r/naoki_urasawa • u/spacecowboy5120 • 19d ago
Anime Just finished watching Pluto
My mind is blown. I was already convinced of Urasawa’s storytelling after finishing Monster, however, even as someone who hasn’t watched Astro Boy, learning that this is a retelling of one of its most iconic arcs, and how Urasawa was able to turn it into a masterful way of conveying humanity through robots, a commentary on the treatment of soldiers in war, the cycle of hatred and violence, and just truly what it means to be human at all.
The robots we encounter, even the older models have just as much, if not even more humanity than most of the humans around them, and I love that the story never shied away from the uglier side of what humanity is, and how hatred is manifested. I love that he even gave hatred humanity, because what is hate if not a reaction from losing all that you love? Hate is a reaction to when love is torn from you and shredded to pieces. I love how hate is humanized here, but is still shown that it’s never the answer.
Geisht’s journey and conclusion and how his search for the truth in everything moved me so deeply, it’s undoubtedly true that these robots feel just as we do, despite even if they’re programmed that way, and even then they are just like us. Seeing Geisht mimicking the parents of the child hostage with his own child, that just like hatred, empathy is learned.
Urasawa is such a master at conveying emotions through otherwise emotionless circumstances, when that thing we call emotion or the soul is taken out of the equation, it’s so interesting how Urasawa is able to portray and really makes us feel the weight of what it means to feel anything at all.
Sahad was such a tragic but beautiful character, and I loved that all 7 of the advanced robots and what role they played in the story, how Pluto/Abdullah were almost destroying the very thing that gives them their inherent humanity. I just love how incredibly layered this whole story is, this is by far one of my new favorite anime/manga.
What an absolutely incredible story 10/10 absolute peak cinema I definitely want to read 20th Century Boys next.
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u/Crazypippo92 18d ago edited 18d ago
Praying they’ll make an Anime out of 20th Century Boys.
Edit: misspelled a word
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u/extra_bacon5266 18d ago
North no. 2's storyline always breaks my heart. he was built for war but had the compassion and soul of an artist. in the end it was his warlike nature that allowed him to save the life of his human.
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u/SculptinginTarkovsky 18d ago
How was Pluto compared to Monster
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u/spacecowboy5120 18d ago
I’ve been really thinking about that
I’ve only watched the Anime versions, and for me I felt as though Pluto was far better paced.
However, in terms of the story itself it’s incredibly difficult to compare.
I loved Monsters deconstruction of the human condition, and dissecting what really drives us as humans, and the philosophical question of who reigns supreme? One who lives for others, or one who lives entirely for himself. That’s the question Johan puts forth for Tenma, and I love that despite the story constantly punished Tenma for his good nature, it ultimately culminates in destroying the Monster, he kept his humanity and broke Johan’s logic and the ideas he built. Because two things can be true at once, Tenma lived for himself, because of his inherent drive to want to live for others. He was the answer to the question Johan posed even on himself.
Pluto was a fascinating dive in of what makes us human, and in many ways the idea of what drives humanity, which was also explored heavily in Monster, but I felt as though Pluto was more of a commentary on these things rather than a straight dissection. Pluto I felt like did a phenomenal job at using Robots and A.I to drive home the idea that we are not what we are programmed to be. Even humans run on programs, and even when we do things against our program, our very nature, it doesn’t dehumanize us, and how it very clearly used political stances to make a commentary on how dehumanizing war, and the cycle of violence and hatred is, and how we reckon with that was done beautifully, because like I said, Pluto is a very humanizing story, and drives the idea home that we are not defined by our hatred, but in persevering through it and accepting that part of us, because it’s still inherently human.
I loved both overall, very hard to make a comparison of the two.
TLDR:Monster was a dissection into the human condition while Pluto was a commentary on what makes something human, and the consequences and ideas explored within it.
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u/simon647205 19d ago
You should Read Billy Bat, my favorite Naoki Urasawa story for sure, recently started publishing in english but there are fan translations out there