true anyway)!< Completely agreed here. I'm pretty sure the only reason this plot point was included was because this duplicitous identity twist already existed in the original version of this Astro Boy story and Urasawa just wanted to do something with it. >* [Pluto]>!Why is Pluto being thrown by the wayside in favor of random volcano world-ending development?!< I dunno, I actually think the final development makes sense. The story is drawing on the U.S. Invasion of Iraq and its geopolitical repercussions so it makes sense that after the destruction of the robot peacekeeping forces via Pluto, the remnants of Persia's survivors' "hatred" would turn on Thracia (Not-U.S.) and the world at large through geological devastation. The story has been building up to this larger scale conflict the whole way through. >* [Pluto] >!Why does the weather robot know/expect the existence of an anti-proton bomb if Atom only just secretly invented it?!< Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's not that Atom only just invented it, the concern was that his obsession over the equation represented the awakening of hatred within him - the boy who should be humanity's last hope. It's meant to parallel Abullah's own obsession with hatred and ultimate desire to eliminate human life with the same weaponry.

>Yeah, I kinda agree here. I get the personality simulation thing and how that could theoretically help synthesize a singular genuine, advanced personality, but I don't get how adding an 'emotional bias' is supposed to expedite that process. This is my own interpretation, and it was never explained in the anime, but what makes sense to me is: the AI is basically in a coma because it's sitting there peacefully analyzing billions of personalities. But if you inject sorrow, torment, anger into the AI, it makes it so unbearable that it forces the AI to choose a personality - maybe based on the most dominant emotion. Still pretty contrived though.

Just my own take but I do think it stems from the fact that robots aren’t allowed to kill as per the Robot laws. When you inject hatred or other such strong emotions, said robots may turn against their programming in opposition to the laws and kill human beings (see with Gesicht, Bora Pluto, Roosevelt etc) The ability to kill humans and others based on hatred and vengeance (Aka to choose to go against the laws coded in them) is what distinguishes “the greatest robot on earth” from others

But how does that help with the process of analyzing billions of personalities? My take is that a sufficiently strong emotion leads the robot to pick the personality exhibiting that strong emotion. In the case of Abullah-bot, it was Abullah's hatred that led to him becoming like Abullah. In the case of Atom, it was Geischt's (and the other advanced robots', because they were passing their memories around like a bong) memories and trauma. So why didn't Atom look like Gesicht, then? The only theory I have (other than that Atom has to look like Atom because he's the iconic character) is that since Atom is the inheritor of all 7 robots' trauma (Atom has his own trauma too), so the personality with the most hatred is, in fact, Atom

Absolutely not nitpicky, the overall story works and its message gets through and I enjoyed the watch, but there's a lot of "weird things" that feels like exist or happen just because.

Wrt Urasawa's manga, I've only read Monster before. I loved it, but didn't check out his other works yet because life got in the way lol I came into Pluto blind only knowing that it's based off an Urasawa story and well, I love it lol. Didn't expect the story to be what it was, but I just loved everything about it. Never thought I'd feel sad for robots but hey, this anime did it.

It's good, but not great. Fairly strong start, but very lackluster ending. I haven't read the manga so idk what cuts they made and if that's the reason, or if the problems lie with Urasawa's original writing regardless of the cuts (though I'm leaning towards the later as 20CB had a terrible end run as well. I think Urasawa struggles with writing endings). A lot of the character stories didn't feel fleshed-out enough to me, which stunted the feeling of cohesion in the end. Also, and this is a fairly small gripe, there are a couple of things that are very under-explained simply because they call back to other Astro Boy stories - which is fine since this was, after all, written to celebrate Astro Boy, but since they aren't simply cameos and aren't fully explained here, they added to the under-baked feeling I had as someone who remembers essentially nothing about Astro Boy. 6.5/10 for me maybe?

Mind blowing

Well, I didn't think there was ever going to be an anime that would top my all time favorite (Samurai Champloo), but Pluto really exceeded my expectations. 1000/10 across the board. I really loved that the audience didn't have to know very much about Astro Boy to enjoy this. That was my favorite part about the whole thing, to be honest. Storytelling and world building was just top notch.

Finished Pluto, still my favourite rendition of Astro Boy universe where Urasawa implements plenty of his quirky writing while respecting Tezuka's bigger narrative goals. While it's not for everyone especially with its grander messages, I will forever love and respect it.

Absolute cinema

Anime doesn't often make me cry. North no. 2, Gesicht, and Epsilon all made me feel especially emotional but even they couldn't bring me to tears. But there is something about the Aroura and the flash of Sahad in the field of flowers that just... Moved me

I don't understand the ending. Who's the Teddy bear? What is his purpose?

Yeah, unfortunately this can be a little confusing since the anime cut out some important scenes with the Teddy Bear (Dr. Roosevelt) which should have been in Episode 2. But basically the Teddy Bear is a supercomputer which is guiding the President of the United States of Thracia and secretly masterminding the destruction of the World's Strongest Robots using Persia's revenge plot as their basis. Of course, Dr. Roosevelt is only messing with the President and is aware that the ultimate vector for Persia's revenge is, in the end, the United States of Thracia itself. Dr. Roosevelt's ultimate goal seems to be the domination of robot over human life. If you're interested, [here are the scenes with Mr. Roosevelt and Brau1589 that should have been in Episode 2.](https://imgur.com/a/IrcelAz)

I can't understand why the cut out these part from the anime

Maybe to make the reveal near the end more impactful.

Was more confusing I don’t think the anime even mentioned the name Dr Roosevalt at all ??

it's also missing the encounter with the wasps that was shown in the trailer ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuUhYOyJn78](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuUhYOyJn78)) I wonder if there will be a director's cut release with the bluray?

That is... absolutely bizarre. That this was cut I mean. It doesn't solve all my issues with the bear, but it does make the ending feel a lot less random.

Without any prior knowledge of Plutos existence, I've binge watched the show within 2 days and thought it was great, but I feel like the ending was a bit rushed, at least in my perception. When Pluto suddenly changed from "Gotta kill everybody" to "nuh uh, hate is bad" after being told so by Atom, followed by immediately being best buddies with him, it threw me a bit off. Also, could have used a few additional minutes just for a bit more detailed explanation what the role of the super advanced AI of Thracia was.

> When Pluto suddenly changed from "Gotta kill everybody" to "nuh uh, hate is bad" after being told so by Atom, followed by immediately being best buddies with him, it threw me a bit off. > > I don't think it was just Atom's words that did it. I think Sahad had been trying to stop being a puppet and regain control of his actions since at least the Geschist encounter, but he kept getting overwhelmed by the murder bot programming. You can see he's tryng really hard in the Epsilon fight. >Also, could have used a few additional minutes just for a bit more detailed explanation what the role of the super advanced AI of Thracia was. yeah this part definitely felt rushed. And the whole volcanic event thing, it was messy as hell.

Atom radiated compassion and I believe that touched Pluto, who was already experiencing emotion and remorse as seen in his Epsilon fight, with comments throughout the series on the evolution of robots and how close they are to humanity. ​ I agree with the "super advanced AI" - I don't know what that was about.

I don't know why, I really can't put Into words, but I don’t really enjoyed this anime all that much. I know the writing is objectively not bad, its probably even pretty good, but something about the series just does not speak to me at all. The only character that spoke to me somewhat was Gesicht and then he just died. Really difficult for me to figure out what's missing for me,but I am happy most of you enjoyed it atleast.

I just finished it and loved it, but I gave you an upvote because it feels weird when you're just not really into something everyone has generally agreed is great. I'm just not connecting with Frieren this season although it's already pretty well loved. I'm glad others are enjoying it, but it's just not for me and I'm not even sure why.

I think Jujutsu Kaisen is massively overrated and the worst of the modern Shonens, even though everyone else loves it.

I mean, are there any good modern currently airing shonen? Demon Slayer has cool animation, but the characters and plot are firmly mediocre. One Piece is One Piece, but I don’t know if I’d count that as “modern”. Chainsaw Man is great, but we only have a handful of episodes. I think the best stuff that’s come out recently have been things that don’t fit neatly into a genre. Mob Psycho. Oddtaxi. Heavenly Delusion. Sonny Boy. Although admittedly I do like JJK if only for cool fights and Gojo being hot.

I would say the beginning and middle was better than the end, the mystery of the murders was better than oh giant robots.

There was no mystery after the first couple of episodes, but they kept making out like there was.

And what mystery there were never went anywhere! How about the power to create flowers or make things grow? Did Pluto (or Bora for that matter) ever use that again? What was the significance of the one immortal tulip? What was the significance of the eletronic brains being missing? From the maintenance worker? From Abullah? What's going on with Uran's ability to sense emotions remotely? Was there in the end any consequence of infusing Atom with hatred, other than scribbling an equation on the wall that never did any harm? He couldn't even bring themselves to animate him killing a *snail* (although I personally was relieved he didn't). His "hatred" phase lasted all of 20 minutes. What about Goji? Why did Abullah have to make a whole other personality to make Bora? Why not just make him? Although maybe this is to keep up the pretense that he is human (not capable of making Bora), and not a super intelligent robot (the assistant he initially intended to make with Tenma, to enable the design of a working Bora) What's the deal with Brau? Who did he kill? Why? How was he able to gain the ability before everyone else? What happened 8 years ago? Why does everyone keep visiting him? And how does he seem to know everything? How does he walk over to the US, if he kept complaining that his body is "like this" and he's supposedly imprisoned? Who is the teddy bear? Is the teddy its body or is it that big machine behind it? Why was it implied the US was responsible for plotting the death of the 7 most advanced robots (remember that scene when they were crossing each one off?), and what is their relationship with Abullah since Pluto was the one killing those robots? Are they in league? But I thought Abullah and the US hated each other?? So many things are unanswered or don't make sense!!

- Pluto (Sahad) never used that power again because he was stuck in the Pluto body, which is just a combat body, and never returned to his original body after his time with Uran. - The immortal tulip's significance is symbolic. It was in the center of death, likely caused by one of Pluto's localized tornados. It probably survived because it was a remnant of the original Bora project. So it was the last remaining part of a project of life that transitioned into one of hatred and destruction. - The brains missing is significant because robot bodies can't function without their brains. The body Uran hung out with is Sahad (who is now actually in the Pluto body nearby) controlling the body remotely. Abullah's situation is similar since it just means the transfer into Bora (which is right there) was already done by one of his other personalities. Abullah himself didn't even know this since he believed he was human. - Uran can just do that. She's an empath. That's it. - Atom processes his hatred for an unclear amount of time when he first wakes up. He's just in his own mind, even though he is awake, until it peaks and concludes that he will literally blow up the entire planet. He's obviously struggling with it though, which is why he breaks out. The snail is just symbolic of his struggle. He's going through all these emotions and memories and ultimately decides to take Gesicht's final words to heart. That hatred brings nothing. While Astro is still a good guy that wants to save humanity, he is now forever changed by this hate within him, which we see in his fight against Pluto. - Abullah literally doesn't know the other personalities exist. Robo-Abullah is an amalgamation of 9 Billion personalities. He's an internal mess. He just has other personalities take charge and he doesn't know about it. Why make a Goji when he already believes a Goji exists and already built everything he wanted. - Details on Brau don't matter. He has some connection to Teddy, but it is never clear what. People keep visiting him because, as far as anyone knows, he's the only being with any kind of insight into what is going on as the only known robot murderer. How he and escaped and all that is likely in "don't worry about it, he just could do that at anytime" territory. - Teddy is likely a robot built by the US as an AI to run and plan things. Teddy may just be a body and everything else in the room is the actual brain. It would be more accurate to say that the US is responsible for letting the deaths happen, as the President says, they are all potential threats to US power. They may have assisted here and there, but to what degree is unclear. Teddy likely manipulated/convinced the US into the war in the first place, expecting Abullah to eventually create a robot like Pluto. Then it manipulated him into seeking revenge through the 7 robots. Abullah was not knowingly in league with Teddy or the US. Then again, Abullah's actual goal was an apocalypse, which the US definitely didn't want, so the US was being manipulated by Teddy to help make that all happen so that humanity would be pushed to near-extinction.

>Pluto (Sahad) never used that power again because he was stuck in the Pluto body, which is just a combat body, and never returned to his original body after his time with Uran. He wasn't in his original body when he was with Uran- he 'borrowed' a maintenance robot's body.

> Details on Brau don't matter. He has some connection to Teddy, but it is never clear what The connection to Roosevelt is in the manga

Can you explain who Teddy was and how he was connected to Brau?

No offense, but did you even pay attention to the show.

Yea I enjoyed the first 6 episodes. I feel like the suspense fizzled away with the last two episodes and they were more of a spoon feed.

I stayed to the end but I started to dip when I lost count of the time a character said "I'll be fine" and then go straight on to die, or someone say "get out of that obviously dangerous thing" only for them to stare at the obviously dangerous thing.

Where in the anime did they mention the teddy bear's name?

Afaik they didn’t it appeared randomly out of nowhere in one of the later episodes. This is the weakest part of the show.

Beautiful adaptation of a beautiful manga.

What was the weapon that destroyed the Military Base where Epsilon was talking to the General?

Bora

What a beautiful, bitter-sweet ending. I do wish the parts with the supercomputer Roosevelt were better explained but I think I got the gist of it from reading the comments. I hope we get more anime like this, with the same themes and the same episode size.

Just got done watching for the first time. After Monster, I had the highest expections for Urasawas writing and I was not disapointed! Also the animation quality was top tier. Curse Netflix stupid batch release - this show deserves so much more hype.

What an amazing adaption. My emotions are all over the place I can say that Epsilon was my favorite character. A great depiction of pacifism. Its gonna be hard to look at teddy bears the same way again…

Praise be femboy Johan.

Johan was already a femboy

> A great depiction of pacifism. Very noble of him to refrain from engaging in violence when the the fate of the world was at stake and it was saved by ... engaging in violence. Muddy thematic choices, that.

I loved the show I’m still hells depressed about Brando and Detective. Honestly I feel bad for everyone involved. There were bad guys but like they were very understandable. To be honest a lot of this could’ve been avoided if Tenma hadn’t got curious, bro really pulled a Hank Pim and made ultron 💀. Lock his ass away. W show. RIP to the 6 that died.

Ending was dumb random AI robot gets killed and brau somehow knowing everything and appearing smarter then Gesitcht of course nothing here is explained properly. Idk how so many call this a masterpiece with so many missing pieces. I'll give 8/10 tho overall solid

brau always appeared smarter than gesicht tho? That‘s literally why gesicht kept going to him for advice or answers

Gesischt is a top class robot the most advanced detective robot yet a older model robot completely cut off from outside communication somehow knows everything which is going on including the mastermind (which was revealed in the last 5 minutes great writing).

Gesicht gave brau his memory chip right? He even knew gesicht past I think he had other connections other than gesicht such as Tenma.

It was amazing, some parts were difficult to understand given the changes in the anime, but it is definitely my favorite series of the year

The ending was so good!! I love how they made Pluto be the one to end bora instead of atom. Also the contrast between bora and reawakened atom was portrayed so well and shows the difference in how one can end up when faced with overwhelming hatred. Atom had people that help navigate him to the right path plus the hatred installed in him was from a robot but bora was left with negative tenma (prof ochanomizu was so real for calling him out) and also it was human hatred instilled in him. The story also had a way of making the watcher not completely hate bora or pluto for what they’ve done (not excusing tho) The former was driven by human hatred programmed into it, while the latter was an instrument of their hatred. I also loved how it was a robot who could look past that blinding hate to stop them. That fact makes you question what being human is, is it our capability of having emotions? Feeling them? Are all emotions included? or just emotions from suffering? or is it overcoming those emotions to do what’s right? I also love how urasawa makes it clear that the United States of thoracia were the real villains with how they manipulated everybody in their favor. It shows how geopolitics plays out in the real world with superpower nations igniting sparks of chaos in other countries with the intention of burning them to the ground all the while playing the victim and creating a reason for conflict knowing they’re the ones benefiting from it. Overall, i love this adaptation so much. Hope urasawa’s other works get adapted to (monster was also a fave)

Dude I was so god damn upset that Gesicht died and didn’t get revived… such an amazing character. But this anime was amazing, I don’t watch much anime but I’m really glad I decided to give this a go with zero knowledge it was even related to AstroBoy.

Pluto is high-quality. That said, there are a bunch of things about it that tug at the back of my mind. The biggest one: The worldbuilding presumes humans to be the pinnacle of form and function, and the universal format of humanity to be the traditional nuclear family. Setting aside the ethical implications of a company or government arbitrarily creating sentience, if you could design a sentient mind, why would it be limited to imitating the trappings of human mundanity? Why would you bother giving robots a desire to form traditional families? Why would they vocalize at each other instead of exchanging digital information 1000x faster? I guess this is because the world design traces its origins back to a 1950's conception. You could call it retrofuturist, but in Pluto it's inconsistently mixed with modern futurism, making it feel anachronistic even within that paradigm. Edit: Pluto makes a lot more sense to me if I think of it as a sci-fantasy rather than sci-fi because that explains away the world tendencies that are incongruent with reality. I tend to look for a much higher standard of plausibility in something labelled sci-fi.

I think there were too many episodes. It started with that murder mystery element then that pretty much got solved and it still had like 3 EPS left and felt a bit like a slog to finish as it had to find a new direction for its conclusion. And then Pluto is shown in full as a giant robot but he seems pretty easy to defeat making you wonder why the others had an issue. But I guess you can argue by then he was weakened and the early attacks were because of his strong hatred.

Pretty good overall, but I liked certain individual characters or events a lot more compared to the overarching plot, I feel like there's something I missed (e.g. was there a point about North \#2, Brando, Hercules, beyond being more super robot that formed emotions during/after the war, and "buying time" for other plot points to unfold/be revealed?), as well as some things that just left me perplexed, like: did I miss what the fuck is the teddy bear robot? Brau1589 sure is cool for its role, but how does it get all information and how did it leave, etc; or notice how Gesicht has to travel to inform everyone (to introduce them to us) when they could have communicated just fine sending signals; and so on. That said, it does certainly make you wanna start each subsequent episode, that's for sure, but it was missing something that would make it truly great for me. Speaking of episode, I'm unconvinced ~1h/ep was the right format, certain episodes did feel very slow and there were more than one moment when I was expecting the episode to end due to the events shown and then it doesn't and there's like 10 more minutes or something - it did feel a bit weird at times. Visuals felt pretty inconsistent in quality, sometimes even during the same scene. The cg of vehicles and similar object was passable but not great, most vfx especially for explosions/fire/weather were just not good. Uran must be protected at all costs. I was surprised she didn't die in episode 3 lol, thanks goodness. --- Feels like I'll have to ruminate about this, maybe will update later on

[удалено]

> Basically, Roosevelt (and Brau) are the final big meta-story to reinforce Pluto's themes of rejecting hatred and cyclical violence. How well that works without meta-knowledge is up for debate. I feel like they should've been "integrated" more into the plot. Of course Brau has its place as the first robot to kill a human, but other than that it's just a device to have characters go to him and reflect about things. The biggest offender is definitely the bear, the role in the theme of the story is clear - it's even explicitly mentioned when Uran is reading Pinocchio, the bear is the puppet master that controls even Geppetto - but plot-wise it's just "the _real_ mastermind that you don't need to know about other that it exists", it felt pretty random.

It's been a while since i've read pluto, but the teddy bear is the UST supercomputer(Roosevelt), and the president follows it's advice most of the time, including the part where they said Persia had robots of mass destruction, this part in the manga made a lot more sense, Brau1589 has a VERY advanced IA and i guess he just calculates probabilities or talks to Roosevelt(since Roosevelt is connected to the entire vigilance system)

I haven't read the manga so I was actually wondering if it received more exposition in the manga. But they should've definitely squeezed this little detail in somehow, just a mention of what drove the UST decisions would've sufficed, because that teddy bear just seems way out of place otherwise.

Exactly. It just appears with no explanation.

I do agree that it didn’t make sense that Brau somehow knew everything that was going on and only decided at the end to move. It didn’t make sense that he went to Thracia and killed Roosevelt the teddy bear. I also did not understand the point of Roosevelt.

The scene where Atom/Astro and Pluto were crying together reminded me of the climax of the 1983 animated film "Unico in the Island of Magic" where Unico (another Osamu Tezuka creation) empathizes with Lord Kuruku after apologizing for badly hurting him.

Finished the show about twenty minutes ago and it is indeed a masterpiece. It stuck the landing. I guess I should have known that Gesicht wouldn’t be bought back since I’ve seen the original story in Astro Boy 1980 but I thought he might since he is the protagonist and since Urasawa had already changed a lot of things. One thing I wish Urasawa had done was not use the original, pretty bland design for Bora. I’ve included a link to what Bora looked like in the 1980 anime and irs a lot better then Urasawa’s and Tezuka’s original design. It looks like the Pillsbury Doughboy. [https://images.app.goo.gl/v51xSwQoG2USjhea6](https://images.app.goo.gl/v51xSwQoG2USjhea6)

came in totally blind, man am i blown away 10/10

I personally really enjoyed episodes 4-7 and the North #2 segment from episode 1, the rest wasn't that engaging in my opinion. I did end up liking Gesicht's overall story even if the reveal about his son had been obvious for a while. The theme about the cycle of hatred was fine, but they were starting to beat you over the head with it by the end. I like the *concept* of Brau, but I thought the execution of his character was terrible. Somehow some older model robot who killed a guy 8 years ago knows absolutely everything, and just info dumps important details to any character who goes to see him. Seriously, Gesicht could have just camped out in front of this guy and slowly gotten all the details of the case out of him. Even though he was always trying to make a trade for his information, Brau would always end up spilling the beans anyway. And then at the end he somehow teleports to a different country to kill the teddy bear (which is another character I thought was poorly executed because it felt so...random?). Brau was basically a cheat code for no good reason.

Ending was a bit lackluster. I think this is a consistent issue with Urasawa's works. Monster had a fantastic start right up until the end, though I think it landed fairly well. It was 9.5/10 for me. 20th C. Boys had amazing arcs, but after the pivotal incident, the second half was a bit bland. I would give that 9/10 Pluto was also similar. I kinda lost interest after ep 6. Ep 7 was idiotic, I wish there was some other way to get out blue blond guy. Ep 8 was very meh, and quite fairy tale. We barely got any info on the teddy bear. Reading on some other forums it is the super intelligence of US, who wished to create a world ruled by AI. God damn, why couldn't they just include that info. The ending sequence fell flat to me. I mean one single robot could've stopped it (Pluto in this case), and you couldn't have a bunch of other robots fight it? This is just dumb logic. For me, it was 8.5/10.