Review: Pluto

This ONA series, which debuted on Netflix in late October, has a very interesting pedigree. It adapts a lauded manga by Naoki Urasawa (the manga-ka behind titles like Yawara! A Fashionable Judo Girl, Master Keaton, 21st Century Boys, and of course Monster), but that was itself a re-imagining of a singular story arc from Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy; indeed, Atom and his creator, Dr. Tenma, are both major characters in this story. That this is essentially an Astro Boy spin-off is not at all apparent until the last scene of episode 1, and no familiarity with Astro Boy is necessary to make sense of this story. It can be watched as a stand-alone just fine.

And it’s definitely worth watching regardless of what your normal opinions on fare about robots and AIs are. Over the course of 8 roughly hour-long episodes, it spins a sprawling, thought-provoking, occasionally intense, and sometimes even damning story about the tumultuous relationship humans have with ever-present robots and how certain robots attempt to live as humans would, including having spouses and even children. The framing device for the whole story is a basic-seeming plot: someone or something is going around destroying the seven great robots, advanced AIs who all participated in some capacity in the 39th Central Asian War a few years earlier. Paralleling this are the murders of individuals who are initially believed to be connected by their advocacy for robot rights but are later shown to all be linked by having been involved in a fact-finding mission which immediately preceded (and laid the groundwork for) the aforementioned war. As he investigates both lines of cases, robot detective Gesicht speaks to each of the surviving great robots in turn.

In some respects, the series follows familiar themes. Each of the robots in question is actively working on trying to find its own niche in post-war life. One becomes a butler to a blind genius composer and tries to learn about music, another raises a large family, another looks after orphans, and another just can’t completely step away from all of the battles. Each of them reflects on their involvement in the war and the way they participated in it, resulting in very human-like experiences of soldiers who try to reintegrate into society after coming home from bloody battles. Because robots, unlike humans, can’t forget without their memories being specifically wiped, their experiences weigh heavily on them. Meanwhile, there are anti-robot terrorists to contend with, the trial of a former dictator, the rebuilding of a war-devastated country, and oh, yes, a mysterious robot called Pluto going around wreaking havoc. All of it is connected, but the underlying mystery of the story is how it’s connected.

Many of the issues raised in the series are familiar ones for the genre. Robots in this setting can fight and destroy other robots but are explicitly forbidden to harm or kill humans, yet one did once, and that seems to be happening again. Or is this not just the second time? What mechanism might allow a robot to do that? Robots do what they can to fit in, even to the point of mimicking human behaviors that aren’t necessary for them, but can they really understand what it is to be human? And does making robots and AIs more human-like mean they can achieve human emotions and flaws as well? The series plays fast and loose with the science, in many places pushing it to the level of magic, so those expecting fine realism won’t find it here. However, technical minutiae is not something the series has much interest in exploring.

That’s because the series has so much else to say and points it is clearly trying to make. That the source manga began in 2003 is an important detail, as the story makes little pretense about the 39th Central Asian War and the circumstances that brought it about being heavily modeled on the early stages of the Iraq War in 2003; the country at the center of the conflict is even unsubtly called Persia, and it leader Darius XIV bears a distinct resemblance to Saddam Hussein. Instead of “weapons of mass destruction” being the impetus for the war, it’s “robots of mass destruction” here. In the real world, whether or not the WMDs actually ever existed became a thorny issue in the years following the war, and that is harshly reflected here. In fact, the truth or falsehood of that matter ultimately proves to be the impetus of most of what happens in the series (even if not apparent at first). Parts of this may make viewers old enough to remember the Iraq War a little uncomfortable, and I don’t doubt that’s intentional.

The series measure up on technical fronts as well. The distinctive character design styles of both Tezuka and Urasawa stray markedly from current standards, but none of the characters here – not even the robots – lack for distinctive appearances and personalities. Settings, whether futuristic-looking cities or desolate desert battlefields, are beautifully-rendered by a wide range of contributing studios. CG aspect don’t always blend in perfectly, but otherwise the animation effort is smooth and strong, with some truly dynamic sequences. Credit also goes to music director Yugo Kanno (with support from some compositions by Urasawa), who delivers a musical score that turns the most intensely dramatic scenes into true powerhouses, giving the whole affair an appropriate sense of size and scale.

I watched the series in English dubbed form (it is available with Netflix’s normal array of sub and dub options), and the English vocal performances will not disappoint. Though the cast mostly consists of long-time anime regulars performing as expected (gee, casting Richard Epcar as a robot who looks like a buff, middle-aged, white-haired guy with a bad attitude must have been a tough decision. . .), kudos go in particular to anime newcomer Jason Vande Brake for an outstanding performance as Gesicht and to relative newcomer SungWon Cho for a potentially career-making turn as philosophical killer robot Brau-1589. And no, that’s not a Western actor using an accent for Darius XIV; they really did get a Jordanian actor (one known for having dubbed some anime into Arabic) for the role. You won’t find a weak performance anywhere in the English dub, however.

Despite prominently featuring child-looking robots in some episodes, Pluto is very much one of the rare anime series made completely for adults. It delivers in all storytelling, characterization, and technical aspects and easily deserves to be considered one of 2023’s best titles.

Rating: A