History Manga / Pluto

* JustAMachine: [[spoiler: The child robot that Gesicht rescues, in particular.]] Otherwise averted, although Ridiculously Human bodies are only that without a mind in it.

* MouthyKid: Uran.

* AchievementsInIgnorance: The American meteorological robot Arnold discovers a crack on the roof in a building he happens to be in; [[spoiler:he doesn't have to dig in that much further until he discovers by serendipity that there is a great seismological increase in the United States of Thracia, correctly speculating that there could be a nuclear device under the surface.]] He is quickly dismissed by Dr. Roosevelt and the Thracian President as a potential SpannerInTheWorks. Because he is known to be an eccentric robot, Arnold is effectively [[TheStoolPigeon the least influential individual possible to have discovered the truth]].

->''Professor Ochanomizu. You've made it clear you don't understand a hing about computerized brains. Frustration, intense hatred. That seething hatred that could lead someone to murder under that right conditions. ''Those'' are what robotic brains need to grow.''

->''Listen, Professor Ochanomizu... you don't understand anything about artificial intelligence. Frustration and failure... seething hatred... Emotions so powerful they lead one to want to kill...'' That's ''what fosters true artificial intelligence...''

->''Perfection is in the mind that makes mistakes... And that, Professor, is what will give birth to'' the greatest robot on Earth...

In 2010, Universal picked up the rights to make a [=CGI=]/live-action movie. 2017 saw an announcement for an eight-episode AnimatedAdaptation. [[https://youtu.be/KuUhYOyJn78 A sneak peak]] for the anime was released in February 2023, confirming a Creator/{{Netflix}} release. GENCO and Studio M2 will animate the series with help from [[Creator/MushiProductions Tezuka Productions]], Creator/{{MAPPA}}, Creator/DRMovie, BILBA and Studio VOLN. The anime released on October 26, 2023, with 8 1-hour long episodes.

** In the North #2 mini-arc, Paul Duncan mentions his life was saved by a famous Japanese doctor. It's almost certainly Manga/BlackJack, as what we can see of him has him wearing his characteristic long black coat.

In 2010, Universal picked up the rights to make a [=CGI=]/live-action movie. 2017 saw an announcement for an eight-episode AnimatedAdaptation. [[https://youtu.be/KuUhYOyJn78 A sneak peak]] for the anime was released in February 2023, confirming a Creator/{{Netflix}} release. GENCO and Studio M2 will animate the series with help from [[Creator/MushiProductions Tezuka Productions]], Creator/{{MAPPA}}, Creator/DRMovie, BILBA and Studio VOLN. The anime is set to be released on October 26, 2023, with 8 1-hour long episodes.

In 2010, Universal picked up the rights to make a [=CGI=]/live-action movie. 2017 saw an announcement for an eight-episode AnimatedAdaptation. [[https://youtu.be/KuUhYOyJn78 A sneak peak]] for the anime was released in February 2023, confirming a Creator/{{Netflix}} release. GENCO will animate the series. The anime is set to be released on October 26, 2023, with 8 1-hour long episodes.

* AdaptationalNiceGuy: In the original story, of the seven super robots, only Astro, Mont Blanc, Gerhardt, and Epsilon were depicted as nice people. North #2 had no discernible personality and only followed his master's orders, Brando was a borderline AssholeVictim who threatened to destroy Astro if he got in his way, and Heracles insisted on fighting Pluto alone due to his HonorBeforeReason personality, costing him and Epsilon their lives. Here, they are all given some much-needed backstory and portrayed far more sympathetically.

* CannotTellALie: Invoked as part of the [[ThreeLawsCompliant Three Laws of Robotics]], but ultimately averted in several ways. [[spoiler:The more advanced an A.I., the more capable it is of emulating humanity, including ''lying'']]. Most importantly, [[spoiler:Goji lying to ''himself'' that he was Abullah, and therefore human. This, according to Dr. Tenma, marks him as a truly perfect A.I.]]

* DarkerAndEdgier: A downplayed version of Astro Boy. Urasawa doesn't change the basic plot at all, resulting in most of the same major robots dying as did in the original. [[spoiler: ie all of them.]] What made the story darker was the fact that each robot was developed, rather than simply being a collection of powers to be destroyed by Pluto.

* DeconReconSwitch: The story begins as a DarkerAndEdgier retelling of a famous ''Astro Boy'' arc, with more realistic art style and world. The story shifting away from a traditional version of TheHero in Astro and towards a Noir Detective like Gesicht also means it gets to explore the seedier sides of the world and asks more complex questions about robotic intelligence and memory. As the story reaches it's conclusion, [[spoiler: Astro retakes his position as the protagonist and begins fighting Pluto not out of revenge, but to end the CycleOfRevenge and stop Pluto from destroying himself (and the world).]]

* DoAndroidsDream: A.I. units have a subconscious and in some cases the ability to dream, with the additional benefit of being able to save them to memory. This proves to be a major plot point later on.

* DubNameChange: Of a sense. Gesicht was named the much more generic and stereotypical German name Gerhardt in the original Tezuka stories. Or at least the English translation; we're not sure about the Japanese original.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: Even the anti-robot Ku Klux Klan stand-ins are horrified when one of their members turns out to be a sadistic serial killer who targets robot children. [[spoiler:Also, Brau 1589 does not take kindly to an OmnicidalManiac.]]
** The first one might be a subversion. While the robot KKK were horrified, they had no problem using the consequences ([[spoiler:the enraged robot father breaking the laws of robotics to kill the man in vengence]]) to their advantage.
* {{Expy}}: Several characters look ''a lot'' like characters from some other Urasawa series. Granted, several of those Urasawa characters were Expies of Tezuka's Star System, so they're really just coming full circle.

* GambitRoulette: At the end of the series [[spoiler:it is revealed that Dr. Roosevelt (the supercomputer) had Thracia invade Persia, causing Abullah to lose his family, and thus create Pluto to attack Thracia and the world's seven most advanced robots. Doing so would insure Thracia's dominance in the world once its disadvantage in robotics was made moot -- and activate a [[EarthShatteringKaboom very large bomb]] that [[ApocalypseHow would kill most of humanity]] and establish robots as the dominant species on the planet. However, Atom is repaired and enhanced with the emotions from Gesicht's memory chip, and not only defeats Pluto, but convinces him to stop the bomb. Roosevelt also doesn't count on Brau 1589 escaping and coming to kill him personally.]]

* IronicEcho: Montblanc didn't like the idea of a statue of him littering the Alps, and while the pedestal was built, the statue apparently wasn't. Heracles didn't like the idea of a statue of him littering the Greek sealine (and distracting from the old ruins nearby), but his statue got built and placed anyway.

* LawyerFriendlyCameo: There's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it one for Manga/BlackJack in the arc about North #2.

* MauveShirt: One generic police robot is given a name "yujiro". [[spoiler:He is killed just a couple pages later.]]

** Professor Roosevelt is named after Theodore Roosevelt, the originator of the teddy bear.

** [[spoiler:The fact that scanners identify the figure in the dead policebot's memory files as human. Abullah believes himself to be human so hard that he acts it convincingly enough to fool modern equipment, even when performing obviously inhuman feats like vaulting between two skyscrapers. He tells others (and himself) that his limbs are artificial since he lost his real ones in the war. The reality is that his whole body is a robot imitating the real Abullah.]]

%% * RobotWar: The 39th Central Asian Conflict 4 years ago.

* SenselessSacrifice: [[spoiler: Brando tried a HeroicSacrifice by fighting against Pluto, so Gesicht can use live footage from Brando's eye camera to find Pluto's weakness. But then Brando's life flashes before his eyes, ruining the Pluto footage and rendering it useless.]]

** A rather unique inversion. [[spoiler: The reason the ultimate A.I. robot failed to come to life to begin with was ''because'' it was shifting through so many personalities and faces that the hardware just couldn't keep up.]]

* ShoutOut: Arguably, the first appearance of Pluto in Chapter 1 ([[http://view.thespectrum.net/series/pluto-volume-1.html?ch=Volume+01&page=11 see here]]) is a reference to [[http://atticannie.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/the-scream-edvard-munch.jpg Munch's painting,]] TheScream.
** Accepting that, one gets a second ShoutOut. Tezuka enjoyed referencing famous works of art in his work, and doing so could be considered a Tezuka reference in itself.

* RoboticReveal: [[spoiler:Abullah's reveal as Goji, who Dr. Tenma created.]]

* GambitRoulette: At the end of the series [[spoiler:it is revealed that Dr. Roosevelt (the supercomputer) had Thracia invade Persia, causing Abullah to lose his family, and thus create Pluto to attack Thracia and the world's seven most advanced robots. Doing so would insure Thracia's dominance in the world once its disadvantage in robotics was made moot -- and activate a [[EarthShatteringKaboom very large bomb]] that [[ApocalypseHow would kill most of humanity]] and establish robots as the dominant species on the planet. However, Atom is repaired and enhanced with the emotions from Gesicht's memory chip, and not only defeats Pluto, but convinces him to stop the bomb. Roosevelt also doesn't count on Brau escaping and coming to kill him personally.]]

* BreakTheHaughty: [[spoiler: Happens to the President of Thracia, who ordered the invasion of Persia under the pretence that they were creating robots of mass destruction (actually so he could expand his empire), only for a Persian scientist to ''begin'' creating them in retaliation - and now said robots are vengeance-crazed and about to ''crack Thracia's continental plate''. The once SmugSnake is reduced to a cowering wreck hiding in a bunker ...and then [[TheDreaded Brau-1589]] shows up.]]

* GrewBeyondTheirProgramming: Robots are hard coded to be unable to kill human beings. Only one robot, Brau-1589, has ever been able to commit human murder. [[spoiler:Only it turns out there are two more who have committed murder. Goji, who was able to convince himself he was a human, and thus mentally able to avoid the restrictions of being a robot, and Gesicht, whose fury at the death of his son overrode any programming that would stop him from killing.]]
* HannibalLecture: Essentially Brau-1589's purpose, being an {{Expy}} of the trope namer, although not in the usual way;[[note]]We only ever see him interviewed by robots, and the traditional Lecture doesn't quite work on them.[[/note]] Gesicht eventually exchanges memories with him (to get a killer's perspective on the weird crap that's been happening) and this has a negative effect later on, but he's otherwise cooperative. (Aside from this, he emits powerful magnetic waves that will kill unprotected 'normal' robots within a certain range - 4 have already died this way before the manga starts.)

** Ochanomizu is Japanese for ‘tea water’.

** In universe example: When the authorities opened up Brau-1589 to examine the glitch in his "[[ThreeLawsCompliant Three Laws]]" compliance, what did they find? What corrupted him to the point that he could even kill a human? ...Nothing. There was nothing wrong with his programming and thus nothing that could explain why [[ParanoiaFuel any other robot couldn't do the same thing.]] This is the reason that he's kept in isolation instead of just being destroyed, the authorities are still trying to find an error that could have caused this because they're simply too frightened of the implications that there wasn't one. They're too scared of what he represents to even ''kill'' him.

** Blau One Five Eight Nine's obvious similarity to Hannibal Lecter, of course. Interestingly, the very first storyline of the recent ''Series/{{Hannibal}}'' TV series also features a serial killer who uses antlers as a calling card, though this may just be a coincidence.[[note]]While the killer in question, The Minnesota Shrike, was mentioned in the original books, the antler thing was made up by Creator/BryanFuller out of whole cloth.[[/note]]

* SpannerInTheWorks: [[spoiler: Atom, Pluto and [[BigDamnVillain Brau]] to Dr. Roosevelt]].

* TailorMadePrison: Brau 1589, the first known human-killer robot, was considered so dangerous they didn't even bother to haul his mostly-destroyed body ''to'' a prison. No, what they did was they built the prison ''around'' where he lay, with huge warning signs, checkpoints and cement barriers. The electrified spear impaling him is also the only thing keeping him alive, but no human dares come close enough to remove it, and Brau emits highly-disruptive magnetism that kills most ordinary robots that come near.
* TakingYouWithMe: [[spoiler: Brau killing Professor Roosevelt with the spear he had been impaled with. Brau had previously declared that removing the spear from his body would kill him.]]

* PersonOfMassDestruction: Montblanc, North #2, Brando, Heracles, Gesicht, Atom, and ''especially'' Epsilon. Oh, and Pluto [[spoiler: and Bora]] of course.

In 2010, Universal picked up the rights to make a [=CGI=]/live-action movie. 2017 saw an announcement for an eight-episode AnimatedAdaptation. [[https://youtu.be/KuUhYOyJn78 A sneak peak]] for the anime was released in February 2023, confirming a Creator/{{Netflix}} release. GENCO will animate the series.

* DecoyProtagonist: Ultimately this trope is played with. [[spoiler: While Gesicht does die two volumes before the Finale, his investigation is instrumental in discovering the identity of Pluto. Not only that, his final thoughts were of how hatred destroys all, which is ultimately what stops Atom from killing Pluto.]] To top that off, [[spoiler: his and Helena's flashback to their child provides the coda for the manga's ending.]]

* DoomedByCanon: [[spoiler: Every super-robot that is not Atom.]]
* TheDreaded: Brau 1589 [[spoiler: and Bora.]]

* TheEmpath: Uran.
* EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Even the anti-robot Ku Klux Klan stand-ins are horrified when one of their members turns out to be a sadistic serial killer who targets robot children. [[spoiler: Also, Brau 1589 does not take kindly to an OmnicidalManiac.]]

* GoryDiscretionShot: The way [[spoiler: Gesicht's kid]] was killed was never shown. [[spoiler: Neither was Gesicht's killing of the murderer shown explicitly.]]
* GovernmentConspiracy:

** Admit it, when he survived his bout with Pluto, you ''really'' thought [[spoiler: Gesicht]] was going to survive.
** Not just [[spoiler: Gesicht]], but [[spoiler: Epsilon]] as well.

No relation to the former planet, [[WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyShorts nor the]] [[WesternAnimation/PlutoThePup cartoon bloodhound]], nor the [[Franchise/SailorMoon Sailor Senshi]], nor the [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Roman god of the Underworld]], other than the titular robot being named after said god. Also, this manga [[PlutoIsExpendable is not expendable]].

* OutDamnedSpot: Happens to a robot that served with Heracles.

* RobotWar: The 39th Central Asian Conflict 4 years ago.

A manga by Creator/NaokiUrasawa, the man behind ''Manga/{{Monster}}'' and ''Manga/TwentiethCenturyBoys''. The story is an UltimateUniverse reimagining of the classic ''Manga/AstroBoy'' story arc "The Greatest Robot on Earth" (which can be found in ''Astro Boy'' book three, in case you want to check it out before reading the remake). Takashi Nagasaki is credited as a co-author, while Macoto Tezuka (Creator/OsamuTezuka's son) supervised the story. The manga ran in the {{seinen}} magazine ''Big Comic Original'' from 2003 to 2009.

* AbusiveParents: Tenma ''sold'' Atom. Is that abusive enough for you?

* ActorAllusion: Gesicht is voiced by [[Creator/ShinshuFuji Shinshu Fuji]] in the anime adaptation, who is also the official Japanese dub voice of [[Creator/DanielCraig Daniel Craig's]] [[Film/JamesBond James Bond]], both characters being blonde-haired and agents.

->--'''Professor Tenma'''

* TailorMadePrison / {{Oubliette}}: Brau 1589, the first known human-killer robot, was considered so dangerous they didn't even bother to haul his mostly-destroyed body ''to'' a prison. No, what they did was they built the prison ''around'' where he lay, with huge warning signs, checkpoints and cement barriers. The electrified spear impaling him is also the only thing keeping him alive, but no human dares come close enough to remove it, and Brau emits highly-disruptive magnetism that kills most ordinary robots that come near.
* TearsFromAStone: Most advanced AIs are ''capable'' of crying, but only in order to better simulate human behavior. When they cry for themselves ''and mean it'', you know it's important.

* AdaptationalNiceGuy: In the original story, of the seven super robots, only Astro, Mont Blanc, Gerhardt, and Epsilon were depicted as nice people. North #2 had no discernible personality and only followed his master's orders, Brando was a borderline AssholeVictim who threatened to destroy Astro if he got in his way, and Heracles insisted on fighting Pluto alone due to his HonorBeforeReason personality, costing him and Epsilon their lives. Here, they are all given some much-needed backstory and portrayed far more sympathetically.

In 2010, Universal picked up the rights to make a [=CGI=]/live-action movie. 2017 saw an announcement for an eight-episode AnimatedAdaptation.

* ReplacementGoldfish: Atom was [[TropeCodifier originally created]] by Dr. Tenma as a [[ItWasHisSled replacement for his son]] Tobio. However, Atom differed from Tobio in many ways (Atom enjoyed doing his homework, cleaning his room, always aims to please Tenma, while Tobio hated doing those things and was more rebellious), causing Tenma to abandon him.

* SealedEvilInATeddyBear: Dr. Roosevelt.

* DarkerAndEdgier: A downplayed version of Astro Boy. Urasawa doesn't change the basic plot at all, resulting in most of the same major robots dying as did in the original. [[spoiler: ie [[KillEmAll all of them.]]]] What made the story darker was the fact that each robot was developed, rather than simply being a collection of powers to be destroyed by Pluto.

* AnyoneCanDie: Bordering on KillEmAll.
** To give you an idea on just how far this trope goes: [[spoiler:Gesicht, ''the main character'', dies two volumes before the end.]] Though if you've seen the original 'Greatest Robot on Earth' story anywhere else you could pretty much see that coming.

* RoboticReveal: [[spoiler:Abullah is in fact the robot Goji, who Dr. Tenma created.]]