History Main / Pluto

[[redirect:Manga/{{Pluto}}]]

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Pluto_title_3790.jpg]]

->''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'' [[ArcWords the greatest robot on Earth]]...
->--'''Professor Tenma'''

A manga by NaokiUrasawa, the man behind ''Anime/{{Monster}}'' and ''TwentiethCenturyBoys''. The story is an UltimateUniverse reimagining of an old ''AstroBoy'' story arc.

In a world where humans and sentient 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, 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 he's one of the scheduled murder victims...

No relation to the former planet, [[ClassicDisneyShorts nor the]] [[PlutoThePup cartoon bloodhound]], nor the [[ClassicalMythology Roman god of the Underworld]].[[spoiler: Okay, maybe that last one.]]

Universal just picked up the rights to make a [=CGI=]/Live Action movie.

Also, this manga [[PlutoIsExpendable is not expendable]].
----
!!This manga provides examples of:

* AbusiveParents: Tenma ''sold'' Atom. Is that abusive enough for you?
* AdaptationDistillation: While it mostly focuses on expanding a single story arc, it also incorporates elements from the greater AstroBoy mythos at large. For instance, Astro's death & return were taken from the tail-end of the ''Blue Knight'' saga & 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: Averted for the most part. Even human-killer Brau 1589 has no malfunctions in his programming (that is, there's nothing ''inherently'' wrong with him - he's pretty obviously insane, but that's not due to the way he was built). Several characters openly wonder if that willingness and ability to kill is, rather, the self-''perfection'' of A.I.
* AmnesiacDissonance: [[spoiler:Gesicht]].
* AnyoneCanDie: bordering on KillEmAll.
** To give you an idea on just how far this trope goes: [[spoiler:Gesicht, ''the main character'' in this, dies at least a dozen chapters 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."
* ArmCannon: Gesicht has two: a pistol built into his left hand that shoots knockout gas, and his right arm which fires a missile.
** 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.
* 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.
* BigDamnVillains: [[spoiler: Brau 1589. It says a lot when a barely functioning robot somehow escapes a high-security prison and pretty much ''crawls'' to the rescue of the President of Thrace while having a giant spear stuck in him.]]
* BigNO [[spoiler: When Tenma reveals to Abullah that he was the "perfect robot" he created.]]
* BladeBelowTheShoulder: North #2 has two of these.
* BreakTheCutie: Atom comes awfully close a few times.
* 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.
* 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.
* ChekhovsGun: Astroboy and his sister are frequently misidentified as human, even by other robots. This ability becomes an important plot point later.
* CompositeCharacter: [[spoiler:Abullah/Goji is actually a combination of three different ''AstroBoy'' characters. The original Abullah/Goji 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.]]
* ContinuityNod: All over the place; "Pluto" is basically Urasawa's tribute to OsamuTezuka.
* CoolOldGuy: Prof. Ochanomizu. As the Science Minister, he tells ministers 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. And 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: Astro 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.
* CurbStompBattle: Astro vs. Pluto: If you can even call it that...
* CuteBruiser: Atom. [[spoiler:When he 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, I'd say he qualifies]]. Uran is also at least as powerful as a human adult, but never has to show off.
* DarkerAndEdgier: of Astro Boy.
* DeathByFlashback: [[spoiler: Several of the robots have flashbacks before getting killed, but specially Gesicht]].
* [[spoiler:DecoyProtagonist]]
* DoAndroidsDream: AI 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: Everyone that is not Atom.]]
* DubNameChange: Of a sense. Gesicht was named the much more generic and stereotypical German name Gerhardt in the original Tezuka stories.
* TheEmpath: Uran.
* {{Eagleland}}: The United States of Thracia.
* EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt
* EvenEvilHasStandards: The anti-robot Ku Klux Klan stand-ins were horrified when one of their members killed a robot child. [[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.
** Speaking of "full circle", ''Pluto'''s version of Professor Tenma is strongly reminiscent of [[NeonGenesisEvangelion Gendo Ikari]] -- who isn't entirely unlike the original version of Tenma from ''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.)
*** And speaking of Gendo Ikari and Tenma, is there a DisappointedDad trope? These guys are the textbook definition.
** And though it's never said out loud, Brau 1589 bears considerable resemblance to [[TheSilenceOfTheLambs Hannibal Lector]] 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.
* ForegoneConclusion: this is a PerspectiveFlip of Tezuka's "World's Strongest Robot" arc, meaning that anyone who's read that knows that [[spoiler:Gesicht is ''screwed'']]. For that matter you'd know that [[spoiler:Atom doesn't stay dead.]]
* GirlishPigtails: Uran.
* GovernmentConspiracy: [[spoiler:The Bora Investigation was part of a setup to establish the United States of Thrace as the world's main superpower.]]
** Not to mention [[spoiler:the cover-up the European Union pulled when it turned out Gesicht wasn't ThreeLawsCompliant]].
* HairOfGold: Epsilon.
* HannibalLecture: Brau 1589, although not in the usual way[[hottip:*:We only ever see him interviewed by robots, and the traditional Lecture doesn't quite work on them]]; 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.
* 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 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: [[spoiler: Averted with Gesicht, it takes him a while to realize he's been shot with a ''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.
* 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 BlackJack in the arc about North #2.
** ''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.
* MeaningfulName: Professor Roosevelt is named after Theodore Roosevelt, the originator of the 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.
* MouthyKid: Uran.
* MythologyGag: Several. The various jabs about the doggy cop cars, KimbaTheWhiteLion's brief cameo & more. The most brilliant one, though comes from the North #2 mini-arc. Paul Duncan mentions his life was saved by a famous Japanese doctor. But since the doctor's name & face are never shown, we're left wondering whether he's [[BlackJack the famous Japanese doctor created by the original author]], [[Anime/{{Monster}} or the author of the remake]]. Although the latter would have probably saved the kid without remuneration.
** It's almost certainly BlackJack, as what we can see of him has him wearing his characteristic long black coat.
* [=~Name's The Same~=]: The Dr. Tenma in this series has no relation to [[Anime/{{Monster}} a certain other Dr. Tenma]].
* NorseMythology: Brau 1589's character design seems to be based off of Odin, particularly the story where Odin sacrificed himself to himself.
* OutDamnedSpot: Happens to a robot that served with Herakles.
* {{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: Montblanc, North #2, Brando, Heracles, Gesicht, Atom, and ''especially'' Epsilon.
* PerspectiveFlip: Essentially this is the original Atom story from the POV of a (previously) minor character.
* PlayingAgainstType: A StarSystem version. Urasawa gives Epsilon the same character design as Johan from ''Anime/{{Monster}}''.
* PostCyberpunk
* PosthumousCharacter: Montblanc
* PowerBornOfMadness: This is what happens when a robot is filled with rage and hatred, apparently.
* 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.
* RedHerring: [[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.]]
* ReplacementGoldfish: Atom was [[TropeCodifier originally created]] by Dr. Tenma as a [[ItWasHisSled replacement for his son]] Tobio.
* 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.
* RidiculouslyHumanRobots: Almost all of them, except Montblanc and North #2. Gesicht has trouble telling that Atom is a robot at times.
** Many robots, such as Brando and Heracles, use a Ridiculously Human body in their free time in addition to a more "robotic" body for their main jobs, finding that easier to fit in with society.
*** [[FridgeBrilliance ...which should tell you something about Montblanc and North #2.]]
* RoboticReveal: [[spoiler:Abra is in fact the robot Goji, who Dr. Tenma created.]]
* RobotWar: The 39th Central Asian Conflict 4 years ago.
* SealedEvilInATeddyBear: Dr. Roosevelt.
* 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, [[TearJerker ruining the Pluto footage and rendering it useless.]]]]
* ShellShockedSenior: 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 ([[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.
** While Prof. Ochanomizu looks about what you'd expect him to in Urasawa's style, he's apparently based on ''Tezuka''.
* 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.]]
* TeachHimAnger: [[spoiler: Tenma does this to Atom to awaken him from his coma.]] It works, but not quite in the way everyone expected, as in the end [[spoiler: Atom isn't relying on anger and hatred to win, and in fact realized the futility of those emotions instead]].
* ThereCanBeOnlyOne: this trope is 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.
* ThreeLawsCompliant: At least the First Law is supposed to be hardwired in all AI units. The only cases of a robot breaking it were Brau 1589 and [[spoiler:Gesicht]].
** And [[spoiler:Abulah/Goji/Shadow, though this may not technically count, since he apparently [[TomatoInTheMirror believed himself to be human]].]]
* 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.
* WeCanRebuildHim: Part of Abullah's back story. [[spoiler: A fraudulent part.]]
* WeHardlyKnewYe: Mont Blanc. (The story takes pains to flesh him out in flashbacks, and it's clear he was a very good guy.)
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Explored very thoroughly.
* XanatosRoulette: At the end of the series [[spoiler:it is revealed that the Dr. Roosevelt (the [[CreepyChild robot teddy]]) had Thracia invade Persia, causing Abulhah to lose his family, and thus create Pluto to attack Thracia and the world's five 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.]] He gets very close: [[spoiler: however, Atom is repaired and enhanced with the emotions from Gesicht's memory chip, and manages to not only beat Pluto, but then convince him to stop the bomb. Roosevelt also doesn't count on Brau escaping and coming to kill him personally.]]

----
<<|{{Manga}}|>>

* HairofGold: Epsilon.

* BrickJoke: Gesicht's conversation with little Ali the first time they met. [[spoiler: The second time they meet, Ali kills Gesicth]].

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters for a relatively short series.

** This Troper got the impression the magnetic waves were being generated by the prison to keep him from getting up.

* HannibalLecture: Brau 1589, although not in the usual way[[hottip:*:We only ever see him interviewed by robots, and the traditional Lecture doesn't quite work on them]]; 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 titular villain.

No relation to the former planet, [[ClassicDisneyShorts nor the cartoon bloodhound]], nor the [[ClassicalMythology Roman god of the Underworld]].[[spoiler: Okay, maybe that last one.]]

* 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.
* ImplacableMan: Pluto.