For years, news of a “Pluto” anime was the stuff of rumor and myth. It was first teased at Annecy in 2017 before disappearing into the shadows of the internet. Shrouded in mystery, no one knew what to believe. Fans like me became desperate for updates. Half assumed it to be abandoned like the late Satoshi Kon’s Dreaming Machine. The other assumed it to be an elaborate hoax, or at the very least wishful thinking on the part of some director. Most were a mix of the two. We’d nearly given up hope.
Then, in early 2023, six years later, we learned that the project was not only alive, it had a home and it was coming SOON. Then, more details arose. Eight episodes for eight volumes, each an hour or more. Casting and trailers showing off the animation. An October release date.
Hype is too soft a word. But can the final product live up to such high expectations? Unlikely, but if anything can, it’s “The Greatest Robot [Story] on Earth.”
Spoilers ahead.
1. To Dub or to Sub
If you’re wondering why I’m even bothering to field this question, then you have clearly grown up in a calmer, more rational fandom than I, and I’m not even OF the generation of anime fans that were truly in the sub vs dub trenches. Still, I carry that generational trauma and feel the need to address how I’ve chosen to watch Pluto. I’ve always been a dub watcher, if the option is available. It’s pure convenience, except for the rare few shows when the dub is far preferable to the sub. (Why won’t you let me watch “Baccano!” again Aniplex?! WHY?!!!)
As such, it only made sense to watch Pluto dubbed and so I will be judging the show by its English adaptation. Of course, the subtitles themselves adapt as well. There is no escaping it. There is, though, that added layer of trepidation; with Netflix doubly so. Their track record for translations, subbed and dubbed is…uneven. Thankfully, this is an excellent English dub and whether you choose it or the original Japanese will ultimately come down to preference.
And whether or not the English with Subtitles option is accurate to the dub for once.
2. Gesicht? Gesundheit.
It’s pretty clear right out the gate that Pluto knows how important it is to do this adaptation right, considering how much the original manga had to prove itself as very different adaptation of the “Astro Boy” story “The Greatest Robot on Earth.” To do that, you’ve got to open strong. Does an entire forest burning down and focusing on the severed head of a robot with two sticks like horns flanking it seem strong enough? No? How about a haunting transition of static to a trail, and then a pool of blood? Still no?
Fine. Have our main character wake up in terror from his blood dream and then get called into a different, equally messed up crime scene while dropping everyone’s favorite death flag: “I’m working too much. We should go on vacation soon.”
AH. There we go. Now we can get going.
Meet Gesicht, our focal character for the first half of the episode. He’s a detective from Europol who seems to get all the tough cases. He is the lens through which we are introduced to the world of Pluto. Unlike most detective characters, he’s pretty reserved. Not cocky, not goofy, and certainly not a know it all. He’s got some badass in him, as we see when he chases down a drug addict later, but he’s primarily there to get the job done and do it well.
He’s also a robot.
At first we don’t know that he’s a robot. He passes for human and many of the clues that are obvious when you know seem like the usual detective story extrapolations: confident statements negating the regular police’s assumptions, finding clues others miss, a general aloofness. It isn’t until he jumps off a bridge and his hand turns into a gun that it’s confirmed.
It seems so obvious in hindsight that a sci-fi detective story with a robot as the detective would make an excellent hook. They would know more because their senses are different, their brains able to retain information differently. It’s brilliant! And by positioning him as an outsider of sorts, we see the nastier side of the world and the everyday prejudices that might otherwise go unseen.
Continued belowOf course, robots are not a perfect metaphor for marginalization, discrimination or oppression. By engaging with that conversation and expanding it out to ask what makes us human, however, it allows Pluto to dig into these big questions and craft a more honest picture of the world, one which more reading feels like it comes from our own. These, more than the violence and the darkness, are the markers of Pluto’s maturity as an adaptation.
3. Paging Doctor Mouth
If there’s one negative I could levy at the episode it’s that there is a lot of exposition in this first half and not all of it is shot as compellingly as it could be. There are plenty of shots that hold on a scene in order to let the character talk. However, and this is important, I was still engrossed. Moreover, even though we don’t get consistent filmic levels of smooth animation or clever cuts, the animation team did a phenomenal job of imbuing those single-shot scenes with plenty of character-focused movement.
One great example of this is the scene where Gesicht is having his check-up. The doctor just keeps yapping and yapping and yapping. Gesicht doesn’t really move but the doctor does. This contrast helps solidify our understanding of Gesicht as well as his relationship to the doctor.
As for the animation on the whole, some cuts are better than others. Usually the close-ups are rendered more sharply like Urasawa’s panels come to life while others look simplified to make it easier to animate. However it never looks bad or even mediocre and when it looks good, it looks good. Did you see that shot of Gesicht prowling after the guy with the pipe in the streets of the old city? The swagger they added to his step? A+ storytelling and A+ walking animation.
4. I Ate His Processor With Some Microchips and a Fine Coolant
Didn’t think this dramatic adaptation of an “Astro Boy” story would go from regular sci-fi drama to a serial killer story, complete with its own Hannibal Lector did ya?
I love Brau-1589 and I am absolutely thrilled at Sungwon Cho’s casting as the menacing robot who broke robot law and killed a human. It’s an archetype that’s easy to mess up but here it comes naturally. Of course Gesicht would want to ask Brau-1589 about the strange case that might feature a robot killing both a beloved other robot AND a human advocate for robot rights. Plus that creepy extendoarm is EXCELLENT. It’s great capstone for a tantalizing start to the mystery.
5. North No. 2
For making up half the episode, why am I relegating it to just one thought? Well, mostly because I stopped taking notes halfway through. Going in, I knew that this part of the adaptation would make or break it for me. If they couldn’t get the story of North No. 2 right, then there was no point in continuing. Thankfully, they did. And even more thankfully they did so with gusto.
If you’re reading this and haven’t watched the episode, I won’t spoil anything of this story. If you have, you know why I’m saying that.
It is animated beautifully, with more consistency than the first half, and frequently took my breath away, shooting tears down my face. As a testament to both Urasawa’s talent for fully realizing characters and this adaptation’s trust in its audience, North No. 2’s tale is entirely self-contained. It begins, it ends. Gesicht is never present.
It is only after that we get a small scene to bookend the episode and transition us into episode 2 with a meeting between Gesicht and Atom, who you may know better as Astro.
That, and much more, is next time.
Best Line of the Night:
North No. 2: “You are right. That is why I want to learn to play the piano. I do not want to belong on the battlefield.”
