Characters from Naoki Urasawa's Pluto. For tropes applying to how the characters appear in the original Astro Boy, see here.
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The Eight Strongest Robots
In General
The seven strongest robots in the world, who were ordered to fight in the 39th Central Asia War. Afterward they tried to find their place in human society until a mysterious eighth robot starts murdering them on by one.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: All of their members except Mont Blanc are far more humanoid in design compared to their counterparts in Astro Boy, and as a result, are easier on the eyes.
- Androids Are People, Too: Everyone took for granted that the robots would be okay fighting in a war, unaware that they would be just as traumatized as any humans.
- The Atoner: They all feel guilty about their actions in the war to differing degrees.
- Doomed by Canon: Pluto is an adaptation of "The Greatest Robot in the World" story arc from Astro Boy, so the robots here are doomed to the same fate as they are in that story including Gesicht.
- Person of Mass Destruction: The higher-ups classify the seven strongest as Robots of Mass Destruction and they are treated like walking sentient nukes, less in terms of raw power and more in terms of how they affect the global balance of power.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Despite being robots they all feel terrible about what they did and have nightmares.
- The Worf Effect: These are some of the most powerful and advanced robots in existence, each capable of wiping out thousands of lesser machines on their lonesome, and yet most of them don't hold a candle to Pluto.
Mont-Blanc
Postwar country: Switzerland
Postwar occupation: Lumberjack/Conservationist
Mont-Blanc is a peace-loving robot beloved worldwide for his conservation efforts and humanitarian aid. He is killed right at the start of the story, the first of Pluto's robot victims.- An Arm and a Leg: His body is found torn to pieces after his fight with Pluto.
- Friend to All Children: Very popular among kids, and shown to enjoy his time with them.
- Friend to All Living Things: Enjoyed being in nature more than anything else, and tried to promote eco-friendly logging practices.
- Gentle Giant: Very big and very friendly. Despite having killed thousands of robots as a key participant in the 39th Central Asian Conflict, he was deeply disturbed by his own actions and how many of his fellow robots died.
- Humble Hero: Despite how beloved he was, Mont-Blanc did not want a memorial dedicated to him lest it ruin any beautiful scenery.
- Loved by All: He was greatly beloved worldwide for his conservation efforts, to the point where thousands volunteered to build a memorial for him after his death for no pay.
- Nature-Loving Robot: He's a robot who loves nature, and worked as a mountain guide and conservationist.
- Off with His Head!!: Is decapitated by Pluto.
- Person of Mass Destruction. May not look the type, and certainly does not have the heart of a killer, but he was responsible for thousands of robot deaths in the 39th Central Asian Conflict. According to Heracles, he once killed over 3000 robots in a single battle.
- Posthumous Character: Is the first of the seven strongest robots to be destroyed, at the very start of the story, no less. All information we learn about him is through secondhand sources or flashbacks.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Breaks down in tears when he realizes all the robot lives he took.
- Token Non-Human: Along with North No.2, he's the most robotic-looking of the seven.
North No. 2
Postwar country: Scotland
Postwar occupation: Butler
North No. 2 became a butler for an blind composer following the war. He hoped the composer would teach him how to make music so he could be more than a killing machine. North No. 2 is the second robot killed by Pluto, just as he was starting to learn how to play the piano.- A Death in the Limelight: North No. 2 gets two whole chapters focused entirely on himself which end with his destruction at the hands of Pluto.
- All-Encompassing Mantle: He wears a robe all the way around his body to conceal his four weapon arms.
- Battle Butler: Back in the 39th Central Asian Conflict he was a butler to a British general and an active combatant. These days he wishes to drop the 'battle' part.
- Do Androids Dream?: The central focus of his chapter of the story. He attempts to understand the music of his current master, a composer, who also wonders the same despite his earlier misgivings about robots.
- I Am Not a Gun: Despite being built for war, something he admits, he wishes to find a purpose to his life other than destruction. Unfortunately, Pluto puts an end to that.
- Multi-Armed and Dangerous: He has eight arms, six of which end in weapons, and is one of the most advanced and powerful robots in existence.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: The deaths of the many robots he's killed loop constantly in his mind, leading him to wish that he'll never step foot on the battlefield again. Sadly, he ends up forced into a battle with Pluto when his new life is threatened, which turns out to be his last.
- Token Non-Human: He along with Mont-Blanc are the most robotic in appearance of the seven.
- What Is This Thing You Call Music?: Is assigned to serve an aging, blind composer and wants to learn how to understand and play music. He goes so far as to visit the composer's homeland of Bohemia to learn the local folk songs despite the composer's dismissals. Sadly, he flies off to defend the composer when Pluto comes to attack, just as the old man has finally accepted him.
Brando
Postwar country: Turkey
Postwar occupation: Robotic pankration wrestler
Brando got married and adopted several human children after the war. He fought in a robotic version of Pankration where combatants wrestle in specially made robotic shells. He is the third robot killed by Pluto.- Babies Make Everything Better: Brando and his wife adopted several children to try and emulate humans better. Even if he couldn't love them to the full extent a human could, Brando was at least able to take care of them, and they loved him in return.
- Foil: To Hercules. They're both war veterans, wrestlers, and good people, but while Brando considered raising a family postwar, Hercules dedicated his life to wrestling. While Brando is friendly and sociable, Hercules is stoic and blunt.
- My Life Flashed Before My Eyes: Undergoes this as he's dying. Unfortunately, this happens as he's trying to transmit a video of his battle to Gesicht and the others; instead, they see pictures of his family.
- Powered Armor: Brando is a type of robot with human-looking civilian body and larger more obviously robotic body which he wrestles in.
- Senseless Sacrifice: Deliberately goes up against Pluto to try and gather info on the latter's abilities and hopefully stop him. Not only is he unable to slow Pluto down, the info he transmitted just ended up being pictures of his family.
- Spirited Competitor: Loves fighting in the ring and had a close rivalry and friendship with Heracles.
Atom
Postwar country: Japan
Postwar occupation: Schoolboy
One of the seven most advanced robots in the world, and Urasawa's take on Astro Boy. Although he has a child-like appearance and mannerisms, he's arguably the most advanced and powerful robot in the world, able to show emotions and experience things that others can't while packing the firepower to defeat nearly any other robot.- Awesomeness by Analysis: His A.I. is so in-depth that he outdoes an entire police squad in investigating the details of a crime scene.
- Badass Adorable: He's a reinterpretation of Astro Boy, what do you expect? He's also one of the only three robots that have the potential to destroy Pluto along with Epsilon and Gesicht in this continuity, though all of them hesitate out of compassion in the end (with Atom needing to hear Gesicht's last words to finally stop.)
- Badass Pacifist: Much like Epsilon, he's usually against violence unless absolutely necessary. However, his definition of necessary is more broad than his Australian comrade, and is thus more willing to intervene in such matters.
- Cope by Pretending: During his meeting with Gesicht, Atom requests his chip in order to read through his data, and in his search he sees something he does not disclose with Gesicht, instead excusing himself to the bathroom. He claims it's part of adjusting to human things but actually it's to cry after having seen Gesicht's memories, more specifically the reality of his "Dreams".
- Disney Death: Is taken out of commission by Pluto midway through the series, and while Dr. Tenma manages to repair him, he won't wake up. It takes Gesicht's extreme emotions of pain and hatred along with Epsilon's sorrow for him to awaken in time to fight Pluto in the finale.
- Establishing Character Moment: His very first scenes demonstrate how advanced his artificial intelligence is: he acts exactly like a human child. Not simulating the behavior of a child, but being like an actual child by demonstrating things like an excited love for ice cream, a desire for a cool new toy that just released, and whimsical curiosity when he spots a snail.
- Heroic BSoD : Upon awakening with Gesicht's memories his ongoing process of the information as well as these newly introduced emotions leaves him in a trance and his first actions upon awakening are to scribble the formula for an anti-proton bomb into the walls which makes everyone terrified that he's gone off the deep end as a result of hatred being introduced to his system. Thankfully this is not the case.
- Humble Hero: He only entered the conflict on orders in an attempt to end the fighting. He didn't count on being treated like a celebrity and he makes it clear to Gesicht that he hates that kind of attention.
- I Know You're Watching Me: After escaping the confined cell they were keeping him in after rebooting, Atom wanders onto the city street and upon detecting Dr. Roosevelt's surveillance system eying him he directs a warning directly at him. This causes the bear to audibly let out a gasp in the Anime.
- "Listen up, I wouldn't even think about pissing me off."
- Nice Guy: Atom's a sweetheart, noted for his curiosity about his and his child-like sense of wonder.
- One-Man Army: One of the seven most powerful robots in the world and was deployed to end a conflict in Central Asia.
- Person of Mass Destruction: He's capable of great devastation, but rarely shows it due to his peace-loving nature. He finally lets loose during his rematch with Pluto and utterly dominates his opponent.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: In the anime, in his final fight with Pluto his eyes glow red as hatred courses through him, until he remembers that he cannot continue the terrible cycle of hatred.
- Replacement Goldfish: As per the source material, he was originally created to replace Dr. Tenma's son Tobio, who died in a car accident. However, Atom's personality turned out to be far-flung from the real Tobio, being diligent and responsible when Tobio was not. He even liked foods that Tobio didn't, leading Tenma to reject him in time. Tenma ultimately returns to try to repair Atom once he goes out of commission, and even cries in mourning of Atom during the period where it's uncertain Atom can be saved. This shows that Tenma has, on some level, grown to truly care for Atom himself as a son.
- Ridiculously Human Robot:
- An example even in-universe. He didn't even know he was a robot until he was told that he was. Even then, he's the robot most in tune with human emotions and can experience joy from eating and playing with toys, something other robots can't do. He even blends in and goes to school with his sister, Uran. When they first meet, Gesicht marvels at this, stating that his recognition software is actually having trouble determining whether Atom is a human or a robot. It is ultimately this humanity that helps eventually get him to the point of being willing to take these qualities and use them for good in his path to becoming The Hero once and for all.
- Unlike in the original Astro Boy and most of its other related properties, Atom is physically identical to Tobio, thus, completely un-robotic in appearance. He even has Tobio's brown hair, much in contrast to the original black headpiece with his horn tufts.
- Room Full of Crazy: After his revival, he writes out the entire equation for an anti-proton bomb before breaking out of the impenetrable shelter he was resting in.
Hercules
Postwar country: Greece
Postwar occupation: Robotic pankration wrestler
Another pankration wrestler and Brando's rival. Unlike Brando, Hercules is focused entirely on wrestling.- All-American Face: All Greek Face, but Hercules embraces his role as a Greek hero named after a Greek hero with pride.
- Blood Knight: Zigzagged. He claims to be built for fighting and seems a bit colder about the war compared to the rest of the seven robots, but it's obvious that it left an impact on him all the same, and he claimed there was nothing fair or just about it.
- Determinator: After his battle suit gets destroyed, he attacks Pluto with his bare hands. He even manages to resist for a while.
- Foil: To Brando. They're both war veterans, wrestlers, and good people, but while Brando considered raising a family postwar, Hercules dedicated his life to wrestling. While Brando is friendly and sociable, Hercules is stoic and blunt.
Gesicht
Postwar country: Germany
Postwar occupation: Police detective
The main character of the manga. Gesicht is a police robot who works for Europol under the maintenance of Doctor Hoffman who starts investigating the Pluto killings after Mont Blanc and a scientist in Dusseldorf are killed in a similar manner.- Adaptational Badass: Taken down by Pluto with ease in the original, here Gesicht actually succeeds in going toe to toe with him where most of Pluto's previous foes had failed.
- Amnesiac Hero: Not that he knows it at first.
- Arm Cannon: Can transform his hand into a Zeronium Cluster Cannon, the most powerful handheld weapon in the world.
- Artificial Human: As with many of the most advanced robots.
- Ascended Extra: In Astro Boy, he was just another one of the killer's victims. In this series he's the main protagonist, and his character is significantly fleshed out as a result.
- Clark Kent Outfit: He typically wears a suit, but scenes where he gets maintenance shows that he's actually fairly muscular underneath his clothes.
- Decoy Protagonist: Subverted. Although he's killed towards the end of the story, he's ultimately the protagonist for most of the manga, and it's his detective work and his final words that cause the story's resolution.
- Fake Memories: Europol creates some for him to prevent Gesicht from ever finding out he committed murder.
- Good Parents: He was kind to his adoptive son.
- Great Detective: The best in Europol, combining both his enhanced robotic senses and intuition. Ultimately, he succeeds in solving the mystery of Bora and Pluto.
- Happily Married: His wife dearly loves him and many scenes are spent with him lamenting the fact that he is unable to spend more time with her. He even promises her to go on vacation after the case is over. He's unfortunately killed before that happens.
- He Knows Too Much: He was one step away from finally learning everything about the Pluto case, only to get assassinated by the robot child whose flowers he had bought some time ago in Persia, who was hacked and brainwashed by the Thracian supercomputer and Shadow Dictator Dr. Roosevelt.
- Heroic BSoD: Gets one after he learns that he committed murder, although he quickly recovers and returns to duty.
- Implacable Man: Both due to his immense power and durability, and relentless approach to solving the Bora mystery.
- Just a Machine: Often treated to this in his line of work by those prejudiced against robots. He generally takes it in stride before one-upping the local authorities with his investigative skills.
- Knockout Gas: Can transform his right hand into a gun that delivers it.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Justified in that he is a robot who can literally delete his own information. Gesicht himself is not known to have deleted any of his own memories, but Europol deletes his memories of his son and his murder of Adolf Haas' brother.
- Meaningful Name: Gesicht is German for face.
- Nigh-Invulnerable: Made of Zeronium alloy and as a result is not only nearly indestructible, but also immune to EMPs and similar attacks. The only thing that seriously damages him is a cluster cannon also made of Zeronium, and even then the first shot only structurally weakened him.
- Person of Mass Destruction: One of 7. Apparently lived up to it in the 39th Central Asian Conflict.
- Retirony: Is killed by a cluster cannon the day he decides to quit Europol.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: Gesicht has a wife, once had a child, as well as friends, and even eats and drinks. He knows that he cannot truly enjoy food though, but like most human-like robots he follows such social norms. Most people who meet him for the first time are surprised to learn he's actually a robot.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After his son is killed.
- Robotic Reveal: Far from the greatest in the manga, but the reveal that Gesicht is a robot in the first issue nonetheless come as a surprise given how human he is.
- The Stoic: Behaves in such a manner to most of his 'clients' and fellow police, but shows a softer side of himself in interactions with Atom and Helena.
- Super Cop: The greatest in the world.
- Torso with a View: Gesicht gets one courtesy of Ali, a hacked robot child who shoots him with a cluster cannon that punches a gaping hole in his abdominal area.
Epsilon
Postwar country: Australia
Postwar occupation: Orphanage administrator
The only one of the Seven Strongest Robots to not participate in the 39th Central Asia War on the grounds of being a conscientious objector. Instead, Epsilon opened an orphanage for children whose parents were lost in the war.- Badass Pacifist: Refused to enter the war as he knew what the casualty count would be. It doesn't stop him from manhandling all but the most powerful of robots.
- Beware the Nice Ones: He is a pacifist, so it's almost impossible to provoke him to violence... but he's also among the most powerful machines in the world, whose destructive potential rivals that of a nuclear weapon.
- Fatal Flaw: His Thou Shall Not Kill pacifism. He is strong enough to kill Pluto but spares him the first time they fight, giving the villains enough time to come up with a plan he cannot escape from.
- Friend to All Children: He takes care of a group of war orphans after the conflict who love him dearly in return. He ultimately sacrifices his life to save them, with his last thoughts being of wanting to hug the kids one last time.
- Light 'em Up: He's able to harness and focus photon energy in the form of flashes to blind opponents or as powerful heat rays.
- Light Is Good: He is powered by the energy of the Sun, can use light as a weapon (although he'd really rather not), and is gentle and soft, yet completely dedicated to protecting the children he sees as family.
- Off with His Head!: His head is bitten off by Pluto.
- Long-Haired Pretty Boy: He has long hair and fine facial features, and he's also not as muscular as other prominent robots like Gesicht, Brando or Hercules.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Oh yes. With his Photon Energy, he can potentially vaporize an entire city in seconds.
- Reused Character Design: He has a very similar face to the antagonist of Urasawa's previous work, Johan Liebert. Ironically, Epsilon is a devout pacifist. Fittingly, the English dub chose to cast Johan's English voice actor as Epsilon. Ironically, Epsilon's design in the original Astro Boy manga would later be refused for Michio Yuki in Manga/MW, who was the main inspiration for Johan Liebert.
- The So-Called Coward: Pretty much everyone denounces him as a coward for refusing to participate in the 39th Central Asian War, but in reality, he is simply too kindhearted to participate in a conflict that he deems to be senseless and cruel. When the children he takes care of are threatened, on the other hand, Epsilon puts his life on the line for them and ultimately ends up giving it without a second thought.
- Worf Had the Flu: In Epsilon's first encounter with Pluto, he defeats him with ease but deliberately spares him. In his second encounter, he is killed, but he's at a disadvantage because of the cloud Bora creates since Epsilon is powered by the sun's rays. He was also distracted trying to protect his adopted son from harm, and simultaneously still hesitating over whether he should finish Pluto.
Pluto (contains spoilers)
His full form
Postwar country: Persia
Postwar occupation: Murderer
Voiced by: Toshihiko Seki (Japanese), Fred Tatasciore (English; Pluto), Sean Rohani (English; Sahad)
The manga's namesake. A robot serial killer targeting the seven strongest robots in the world, as well as the humans who were on the Bora Survey Group, a group of inspectors who claimed Persia was massacring robots.It is eventually revealed that his real name is Sahad, a gentle robot who wanted to fill his homeland of Persia with flowers. After losing everything in the 39th Central Asian War, Dr. Abullah, his creator and 'father', was consumed by hatred, and used Sahad as an instrument of vengeance. He created the "Pluto" body and inserted Sahad's AI into it, tasking it with killing the Bora Survey Group and the seven strongest robots.
- Adaptional Sympathy: In the original [1] manga, he is simply a killing machine programmed not to feel any remorse for his murders or his job, and lacked any Freudian Excuse, outside of Just Following Orders. Here, he is a Tragic Monster who hates killing deep down and feels nothing but remorse over his actions, and wishes to be put out of his misery.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: As mentioned above, Pluto's original 1950s manga counterpart felt nothing but indifference and a complete lack of remorse for his murders, as a result of being programmed that way. Here, it is the complete opposite, where he is not only well aware of how wrong his actions are, but he hates every second of it and wishes to stop.
- A Storm Is Coming: He's preannounced by hurricanes and storms.
- An Arm and a Leg: Atom destroys one of his arms and both horns.
- Broken Tears: Pluto finally cries when Atom gets through to him, and he fully realizes the monster he's become.
- Calling Card: After killing a victim, he places his remains in-between two "horns".
- Combat Tentacles: His horns can extend and bend, and are strong enough to impale any robot. On top of that, he can electrify them.
- Dark Is Evil: He is a shadowy, demonic-looking figure with horns that terrorizes humans and robots alike. However, he is not actually evil by nature.
- Death Seeker: Sahad has been driven so mad by the murders he's committed and the suffering he's been forced to endure as Pluto that now he just wants to die, and he also rationalizes that all the other robots he killed also wanted to die to try and justify his actions.
- Everybody Hates Hades: He's named after Pluto, Hades's Roman counterpart, and is the main threat of the series. However, he is not actually evil.
- Foreshadowing: Sahad's capacity of transposing his consciousness to empty robot bodies is a feature that Abullah gave to his later creation Goji, and it's a telltale sign that the "Abullah" forcing Sahad to fight is no human, but rather, a robot in the form of Goji.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Pluto was originally Sahad, who looked like an ordinary human. He had a kind personality and always had a warm smile on his face. Sahad was passionate about flowers and went to Holland to study floriculture. After the war, Dr. Abullah transplanted Sahad's AI into a giant robot named Pluto and forced him to destroy the seven robots.
- Green Thumb: He has the ability to generate flora and even make it rain, as he demonstrates to Uran.
- Hero Killer: He starts by killing Montblanc. He ends up killing 5 of the 7 greatest robots, and sends Atom into a coma.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Ultimately, it is he who ends up stopping his creator's legacy and saving the world, at the cost of his own life.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: His most dangerous ability. After impaling the enemy robot, he unleashes a massive surge of electricity that overloads them from the inside.
- Mechanical Abomination: For most of his appearances, Pluto appears less like a robot and more like a demonic force of nature.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: It's rather fitting that a vicious and powerful robot is named after the Roman god of the dead.
- Redemption Equals Death: After his second fight with Atom, he gives up his life to save the world from Abullah/Bora.
- Suddenly Speaking: Pluto DOES have a voice, but he doesn't talk until he starts to fight Epsilon. And his first words are that of his barely-lucid original personality as Sahad begging Epislon to kill him to end the suffering that his hatred and new form causes him.
- Tragic Monster: The peaceful, nature-loving Sahad became a victim of his creator Dr. Abullah's seething hatred, transformed into the monstrous Pluto in order to aid his plan to destroy the world that had taken everything from him and infused with that same hatred to force him into compliance. Sadder still is the fact that the father he knew has been dead, and what calls himself his father now is merely a crude imitation that carries his hatred.
- Trapped in Villainy: It is revealed that Sahad/Pluto was made this way by Dr. Abullah. Deep down, Pluto despises his fate and yearns to return to his original state.
- Truer to the Text: While he has a more "realistic" android form like all the character redesigns in the manga, the one he uses for battle is just a slightly more monstrous version of how he looked like in the original series.
- Walking Spoiler: Knowing too much about him reveals that he is nowhere near as monstrous as he appears.
- Weather Manipulation: He can create tornadoes and storms.
- Yin-Yang Bomb: He was originally designed to help plants grow in harsh conditions, but was repurposed into an advanced killing machine named after a God of the Dead. In other words, he simultaneously embodies life and death.
Humans
Professor Ochanomizu
- All-Loving Hero: Quite possibly the most benevolent character in the series, shown to be compassionate and peace-loving, to the extent that he point-blank refuses to allow robots to be manufactured as weapons and even breaks down in tears when he cannot fix a damaged robot dog he finds.
- Big Good: As the leading expert on robotics and the head of the foremost authority on robotics while fully onboard with equal rights for robots.
- Establishing Character Moment: When introduced he is yelling at someone over the phone regarding his refusal to allow the creation of robots for use in warfare. This encapsulates his hatred of violence and benevolent attitude toward robots.
- Parental Substitute: He is like a second father to Atom, despite Atom having robot parents.
Adolf Haas
- Arc Villain: He shows up in the middle of the story to antagonize Gesicht, inadvertently helps Gesicht with his investigation, and disappears for the rest of the story.
- Easily Forgiven: Gesicht (naturally) shows no animosity for Adolf's reasoning which is as good as gets for him in terms of forgiveness but it also helps that Adolf, by the end of his time in the series, is genuinely ashamed of his actions and tells the Detective he has no reason to hate him any longer after the unnecessary risk he took tanking that Cluster Cannon shot knowing it was protecting the man who wanted him dead.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Haas is a devoted family man. Beyond that, Adolf loved his brother. In fact, he seems to be the only one who did.
- Forgiveness: After Gesicht risks his life to save Adolf and his family by tanking an explosion, he asks Adolf how a person stops hating, as Gesicht wants to stop hating Adolf's deceased brother. Adolf, who had himself been grappling with deep hatred for Gesicht, tearfully replies he doesn't know, but doesn't want to hate him any more.
- He Knows Too Much: When Adolf's determination to kill Gesicht becomes a detriment to his Robot Bigot allies he is marked for death as his brother's history would be a political detriment to them if he was caught trying to kill the Detective in cold blood too soon.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Played with. Gesicht DID kill his brother, but the story shows that his brother did bring it on himself by killing and disassembling Gesicht's adoptive robot son.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: When it becomes clear he can't escape being killed by the human supremacists he gives up on pretending he's a victim and admits he was going to kill Gesicht and tells him he doesn't care if he himself dies just as long as Gesicht saves his family from being killed as a result of his mistake.
- Troubled Sympathetic Bigot: A flashback during the arc featuring Adolf explains his bigotry, starting with how Adolf's father lost his job to a robotic assembly line leaving the family destitute. His father is then arrested by a robot for stealing a soccer ball for Adolf and his brother, finally breaking his spirit. Later, Adolf's brother murders another robot to steal a tablet computer that allowed Adolf to study and escape poverty.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The resulting explosion from his attempt to kill Gesicht left the latter with vulnerabilities on his Zeronium frame, leaving him open to an attack by the robot child Ali, who was hacked by Dr. Roosevelt. The attack pierces Gesicht's torso, effectively killing him.
Dr. Tenma
- Abusive Parents: He abandoned Atom when Atom acted like his own person instead of like Tobio.
- Distressed Dude: He gets kidnapped by Abullah after visiting Brau in order to have Abullah's conscious transferred to Bora.
- Exact Words: Says the only reason he's showed up to see Atom after he falls into a coma is so he can "say goodbye". In truth, he has every intention of fixing Atom, but notes that waking him from his slumber will require an immense amount of emotional upheaval, which would forever change Atom's personality. In essence, he's "saying goodbye" to Atom as Dr. Tenma and the rest of the world once knew him.
- Everyone Has Standards: Refuses to let Abullah destroy the world over a personal grudge.
- Expy: Not only is he an expy of the Astro Boy Tenma, this Tenma shares physical and personality similarities with fellow brilliant scientist/shitty father Gendo Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion.
- Knight Templar Parent: In his own words, he'd become "the devil himself" without any hesitation if it meant saving Atom's life. He already lost one son, he sure as hell isn't going to lose another.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Attempting to replace the dead Tobio with Atom messed with his emotions so much that he could not cope with it, so he sought to get rid of Atom. Daring to replace his dear son with an artificial copy, seeing that Atom is considerably better behaved than Tobio, said behavior making him entertain the possibility that Tobio hated him when he was alive, practically everything regarding Atom hammered on his loss.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Turns out he was responsible for kicking off the plot by creating Goji and inserting the chip with Professor Abullah's memories into it.
- Pet the Dog:
- At first, Dr. Tenma is shown to be incredibly harsh towards Atom, who he rejected once it became clear Atom's personality was very different from Tobio's, the late son that Atom had been built to resemble and replace. He calls Atom a 'failure', and the audience is also offhandedly told Atom had once been sold to a circus. However, after Atom is rendered nonfunctional after an encounter with Pluto, Dr. Tenma returns and spends 18 hours straight trying to repair Atom, and later even cries in mourning for Atom when it is uncertain Atom will ever wake up again, showing that despite his attitude in the past, Dr. Tenma has indeed grown to care for Atom.
- Tenma sincerely empathizes with Helena over her loss.
- Sour Outside, Sad Inside: While Tenma appears perpetually grouchy, Uran detects that inside, he is even sadder than her over Atom's death.
King Darius XVI
The former ruler of Persia, deposed during the war and imprisoned thereafter.
- Adaptation Expansion: In the original "Strongest Robot In the World" story, Pluto is bankrolled by a deposed sultan who wants to get petty revenge on the world and who hired a roboticist named Abullah to carry out his vision. He was not subtle in the slightest as a metaphor of Big Money corrupting ideals. In Pluto, Darius is a somewhat more complex character with murky motivations (though the kernel that he bankrolled Abullah is still there).
- Allegorical Character: He's a pretty clear allegory to Saddam Hussein, as was the war that destroyed his country. In both cases everyone agrees this guy was a bad dude, but everyone also agrees the war was a bad idea and propped up on flimsy justifications.
- Ambiguously Evil: He was known as a dictator with numerous human and robot rights violations who was invading neighboring countries and stockpiling robots of mass destruction. How much of this is true vs. how much of it's Thracian propagada is left up to the viewer. It's clear that Persia never had weapons of mass destruction and the superweapon Bora was actually designed to terraform the desert. Darius's approval of Pluto's murderous rampage only came after his country was leveled in front of him.
- Tongue Trauma: Bites his tongue in an apparent suicide attempt.
Other Artificial Intelligences
Brau 1589
- Adaptational Ugliness: Even discounting his damaged state, he's significantly less humanoid than the Blue Knight.
- Adaptational Villainy: The Blue Knight, in every other appearance he's made, is portrayed as a Tragic Villain or Well-Intentioned Extremist who fights for robot liberation after either he or his family were abused by humans. Brau is just a crazy Serial Killer.
- Adaptation Name Change: He's the series' version of the character known in other versions of Astro Boy as the Blue Knight or Blue Bon.
- Ax-Crazy: Brau is very clearly off his rocker, always giggling, saying cryptic comments, and revelling in how scary he is.
- In the anime, Hideyuki Tanaka plays him as respectful and stable, and it's very easy to believe that his tests came back clear. In the English dub, he's sarcastic and a little theatrical - he sounds happy to be a killer. The amusing thing is, the former's pretty close to the first Japanese dub for Hannibal Lecter (later dubs played him closer to Hopkins, rude and sarcastic on a whim) - and the latter is basically SungWon Cho as Hopkins' Lecter.
- Consulting a Convicted Killer: He is the Dr. Hannibal to Gesicht's Clarice Starling when the latter is trying to figure out how a robot could murder.
- Creepily Long Arms: His one working arm telescopes out to an absurd length, so any visitors are advised to stand way back when approaching him. We are told that he has, in fact, already killed four other robots who tried to engage with him.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Even though he is a convicted murderer, committing mass extinction to rule over the wasteheap does not sit well with Brau, leading him to "deal" with Dr. Roosevelt.
- Evil vs. Evil: Although he has a change of heart, Brau is a convicted murderer. Nevertheless, he has the last laugh when he destroys a helpless Dr. Roosevelt.
- Irony: In the original manga, the Blue Knight impaled Astro Boy with a spear, temporarily killing him. In Pluto, his counterpart, Brau 1589, is immobilized due to being impaled with a spear and at the end of the series, dies using said spear to impale the Big Bad.
- Mind Rape: Because he is a robot, Brau not only can say Hannibal Lectures but can also exchange memory chips with the robots who arrive to interrogate them so they can see with their own eyes what he did. Gesicht gets told that three of said robots destroyed themselves afterwards from the horror.
- Nothing Is Scarier: When the authorities opened up Brau 1589 to examine the glitch in his "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
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. - The Spook: Brau should not work. His artificial intelligence was looked over thoroughly to find any clue of how he could murder someone but they found nothing. He does not make any sense on a fundamental level, which, as he puts it, terrifies everyone.
- Redemption Equals Death: At the very end of the final chapter, he escapes from his cell and, seemingly inspired by Atom, uses his lance to destroy Dr. Roosevelt, knowing that its removal from his body will kill him.
- Robotic Psychopath: Initially played completely straight, being notorious as the first robot ever recorded murdering a human. Later subverted once he interacts with Atom; revealing that even Brau 1589 himself can feel compassion, regret and guilt, culminating in him performing a Heroic Sacrifice to destroy Dr. Roosevelt.
- Tailor-Made Prison: Brau's prison is more like the Chernobyl sarcophagus. It is labelled as an 'artificial intelligence correctional facility', but given that Brau is the only known robot to have committed murder, it's implied he's the only prisoner, and it only has one guard. In fact it appears that it was constructed around the site where he was stopped, being pinned to a wall with a spear impaled through him, and to reach him Gesicht has to travel several floors underground and walk around a barricade of tetrapods and weaponry placed at the site.
Uran
- Adaptational Hairstyle Change: In Astro Boy, she has short hair in a similar style to her brother's. In this series, she has longer hair worn in Girlish Pigtails.
- Alone with the Psycho: Spends most of episode three alone with an amnesiac Pluto. She only recognizes anything is wrong when Atom and Professor Ochanomizu arrive with the police in tow.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: Uran is shown regularly ditching school to help out someone she detects is in trouble.
- The Empath: Uran has a unique ability to detect when someone is scared, sad, etc., whether they be human, animal, or robot, and can detect those emotions from several kilometers away.
- Interrupted Suicide: Even though her own grief for her supposedly dead brother Atom was weighing heavy on her, she took time to prevent a bullied student from committing suicide (although acording to herself, he likely would've landed in the suicide nets under the bridge, anyway) and even gave him a hungry kitty (whose mother was likely dead) to nurse back to health (probably so that his newfound resposibility for a living being would further steer him away from suicidal thoughts).
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Like her 2003 counterpart, she can communicate with animals, an ability she uses to great effect in her introduction scene to talk a group of escaped zoo animals, including Kimba the White Lion, out of eating a little boy.
- Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: Uran is, by the metrics of this world, the single most advanced piece of technology in human history, being able to not only match her human creator's ability to sincerely empathize with others but surpass them. Yet she is treated as nothing more than Atom's bratty little sister.
Goji (contains spoilers)
- Abusive Parent: Brainwashes his pacifist son Sahad and forces him to murder other robots for the sake of his vendetta. Played with in that he's not the real Abullah.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Deconstructed. The series proposes it has to be a crapshoot or it's not a true A.I. (working off the logic that since Humans Are Flawed, then for a robot to be of equal sentience it must be capable of the same mistakes). To this end, his A.I. was deliberately made as overcomplicated and unpredictable as possible via 6 billion different conflicting personalities in one mind.
- Big Bad: Ultimately behind the murders carried out by Pluto, as well as some murders he carries out himself. Prior to Pluto's Heel–Face Turn, he transfers his mind into Bora.
- Consummate Liar: Played extremely darkly. Goji, the robot that inherited Dr. Abullah's identity and personality, has such an advanced AI and is so good at lying that it ends up lying even to itself, becoming fully convinced even after it ditches all the forms it's taken in order to inhabit the superweapon Bora that it's the real Dr. Abullah, and it continues to believe this even as it ends up killed by Atom and Pluto's efforts.
- Cyborg: He claims to have gotten a lot of prosthetic work done to him after the war, which explains why his body pings metal detectors and why he baffles devices that try to scan if he's a robot or a human. This would already make him a prime suspect for at least half of the Pluto murders, since no human traces were found at the scene, so a human with a robotic body would fit the bill. Then it turns out he's merely a robot that thinks it's a cyborg.
- Dead All Along: The real Abullah actually died in the war four years earlier.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Played With. Dr. Abullah loved his wife and children and their deaths drove him over the edge. Goji feels those emotions and loss but they aren't actually his. He's acting on Dr. Abullah's grief but it's simply programmed into him.
- Evil Counterpart: To Atom. Both are robots created by Dr. Tenma and were modified by being installed with a memory drive containing strong emotions to stir them from an induced coma, Atom with Gesicht and Goji with the original Dr. Abullah. But Goji develops the delusion of being Abullah and is consumed by hatred, while Atom gradually regains his sense of self while coping with Gesicht's memories in his mind.
- Evil Plan: Step 1: Use Pluto to kill every single one of the greatest robots involved in the Bora Fact-Finding Mission, as well as their creators and anyone else linked to it. Step 2: Once everyone in the way is dead, use a secret superweapon known as Bora to destroy Thracia by detonating an anti-proton bomb within one of its largest volcanoes, in the process also causing most of humanity to go extinct.
- He Knows Too Much: Has one of Epsilon's orphans kidnapped because he just so happened to witness Bora.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: Played with. He is a Robotic Psychopath but the reason he is one is because he has the Brain Uploading of a man who died full of murderous rage, even making the other 6 billion different personalities in his brain subservient.
- Hypocrite: In spades. His whole motivation is revenge for the war that destroyed his country and family, yet he has no problem harming war orphans from the same conflict. And his ultimate plan to destroy Thracia is to create a calamity that will likely destroy Persia along with the rest of the world.
- Irony: As a robot with basically billions of personalities, Goji can basically simulate just about any face he has contained; nevertheless, when Tenma reveals to him the truth about his own nature, Goji has a nervous breakdown and his facial simulation programming glitches, revealing that his actual face under the simulation is effectively featureless
◊. - Logic Bomb: Upon learning that he is Goji and not the original Dr. Abullah, Abullah undergoes a mental breakdown while his face shifts to numerous visages before reverting to its default form and shuts down.
- Mask of Sanity: Beneath Abullah's professional exterior is a man barely holding his murderous anger in check.
- Misplaced Retribution: He blames the Bora Survey Group and the seven strongest robots for the destruction of his homeland. But they were all just tools of Thracia and regret what happened to Persia. Especially Atom who didn't even fight in the war.
- No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: It all happens off-camera, but all of the dead Bora Inspection Comittee scientists are found with evidence that the murderer (Abullah) had a pleasant stroll around the premises, enjoying the view of nature, having tea and so on. Before he killed them, of course.
- Omnicidal Maniac: He is willing to basically wipe out humanity just so he can destroy Thracia.
- Redemption Rejection: As he has an existential breakdown from discovering his true nature, Dr. Tenma shows Goji compassion, offering to help ease his identity issues so the villain can stop living with so much anger. Goji/Abullah only doubles down on his vengeful rampage and has to be destroyed when he uploads into Bora.
- Robotic Psychopath: Putting things into perspective, Goji was already crazy to begin with even before it was kicked awake by the bias of Dr. Abullah. The Abullah persona just gave his infinite personalities focus on hatred and vengeance, compounded into a Split-Personality Takeover.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Dr. Abullah kidnaps Tenma to have him transfer his mind into Bora, only to be told that he could have done it on his own due to his true nature.
- That Liar Lies: Invoked as what marks him a truly perfect artificial intelligence. The ability to lie has never been deliberately programmed into any robot, but particularly advanced ones can still develop it as a natural consequence of their decision making process. Goji's A.I. is so advanced that he's capable of lying even to himself, insisting he's the real Abullah and therefore human.
- Tomato in the Mirror: He does not take finding out he's not the real Dr. Abullah well.
- Two Aliases, One Character: Justified example: Dr. Abullah is in fact just a personality created from memories and emotions loaded onto a chip before the real Dr. Abullah's death and downloaded into a robot that would not activate due to the numerous personalities within its CPU. This caused the robot to take on Abullah's appearance and believe itself to be the real thing, acting on those memories and emotions in his stead. The robot's real name is Goji, being able to insert itself into other bodies to take on other identities to carry out Abullah's mission allowed it to establish itself as two entirely separate identities.
- Unwitting Pawn: He, and Persia's previous leader Darius XIV by extension, are this to the Shadow Dictator of Thracia, Dr. Roosevelt. The war that Thracia sanctioned against Persia killed the real Dr. Abullah's family and eventually claimed his life too, resulting in Goji's creation and awakening. As the carrier of Dr. Abullah's hatred, it seeks to finish what its creator started and later transfers its will to Bora, which is exactly what Roosevelt wants.
- Villain Respect: A small case for Epsilon, for refusing to take part in the war and taking care of children orphaned in the conflict. Doesn't stop him from having him killed or putting those children in harm's way just to get to him.
- The Worm That Walks: Abdullah, or rather Goji, commands a swarm of robotic cockroaches that can infest and take over other robots' bodies.
- Would Hurt a Child: Nearly murders the orphan he kidnapped to lure out Epsilon for revealing Bora's existence to the robot, but is stopped by Pluto.
- You Keep Telling Yourself That: Up until its end, Goji still insists that he's Abullah. That is, while it's actively in Bora's body, swimming in magma while trying to blow up the United States of Thracia.
Dr. Roosevelt (contains spoilers)
- A God Am I: Definitely got the whole messiah complex going on, being a supercomputer and all.Dr. Roosevelt: They say the world is composed of victors and the vanquished, sages and fools, the living and the dead. But actually, I think everyone out there is a loser, a fool, or a corpse. Everyone except for me, that is.
- Big Bad: As Abullah/Goji's benefactor, Roosevelt naturally falls into this.
- Captain Ersatz: Twofold.
- Being an artificial intelligence Shadow Dictator of a country that is very heavily alluded to be America, it's essentially Urasawa's version of The Patriots/Cipher from Metal Gear. The key difference is that The Patriots are an embodiment of the war economy who want to control the whole world by manipulating humans into living under their illusion of a world order while they endlessly fight for false causes, while Dr. Roosevelt is an embodiment of imperialism who wants to kill off most of humanity so it can rule the world as its god, seeing itself as above all other life forms.
- As a supercomputer who wishes to wipe out humanity, it's also Urasawa's take on AM from I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, with the difference being that AM legitimately hates humans while Roosevelt sees itself as, in its own words, "a god among ants".
- The Chessmaster: Roosevelt has been manipulating events since the Thracian-Persian War, being heavily implied to be th eone that convinced the president to start the war in the first place, and helped Goji in orchestrating the Pluto murders and their Final Solution with Bora.
- Composite Character: As is de rigueur for Astro Boy adaptations, he combines a couple of elements from characters in previous versions. The teddy bear recalls the 2003 anime episode March of the Micro Bears in which Shadow (Goji's counterpart) creates an army of mind-controlling robot teddy bears based on Dr. Tenma's favorite childhood toy while Astro battled against an evil government Master Computer in the short manga story Showdown in the Standard Deviation Kingdom. It also resembles the super computers in the second volume of Phoenix.
- Didn't Think This Through: Despite being a supercomputer, Dr. Roosevelt didn't really understand that robots, like humans, have plenty of diverse opinions on both each other and Dr. Roosevelt's plan. Something he learns the hard way.
- Eagleland: An embodiment of Thracia's feelings of imperialist superiority.
- Greater-Scope Villain: It is implied to be the force behind the entire story, telling the president to start a war in Persia, leading to all the problems that causes.
- Hero Killer: Kills Gesicht by taking control of kid robot Ali and blasting his torso with a cannon.
- Interface with a Familiar Face: Dr. Roosevelt basically uses the teddy bear for people to be able to focus on something to interact with it, since its actual size is portentous. Otherwise, it would be akin to trying to talk with the Empire State building while standing in front of it, all while wondering where to direct one's attention.
- Irony: A portentous work of technology with an almost unparalleled intelligence, Dr. Roosevelt is actually incapable of free movement. It's implied to meet a violent end by the hand of Brau, completely helpless and unable to defend itself from Brau's physical attack.
- Manipulative Bastard: being the Shadow Dictator behind Thracia, Roosevelt manipulates the president into going to war with Persia, kickstarting the events of the series.
- Named After Somebody Famous: It's named after Theodore Roosevelt. This is probably part of the reason it looks the way it does: Roosevelt was the inspiration for and namesake of the modern teddy bear, after all.
- Off on a Technicality: One of the maxims of robots is their programmed inability to kill people. Thing is, he uses the president of the United States of Thracia to do his dirty work for him. Aside from that, it's implied that, when it reveals its apocalyptic plan to the president, Dr. Roosevelt may not have been bound to the laws of robotics to begin with, given it was seemingly built specifically to mastermind Thracia's corruption.
- Oh, Crap!: Two examples:
- The first is when Atom comes back with Gesicht's memories filled with hatred. An audible gasp is heard in the anime when Atom stares and tells Roosevelt not to piss him off.
- The second is a subtle one when he initially thinks Brau has come to join his plan to kill off humanity. Only to realise that Brau is actually coming for his head.
- Robotic Psychopath: Played completely straight; in fact, he is such a walking stereotype that even other robotic murderers like Brau view his plans as disgusting.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: It uses its abilities to hack into Ali, the child that Gesicht bought flowers from, in order to kill him with a cluster cannon. Once the hit is complete, Roosevelt severs the connection, killing Ali and leaving no witnesses or traces to Gesicht's murder. Roosevelt later tries to do this with the President of Thracia by making him its slave, i.e. a puppet leader of the 10% of the human population that will survive the apocalypse. An escaped Brau, however, has other plans.
Bora (Unmarked Spoilers!)
A seemingly mythical robot superweapon that may or may not actually exist within the borders of Persia. The "Bora Fact-Finding Mission" was entirely to confirm or deny its existence, and the investigation itself was inconclusive. However, Bora is in fact very real and just as dangerous as its reputation claims.
- Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: As the weapon designed to carry out the will of Abullah's hatred, it has no features whatsoever. This makes it all the more fitting when Goji, a faceless robot who's merely borrowing the personaltiy and identity of the doctor, hijacks it.
- Composite Character: Has elements of Mazin Garon, another giant robot who appears in the classic Astro Boy manga, specifically his terraforming abilities and being controlled by a smaller, more humanoid robot.
- Hostile Terraforming: Bora was really meant to be a system for terraforming a desert back to flourishing life, but Abullah's lust for revenge has perverted it into a weapon.
- Truer to the Text: Much like Pluto himself, Bora looks like a more realistic version of his Manga Counterpart as a mostly featureless round robot.
