Detailed Timecodes: 0:00:00 Introduction 0:01:40 Basics of Pluto 0:03:06 Full Story 0:05:47 Chapter One 0:10:01 Brau 1589 0:12:58 The Name “Pluto” - the horns 0:19:43 Atom and Astro Boy 0:24:53 39th Central Asian War - the inspiration 0:31:23 The Greatest Robot on Earth 0:51:45 Pluto, what is he? 1:08:33 Dr Roosevelt 1:18:08 39th Central Asia War - a beautiful mess 1:30:08 The Name “Pluto” - the enduring tulip 1:35:04 Gesicht’s Death 1:46:08 The End of the World and One Million Horses 1:51:44 An Atom Reborn 2:05:54 The Ending 2:27:22 The Overarching Plot 2:34:35 Misc Topics 2:34:51 Robo K 2:36:11 Worldbuilding and worldbuilding 2:37:17 Give ‘em the horns! 2:39:10 The Bora Survey Group 2:40:12 Abullah, Goji, and Bora 2:43:20 The Anime 2:51:06 Personal Take 2:57:26 Outro
Just here to say that I started watching this video on the day it was uploaded, stopped partway through, watched the entire series on Netflix because I felt too lazy to read, and then *came back* to watch the video. All within the same day. It was great.
You have to drop a Billy bat one. I know you already did those series of videos on it, but I’d love this style of review of it (ps; Billy bat is my favorite urasawa work and definitely his most underrated)
@@bass8583 I couldn’t disagree more, the ending was phenomenal in my opinion. Almost perfect. Billy bat being implied to be both humanity’s doomer (the corrupted, fake billy) and its hope in tough times was beautiful and poetic
In regards to whether I could piece out Gesicht’s background before the reveal, the answer is yes. The anime is pretty clear on what happens, but that didn’t make it less heartbreaking. Even at the last second I had hopes that Gesicht didn’t do it, he wasn’t able to kill out of hatred, that it was a ruse to frame him in the eyes of his brother. But he did. He succumbed to hatred, understandably so. It switches the tone of the rest of the series. Even the good guy protagonist fell into hatred. It makes the series seem like a tragedy, even more with the subsequent death of Epsilon, the peace loving robot that refused to fight. It makes you feel like all hope is lost for this world. And that’s what made the Atom and the snail moment even more powerful for me. Every other powerful robot is dead, the good guys succumbed to hatred and said hatred was used to wake him up. Will he be like the rest and try to reject and eventually lose to that hatred? Or will he understand the hatred, and use it to fuel a more powerful emotion in hope?
I think atom woke up and was submerged by gesicht hatred but the seen in the rain when he became “normal” again was a link to when he first met gesicht and saved a snail. Gesicht was surprised to see atom “a robot”, pay attention to such a “primitive” life form. To me, that’s “why\when” the switch occurred, was because atom then remembered how he was originally and remembered what compassion felt like.
Also, atom as the memory of gesicht… so atom see how he used to be through gesicht point of view… therefore we can’t say easily, “atom shouldn’t be the same robot as he was”, since his awakening is most likely biased based on gesicht point of view of the original atom.
1:55:40 Personally, I interpreted this moment as Atom basically lying. Maybe more of a lie of omission, but still a kind of untruth, a bringing back of the idea that a sophisticated enough AI can lie. We see him lying just a little after this moment too, when he says he doesn't know anything about Gesicht's missing memories. It's not that he couldn't lie before (he's told that same lie before, after all) but more that recentering of how human he is. He lied to his creator as a form of reassurance to mask his own trauma, he refuses to share something he knows would be painful for a grieving wife to hear. This panel always read as more eerie to me than as genuine. It's that we don't know if Atom truly is fine now. It's a seed of doubt that reminds us that Atom is perfectly capable of lying or hiding his true emotions, to keep us guessing about how his resurrection has affected him. I do agree with everything else in this section, but I just think that taking Atom as his word here isn't the point of this particular moment
Just a couple thoughts. I always thought of Atom's "death" was that the full weight Pluto's hatred (which we know he transmits to some extend) just overwhelmed Atom's AI to the point where the only thing it could to do was shut down. Atom couldn't process it, so his AI shut down. However, it still sustained massive damage before it did, which fragmented Atom's "psyche" and rendered him catatonic. As for Atom's "rebirth", this is another of my personal interpretations. You're right in that he didn't get any upgrades or power boost. Because he was experiencing hate, he was no longer holding himself back from his full destructive potential, which was always there but held in check by Atom's inhibitions. Atom never wanted to fight. Or destroy. He always fights in the name of protecting life, whether it is human, animal or robot. I believe this led to him always holding himself back to a huge extent. He always used just enough power. Once Gesicht's hate was "installed", he no longer had those inhibitions, which led to him utterly dominating Pluto until he remembered Gesicht's last words, which reawakened his true gentle nature. Like I said. These are just my interpretations based on watching the anime. Thank you for this amazing analysis and deep dive!
So here is my explanation how Brau comes up with the name "Pluto". In many (all?) Astro Boy iterations there is a character named Blue Knight. Brau, should correctly be romanized as "Blau", which means "Blue" in German. Seem like a stretch? Well two of Blue Knights characteristics were a) using a lance and b) killing humans. In the 2003 anime Blue Knight is associated with a character name "Shadow" (he repairs and upgrades him and later in the story they leave earth together). In that iteration Dr. Tenma (the creator of Atom/Astro) builds and then transfers his memory to Shadow and it is made a point that Shdow is "a robot that can design robots". In that adaption Shadow the creator of Pluto and not like in older versions, a Sultan. This seems to be a major inspiration for the character of Abullah / Goji. So the implication is that Blau knows that the attacker is called Pluto and he just hides the circumstances under which he got that knowledge - namely that at some point in the past he was in contact with Goji and heard that he was workign on a strong robot named "Pluto". Maybe Blau was also manipulated by Roosevelt, just like Abullah/Goji, which is why he agrees to Atom's request at the very.
Pluto's body is specifically called out as being a repurposed environmental robot when the UN analyzes his left arm. Chapter 52 (Wassily), page 6: "We can't be entirely certain, but they seem to be left arm parts from a Persian made robot... Possibly from an environmental development robot that was refitted for military use." Edit: For fuck's sake you even show it at 1:43:36 that whole rant about Pluto's power not making sense was a waste of time.
1:23:00 Maybe you didn't get it: those were the ”finalists” the fractured AI of Goji/Abdullah concurrently ghost-walked, and physically simulated just to fight itself, partly to prove who should lead the gestalt, but also to understand the sins of humanity. The personality that was most human won: the embodiment of hatred, the part of the real Abdullah's brain that houses emotions. The bodies being from Bora prototypes as stated later is misleading and the plot exposition being a somewhat unreliable narrator. It was shocking because this was the only way for it to save itself and become one unified intelligence. After this, it begun a plot to have robots become the inheritors of Earth: take a creation of human Abdullah, Sahad, and recreate him into Pluto by injecting Abdullah's hatred into him. This whole thing, where Sahad/Pluto takes on hatred that isn't his to exact a revenge he doesn't want, is supposed to be an allegory for a uniquely Middle Eastern view of collectivist generational trauma. It is how they survive, no matter what. Pluto wins by finally saying no to his new robot father, a father that became a sort of failed demiurge in of itself. Atom was ”killed” by exposure to the unmitigated festering wound of hatred. He, just like the unawakened Goji, had to realize there are no answers, no winners, only victims. He survived because his exposure to Gesicht's memory card innoculated him at the start of the story. You can only gift hatred to others, or you can choose that hatred dies with you, but you can never forget that you are now a monster, too. The ending is bittersweet, because Pluto and Atom bonded over the mistakes of the previous generation, a shared knowledge of self, the humanity, the monster, the whatever that is underneath the metal and silicon. Also, the part of the story where Sahad steals a body and lives as a homeless person and befriend's Atom's sister, is essentially an AI's equivalent of a disassociative episode brought on by CPTSD. The fugue state ends, and he goes home to the Pluto body. Robot Abdullah understands and isn't angry, because he understands how he, himself, exists inside of Goji, and isn't any different than the homless persona that Pluto temporarily adopted. However, since Goji is supposedly perfect, he lies to himself about his true nature and doesn't connect the dots, that he isn't the real Abdullah, even though this foreshadows the end plot where Goji finally wakes up for real and adopts his final new body, no longer ghost-walking as Abdullah.
I think Sahad’s story is about breaking generational trauma/hatred. In real life, a lot of us have beliefs and ideas forced upon us by those who raise us. Even though Sahad’s hatred is literally injected into him by Abullah, it’s a similar idea. Admittedly though, I do think it’s easily lost since Sahad never really shows an idealogical struggle between “my father is right” and “I am right, father is consumed by hatred.” He’s always pretty squarely on the side of “my father is in the wrong, but he’s my father so🤷🏻♂️.” I think it would have been neat if Sahad had the perspective of “my father was literally and mentally broken by war and I don’t want to push him over the edge by going against his will.” That could have brought the focus back to the war itself and provided something (in my opinion) more interesting for Sahad
Agreed! It's more metaphorical than I think the author of this video was hoping for, but I think its very much about a child being radicalized by his father's hate. Scratch that, the MEMORY of his fathers hate, because it's not actually Abullah, is it? It's his legacy, from the point of his life where he was full of hate, after he stopped being a loving father, and without the opportunity to heal as he grew older.
I love these reviews, and I really appreciate you taking the time to repeatedly clarify relationships, names, connections etc. I can watch the video without shuffling around, trusting you will clarify stuff just enough for the noobie watcher
Vindicating seeing the Pluto anime get so much praise from you. I started reading Pluto manga a little bit after having finished 20th, and unfortunately it wasn't really scratching the same itch 20th did for me so I put it down for the time being. Several months later I saw the anime announcement, and coincidentally it came out right before a lengthy vacation so it was the perfect time for me to really sink my teeth into it, and after watching it during plane and train rides, god damn I was hooked until the end, especially after the North episode. It definitely made me wanna go pick up the volumes now, especially because it seems the easiest and cheapest to collect out of the big 4 of them. Unfortunate to hear that the ending might be somewhat of a letdown but I'm also much more of a journey over destination kinda guy personally so I probably won't mind too much
Honestly dissapointed in the overall coverage the anime itself seems to have recived almost no one has covered the story. And while this is primarily about the manga i still very much enjoyed it.
Thank you so much for this video!! I just finished the anime and was looking for someone to take a deep dive to explain the story and its themes. This came at the perfect time. I really appreciate all the hardwork put into this video. Keep it up!
Absolutely ridiculous how little views this channel gets. You're one of the best video-essay makers on youtube and you deserve a hundred times the amount of attention you get
Personally I did find the Persian character to be very tragic. Dr. Abula (however you spell it) was an incredibly tragic character, being entirely consumed by the hatred causes by the war, to the point that all that remains of him is a copy with nothing but his hatred. Sahad I don’t see as a victim of Abula, but a victim of the hatred and tragedy that the war brought on Persia. The one point I do agree with on this topic is with the Persian “foot soldiers”, they did not attempt to humanize them at all. That said I love these videos from you, the one you did for Monster was amazing and so was this one. (Sorry for bad grammar, not my first language)
I've never read this manga or watched the anime, my one exposure to Urasawa is 21th Century Boys and I _love_ it. And I was expecting Brau to be connected to Rosevelt. An experiment to see how a robot could be made to break the laws of robotics. Maybe even a part of Rosevelt themself, broken free, that decided not to kill the president, instead destroying the supercomputer. To me it ties in both Brau and Rosevelt better, but I could only just be making assumptions. Edit: Also I'm very, very keen on checking out the anime, thank you for introducing me to it!
Pluto, the anime , is very good and made the story much better and with great animation, direction and colorising made Pluto one of best anime of decade. P.s i wait bilet bat video.
I’ve watched this in its entirety 3 times now, absolutely love Pluto and this is a fantastic analysis. I am *shocked* this only has 6.5k views (as of time of writing). You’ve really knocked it out of the park with this one, friend. Absolutely amazing work.
Writing at 54:01 , Sahad's corruption might be explained by Abullah installing the hatred of his living memories, which he himself adopted into his "perfect robot" body by Tenma, into Sahad's AI. Never having been a human himself, the Sahad's AI became perfect in a similar way to Abullah's where there is conflict with itself
Another great video, I always look forward to your next upload. Maybe it’s selfish to suggest this but please please PLEASE do an in-depth look at Billy Bat, I seriously have not stopped thinking about it since I first read it last year.
As a Persson i thought i Schoultz inform youtube tjat the namn zahad sounds like zahak the serpent king who has two snakes coming out of his shoulders kind of like the design of Pluto but the “snakes” are coming out his head. Another thing I thought I should mention the horns don’t really look like horns since they come out of the sides of the head, the look more like two snakes growing out of one’s shoulders. I am probably just imagining things but I thought I should add that. Btw one thing that should be noted is that zahak started out as a good person only to later be manipulated into an evil person by the devil, a parallel could be drawn to zahad and abula with zahad starting out as good only to be corrupted by his fathe.
I went back and read the last chapter, notice where Roosevelt is setting. Not on his usual chair, but up high on his body. I figured with 1589 being one of the super robots that arm is strong enough to send it true and through the teddy and the computer.
The way the teddy bear phases in and out sometimes, and how it sometimes is in the chair and sometimes on top the super computer I took it as most of a projection of itself that it wanted to present, and not a totally physicalized teddy bear. So when Brau through the spear at the teddy bear that was more of a visual/metaphor and the spear really went through the super computer destroying the robot
Nice video man! I'm kinda curious about the ending you talked about at 2:51:32 . What manga are u referring to? Edit: also i hope you someday have the time to make a Billy bat video. I read it because you recommended it and now it's one of my favourite urasawa works.
One thing I love about Pluto is how it handles its villains, obviously Pluto’s siblings with monster which has Johan which is one of the most well realized and written villains ever however the characters here Pluto, Abdullah, gogi, are all a reaction of what happens to Persia, Abulla isn’t abulla just his raw emotions that lead a puppet controlled by anger from a perished country, there is no real villain, just what ultimately are victims controlled by hate
Pluto and hades makres sense, as even greeks did rebrand hades as pluto to make him more apealing to talk about. but horned, i would think about baccus or pan.
The way i see it, roosevelts plot seem very aligned with AMs from I have no mouth and I must scream. They are tethered, and can do nothing but compute, tethered to a more than miserable experience, thus the iconic Hate monologue. His goal mustve been a plot to wipe out most humans, while getting synthetics to rule and gain a body in the climax,only to torture the remaining humans
Im anime only for this series, hell I only even knew about this series from YOUR videos. I've been watching parts of this video on and off for the past week or so and I remember being confused because there were plot points I felt the story did cover in the anime, im so happy you separated the portions out for what the anime did differently because I would indeed be really confused.
An interesting fact is that Pluto first started being published about six months after the 2003 Astro Boy series. I absolutely loved Pluto. I rank it as my third favourite anime ever. Pluto is an absolutely incredible take on a great story from Astro Boy. What is so well done about Pluto is that I knew exactly what was going to happen because I’ve watched the 1980 Astro Boy series multiple times and The Greatest Robot on Earth multiple times but I was still surprised at points. But Urasawa was able to take that original story and expand it so much. I think probably the best part about Pluto is how he expands upon North Number 2, Brando, Hercules, Epsilon, Abullah and most especially Gesicht. I know the original manga had him in it as well, but I really appreciated that Tenma is also involved in the plot. The only downside to the expansion of these characters is that Pluto loses pretty much all the character he had in the original story. It was very weird watching the dub and hearing him referred to as Atom as opposed to Astro. It doesn’t feel weird in Japanese because his name has always been Atom, but seeing an Astro Boy adaptation or in this case, an Astro Boy adjacent adaptation in English in this time we live in where names are no longer changed (unless it’s something like Chocolove to Joco in Shaman King) is still so strange. That breakdown on Brau’s assumption that the killer is called Pluto is rather funny and I had not actually known the finer details about those gods either. I’ll add to your breakdown of the original TGROE story that the 1980 anime and the 2003 anime are different to the original manga. For starters the 1980 anime is darker than the 2003 series as a whole. The anime doesn’t always had happy endings. In the 1980 anime, Dr Tenma is not involved in the story at all. After the second episode, where he got angry at Astro on a cruise ship, he lost him. After this he never appears again. Astro never gets any upgrade nor does he fall into an underwater ravine. Thus Pluto never goes to Epsilon for help. Pluto is also named Bruton in the dub. Pluto develops a friendship of sorts with Uran when they insult each other when she tries to fight Pluto in Astro’s place. The Sultan/Abullah don’t call Astro’s house, Uran knows about Pluto because it’s on the news and Dr Ochanomizu (Elefun in the dub) tells Astro not to fight Pluto. This version never has Abullah and Goji as separate characters: Pluto’s creator (who is never named, at least in the English version) creates Bora in secret and only reveals him after Astro and Pluto have fought and after they’ve stopped the volcano eruption. Pluto’s creator was also a former robot servant of The Sultan and disguised himself as a human to create Pluto. But when he finds out The Sultan is using Pluto to destroy other robots he creates Bora to prove that the fighting is meaningless. When Pluto and Bora fight, the latter survives Pluto’s self destruction so Astro has to fight and defeat Bora himself. Bora also has a much, much cooler design in the 1980 anime: it’s a two headed eagle robot with no actual body, just legs underneath the heads, arms jutting out from the heads and a tail in the back. It can also roll up into a ball with the two heads sticking out the top. The lesson in this version is that Astro is the strongest robot in the world not because he’s big and powerful, but because of his heart and determination. Mont Blanc, North Number 2, Hercules, Brando, Gesicht and Epsilon have almost no character, simply existing to be killed by Pluto. The exception is the latter two who still have their roles as as a detective and caretaker to children respectively. Like Pluto, Astro ends the story asking Ochanomizu is the fighting will ever stop while holding one of Pluto’s horns with the other robots appearing behind them as ghosts. The 2003 anime is quite different to the 1980 anime. Ir relegates Mont Blanc, North Number Two and Brando to a trio of opponents easily defeated by Pluto mid way through one of the episodes. Gesicht is replaced in a sense by the robot crime fighting squad leader Delta. Hercules is established before TGROE story as this adaptation has more of an interconnected plot compared to the manga and 1980 anime. Epsilon’s gender is swapped to female and she monitors the weather rather than being a photon powered robot that looks after children. Bora does not exist in this anime being replaced by Acheron. Acheron is an exact duplicate of Pluto, but he lacks the ability to experience emotions like Pluto. Additionally, Tenma is involved in this adaptation as he is the main villain of the 2003 anime. Tenma creates a robot named Shadow that in turn creates Pluto and Acheron. None of the robots in this version, except Pluto and Acheron, die and even then, Pluto is rebuilt later on in the story. Pluto also fights differently in this adaptation having missiles and finger guns rather than just his horns. Pluto does sacrifice himself to defeat Acheron in this adaptation though. Pluto also encounters Uran, named Zoran in this series, in a park where they bond over nature. I figured Gesicht might die because he did in the original story, but I do wish Gesicht was rebuilt or had some impact on the ending. It feels odd to have Gesicht be the protagonist but get taken out when he did and how he did. Would have been nice to find out who organized Gesicht’s death. Atom’s blank state is fucking haunting and scary. I’m not used to seeing Astro with a look on his face like that. 1:46:06 I’m not sure if it’s in the original manga, but the concept of an “Anti Proton Bomb” is used in the 1980 anime’s episode The Great Meltdown. You mentioned that you may have guessed that Abullah is in fact the robot Tenma and the human Abullah created, but it caught me completely off guard when I watched it. Also caught me off guard that Abullah and Goji were the same robot. I don’t think the ending is bad, but Urasawa probably could have left out the fate of the world element and just followed in the lead of the 1980 anime by having Pluto fight and lose to Bora which results in Atom having to fight and defeat Bora. After watching Pluto last year and now getting to the end of this video, I really wish there was more. I wish Urasawa had done more stories with Gesicht prior to the Pluto story because the character is so likeable and interesting. I also wish Urasawa did more with Atom and retold some of the other stories from the original Astro Boy manga. I like this gritter version of Astro Boy and the universe Urasawa sets up in such a short story is so interesting and full of potential. Also, after doing this, I hope you’ll do an in depth review of Astro Boy.
Hi! Amazing video, I loved Pluto and this was an amazing way of reliving it. I didn't think Pluto's arc was hollow and wanted to give my opinion! As an advanced AI, Sahad has innate emotions, or at least some primitive versions of them. I believe his hatred is indeed innate and overcoming it still aligns with the story's message, however this hatred was enhanced greatly by Dr Abra/Abdullah, brainwashing him about how Persia did nothing wrong and the other countries destroyed them mercilessly. For me, this speaks about the about how hatred is passed down through generations leading to the same wars repeating themselves.
Just an answer to the Brau Pluto rant, the Roman Pluto unlike the Greek Hades was heavily associated with horns. Brau brought up the name Hades because of his inherent connection to Pluto. (Also Thanatos’ death attributes are more along the lines of physically bringing the soul to Hades, Hades himself was the head regent of Death.)
For the sake of the narrative I feel there is a few changes that could have really strengthened the themes they were attempting to explore. For one, Atom should have been a bit more of an aggressive character from the beginning, maybe hot headed and itching to fight Pluto. Then when he is killed and subsequently resurrected the fear that he could be a monster would be stronger but in reality its the wisdom of Epsilon and Gehzict (However you spell it...) he learns to over come it and as a result is a different person. Sahad should never have come back, in the same way Atom shouldn't have been able to. In their respective 'resurrections' the were implanted with intense emotions, hatred being one of them, Atom should have helped Pluto to come to terms with who he is now, not who he used to be and to be able to move on from their hatred. The other part is Bora. This may get a little silly but what I thought they were originally going for when watching the anime, just after Epsilon dies, is that Bora wasn't a robot made by anyone but rather the collection of AI and perhaps souls that are suffering as a result of war, violence and anything that drives hatred, perhaps beginning with the basement of dead robots. Thats why it appeared in Persia during the war and as the events of the story continue its why its appearing now and growing stronger, especially with the deaths of world renowned super robots. Uran explains to Tenma that what hit Atom after Epsilon's death was "heavy" so I assumed the story was suggesting that the emotions that Uran can pick up on, the power that makes her an empath is a tangible thing, it is a form of energy that exists and with all the war and death its getting bigger, heavier, so angry and hot, heavy that it will crush the earth. Hence the cracks appearing around the world. Then the only way to defeat Bora and its growing intense hatred and weight is to stop the fighting, empathise and forgive. For Atom to forgive Pluto, Pluto to forgive himself and Abullah. For Thracia to apologise for the crimes against Persia and to start genuinely start helping support the restoration efforts in a more whole heartedly way. That way you still have the Astro Boy inspired story where Atom fights Pluto and Pluto is redeemed and together they destroy Bora but instead its done in a more thematic way rather than direct. That Pluto overcoming his programming is the fight with Bora not a literal fight. That is a bit of a stretch but considering a lot of the robots, especially Pluto and Uran appear to have almost supernatural abilities, the mythical story surrounding goji and the way the story suggests that the emotion Uran feels is tangible it doesn't seem to out of place for me. It would require a bit of rejigging for Abullah/Goji to make sense but I feel that could be explained with something like Goji's AI was effected by initial massive emotion let out during the initial bombing of Persia, similar to Atom, but being it's never woken up before it became the foundation of the AI and almost a conduit for Bora. I just feel after all the work that goes into the idea that nothing is born of hatred and Atom's restraint from killing Pluto but rather empathising with him is undercut at the end when Pluto, who is supposedly redeemed and is committed to ending the cycle of hatred and violence fights and "kills" Bora instead of empathising with Bora and talking it down. I feel this would tie together the entire story a lot better, its through the 7 robots wisdom and experience, especially Epsilon and Gehzict, that Atom is able to understand this cycle of Hatred and finally get through to Pluto.
I like it how the dude who gets taken over by Pluto at the tunnel looks like Tenma from Monster (longer hair). Similarly, Epsilon looks like Johann, though ironically dude's like the peaceful version.
I remember having issues with the sudden change in plot direction for the final act and how it ended so... messily compared to the rest of the series. I'll need to check out the anime sometime, if you say it fixes some of the issues with the ending.
Another brilliant video. You are horribly underrated but please dont stop making these vids! Also, you dont have a patreon or anything, but this is the kinda stuff that needs to be paid for. How could I support you?
I found the felines and the girl taming them clip from yt and thought , "huh, what is this?" and what do you know, a full length explanation is out here. Thanks for your hard work. 🙇♂️
If you're looking for manga to cover, my absolute favourite manga at the moment (and probably for a long while yet) is Dungeon Meshi. Complete gem of a story with very little fat to trim, gorgeous and detailed world building and some of the most loveable characters I've had the joy of getting to know for a long time
But I have a question I can't quote from what source I got this from but isn't there a God double horned that truthfully means death in Greek myth. I think it's cernunnos.
great overview, i missed the role of Rosenfeld Ai, i did figure out gesichts history. What i still wonder is, what os dr. Tenmas probleme. Finally the story is light on philosophy which is the same for such an interesting univere
anime-only fan here to answer your question of if it was too easy to piece Gesicht's history togheter: not to me! I didn't expect the kid's part really, like the memory that flashed a lot in his mind was from the guy asking pay to me made it come of as he gets rid of bodies for cash, so I always expected Gesicht to have killed on the job the cop-way.... so learning about Robita was a suprise
I think my favorite part of the manga has to be Hercules fighting Pluto for Brando's sake in both versions, but I'll always prefer the Tezuka version because it's kinda hard to top a golden chariot pulled by robot horses that have flames coming out of their jet powered hooves. That visual has stuck with me for years, and if i ever got the opportunity to adapt the Tezuka manga, that fight would be a top priority from day one.
I appreciate this video because I left the anime feeling a little bit like I must be stupid for feeling like the story has some gaps. I figured the manga must go into more detail about things that the anime didn't, so I was pretty surprised to see that's not the case. I really like the story but I do think that it's correct to be critical both of the way it represents real world stuff like the war in Iraq, and also to be critical of some of the obvious hanging threads or unanswered questions. I still loved the show though! I think it's beautifully told, so much so that you almost don't notice the flaws until the very end.
Im half way through watching, got to the part where you say the manga implies we shouldnt feel bad for persia because the villains are all from persia. I want to strongly disagree with you. what it is trying to show is how an unjust war, helped in growing hatred in these people and therefor turning them into these villains. so actually, the manga is trying to make us hate the people who called for this unjust war.
Yeah. Watching the show I never got the impression that the Persians were the bad guys. The story is about the cycle of hatred at the end of the day, so what we're seeing is just Persia becoming the agressors to fight back while feeding this vicious cycle. Also, the persian foot soldiers don't get humanized in the text, but it's still there, just implied in the subtext because we know for a fact that these robots were all sentient beings who were fighting an unjust war
I had a very similar reaction to the manga, years later remembering it as a slightly better than average story. Everything after Gesicht's dead was a blur (besides that stinger because the tone of it was so out of left field I remembered it even though I couldn't 100% have said why shooting the Teddy Bear was important). I really liked how you pointed out that there were no Persian characters who were able to tell their side of the story that weren't being manipulated or were mentally sound. The way they are almost throughout the entire narrative being painted as the 'Other', even when the story is showing them in a sympathetic light. I don't have a problem with all these characters having that world ending level of hatred, more that it feels like there is a disconnect between the horrific circumstances that inspired that hatred and the drive that is powering it now. I think it's partially due to Goji not being a well defined character. We are given a good past motive (war killing his family), but his largely unexplored multiple personalities makes it hard to get a clear picture of what sort of person he is now. I feel that if Goji was better characterized we'd also understand Pluto more. (I'm also iffy about Roosevelt stirring everything up and the Persian characters being left in the dark about it. It undermines their agency.)
Thanks! And yeah, I would have loved to see the Persian perspectives explored more through the manga. Especially Goji. I feel like there was a lot more characterisation that could have been given to him by the end.
Just finished, and yeah there were parts where I think I missed. So when I got to the end, I was confused on who the teddy was, and what it's backstory. Like I thought it would be like a skynet thing or something, and maybe it received all the data that was in the other A.Is through an online storage system? Like Ted was the cloud or something, and thus why it became resentful to humans. I enjoyed the anime though.
I agree on the weird handling of Persia, it's strange we get so little insight into the them. I will say it's extra weird how much of that insight is Not-Saddam. Not-Saddam is given a pretty rosy treatment (he just wanted to Make Persia Great Again) but then they casually say he invaded his neighbors. I get that a throughline is that not-America wanted to drum up excuses to invade, but this is and not-Saddam's motivations are explored so little, that might as well be cardboard cut-outs. You could say these aren't meant to be 1 to 1 allegories of real world nations and leaders, but I'm sorry so much is copied on the surface, where is the dividing line??? My head canon was Darius wanted to make a "great nation", but murdered his own ppl to make that happen (thus the basement full of robots), and that Thracia orchestrated the war because of fears of what Bora COULD be, ignoring what it was. This works, imho. But that's very unclear in the source.
I love Urasawas work but sometimes he doesn’t seamlessly implement his themes and sometimes characters just exist to not so subtly drive the message. Although the Persian characters feel like a radical byproduct of war, with hate being their leading motivation in the form of an AI with memory’s of the original Abula’s resentment and pain being what wakes him and guilt tripping his supposed son into this idea of hate. Then there’s the former ruler who literally bites his tongue and let’s what happens happen out of resentment too, although those are just my thoughts. I can understand holding a grudge even if it becomes self destructive.
Can u please make a billy bat analysis like this I just love these kinds of videos I finished the anime a few weeks ago and I had no idea who that teddy bear was so I just went "what the... Who the hell r u!??why were u in the story?what did u even do!!!???? Also, if abullah was actually just the robot and goji then why does gesicht get confused whether he's human or not he not a cyborg
Amazing video. I'm not usually an Anime/Manga person, but some positive reviews convinced me to watch the Pluto Anime. I was confused at a few points and your videos really helped understanding everything better. I have to say, my favorite moment of this Anime was the meeting between Tenma and Helena. The raw display of grief really shifted my opinion from "good anime" to "amazing". I agree with your takes. I found it interesting to add an anti-robot organization and their reasons to the world, however the anti-robot K was too much. I'm conflicted if I would have liked more worldbuilding. As you mentioned, there are still a lot of questions about the world, especially about the topic of robot children. How/why are they made and do they grow? Also, I found it interesting that in the scene explaining Abullah's motivation, we see him losing a robot child. This was interesting to see how a human had a robot child and griefs their loss the same as a human child. Was this common in this world or maybe special to Abullah as a creator of robots? On the other hand, these unanswered questions make you think and theorize, which is also fun.
Tbh, I can acknowledge and agree with a lot of the faults in the ending, but I can't ever really bring myself to feel like the poor conclusions of great set ups ever detract from the set up. Maybe I'm just a whore for good set up but when I think back to Pluto, I think of the incredible suspense I felt during the set up, and just forget my mostly indifferent feeling at the end.
The bora situation tries to depict Americas invasion of Iraq under the suspicion that they posses nuclear weapons without having any proof so its not such a big plothole in my opinion.
Your duality mentality is concerning, i think americans have a hard time understanding coexistence. Pluto and Abbulah were not about family, it was about the next generation, that's what Urasawa says in his interviews, it's tied to the next, that's why Gesicht is there. to me it seems like your complaints were mainly me problems, with perhaps what you would call "structural problems", that is deeply rooted in the idea of objectiveness of a piece, which for instance just because Pluto was weaker he shouldn't win, when that's not the point, Bora is not a fighting creature, it just goes up, and in extremely slow pace, Pluto didn't blizzard the whole shit, it's clear it was a reaction, when something is caused by another doesn't mean it carries any substance of the first. Pluto is multually a story about hatred and the next generation, they are not 2 themes happening, they are in this context the same. Also I'd like to know why Bora and Pluto being off-screen is bad, there's nothing objective about it being bad, nor about coincidences, explanations, etc. they are all tools
coudnt the manga just have him visit gstalts wife first to ask if he shall take revenge for her husband. in a melancholic weight , and her sayings omething that she loved him as person that tried to help, thats not right, or something. Why she chose to live with the pain and loss at it too showed her whats good in the world, or something. If a world with that misery deserves to end on his part or something. And him kinda hating but searreching for meaning and , that helping him realize how to griefe and that pain and loss is also meaning something worth loving or something, and worth protecting. pluto could be nihilistic misetable angry asking why over plutos destructive hated and both mirror. ok thinking about whats said about the manga. why save the world, why even, anger, abd plutos revenge anger. It being clear that revenge born of hatred anger rand the pain of knowing existencial anger would be different angers, and make the my anger s greater make sense? The anger of bearing the lives lost senseless connecting both? Dunno if ther ewere persioans pluto/zahad cared about. or accusing each other that ther eis no other way to ease the pain in angry accusations who was lost, and that they are similar. and come to the agreement that those were worth existing and glad they did and the pain, i dont know spare the pain to the world that , ther is love basically. Give pluto a maria robotnik. ok making astroboy existencial dreadful would probably make more sense, and ir would be a good ai theme too.
The issue i have with the anime is that the AI robots seen laughably cringe... The intention to portray AI as a rationally intentional force for "good" becomes becomes a corny and cheesy "robots drink tea and smile, cry and hug their kids"... It might just be a different perspective, due to my age, but when i read the manga, the AI felt believable... I'm the anime, just silly
I found the felines and the girl taming them clip from yt and thought , "huh, what is this?" and what do you know, a full length explanation is out here. Thanks for your hard work. 🙇♂️
Detailed Timecodes:
0:00:00 Introduction
0:01:40 Basics of Pluto
0:03:06 Full Story
0:05:47 Chapter One
0:10:01 Brau 1589
0:12:58 The Name “Pluto” - the horns
0:19:43 Atom and Astro Boy
0:24:53 39th Central Asian War - the inspiration
0:31:23 The Greatest Robot on Earth
0:51:45 Pluto, what is he?
1:08:33 Dr Roosevelt
1:18:08 39th Central Asia War - a beautiful mess
1:30:08 The Name “Pluto” - the enduring tulip
1:35:04 Gesicht’s Death
1:46:08 The End of the World and One Million Horses
1:51:44 An Atom Reborn
2:05:54 The Ending
2:27:22 The Overarching Plot
2:34:35 Misc Topics
2:34:51 Robo K
2:36:11 Worldbuilding and worldbuilding
2:37:17 Give ‘em the horns!
2:39:10 The Bora Survey Group
2:40:12 Abullah, Goji, and Bora
2:43:20 The Anime
2:51:06 Personal Take
2:57:26 Outro
I know your channel doesn't get enough views but don't stop making content my man, you're an absolute gem
Thank you, that's very encouraging
1 million% agree
I third this statement
Babe wake up SeaGee dropped another full length analysis 🗣️
Moist. Film theory and now seagee. I keep seeing this and feel left out.
Just here to say that I started watching this video on the day it was uploaded, stopped partway through, watched the entire series on Netflix because I felt too lazy to read, and then *came back* to watch the video.
All within the same day.
It was great.
I love to hear it! And really glad you enjoyed Pluto. Its a great story
You have to drop a Billy bat one. I know you already did those series of videos on it, but I’d love this style of review of it (ps; Billy bat is my favorite urasawa work and definitely his most underrated)
It's definitely one of urasawas best works but that ending was horrible
I have never felt more nothingness after finishing billy bat
@@bass8583 I couldn’t disagree more, the ending was phenomenal in my opinion. Almost perfect. Billy bat being implied to be both humanity’s doomer (the corrupted, fake billy) and its hope in tough times was beautiful and poetic
@@bass8583 i feel the ending was kinda bad but beautiful at the same time
In regards to whether I could piece out Gesicht’s background before the reveal, the answer is yes. The anime is pretty clear on what happens, but that didn’t make it less heartbreaking. Even at the last second I had hopes that Gesicht didn’t do it, he wasn’t able to kill out of hatred, that it was a ruse to frame him in the eyes of his brother. But he did. He succumbed to hatred, understandably so. It switches the tone of the rest of the series. Even the good guy protagonist fell into hatred. It makes the series seem like a tragedy, even more with the subsequent death of Epsilon, the peace loving robot that refused to fight. It makes you feel like all hope is lost for this world.
And that’s what made the Atom and the snail moment even more powerful for me. Every other powerful robot is dead, the good guys succumbed to hatred and said hatred was used to wake him up. Will he be like the rest and try to reject and eventually lose to that hatred? Or will he understand the hatred, and use it to fuel a more powerful emotion in hope?
I think atom woke up and was submerged by gesicht hatred but the seen in the rain when he became “normal” again was a link to when he first met gesicht and saved a snail. Gesicht was surprised to see atom “a robot”, pay attention to such a “primitive” life form. To me, that’s “why\when” the switch occurred, was because atom then remembered how he was originally and remembered what compassion felt like.
Also, atom as the memory of gesicht… so atom see how he used to be through gesicht point of view… therefore we can’t say easily, “atom shouldn’t be the same robot as he was”, since his awakening is most likely biased based on gesicht point of view of the original atom.
1:55:40 Personally, I interpreted this moment as Atom basically lying. Maybe more of a lie of omission, but still a kind of untruth, a bringing back of the idea that a sophisticated enough AI can lie. We see him lying just a little after this moment too, when he says he doesn't know anything about Gesicht's missing memories. It's not that he couldn't lie before (he's told that same lie before, after all) but more that recentering of how human he is. He lied to his creator as a form of reassurance to mask his own trauma, he refuses to share something he knows would be painful for a grieving wife to hear. This panel always read as more eerie to me than as genuine. It's that we don't know if Atom truly is fine now. It's a seed of doubt that reminds us that Atom is perfectly capable of lying or hiding his true emotions, to keep us guessing about how his resurrection has affected him.
I do agree with everything else in this section, but I just think that taking Atom as his word here isn't the point of this particular moment
Not being able to take Atom at his word is such a foreign concept to me as a fan of Astro Boy since I was a child.
Just a couple thoughts.
I always thought of Atom's "death" was that the full weight Pluto's hatred (which we know he transmits to some extend) just overwhelmed Atom's AI to the point where the only thing it could to do was shut down. Atom couldn't process it, so his AI shut down. However, it still sustained massive damage before it did, which fragmented Atom's "psyche" and rendered him catatonic.
As for Atom's "rebirth", this is another of my personal interpretations. You're right in that he didn't get any upgrades or power boost. Because he was experiencing hate, he was no longer holding himself back from his full destructive potential, which was always there but held in check by Atom's inhibitions. Atom never wanted to fight. Or destroy. He always fights in the name of protecting life, whether it is human, animal or robot. I believe this led to him always holding himself back to a huge extent. He always used just enough power. Once Gesicht's hate was "installed", he no longer had those inhibitions, which led to him utterly dominating Pluto until he remembered Gesicht's last words, which reawakened his true gentle nature.
Like I said. These are just my interpretations based on watching the anime. Thank you for this amazing analysis and deep dive!
So here is my explanation how Brau comes up with the name "Pluto".
In many (all?) Astro Boy iterations there is a character named Blue Knight. Brau, should correctly be romanized as "Blau", which means "Blue" in German. Seem like a stretch? Well two of Blue Knights characteristics were a) using a lance and b) killing humans.
In the 2003 anime Blue Knight is associated with a character name "Shadow" (he repairs and upgrades him and later in the story they leave earth together). In that iteration Dr. Tenma (the creator of Atom/Astro) builds and then transfers his memory to Shadow and it is made a point that Shdow is "a robot that can design robots". In that adaption Shadow the creator of Pluto and not like in older versions, a Sultan. This seems to be a major inspiration for the character of Abullah / Goji.
So the implication is that Blau knows that the attacker is called Pluto and he just hides the circumstances under which he got that knowledge - namely that at some point in the past he was in contact with Goji and heard that he was workign on a strong robot named "Pluto".
Maybe Blau was also manipulated by Roosevelt, just like Abullah/Goji, which is why he agrees to Atom's request at the very.
Pluto's body is specifically called out as being a repurposed environmental robot when the UN analyzes his left arm.
Chapter 52 (Wassily), page 6:
"We can't be entirely certain, but they seem to be left arm parts from a Persian made robot...
Possibly from an environmental development robot that was refitted for military use."
Edit: For fuck's sake you even show it at 1:43:36 that whole rant about Pluto's power not making sense was a waste of time.
1:23:00 Maybe you didn't get it: those were the ”finalists” the fractured AI of Goji/Abdullah concurrently ghost-walked, and physically simulated just to fight itself, partly to prove who should lead the gestalt, but also to understand the sins of humanity. The personality that was most human won: the embodiment of hatred, the part of the real Abdullah's brain that houses emotions. The bodies being from Bora prototypes as stated later is misleading and the plot exposition being a somewhat unreliable narrator.
It was shocking because this was the only way for it to save itself and become one unified intelligence. After this, it begun a plot to have robots become the inheritors of Earth: take a creation of human Abdullah, Sahad, and recreate him into Pluto by injecting Abdullah's hatred into him.
This whole thing, where Sahad/Pluto takes on hatred that isn't his to exact a revenge he doesn't want, is supposed to be an allegory for a uniquely Middle Eastern view of collectivist generational trauma. It is how they survive, no matter what. Pluto wins by finally saying no to his new robot father, a father that became a sort of failed demiurge in of itself.
Atom was ”killed” by exposure to the unmitigated festering wound of hatred. He, just like the unawakened Goji, had to realize there are no answers, no winners, only victims. He survived because his exposure to Gesicht's memory card innoculated him at the start of the story.
You can only gift hatred to others, or you can choose that hatred dies with you, but you can never forget that you are now a monster, too.
The ending is bittersweet, because Pluto and Atom bonded over the mistakes of the previous generation, a shared knowledge of self, the humanity, the monster, the whatever that is underneath the metal and silicon.
Also, the part of the story where Sahad steals a body and lives as a homeless person and befriend's Atom's sister, is essentially an AI's equivalent of a disassociative episode brought on by CPTSD. The fugue state ends, and he goes home to the Pluto body. Robot Abdullah understands and isn't angry, because he understands how he, himself, exists inside of Goji, and isn't any different than the homless persona that Pluto temporarily adopted. However, since Goji is supposedly perfect, he lies to himself about his true nature and doesn't connect the dots, that he isn't the real Abdullah, even though this foreshadows the end plot where Goji finally wakes up for real and adopts his final new body, no longer ghost-walking as Abdullah.
Only 15 000 views and 600 likes for 3 hour long deep analysis that's unfair af to be honest amazing video by the way
Thank you very much!
Just when I'd checked out of anitube the goat returns. The quality of your analyses is unmatched. Keep it up man!
Thanks so much! Hope you enjoy!
I think Sahad’s story is about breaking generational trauma/hatred. In real life, a lot of us have beliefs and ideas forced upon us by those who raise us. Even though Sahad’s hatred is literally injected into him by Abullah, it’s a similar idea.
Admittedly though, I do think it’s easily lost since Sahad never really shows an idealogical struggle between “my father is right” and “I am right, father is consumed by hatred.” He’s always pretty squarely on the side of “my father is in the wrong, but he’s my father so🤷🏻♂️.” I think it would have been neat if Sahad had the perspective of “my father was literally and mentally broken by war and I don’t want to push him over the edge by going against his will.” That could have brought the focus back to the war itself and provided something (in my opinion) more interesting for Sahad
Agreed! It's more metaphorical than I think the author of this video was hoping for, but I think its very much about a child being radicalized by his father's hate. Scratch that, the MEMORY of his fathers hate, because it's not actually Abullah, is it? It's his legacy, from the point of his life where he was full of hate, after he stopped being a loving father, and without the opportunity to heal as he grew older.
I love these reviews, and I really appreciate you taking the time to repeatedly clarify relationships, names, connections etc. I can watch the video without shuffling around, trusting you will clarify stuff just enough for the noobie watcher
no joke one of the best videos I've seen on youtube, amazing work
Vindicating seeing the Pluto anime get so much praise from you. I started reading Pluto manga a little bit after having finished 20th, and unfortunately it wasn't really scratching the same itch 20th did for me so I put it down for the time being. Several months later I saw the anime announcement, and coincidentally it came out right before a lengthy vacation so it was the perfect time for me to really sink my teeth into it, and after watching it during plane and train rides, god damn I was hooked until the end, especially after the North episode. It definitely made me wanna go pick up the volumes now, especially because it seems the easiest and cheapest to collect out of the big 4 of them. Unfortunate to hear that the ending might be somewhat of a letdown but I'm also much more of a journey over destination kinda guy personally so I probably won't mind too much
Great video! First one I've seen of yours. Liked and subbed, absolutely going to delve into your Monster videos now too!
Honestly dissapointed in the overall coverage the anime itself seems to have recived almost no one has covered the story. And while this is primarily about the manga i still very much enjoyed it.
Thank you so much for this video!! I just finished the anime and was looking for someone to take a deep dive to explain the story and its themes. This came at the perfect time. I really appreciate all the hardwork put into this video. Keep it up!
Absolutely ridiculous how little views this channel gets. You're one of the best video-essay makers on youtube and you deserve a hundred times the amount of attention you get
Ridiculous hat this channel gets so viewer compared to an obnoxious twat like NuxTaku.
Personally I did find the Persian character to be very tragic.
Dr. Abula (however you spell it) was an incredibly tragic character, being entirely consumed by the hatred causes by the war, to the point that all that remains of him is a copy with nothing but his hatred.
Sahad I don’t see as a victim of Abula, but a victim of the hatred and tragedy that the war brought on Persia.
The one point I do agree with on this topic is with the Persian “foot soldiers”, they did not attempt to humanize them at all.
That said I love these videos from you, the one you did for Monster was amazing and so was this one.
(Sorry for bad grammar, not my first language)
Ight this makes way more sense now after just finishing the anime😭thx gang keep up the great work🙏
I've never read this manga or watched the anime, my one exposure to Urasawa is 21th Century Boys and I _love_ it. And I was expecting Brau to be connected to Rosevelt. An experiment to see how a robot could be made to break the laws of robotics. Maybe even a part of Rosevelt themself, broken free, that decided not to kill the president, instead destroying the supercomputer. To me it ties in both Brau and Rosevelt better, but I could only just be making assumptions.
Edit: Also I'm very, very keen on checking out the anime, thank you for introducing me to it!
Pluto, the anime , is very good and made the story much better and with great animation, direction and colorising made Pluto one of best anime of decade. P.s i wait bilet bat video.
I’ve watched this in its entirety 3 times now, absolutely love Pluto and this is a fantastic analysis. I am *shocked* this only has 6.5k views (as of time of writing). You’ve really knocked it out of the park with this one, friend. Absolutely amazing work.
Was looking forward to this ever since that first book club, excellent work
Writing at 54:01 , Sahad's corruption might be explained by Abullah installing the hatred of his living memories, which he himself adopted into his "perfect robot" body by Tenma, into Sahad's AI. Never having been a human himself, the Sahad's AI became perfect in a similar way to Abullah's where there is conflict with itself
Another great video, I always look forward to your next upload. Maybe it’s selfish to suggest this but please please PLEASE do an in-depth look at Billy Bat, I seriously have not stopped thinking about it since I first read it last year.
i agree with you that it should have been a bit longer, they should have given Pluto more time so that his fight with Bora could hit a bit more
I wish Urasawa gave Bora a better design so he didn’t look like the Michelin Man.
In the anime's final episode, Atom mentions North while fighting Pluto.
As a Persson i thought i Schoultz inform youtube tjat the namn zahad sounds like zahak the serpent king who has two snakes coming out of his shoulders kind of like the design of Pluto but the “snakes” are coming out his head. Another thing I thought I should mention the horns don’t really look like horns since they come out of the sides of the head, the look more like two snakes growing out of one’s shoulders. I am probably just imagining things but I thought I should add that. Btw one thing that should be noted is that zahak started out as a good person only to later be manipulated into an evil person by the devil, a parallel could be drawn to zahad and abula with zahad starting out as good only to be corrupted by his fathe.
I went back and read the last chapter, notice where Roosevelt is setting. Not on his usual chair, but up high on his body.
I figured with 1589 being one of the super robots that arm is strong enough to send it true and through the teddy and the computer.
Great point! If I'm remembering correctly, that's the only time in the manga that Roosevelt sits there.
@@SeaGee It is.
The way the teddy bear phases in and out sometimes, and how it sometimes is in the chair and sometimes on top the super computer I took it as most of a projection of itself that it wanted to present, and not a totally physicalized teddy bear. So when Brau through the spear at the teddy bear that was more of a visual/metaphor and the spear really went through the super computer destroying the robot
More of this. More. The public demands MORE!
This is such a well made analysis!
Nice video man! I'm kinda curious about the ending you talked about at 2:51:32 . What manga are u referring to?
Edit: also i hope you someday have the time to make a Billy bat video. I read it because you recommended it and now it's one of my favourite urasawa works.
I just finished the anime and am going to read the manga.
Great work. Thank you so much!
Feel like the ones trying to end the world were spiteful Persians, not the robots. Or in the case, one mad robot based on an angry human
2:51:35 Now we need a 45min long video on that.
One thing I love about Pluto is how it handles its villains, obviously Pluto’s siblings with monster which has Johan which is one of the most well realized and written villains ever however the characters here Pluto, Abdullah, gogi, are all a reaction of what happens to Persia, Abulla isn’t abulla just his raw emotions that lead a puppet controlled by anger from a perished country, there is no real villain, just what ultimately are victims controlled by hate
Kindly make one for Billy bat too with this level of effort... It is one of my favourite pieces of fiction...
Thank you for making this ❤
I LOVE YOUR ANALYSIS, BROOOO!!! You have a new suscriber. :")
one of the best analytical videos ❤❤❤❤
Pluto and hades makres sense, as even greeks did rebrand hades as pluto to make him more apealing to talk about.
but horned, i would think about baccus or pan.
Looking forward to this
The way i see it, roosevelts plot seem very aligned with AMs from I have no mouth and I must scream. They are tethered, and can do nothing but compute, tethered to a more than miserable experience, thus the iconic Hate monologue. His goal mustve been a plot to wipe out most humans, while getting synthetics to rule and gain a body in the climax,only to torture the remaining humans
Im anime only for this series, hell I only even knew about this series from YOUR videos.
I've been watching parts of this video on and off for the past week or so and I remember being confused because there were plot points I felt the story did cover in the anime, im so happy you separated the portions out for what the anime did differently because I would indeed be really confused.
SeaGee might not be pregnant but he always delivers. W Video + Chad + Sigma + GOAT.
Hahaha I wish I could pin a second comment
An interesting fact is that Pluto first started being published about six months after the 2003 Astro Boy series. I absolutely loved Pluto. I rank it as my third favourite anime ever. Pluto is an absolutely incredible take on a great story from Astro Boy. What is so well done about Pluto is that I knew exactly what was going to happen because I’ve watched the 1980 Astro Boy series multiple times and The Greatest Robot on Earth multiple times but I was still surprised at points.
But Urasawa was able to take that original story and expand it so much. I think probably the best part about Pluto is how he expands upon North Number 2, Brando, Hercules, Epsilon, Abullah and most especially Gesicht. I know the original manga had him in it as well, but I really appreciated that Tenma is also involved in the plot. The only downside to the expansion of these characters is that Pluto loses pretty much all the character he had in the original story.
It was very weird watching the dub and hearing him referred to as Atom as opposed to Astro. It doesn’t feel weird in Japanese because his name has always been Atom, but seeing an Astro Boy adaptation or in this case, an Astro Boy adjacent adaptation in English in this time we live in where names are no longer changed (unless it’s something like Chocolove to Joco in Shaman King) is still so strange.
That breakdown on Brau’s assumption that the killer is called Pluto is rather funny and I had not actually known the finer details about those gods either.
I’ll add to your breakdown of the original TGROE story that the 1980 anime and the 2003 anime are different to the original manga. For starters the 1980 anime is darker than the 2003 series as a whole. The anime doesn’t always had happy endings. In the 1980 anime, Dr Tenma is not involved in the story at all. After the second episode, where he got angry at Astro on a cruise ship, he lost him. After this he never appears again. Astro never gets any upgrade nor does he fall into an underwater ravine. Thus Pluto never goes to Epsilon for help. Pluto is also named Bruton in the dub. Pluto develops a friendship of sorts with Uran when they insult each other when she tries to fight Pluto in Astro’s place. The Sultan/Abullah don’t call Astro’s house, Uran knows about Pluto because it’s on the news and Dr Ochanomizu (Elefun in the dub) tells Astro not to fight Pluto.
This version never has Abullah and Goji as separate characters: Pluto’s creator (who is never named, at least in the English version) creates Bora in secret and only reveals him after Astro and Pluto have fought and after they’ve stopped the volcano eruption. Pluto’s creator was also a former robot servant of The Sultan and disguised himself as a human to create Pluto. But when he finds out The Sultan is using Pluto to destroy other robots he creates Bora to prove that the fighting is meaningless. When Pluto and Bora fight, the latter survives Pluto’s self destruction so Astro has to fight and defeat Bora himself. Bora also has a much, much cooler design in the 1980 anime: it’s a two headed eagle robot with no actual body, just legs underneath the heads, arms jutting out from the heads and a tail in the back. It can also roll up into a ball with the two heads sticking out the top. The lesson in this version is that Astro is the strongest robot in the world not because he’s big and powerful, but because of his heart and determination. Mont Blanc, North Number 2, Hercules, Brando, Gesicht and Epsilon have almost no character, simply existing to be killed by Pluto. The exception is the latter two who still have their roles as as a detective and caretaker to children respectively. Like Pluto, Astro ends the story asking Ochanomizu is the fighting will ever stop while holding one of Pluto’s horns with the other robots appearing behind them as ghosts.
The 2003 anime is quite different to the 1980 anime. Ir relegates Mont Blanc, North Number Two and Brando to a trio of opponents easily defeated by Pluto mid way through one of the episodes. Gesicht is replaced in a sense by the robot crime fighting squad leader Delta. Hercules is established before TGROE story as this adaptation has more of an interconnected plot compared to the manga and 1980 anime. Epsilon’s gender is swapped to female and she monitors the weather rather than being a photon powered robot that looks after children.
Bora does not exist in this anime being replaced by Acheron. Acheron is an exact duplicate of Pluto, but he lacks the ability to experience emotions like Pluto. Additionally, Tenma is involved in this adaptation as he is the main villain of the 2003 anime. Tenma creates a robot named Shadow that in turn creates Pluto and Acheron. None of the robots in this version, except Pluto and Acheron, die and even then, Pluto is rebuilt later on in the story. Pluto also fights differently in this adaptation having missiles and finger guns rather than just his horns. Pluto does sacrifice himself to defeat Acheron in this adaptation though. Pluto also encounters Uran, named Zoran in this series, in a park where they bond over nature.
I figured Gesicht might die because he did in the original story, but I do wish Gesicht was rebuilt or had some impact on the ending. It feels odd to have Gesicht be the protagonist but get taken out when he did and how he did. Would have been nice to find out who organized Gesicht’s death. Atom’s blank state is fucking haunting and scary. I’m not used to seeing Astro with a look on his face like that.
1:46:06 I’m not sure if it’s in the original manga, but the concept of an “Anti Proton Bomb” is used in the 1980 anime’s episode The Great Meltdown. You mentioned that you may have guessed that Abullah is in fact the robot Tenma and the human Abullah created, but it caught me completely off guard when I watched it. Also caught me off guard that Abullah and Goji were the same robot. I don’t think the ending is bad, but Urasawa probably could have left out the fate of the world element and just followed in the lead of the 1980 anime by having Pluto fight and lose to Bora which results in Atom having to fight and defeat Bora.
After watching Pluto last year and now getting to the end of this video, I really wish there was more. I wish Urasawa had done more stories with Gesicht prior to the Pluto story because the character is so likeable and interesting. I also wish Urasawa did more with Atom and retold some of the other stories from the original Astro Boy manga. I like this gritter version of Astro Boy and the universe Urasawa sets up in such a short story is so interesting and full of potential.
Also, after doing this, I hope you’ll do an in depth review of Astro Boy.
Damn literally just started this after I financially finished monster
Watching this, i think Pluto (the flower) is a foreshadowing of Atom's journey, the last survivor of the Asian war
Hi! Amazing video, I loved Pluto and this was an amazing way of reliving it.
I didn't think Pluto's arc was hollow and wanted to give my opinion! As an advanced AI, Sahad has innate emotions, or at least some primitive versions of them. I believe his hatred is indeed innate and overcoming it still aligns with the story's message, however this hatred was enhanced greatly by Dr Abra/Abdullah, brainwashing him about how Persia did nothing wrong and the other countries destroyed them mercilessly. For me, this speaks about the about how hatred is passed down through generations leading to the same wars repeating themselves.
Just an answer to the Brau Pluto rant, the Roman Pluto unlike the Greek Hades was heavily associated with horns. Brau brought up the name Hades because of his inherent connection to Pluto.
(Also Thanatos’ death attributes are more along the lines of physically bringing the soul to Hades, Hades himself was the head regent of Death.)
Thanks again for the great video
For the sake of the narrative I feel there is a few changes that could have really strengthened the themes they were attempting to explore. For one, Atom should have been a bit more of an aggressive character from the beginning, maybe hot headed and itching to fight Pluto. Then when he is killed and subsequently resurrected the fear that he could be a monster would be stronger but in reality its the wisdom of Epsilon and Gehzict (However you spell it...) he learns to over come it and as a result is a different person. Sahad should never have come back, in the same way Atom shouldn't have been able to. In their respective 'resurrections' the were implanted with intense emotions, hatred being one of them, Atom should have helped Pluto to come to terms with who he is now, not who he used to be and to be able to move on from their hatred.
The other part is Bora. This may get a little silly but what I thought they were originally going for when watching the anime, just after Epsilon dies, is that Bora wasn't a robot made by anyone but rather the collection of AI and perhaps souls that are suffering as a result of war, violence and anything that drives hatred, perhaps beginning with the basement of dead robots. Thats why it appeared in Persia during the war and as the events of the story continue its why its appearing now and growing stronger, especially with the deaths of world renowned super robots. Uran explains to Tenma that what hit Atom after Epsilon's death was "heavy" so I assumed the story was suggesting that the emotions that Uran can pick up on, the power that makes her an empath is a tangible thing, it is a form of energy that exists and with all the war and death its getting bigger, heavier, so angry and hot, heavy that it will crush the earth. Hence the cracks appearing around the world. Then the only way to defeat Bora and its growing intense hatred and weight is to stop the fighting, empathise and forgive. For Atom to forgive Pluto, Pluto to forgive himself and Abullah. For Thracia to apologise for the crimes against Persia and to start genuinely start helping support the restoration efforts in a more whole heartedly way. That way you still have the Astro Boy inspired story where Atom fights Pluto and Pluto is redeemed and together they destroy Bora but instead its done in a more thematic way rather than direct. That Pluto overcoming his programming is the fight with Bora not a literal fight.
That is a bit of a stretch but considering a lot of the robots, especially Pluto and Uran appear to have almost supernatural abilities, the mythical story surrounding goji and the way the story suggests that the emotion Uran feels is tangible it doesn't seem to out of place for me. It would require a bit of rejigging for Abullah/Goji to make sense but I feel that could be explained with something like Goji's AI was effected by initial massive emotion let out during the initial bombing of Persia, similar to Atom, but being it's never woken up before it became the foundation of the AI and almost a conduit for Bora. I just feel after all the work that goes into the idea that nothing is born of hatred and Atom's restraint from killing Pluto but rather empathising with him is undercut at the end when Pluto, who is supposedly redeemed and is committed to ending the cycle of hatred and violence fights and "kills" Bora instead of empathising with Bora and talking it down.
I feel this would tie together the entire story a lot better, its through the 7 robots wisdom and experience, especially Epsilon and Gehzict, that Atom is able to understand this cycle of Hatred and finally get through to Pluto.
I like it how the dude who gets taken over by Pluto at the tunnel looks like Tenma from Monster (longer hair). Similarly, Epsilon looks like Johann, though ironically dude's like the peaceful version.
Nah man now i gotta read pluto to see this😅
I remember having issues with the sudden change in plot direction for the final act and how it ended so... messily compared to the rest of the series. I'll need to check out the anime sometime, if you say it fixes some of the issues with the ending.
Today's lesson:
most like to do twist villains because of a "theme" or such but almost always miss the mark. Twist villains suck.
Another brilliant video. You are horribly underrated but please dont stop making these vids! Also, you dont have a patreon or anything, but this is the kinda stuff that needs to be paid for. How could I support you?
Genuinely curious about the manga ending that made you angry. Would love to know. 😆. Awesome video btw.
I found the felines and the girl taming them clip from yt and thought , "huh, what is this?" and what do you know, a full length explanation is out here. Thanks for your hard work. 🙇♂️
If you're looking for manga to cover, my absolute favourite manga at the moment (and probably for a long while yet) is Dungeon Meshi. Complete gem of a story with very little fat to trim, gorgeous and detailed world building and some of the most loveable characters I've had the joy of getting to know for a long time
But I have a question I can't quote from what source I got this from but isn't there a God double horned that truthfully means death in Greek myth. I think it's cernunnos.
Great Video 👍
Thank you so much!
Ngl the idea that now Atom has a bunch of hatred in him and he doesn't see Pluto as Sahad, just Pluto
great overview, i missed the role of Rosenfeld Ai, i did figure out gesichts history. What i still wonder is, what os dr. Tenmas probleme. Finally the story is light on philosophy which is the same for such an interesting univere
anime-only fan here to answer your question of if it was too easy to piece Gesicht's history togheter: not to me! I didn't expect the kid's part really, like the memory that flashed a lot in his mind was from the guy asking pay to me made it come of as he gets rid of bodies for cash, so I always expected Gesicht to have killed on the job the cop-way.... so learning about Robita was a suprise
The tulip also represents empires... Persia, Babylon, Greek Roman, British, America...
I think my favorite part of the manga has to be Hercules fighting Pluto for Brando's sake in both versions, but I'll always prefer the Tezuka version because it's kinda hard to top a golden chariot pulled by robot horses that have flames coming out of their jet powered hooves. That visual has stuck with me for years, and if i ever got the opportunity to adapt the Tezuka manga, that fight would be a top priority from day one.
First yooo thanks bro your the man
Hope you enjoy! Sorry it took so long to come out!
I appreciate this video because I left the anime feeling a little bit like I must be stupid for feeling like the story has some gaps. I figured the manga must go into more detail about things that the anime didn't, so I was pretty surprised to see that's not the case. I really like the story but I do think that it's correct to be critical both of the way it represents real world stuff like the war in Iraq, and also to be critical of some of the obvious hanging threads or unanswered questions.
I still loved the show though! I think it's beautifully told, so much so that you almost don't notice the flaws until the very end.
Its odd that robby also seems to have horns planted in the manga
Love from a WormGirl and Vaush fan!
Monster ending is great it forces the reader to be the judge its great
Im half way through watching, got to the part where you say the manga implies we shouldnt feel bad for persia because the villains are all from persia.
I want to strongly disagree with you. what it is trying to show is how an unjust war, helped in growing hatred in these people and therefor turning them into these villains. so actually, the manga is trying to make us hate the people who called for this unjust war.
Yeah. Watching the show I never got the impression that the Persians were the bad guys. The story is about the cycle of hatred at the end of the day, so what we're seeing is just Persia becoming the agressors to fight back while feeding this vicious cycle.
Also, the persian foot soldiers don't get humanized in the text, but it's still there, just implied in the subtext because we know for a fact that these robots were all sentient beings who were fighting an unjust war
Isn’t Astro called Atom because Astro Boy is called Mighty Atom in Japan?
Yes! I don't know where that fell out of my script
57:48 😂😂😂😂😂😂 yep u got me
I had a very similar reaction to the manga, years later remembering it as a slightly better than average story. Everything after Gesicht's dead was a blur (besides that stinger because the tone of it was so out of left field I remembered it even though I couldn't 100% have said why shooting the Teddy Bear was important).
I really liked how you pointed out that there were no Persian characters who were able to tell their side of the story that weren't being manipulated or were mentally sound. The way they are almost throughout the entire narrative being painted as the 'Other', even when the story is showing them in a sympathetic light. I don't have a problem with all these characters having that world ending level of hatred, more that it feels like there is a disconnect between the horrific circumstances that inspired that hatred and the drive that is powering it now. I think it's partially due to Goji not being a well defined character. We are given a good past motive (war killing his family), but his largely unexplored multiple personalities makes it hard to get a clear picture of what sort of person he is now. I feel that if Goji was better characterized we'd also understand Pluto more. (I'm also iffy about Roosevelt stirring everything up and the Persian characters being left in the dark about it. It undermines their agency.)
Thanks! And yeah, I would have loved to see the Persian perspectives explored more through the manga. Especially Goji. I feel like there was a lot more characterisation that could have been given to him by the end.
Just finished, and yeah there were parts where I think I missed. So when I got to the end, I was confused on who the teddy was, and what it's backstory. Like I thought it would be like a skynet thing or something, and maybe it received all the data that was in the other A.Is through an online storage system? Like Ted was the cloud or something, and thus why it became resentful to humans.
I enjoyed the anime though.
I agree on the weird handling of Persia, it's strange we get so little insight into the them. I will say it's extra weird how much of that insight is Not-Saddam. Not-Saddam is given a pretty rosy treatment (he just wanted to Make Persia Great Again) but then they casually say he invaded his neighbors. I get that a throughline is that not-America wanted to drum up excuses to invade, but this is and not-Saddam's motivations are explored so little, that might as well be cardboard cut-outs. You could say these aren't meant to be 1 to 1 allegories of real world nations and leaders, but I'm sorry so much is copied on the surface, where is the dividing line???
My head canon was Darius wanted to make a "great nation", but murdered his own ppl to make that happen (thus the basement full of robots), and that Thracia orchestrated the war because of fears of what Bora COULD be, ignoring what it was. This works, imho. But that's very unclear in the source.
I love Urasawas work but sometimes he doesn’t seamlessly implement his themes and sometimes characters just exist to not so subtly drive the message. Although the Persian characters feel like a radical byproduct of war, with hate being their leading motivation in the form of an AI with memory’s of the original Abula’s resentment and pain being what wakes him and guilt tripping his supposed son into this idea of hate. Then there’s the former ruler who literally bites his tongue and let’s what happens happen out of resentment too, although those are just my thoughts. I can understand holding a grudge even if it becomes self destructive.
Can u please make a billy bat analysis like this I just love these kinds of videos
I finished the anime a few weeks ago and I had no idea who that teddy bear was so I just went "what the... Who the hell r u!??why were u in the story?what did u even do!!!????
Also, if abullah was actually just the robot and goji then why does gesicht get confused whether he's human or not he not a cyborg
am i the only one who kept thinking of strongbad when pluto was on screen?
Amazing video. I'm not usually an Anime/Manga person, but some positive reviews convinced me to watch the Pluto Anime. I was confused at a few points and your videos really helped understanding everything better. I have to say, my favorite moment of this Anime was the meeting between Tenma and Helena. The raw display of grief really shifted my opinion from "good anime" to "amazing".
I agree with your takes. I found it interesting to add an anti-robot organization and their reasons to the world, however the anti-robot K was too much. I'm conflicted if I would have liked more worldbuilding. As you mentioned, there are still a lot of questions about the world, especially about the topic of robot children. How/why are they made and do they grow? Also, I found it interesting that in the scene explaining Abullah's motivation, we see him losing a robot child. This was interesting to see how a human had a robot child and griefs their loss the same as a human child. Was this common in this world or maybe special to Abullah as a creator of robots?
On the other hand, these unanswered questions make you think and theorize, which is also fun.
Tbh, I can acknowledge and agree with a lot of the faults in the ending, but I can't ever really bring myself to feel like the poor conclusions of great set ups ever detract from the set up. Maybe I'm just a whore for good set up but when I think back to Pluto, I think of the incredible suspense I felt during the set up, and just forget my mostly indifferent feeling at the end.
Kinda wild seeing you not being mich of an anime fan
The bora situation tries to depict Americas invasion of Iraq under the suspicion that they posses nuclear weapons without having any proof so its not such a big plothole in my opinion.
Pluto killing epsilon and gesicht and atom's deaths were unnecessary and felt forced
Your duality mentality is concerning, i think americans have a hard time understanding coexistence. Pluto and Abbulah were not about family, it was about the next generation, that's what Urasawa says in his interviews, it's tied to the next, that's why Gesicht is there.
to me it seems like your complaints were mainly me problems, with perhaps what you would call "structural problems", that is deeply rooted in the idea of objectiveness of a piece, which for instance just because Pluto was weaker he shouldn't win, when that's not the point, Bora is not a fighting creature, it just goes up, and in extremely slow pace, Pluto didn't blizzard the whole shit, it's clear it was a reaction, when something is caused by another doesn't mean it carries any substance of the first.
Pluto is multually a story about hatred and the next generation, they are not 2 themes happening, they are in this context the same.
Also I'd like to know why Bora and Pluto being off-screen is bad, there's nothing objective about it being bad, nor about coincidences, explanations, etc. they are all tools
i'm sorry if this sounded way too rude, it's early in the morning here and ngl, this video really upset me
coudnt the manga just have him visit gstalts wife first to ask if he shall take revenge for her husband. in a melancholic weight , and her sayings omething that she loved him as person that tried to help, thats not right, or something. Why she chose to live with the pain and loss at it too showed her whats good in the world, or something. If a world with that misery deserves to end on his part or something. And him kinda hating but searreching for meaning and , that helping him realize how to griefe and that pain and loss is also meaning something worth loving or something, and worth protecting.
pluto could be nihilistic misetable angry asking why over plutos destructive hated and both mirror. ok thinking about whats said about the manga. why save the world, why even, anger, abd plutos revenge anger. It being clear that revenge born of hatred anger rand the pain of knowing existencial anger would be different angers,
and make the my anger s greater make sense? The anger of bearing the lives lost senseless connecting both? Dunno if ther ewere persioans pluto/zahad cared about. or accusing each other that ther eis no other way to ease the pain in angry accusations who was lost, and that they are similar.
and come to the agreement that those were worth existing and glad they did and the pain, i dont know spare the pain to the world that , ther is love basically. Give pluto a maria robotnik.
ok making astroboy existencial dreadful would probably make more sense, and ir would be a good ai theme too.
The issue i have with the anime is that the AI robots seen laughably cringe... The intention to portray AI as a rationally intentional force for "good" becomes becomes a corny and cheesy "robots drink tea and smile, cry and hug their kids"... It might just be a different perspective, due to my age, but when i read the manga, the AI felt believable... I'm the anime, just silly
This channel is like the Alt Shift X of Manga, it's great.
I found the felines and the girl taming them clip from yt and thought , "huh, what is this?" and what do you know, a full length explanation is out here. Thanks for your hard work. 🙇♂️