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[[caption-width-right:350:''The God of death often had horns...'']]
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->''"Professor Ochanomizu. You've made it clear you don't understand a thing about computerized brains. Frustration, intense hatred. That seething hatred that could lead someone to murder under the right conditions. '''Those''' are what robotic brains need to grow. A brain capable of error. That's what it means to reach perfection. And '''that''' is what will finally give birth... to the greatest robot the world has ever seen."''
-->-- '''Professor Tenma'''

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 Makoto Tezuka (Creator/OsamuTezuka's son) supervised the story. The manga ran in the {{seinen}} magazine ''Big Comic Original'' from 2003 to 2009.

In a world where humans and sapient robots co-exist, someone or some''thing'' is targeting the seven most advanced robots, killing them off one by one. Even more disturbingly, the same killer seems to be murdering humans as well. Only a supremely powerful robot could be killing the other robots--but [[ThreeLawsCompliant all robots are hardwired to be unable to kill humans]], with one very important exception.

German robot detective Gesicht (German for 'face'), who is so advanced as to be nearly indistinguishable from a normal human, investigates the killings in an effort to learn the secret link between the advanced robots and humans being murdered. This is an especially urgent matter for Gesicht, since [[RaceAgainstTheClock he's one of the scheduled murder victims...]]

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 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 eight hour-long episodes.

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

----
!!This manga provides examples of:

* AbusiveParents:
** Tenma ''sold'' Atom.
** Dr Abullah. [[spoiler: He perverts his son Sahad, a gentle robot who only wants to fill his homeland with flowers and live peacefully, into a horrible weapon for his own vengeance due to his overwhelming hatred.]]
* 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 [[CassandraTruth the least influential individual possible to have discovered the truth]].
* ActorAllusion: Gesicht is voiced by Creator/ShinshuFuji in the anime adaptation, who is also the official Japanese dub voice of Creator/DanielCraig's Film/JamesBond, both characters being blonde-haired and agents.
* 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.
** Police Inspector Tawashi is nowhere as antagonizing towards Atom as he is in the original manga, though he is still very resentful of robots in general. Still, there are factions of humans that do have a vitriolic hatred of robots.
* AdaptationDistillation: While it mostly focuses on expanding a single story arc, it also incorporates elements from the greater Astro Boy mythos at large. For instance, Atom's death and return were taken from the tail-end of the ''Blue Knight'' saga and the idea of Darius trying to legitimize his dictatorship by claiming descent from an ancient ruler from antiquity comes from the ''Cleopatra's Heart'' storyline.
* AIIsACrapshoot: Deconstructed. The story proposes that it ''has'' to be a crapshoot or else it's not a true A.I. (working off the logic that since HumansAreFlawed, then for a robot to be considered of equal sentience to a human, it must be capable of the same mistakes). It's therefore the robots who display the most unpredictability that the manga considers the closest to true sentience. No robot has ever been programmed with the ability to lie, for example, yet the most advanced ones are able to do so anyway as emergent behaviour, with the robot that the story dubs the first ever "truly perfect A.I." being capable of [[spoiler: [[IRejectYourReality lying even to itself]]]].
* AlternateHistory: The story takes place on our Earth, with most countries and cities being the same, but certain places are different. Like the Middle East has become the Republic of Persia, and the United States of America are instead the United States of Thracia, stemming from a country that today is Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey.
* AmnesiacDissonance: [[spoiler: Gesicht]].
* AnyoneCanDie: 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.
* ArcWords:
** "500 zeus a body."
** "Bora".
** "[[HelloInsertNameHere ______ didn't want to die.]]"
** "[[CanNotTellALie Robots cannot lie]]". [[spoiler:The perfect robot can lie, [[TomatoInTheMirror even to itself.]]]]
* ArmCannon:
** Gesicht's [[MorphWeapon left hand can transform]] into two different non-lethal weapons: one that shoots knockout gas, and a version that can shoot a "stun" beam. His right arm, however, transforms into an incredibly dangerous Cluster Cannon complete with Zeronium Missiles.
** The champion in this regard is North #2. He has four arm cannons: two that look like gatling guns and two that look like energy cannons.
* AscendedExtra: Gesicht didn't last seven pages back in the original story, now he's the hero.
* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: Gesicht is an actual German word. It just wouldn't be used as a name since it literally means "face". Interestingly, in the original story, Gesicht had the name "Gerhardt", which is an actual name.
* AuthorityInNameOnly: The President of the United States of Thracia.
* BadGuysDoTheDirtyWork: [[spoiler: Brau 1589. It says a lot when a barely functioning robot [[SwissCheeseSecurity somehow escapes a high-security prison and pretty much ''crawls'' to finally bring down Roosevelt and the president of Thracia while having a giant spear stuck in him.]] ]]
* BigNO [[spoiler: When Tenma reveals to Abullah that he was the "perfect A.I" he created.]]
* BadassBystander: Hogan the bodyguard is a large, beefy robot assigned to protect Epsilon (he notes the irony - if not for the weather, Epsilon could protect a whole continent on his own). Normally he wouldn't fall under this trope, but he protects Wassily from the collateral damage caused by Epsilon and Pluto when they finally fight.
* BecomeARealBoy: Many robots try to act as human as possible, wearing clothing and even eating food; in Atom's case, he even goes to the bathroom (although not for the reason you'd expect) despite it not being necessary. At the other end, Heracles is a notable exception, being well aware and perfectly comfortable with his not being human.
* BladeBelowTheShoulder: North #2 has two of these.
* BodyguardingABadass: Epsilon, one of the most powerful robots in the world if not actually the most powerful, is guarded by a somewhat generic security robot. Said robot even remarks on the irony of it.
* BreakTheCutie: Atom comes awfully close a few times.
* 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.]]
* BrickJoke: Gesicht's conversation with little Ali the first time they met. [[spoiler: The second time they meet, Ali kills Gesicht]].
-->'''Ali''': Will I see you again?
-->'''Gesicht''': Yes, I'm sure you will.
* CallBack: Near the beginning of the story, a police officer robot is killed by a junky. When Gesicht asks his (also robotic) wife if she would like to have her memories of him erased to ease the pain, she begs him not to erase her memories of her husband. Later on when [[spoiler:Gesicht is killed, his creator Hoffman asks Gesicht's wife if she wants part of her memory erased to ease the pain. She tells him the exact same thing.]]
* CallingCard: Pluto's mark is leaving something in the shape of horns by or on the victim. It's a method of identification until [[spoiler: he does it to Brando (using his arms as the horns and his memory chip as the head)]], where it has more of a "bragging" feel to it.
* 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.]]
** The four other instances of an advanced A.I. lying are [[spoiler:Brando, lying to his family and to his assistant, before going off to battle Pluto; Abullah, lying to Gesicht in the latter's inquiry, which causes Gesicht to incorrectly identify Abullah as human; Uran, lying about the nature of the robot she found; and Atom, lying to Helena about the gap in her and Gesicht's memories.]] In the last case, the person being lied to knows it immediately, but acknowledges it as a small kindness.
* ChekhovsBoomerang: [[spoiler:Zeronium Cluster Cannons.]]
* ChekhovsGun: Atom and his sister are frequently misidentified as human, even by other robots. This ability becomes an important plot point later.
* ComicBookFantasyCasting: Dr. Tenma is Leonard Bernstein. Mr. Mustachio is Creator/WilfordBrimley ([[Manga/{{Monster}} in his second role]] in a Creator/NaokiUrasawa production).
* CompositeCharacter: [[spoiler:Abullah/Goji is actually a combination of four different ''Manga/AstroBoy'' characters. The original Abullah/Goji and Bora from the classic ''Strongest Robot On Earth'' story; a one-shot character from another classic manga story entitled ''The Blast Furnace Mystery'', a robot whose creator had raised him to believe he was really Human; and Shadow, an original character from the 2003 series who was created by Dr. Tenma and replaced Abullah and the Sultan in that version in order to fit it better with the series' MythArc.]]
* ConsultingAConvictedKiller: Gesicht is tracking a serial killer who might be a robot, and consults Brau 1589, previously believed to be the only robot who ever killed a human.
* ContinuityNod: All over the place; "Pluto" is basically Urasawa's tribute to Creator/OsamuTezuka.
* CoolOldGuy: Prof. Ochanomizu. As the Japanese Science Minister, he tells several people more powerful than him (in theory) to shove it. As a man of science, he works throughout the night to try and save a dying robot dog. As a lover of peace, [[http://view.thespectrum.net/series/pluto-volume-1.html?ch=Volume+04&page=24 he would rather die than allow Atom to fight an unnecessary battle.]]
* CreepyChild:
** Atom falls into this occasionally - he seems to like being a normal kid, but doesn't hesitate to shed that persona when things get serious.
** Wassily too, although he's suffering from some form of PTSD.
** In the anime adaptation, Dr. Roosevelt has a perky childlike voice that matches its teddy bear avatar but contrasts disconcertingly with its enthusiastic commentary on Pluto's killing spree [[spoiler:and its genocidal intentions toward the human race]].
* CurbStompBattle: Atom vs. Pluto: If you can even call it that...
* CuteBruiser: Atom. When he [[spoiler: grabs and stops Pluto's [[CombatTentacles tentacle]] dead before it can skewer him, rips it out, then forces himself out of Pluto's fist to twist his arm off,]] it's clear he qualifies. Uran is also at least as powerful as a human adult, but never has to show it off.
* 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: almost all of them]]. What makes the story darker is the fact that each robot is developed, rather than simply being a collection of powers to be destroyed by Pluto.
* DeathByFlashback: [[spoiler: Several of the robots have flashbacks before getting killed, but especially Gesicht.]]
* DeathSeeker: [[spoiler: If his battle with Epsilon is any indication, Pluto wants to die.]]
* DecompositeCharacter: The Micro Bears, mind-controlling teddy bears created by Goji (or rather "Shadow") in the 2003 anime were the inspiration behind both the robo roaches (smaller robots Goji uses to control others) and Dr. Roosevelt (manipulative teddy bear).
* 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 its 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).]]
** Several tropes in android sci-fi, like BecomeARealBoy and DoAndroidsDream, are discussed by the narrative with fairly dark interpretations. Unlike most other media where androids adopt human characteristics that are good, the androids of ''Pluto'' adopt ones that are negative, like pride, prejudice, and even a capacity for senseless violence. The story even posits that the factor that makes artificial intelligence a true, growing life form is none other than the ability to [[spoiler: lie to others ''and itself''.]] However, the story then bends in the other direction and demonstrates how negative human characteristics can still be used for good [[spoiler: through Atom. Over the course of the story, Atom gains the ability to feel hatred, desire revenge, and even lie to others, but he uses all three for good reasons- he feels hatred for how Pluto has been treated and the situation both of them have been forced into, he desires revenge for his comrades but ultimately understands pursuing it against a victim like Pluto is the wrong thing to do, and he lies to Gesicht's wife about the missing memory of their murdered child, because he knows the pain she will feel if he allows her to remember it. The story demonstrates how negative aspects of humanity are not always destructive or cruel, and can in fact be used for good intentions.]]
* 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.]]
* DescriptionCut: As Gesicht and Haas separately confront the fact that [[spoiler:Gesicht killed Haas's brother]], Haas's wife asserts that Gesicht, a robot, could not have [[spoiler:been motivated by hatred of Haas's brother]]. Cut to Brau 1589 stating that Gesicht could have and was.
* DiabolusExMachina: [[spoiler:Gesicht does not die at the hands of Pluto but by being blown away by a hacked robot child with [[{{BFG}} a Cluster Cannon]] who somehow made it all the way from Persia to the Netherlands. [[{{Retirony}} After quitting Europol and taking roses to his wife to tell her he wishes to go journeying around the globe]].]]
* 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.
** Beyond that, Gesicht seems to have incorporated a transmission from Atom into a dream at one point, such that it's basically a [[PsychicDreamsForEveryone prophetic dream]] until he figures out what happened.
* DoomedByCanon: [[spoiler:Every super-robot that is not Atom.]]
* TheDreaded: Brau 1589 [[spoiler:and Bora.]]
* DubNameChange:
** Of a sense. Gesicht was named the much more generic and stereotypical German name Gerhardt in the original Tezuka stories.
** Notably averted for Atom. This is the only English version of Astro Boy where Astro Boy's name is left as Atom instead of being changed to Astro Boy. The reason for this lack of name change is probably to maintain the more serious tone of the series.
* DwindlingParty: The seven super robots are the only ones who stand a chance against Pluto. Too bad they all get picked off throughout the story.
%%* 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, though they have no problem using the consequences ([[spoiler:the enraged robot father breaking the laws of robotics to kill the man in vengence]]) to their advantage.
** [[spoiler:Brau 1589 does not take kindly to an OmnicidalManiac.]]
* {{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.
** Speaking of "full circle", ''Pluto'''s version of Professor Tenma is strongly reminiscent of [[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion Gendo Ikari]] -- who isn't entirely unlike the original version of Tenma from ''Manga/AstroBoy''. (He's actually drawn off of [[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Leonard_Bernstein Leonard Bernstein]] in his younger days, of all people.)
** Though it's never said out loud, Brau 1589 bears considerable resemblance to [[Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs Hannibal Lecter]] in personality, though he takes design cues from the (original) Blue Knight "Blue Bon".
* FantasticNuke:
** Epsilon's Photon Energy, which seems to be something like solar-powered intense radiation.
** Not to mention the Anti-Proton bombs that Urasawa is so fond of.
* FantasticRacism: To the point there's even an anti-robot version of the KKK.
* FantasyConflictCounterpart: It's only seen through flashback, but the war between Thracia and Persia is heavily based on the [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror Iraq War]] (with robots). The United States of Thracia accuses the Middle East nation of Persia of making Robots of Mass Destruction, but before other countries can complete their investigation into whether it's true, Thracia sends troops in and starts a horrific, wasteful war that devastates the country. This is all just a ploy to make Thracia the world's main superpower.
* ForegoneConclusion: This is a PerspectiveFlip of Tezuka's "World's Strongest Robot" arc, so anyone who's read the original knows that [[spoiler:Gesicht is ''screwed'']]. For that matter, you'll know that [[spoiler:Atom doesn't stay dead.]]
* 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, who took part in the war. 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.]]
* GirlishPigtails: Uran.
* GoryDiscretionShot: The way [[spoiler:Gesicht's kid]] was killed was never shown. [[spoiler:Neither was Gesicht's killing of the murderer shown explicitly.]]
* GovernmentConspiracy:
** [[spoiler:The Bora Investigation was part of a setup to establish the United States of Thracia as the world's main superpower by playing other nations against each other.]]
** There's also [[spoiler:the cover-up the European Union pulled when it turned out Gesicht wasn't ThreeLawsCompliant]].
* 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.)
* HeroKiller: The eponymous villain.
* HeroicBSOD: Gesicht has one [[spoiler:moments before his death.]]
* HopeSpot:
** 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.
* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: Zig-zagged. While the plot treats a robot developing rage, and murderous one at that, as the pinnacle of their evolution, robots for the most part are still showcased as remaining sane enough [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone to show regret for their actions]] ([[spoiler:such as Pluto and Geischt and also the other greatest robots on Earth, with the latter 6 developing a variation of [[ShellShockedVeteran PTSD]] for their actions]]) while [[HumanityIsInsane humans most definitely do not]] [[spoiler:and the greatest murderous maniac of all is a robot programmed [[BrainUploading with the mental engrams]] of a man who died feeling a tremendous amount of rage]]. Of the two killer robots running around, [[spoiler:Brau 1589 and Roosevelt]], the former shows a bit of [[EvenEvilHasStandards standards]] and [[spoiler:kills Roosevelt]], and the other, while exposing that he hopes all humans die [[spoiler:by the actions of Bora]] and being TheManBehindTheMan of the Thracians [[spoiler:and thus the one who ordered the war, [[GreaterScopeVillain causing all of the plot]]]], is mostly an OpportunisticBastard.
* IAmNotAGun: Pick a powerful robot. Heracles was the most comfortable with the war as a fighter, and even he laments that "That war was no fight." The others don't handle things nearly as well, and deal(t) with it in various ways. (Moreover, given how inclusive society has become, they have no trouble fitting into civilian life, possibly excepting North #2.)
* IKnowYouAreInThereSomewhereFight: Gesicht, Epsilon, and Atom in their respective fights against [[spoiler:Pluto AKA Sahad]].
* ImplacableMan: Pluto.
* InstantDeathBullet: Averted with [[spoiler:Gesicht]]; [[MajorInjuryUnderreaction it takes him a while]] to realize he's [[TorsoWithAView been shot]] with a ''[[{{BFG}} Cluster Cannon]]''.
* 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.
** After a robot policeman is killed in duty, Gesicht offers to erase his wife's memories to ease her suffering. She refuses, because she would rather keep him in her memories, and grieves in her own fashion. [[spoiler:After Gesicht's son is brutally murdered, and he kills the murderer in his fury, both Gesicht and his wife Helena's memories of the child (and killing the murderer) are erased, which results in Gesicht never quite getting over it, living with an inexplicable hatred inside him, and suffering horrible nightmares]].
* JustAMachine: [[spoiler:The child robot that Gesicht rescues, in particular.]] Otherwise averted, although Ridiculously Human bodies are only that without a mind in it.
* LawyerFriendlyCameo:
** There's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it one for Manga/BlackJack in the arc about North #2. In the anime he’s even credited as "BJ" and is voiced by his [[Creator/AkioOtsuka original voice actor.]]
** ''Manga/KimbaTheWhiteLion'' also makes a cameo as an escaped zoo animal during Uran's debut.
* LocardsTheory: The fact that no trace evidence can be found at any of the murder scenes leads the investigators to conclude that the SerialKiller they're looking for is a robot.
* MasterComputer: Dr. Roosevelt.
* MauveShirt: One generic police robot is given a name "Yujiro". [[spoiler:He is killed just a couple pages later.]]
* MeaningfulName:
** Professor Roosevelt is named after Theodore Roosevelt, the source of "teddy bear".
** "Gesicht" is both German and Dutch for "face".
** Brau 1589 gets his name from the original "Blue Bon". "Brau" is similar-sounding to "Blue", whereas 1589 is the year when the [[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/House_of_Bourbon House of Bourbon]] took over in France -- in other words, one ''hell'' of a historical ShoutOut. In fact, Brau is probably a mistranslation. It's probably supposed to be Blau, German for blue.
** Ochanomizu is Japanese for 'tea water'.
* MemoryRestoringMelody: In chapters 4-6, an elderly composer is frustrated by his inability to finish the melody of a song he only vaguely remembers from his childhood. His android butler, North #2, helps him by going to his home country and discovering the rest of the song. When he plays the song to the composer, it makes him remember that his mother was the one who sang it to him, which allows him to see her in a positive light again after spending his life believing she had abandoned him.
* MouthyKid: Uran just loves to drop age-appropriate [[DeadpanSnarker snark]] in almost every line she says, and when she treats someone kindly [[spoiler:namely Pluto]] she still is a bit prone at taking over the conversation.
* MultinationalTeam: Each of the 7 greatest robots come from a different country. Gesicht from Germany, Atom from Japan, Mont Blanc from Switzerland, North #2 from Scotland, Brando from Turkey, Hercules from Greece, and Epsilon from Australia. [[spoiler: Pluto and Bora are Persian.]]
* MythologyGag: Several.
** The various jabs about the doggy cop cars.
** Manga/KimbaTheWhiteLion's brief cameo.
** 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 and having no medical license. Both the anime adaptation and its English dub cast the doctor's voice to Black Jack's regular voice actors, Creator/AkioOtsuka and Creator/KirkThornton respectively.
** In many panels Atom sports a kind of double cowlick, referencing his [[TropeMaker trope making]] AnimeHair.
** Epsilon doesn't only look similar to [[{{Manga/Monster}} Johan Liebert]], but is also often surrounded by children. This is particularly notable since the two characters have polar opposite world views.
* NoHistoricalFiguresWereHarmed:
** Darius XIV, the strongman ruling Persia is a blatant facsimile of UsefulNotes/SaddamHussein (he even looks almost the same), the dictator of Iraq from 1979 to 2003, just like the 39th Central Asian Conflict is one of the RealLife 2003 Iraq War.
** On the side of his foes, the Thracian president Alexander bears more than just a passing resemblance to the 43th US president George W. Bush.
* NothingIsScarier:
** It takes several volumes before we get a full view of Pluto, which makes his appearances that much more terrifying. Notably when he does appear [[spoiler: he stops becoming the elemental monster he was in all his previous appearances - see VillainDecay.]]
** 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.
* NotQuiteTheRightThing: The very reason Dr. Tenma sold Atom. Atom is the splitting image of Tenma's son Tobio, but ''he is not Tobio''. Incapable of replicating the nuances of the late boy, and only serving to fuel his grief and frustration, Tenma opted to get rid of Atom.
* ObiWanMoment: Gesicht has one moments before [[spoiler:his death, stating that hatred can beget nothing, which is important in Astro's decision to not kill Pluto.]]
* OffWithHisHead: [[spoiler:Epsilon.]]
%%* OhCrap: The president of Thracia, see BreakTheHaughty.
* OneCastMemberPerCover: Each volume features a main character's face on the cover, starting with the two heroes of the story, Gesicht and Atom, on the first and second volume respectively. Subsequent volumes have Uran, Doctor Tenma, Hercules, Professor Ochanomizu, Epsilon, and finally Atom again for the concluding volume.
* OneDegreeOfSeparation: Pretty much all the main characters have some kind of connection to the 39th Central Asian Conflict. [[spoiler:This is a plot point.]]
* OurHeroIsDead: Of ''course'' [[spoiler:Atom]] isn't going to be gone for good. [[spoiler:''Gesicht'', on the other hand...]]
* {{Pacifist}}: Epsilon refused to be drafted due to this, although he readily admits to some cowardice. (The irony being that he's easily the most destructive of the strongest robots.)
* PapaWolf: [[spoiler:Gesicht's [[UnstoppableRage rage]] at his "son's" death is so great that he breaks one of the [[ThreeLawsCompliant Three Laws of Robotics]] to get his revenge]].
* PersonOfMassDestruction: The story revolves around the seven robots officially recognised in-universe as weapons of mass destruction: Montblanc, North #2, Brando, Heracles, Gesicht, Atom, and ''especially'' Epsilon. Pluto [[spoiler: and Bora]] also qualify.
* PerspectiveFlip: Essentially this is the original Astro Boy story from the POV of a (previously) minor character.
* PetTheDog: Tenma encourages Helena to cry [[spoiler: after Gesicht's death.]] He also cries with when he finally admits that [[spoiler: Atom's dead, seeing that it affected him as well.]]
%%* PostCyberpunk
* PosthumousCharacter: Montblanc [[spoiler:and the real Dr. Abullah]].
* PowerBornOfMadness: This is what happens when a robot is filled with rage and hatred, apparently.
* PowerOfHate: According to Tenma, the only thing that separates humans and humanoid machines is that humans have the capacity to hate others. A machine that possesses this quality is no longer considered merely a machine.
* ThePowerOfTheSun: Epsilon, as long as he has time to (re)charge in sunlight.
* PoweredArmor: Brando and Heracles both use these when fighting in the war and the ring (they're wrestlers during the day), though they have to detach their heads from their general-use bodies.
* RedemptionEqualsDeath: [[spoiler:Pluto, fighting off Bora who is about [[EndOfTheWorld to lay waste to the entire world]] with a supervolcano. The supervolcano eventually does erupt, but Pluto freezes the lava.]]
* RedHerring:
** The fact that [[spoiler: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.]]
** Early in the story it's revealed that Brando and Heracles both have human-like bodies outside their robot ones. When Uran meets a vagrant-like robot, a reader familiar with the original story will assume that this is Pluto's human-like body. [[spoiler: It turns out the body belonged to another robot - [[PeoplePuppets Pluto was just using the empty body for a joyride]]. (It's eventually revealed he did have a human-like body though.)]]
* ReplacementGoldfish: Atom was [[TropeCodifier originally created]] by Dr. Tenma as a replacement for his son Tobio. However, Atom differed from Tobio in many ways (Atom enjoyed doing his homework, cleaning his room, and always aimed to please Tenma, while Tobio hated doing those things and was more rebellious), causing Tenma to abandon him.
* RestrainingBolt: All robots are equipped with a device that dampens emotional responses as one of the failsafes to ensure that they stay ThreeLawsCompliant. [[spoiler:Advanced robots can overwhelm the block with a sufficiently strong emotion -- say, UnstoppableRage.]]
* {{Retirony}}: [[spoiler: Gesicht]] attempts to retire or get vacation time only pages before he dies.
* RewatchBonus: The first appearance of [[spoiler:Abullah. As Atom and Uran correct a security guard who mistakenly tries to direct them into a "human" doorway instead of the "non-human" one they were headed towards, he remarks that it truly is becoming impossible to tell robot from human. As this happens, Atom sees Abullah walk through the "human" door. Abullah is in fact Goji, a robot so advanced that he was even able to convince himself he was human.]]
* RidiculouslyHumanRobots:
** All of the seven most powerful robots, except Montblanc and North #2. Gesicht has trouble telling that Atom is a robot at times. Apart from them, Atom's sister Uran and Gesicht's wife Helena are also robots that look very human.
** Many robots, such as Brando and Heracles, use a Ridiculously Human body in their free time, while having a more traditionally "robotic" body for their main jobs, finding that easier to fit in with society. Many robots who display more clearly robotic appearances, such as many cleaning or police bots, are frequently commented to be 'older' or 'outdated' models.
** Given Montblanc and North #2's more robotic appearances in contrast, especially the latter's clear desire to move past his original purpose as a combat robot and hiding most of his body under a cloak in his every day life, there's implication that they're more similar to older or simpler robot models, and their consciousness cannot be transplanted to a different body.
* RippedFromTheHeadlines: The Thracian invasion of Persia that makes up a key part of the backstory (being the invasion of a Middle Eastern country by a Western superpower-led coalition under suspect pretenses) is clearly inspired by the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, which began the same year that the manga began publishing.
* RoboticPsychopath: Deconstructed, subverted and played straight. Pluto showcased that the morality of a robot is as diverse as it is complex, with a few sociopathic robots even learning what redemption is.
* RoboticReveal:
** A small one, as by this point we already know who Atom is, but we have a flashback where Dr. Tenma is apparently eating with his still living son while asking him questions about whether he did his homework or cleaned his room, which the boy says he happily did. Then Tenma revealed that his real son hated doing all of those things, revealing that this was actually early in Atom's life.
** [[spoiler:Abullah's]] reveal as Goji, who Dr. Tenma created.
* RobotSoldier: Robots were used for war (especially The Eight Strongest Robots), but since even those robots are programmed to [[ThreeLawsCompliant obey the three laws of robotics]] ([[spoiler:some robots were able to ignore these rules, such as when Gesicht iced the killer of his son]]), they can only be used against ''other'' robots.
* RobotWar: The 39th Central Asian Conflict 4 years ago where humans fought humans and robots fought robots.
* ScrubbingOffTheTrauma: In Chapters 33 and 34, Hercules recalls seeing a shell-shocked robot after a battle, desperately trying to wash his hands under a broken water pipe, saying "It just won't come out."
* SealedEvilInATeddyBear: Played with when it comes to Dr. Roosevelt. It's not that it's a teddy bear per se, but the teddy bear is used by it so that people are able to focus on something when talking with it, as they would otherwise be talking with a portentously big and featureless supercomputer the size of a building without knowing where to look.
* SenselessSacrifice: [[spoiler:Brando tries 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.]]
* ShapeShifterSwanSong:
** 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.]]
** Later played straight when [[spoiler:said ultimate A.I. is confronted by the [[TomatoInTheMirror truth about itself]], whereupon its face morphs into Gesicht's, Brando's, Hercules', and Epsilon's before reverting to a featureless, lifeless base form.]]
* ShellShockedVeteran: Several of the robots that participated in the 39th Central Asian Conflict, but ''especially'' North #2.
* ShoutOut:
** Arguably, the first appearance of Pluto in Chapter 1 ([[https://mangadex.org/chapter/4341f837-ae93-4a8e-918b-c1ce3a21e31c/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.
** While Prof. Ochanomizu looks about what you'd expect him to in Urasawa's style, he's apparently based on ''Tezuka''.
** Brau 1589 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]]
*** In another amusing parallel, Will Graham's bizarre "Stag Man" hallucination looks very similar to Pluto himself, minus being a giant robot.
* SocialServicesDoesNotExist: Epsilon's orphanage is one of few, and the existence of several orphans in the former kingdom of Persia shows how poorly reconstruction is going. The informal nature of the orphanage is cause for trouble, when [[spoiler:Wassily is kidnapped from the orphanage because neither of the human caretakers, browbeaten by a couple of presumed government officials, remembered to make a background check on the adoptive father.]]
* SoundtrackDissonance: In the anime, the composer's classical-styled piano piece plays over North No.2's memory of being in the battlefield, killing his fellow robots wholesale. It helps convey the tragedy of the situation.
* SpannerInTheWorks: [[spoiler:Atom, Pluto and [[BigDamnVillain Brau 1589]] to Dr. Roosevelt]].
* StealthPun: Dr. Roosevelt, [[spoiler:the GreaterScopeVillain of the story]], is a supercomputer whose avatar that it communicates through is a teddy bear. So he's Teddy 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 1589 emits highly-disruptive magnetism that scrambles the AI of most ordinary robots that come near without protective gear.
* TakingYouWithMe: [[spoiler: Brau 1589 killing Professor Roosevelt with the spear he had been impaled with. Brau 1589 had previously declared that removing the spear from his body would kill him.]]
* TeachHimAnger: In a double example, [[spoiler: Tenma does this to to both Goji and Atom to awaken them.]] It works, but in completely different ways, and not quite in the way everyone expected. [[spoiler: Goji, overwhelmed by the hatred Abullah carried with him at his death, awakened and proceeded to convince himself that ''he'' was Abullah, and therefore human. Atom instead learns the folly in relying on anger and hatred to win, and in fact realizes the futility of those emotions instead]].
* 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.
* ThereCanBeOnlyOne: Inherent in the phrase "World's Strongest Robot" but in practice, it's more of a DwindlingParty situation - there's really no force on Earth that can stop Pluto [[spoiler: and Bora]] once the "Strongest Robots" are dead.
* TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow: Invoked. It's on this reasoning that Tenma strongly advises Abdullah not to uncover the face of the comatose 'perfect AI' robot he had created, which was at that time rapidly morphing through the faces of six billion people.
* ThreeLawsCompliant: At least the First Law is supposed to be hardwired in all A.I. units. The only cases of a robot breaking it are Brau 1589, [[spoiler:Gesicht, and Abullah/Goji/Shadow, though the last may not technically count, since he apparently [[TomatoInTheMirror believed himself to be human]]. Roosevelt doesn't seem to obey them either, but then he ''was'' created specifically to mastermind Thracia's corruption, so he may have been illegally built without them.]]
* TomatoInTheMirror: [[spoiler: The real Abullah is dead. The one running around is the perfect A.I. he built, convinced that it is him.]]
* TorsoWithAView: [[spoiler:The Cluster Cannon blast that kills Gesicht leaves a humongous hole in his lower torso that can be seen through.]]
* TwoAliasesOneCharacter: Three, actually. [[spoiler: Goji, Bora, and the Dr. Abullah seen in most of the story all turn out to be the same character.]]
* TwoDunIt: [[spoiler: While the robot murders were carried out by Pluto, the human murders appear to be the work of Goji/Abullah.]]
* UltimateUniverse: Frequently compared favourably to Marvel's Ultimate books. Interestingly, this version mixes elements of both the original 1960s version and the 2003 anime.
* {{Unobtanium}}: The Zeronium Alloy that Gesicht is made from, as well as the ultra-heavy Zeronium weapons. They can tear through almost anything, and it takes a special type of particle gun to destroy it.
* VillainousBreakdown: When [[spoiler:Abullah is confronted with the truth about himself, he pretty much explodes with denial until he (or, rather, his current body) just overloads and collapses]].
* VillainDecay: Justified, intentional example. [[spoiler: For most of the story, Pluto is an elemental beast of destruction, the monster that hides in darkness. Once he's finally fully seen though, he helps out a child and then begs for help himself, wishing to die. In other words, the monster in darkness turns out to be something human after all. Pluto's role as an elemental monster is then replaced by Bora.]]
* WeaponTombstone: Half of Pluto's horn stands at the end of the series, while Atom reminiscences about the robots that have gone before him.
* WeCanRebuildHim: Part of Abullah's back story. [[spoiler: A fraudulent part.]]
* WeHardlyKnewYe: Montblanc. (The story takes pains to flesh him out in flashbacks, and it's clear he was a very good guy.)
* WhatIsThisFeeling: Robots who feel love, grief, or utter hatred for the first time will indubitably utter this phrase.
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Explored very thoroughly.
* WorfHadTheFlu: Epsilon might very well be the strongest character in the setting, stronger even than the one who is killing the other robots, considering that [[spoiler:during their first encounter, Epsilon easily defeats Pluto, but lets him go since he has no personal quarrel with him. During their second encounter, they fight at night, which puts Epsilon at a disadvantage since he is powered by the sun, and then he is distracted by his adoptive son being in danger and focuses on protecting him rather than himself, which allows Pluto to kill him]].
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