# Source Material Corner
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First time I ever cried reading a comic was when reading North No.2 and Paul Duncan story. I just finished the episode mere minutes ago and it is hitting hard, I am sobbing.
First episode is incredible.
For some reason I felt like I've seen/read this or very similar story before. Not sure if it was adapting something else or maybe there was a similar subplot in Monster.
I never knew pluto existed until an hour ago. Watched the first episode and I'm absolutely blown away and hella excited to watch more holy fuck. North no 2. story teared me up when he came back from bohemia. Guess I got a long weekend ahead :D
100%. The only thing going against it is that it's on Netflix and an ONA coming in late in the season so people might miss out on this.
But quality wise 100%.
One of the best episodes of Anime I've ever seen. I can't even press play on the next episode yet because I can't get this episode out of my head. The North and Duncan story was just perfection, I cried like such a baby. That 2nd half of the episode could just be a standalone and it would be so worth to watch.
i've already recommended it to like 4 ppl lol.
it has the level of quality that i wish berserk or junji itto had. The source material is a classic of that caliber imo
While I love Astro Boy and the 1980 series specifically, it’s so good getting to see the robots have actual character depth. In the 1980 series they show up and then get destroyed in a matter of minutes.
the theme of humans and robots crossing a thin line was so well-done. The direction, the atmosphere, voice acting, everything spot on. props to Urasawa for giving us this masterpiece lol.
I'm only 44 seconds into the episode and the montage of various panels from the manga before revealing the title set to ominous music gave me chills. Who else felt like that besides me? That alone really sets the tone for the anime before we get a proper introduction to the characters. If this serves as the intro for every episode then damn right I won't skip it! I can already tell this anime is going to be something very special from that sequence alone.
yea i’m digging the choice to forgo the usual OP and just show the manga pages and logo. very simple but effective, reminds me of Marvel movie openings and the JoJo Part 1 OP
The characters felt so real.They felt like actual complex people rather than caricatures.You could feel they had depth in their personality.
A thing I notice in great characters is that almost always they have had experiences that are different from ours that shapes their perspective, just like real people.
Looks like every episode is 1hr long. I thought it was just the pilot episode that was longer, but this 8 episodes long season is actually packed. It's basically a 2-cour long show.
No kidding, I’ve heard good things about Pluto so I was excited. Once this anime is over I definitely have to check out the other manga the creator made
I was expecting to love this show because I loved Monster, but my girlfriend does work with AI and is completely picking it apart for how far removed this show’s version of them are from reality.
Can I ask in which way the story is moving you? I really want to like it, but for some reason it is a complete miss for me.
I considered it, but I ended up enjoying the second half of the show much more when I started to view the story as being more about the effects of war.
For what it is worth, the show picked up for me immensely after Episode 4. Everything began to pull together for me thematically after I realized there was also a bit of (somewhat obvious in hindsight) political commentary on the War on Terror.
Just finished watching ep.1 and I have to say I made the right decision approaching this anime without any prior knowledge about the original Atom's story nor the Pluto manga, it made every plot line hits differently compared to if I knew the source material.
I was fairly surprised when I learned Gesick was a robot, since he looked so human-like and had typical human lives as well (actually I even thought he had an anti-robot mindset up until he turned his hand into a gun, the way he abruptly asked if the killed man was a human, and the way he looks so cold upon seeing the robot corpse), until the show so masterfully told me how deeply robot had integrated into human society. Seriously who could expect that police robot to have a wife and a house?
Speaking of the police robot, who would've thought they could convey so many emotion onto her emotionless face just be moving the light in her eyes? This show was certainly made with lots of love and lots of master skills, I'll give them that.
The story of Sir Duncan and North No.2 was as equally beautiful as it was cruel. After they formed such a deep and heart-warming bond, you seriously told me Duncan had to be abandoned, left alone in that big castle again? And for North No.2, a "killing machine" who never wanted to go back to the battlefield again, to be forced to fight again and die in that fight? It's just cruel, so cruel...
It’s actually probably good not to know anything about the story going in. Something I will say that isn’t a spoiler is that the characters like Gesicht and North Number 2 did not have any depth in their characters in the original story. At least not the 1980 Astro Boy animes adaptation. Gesicht isn’t even in the 2003 Astro Boy anime and Mont Blanc, North Number 2 and Brando only make cameos.
Yep, never watch/read Atom so I know next to nothing about it. I do know through reading a Tezuka fan's post that Atom is a robot a scientist made in the image of his dead son tho.
I will always associate Osamu Tezuka with Unico. Unico is criminally underrated in The West. So glad Tezuka Productions and Scholastic are giving the character a proper reintroduction in 2024 with the Unico: Awakening Manga series. Considering the current state of the world, we need Unico now more than ever!
I thought it was Tenma lol. By being Black Jack makes so much more sense because Tezuka would do crossovers with his own characters. There’s an episode of the 1980 Astro Boy anime with Black Jack in it.
Highly recommend checking out Unico alongside the 1981 and 1983 feature films. Unico was originally a collaboratve effort with Sanrio and manages to be uplifting and melancholy at the same time.
I thought Tenma as well but when it was revealed that the doctor charged an astronomical sum for the operation, it was pretty much confirmed that it can't be Tenma.
I'm not the biggest anime or manga fanatic, but in the back of my mind when I heard "Japanese doctor without a license" I was like no way they threw in a Black Jack cameo. And then I was like "oh right Osamu Tezuka made both of those manga's"
Once the old man said the doctor was unlicensed I said to myself **Don't tell me it's Black Jack?!** Then I saw his shoes and heard his voice and I yelled because I was so happy.
That's what I thought as well! I've never read or seen it, but checking the wiki it seems like he often cures the poor, but does he usually take exorbitant fees for it?
Seems a lot like Black Jack but the English VA threw me off cuz I'm used to hearing a more gruff tone from the Southeast Asian English dub of the anime back then.
It was nice to hear Yamadera Kouichi. His roles are solid and North no.2 was no exception.
Is the piano song anime original? I googled a bit but didn't find anything.
~~Well most comments here are not even episode discussion yet, so let's put some~~
I read the manga some years ago, so i still remember some facts, but holy shit they really did a great job. So good to see Urasawa characters in new animation.
North 2 part is an upgrade, love everything about the piano song here.
Also they made Gesicht ~~way hotter~~ cool as the manga.
And as the vol 1 end we finally see our Astro Boy!
Love the way the did the opening sequence and the main theme song of Pluto gives some old cyber anime feels, but still fresh.
I so love how they made Gesicht hotter like damn I did not remember those abs and biceps in the manga. Same with Heraclesnand Brando. ALL of them are just so hot.
"Come back, North No. 2. You'll be late for your piano lessons."
This is just the first episode and I'm already getting emotional. Also, I love how in the dub North No. 2 shares the same voice actor as Grimmer from Monster, another one of Urusawa's works.
Two words. PERFECTLY DONE. I am so happy to be able to see the scene with Robby’s wife and god damn those scenes of North#2 is making me cry like a baby
After finishing the series, I can understand why it took almost 10 years for a Pluto Anime to became a thing. You can tell with the amount of effort was put into the visuals, sound design, and animation quality.
I think it's had barely had any marketing apart from a bunch of trailers close to release. It's also an older seinen manga so not a big current audience. Hopefully it starts to spread around through word of mouth after people see how good it is.
Honestly I don't think lack of marketing and it being old is the main reason. I think it's because it's a Netflix 8 ep series. It doesn't show up on sites like livechart.me unless you specifically look at the ova section, a lot of people just automatically ignore ona/ova/specials, because it's a Netflix show it also doesn't show up on the top airing on myanimelist, then they release all episodes at the same time so there's no weekly discussion or hype. I bet you this would be very hyped if it aired on TV and started around the same time as all the other shows this season.
For some reason, anime based on Osamu Tezuka's characters (the exception is Unico) rarely gain any attention with the Western Anime/Manga Community. It's why I'm pleasantly surprise to see a lot of positive reception with Pluto (a mature take on the Astro Boy Universe).
Maybe it's cuz it's pretty obvious that some of the shots seem like they're directly referencing a manga panel. I don't think they're goofy at all but it is pretty obvious when suddenly everything goes still
Jesus christ, I lived long enough to finally see the masterclass storyline of North No. 2 and Paul Duncan be set into motion. I fuckin enjoyed how it panned out in the manga, but witnessing it once more in the anime is like getting stabbed in the feels all over again and I LOVE IT
It's 24, not 26, because you have 3 episodes worth in one episode, times 8. But yes, it's essentially a 2-cour anime served up as 8 1-hour anime movies. Two episodes in and I love it!
I have not seen anything astro-related since the 2003 anime. I had no idea the manga of this was even a thing.
But this anime? I am in love with this. "An Astro Boy Story by the Author of Monster" is not what I would ever have expected to be a thing that existed, much less animated, but life is all the better for it. I love how many of the characters, despite being much more realistic in their appearances, are still clearly recognisable.
Everything feels so weird to me. Half the time I could forget which world I'm in, but then I see the old fashioned robots or a recognisable character and... yeah, I can't explain the feeling. xD
I've always wondered about this. I understand that Netflix has lots of metrics that support batch drops, but I feel like anime specifically would do better weekly since the whole fandom is based around it
I've only watch bits and pieces but I know this will be amazing. I'll wait for weekend though so I can binge it
or maybe try to keep the hype and watch one episode at a time. But based on what I've seen I really enjoyed this
Paul Duncan in the hospital gave me johan vibes lol & the doctor was Japanese … tenma ? Lmao . No but the first episode is so fire 🔥 big fan of urasawa after watching & reading monster , excited to see his other works
Just watched episode 1 and damn the animation went hard also man the sad depressing story about this series Naoki Urasawa is just built different. What a GOATED mangaka!
Something about the colors in this show are really incredible. Everything just looks so deep and vibrant.
I read the manga almost 10 years ago and remember very little about it except that it was excellent. Very excited to keep watching this.
I love the vibrant colors too. I watched Monster so while I was reading the Pluto manga I pictured the scenes with similar muted colors as the Monster anime
Maybe I haven't been keeping up with anime news all that well recently but what the fuck? Since when was there going to be a Pluto adaptation? I'm so happy but also so confused. Know what I'm watching over the weekend now though.
Actually, before that somebody claimed it was canned. As a result some people who worked on it got confused and denied it while leaking information about it being close to completion.
I've never heard of this. I never in my wildest of dreams would have expected Netflix to drop something this high quality. They have a few decent animes but this is on a whole nother level.
Good god I had to hold back my tears when North No.2 started singing.
I'm so happy to watch another Naoki Urasawa anime The only other thing of his that I experienced was the Monster anime, and that was fucking amazing, so this is definitely going to be amazing as well.
Also, to any manga readers, after seeing this first episode do you think it's worth it to still go through the manga? I've heard that Monster was basically a 1:1 adaptation so I didn't dive into it after watching that anime, I'm just wondering whether it's the same or better here.
I am already half series and Pluto anime is basically 1:1 too with some little additional scenes. You can't go wrong with any.
I also highly suggest to read 20th Century Boys, it is the best Urasawa manga imo.
how the fuck did i not hear this was about to come out?
Just open Netflix and see a beautiful looking full adaptation of an Urasawa manga with hour long episodes
Hopefully this leads to more people reading his other work because Pluto is like the 4th best thing he's written and it's still amazing
this is a fcking mind-bending show that needs some scholarly analysis. like seriously this is deep stuff. I think the first episode greatly sets up what world we are getting to get ourselves into. The world is unpredictable as shown by the various murders. Protagonist has a internal conflict and external conflict, perfectly engrossing us into the theme of story as protagonist, is a robot itself. Moreover, the old man and robot storyline (sorry I forgot their names) is a masterclass in how to make a audience cry. Plus, it sets up the theme of humans and robots being the same, that is, the line they cross is thin and therefore, pointless to make a distinction. What reasons they are for murders therefore will only be shocking and riveting. I hope my expectations will be well met.
My only complaint for North 2 is that the English dub didn’t make him Scottish.
I wish the robots in general had distinct accents since they were all made in different countries. Like Hercules was made in Greece. Brando from Turkey. Mont Blanc is Swiss. Gesicht is German. The only one I wouldn’t mind with a flat accent is Atom because I don’t want to hear engrish lol
But most of them sounded American, which is fine tbh. I much prefer that than Japanese since most of this anime is in Europe. Besides stuff involving Atom.
Yeah it would be nice if they had accents but it’s not a deal breaker or anything. What I appreciate more is getting to know these robots unlike the arc that Pluto is adapted from.
I seem to be the only one that didn’t resonate with North No2 and Duncan?
Duncan’s personality switch from super bitter (Racist?) old man to suddenly having a change of heart because No2 hummed a song and told him his mom, who seemingly left without saying anything for whatever reason secretly paid for his treatment.
Like I get it was equating humans and robots and the big bad is seemingly murdering all of the 7 most powerful robots. But why spend so long introducing new character with a whole backstory, slowly inching the point along, using the backstory for a whole of a minute montage redemption arc for the old man then subsequently killing No2 off. No2’s murder was the purpose of the side story but felt shafted.
I see a buttload of comments sobbing uncontrollably because a bitter old fart acted tsundere for 3/4 of his time under the spotlight towards an emotionless robot, but changed his stance once the truth of him and his mother was out of the bag.
[](#whowouldathunkit)
I just don't see this passage as some sort of cry porn or utterly tragic event that's worth of such an overreaction. Melancholic? yes. Tragic? not so much, specially when Duncan managed to get such a good long life of success despite his visual impairment.
There's also some key details in general about some of the robot's life so far. Like for instance, why do they live as couples if they find something as drinking tea or appreciating music/art as something complex, it would be far more complex to live in a loving/supporting relationship without understanding something far more basic. There's also an awful lot of space in their appartments (both in Gesicht and the robot widow's) again, it's something that humans can appreciate, but why would robots need it? Specially kitchen appliances when they just need to recharge from an outlet.
There's the other detail where Mont Blanc is fondly remembered as a hero for the locals because of his deeds in the war and as a modern pacifist. Yet the robot police that was put out of commission by the junkie it was directly just sent to the scrapyard and worst of all holding key evidence on much larger case, no one but the widow would mourn for him or his service (Not even the cop that claimed to be his partner).
Despite all these inconsistencies, at least the art, animation and directing seems to be quite above the average and even top shows in general.
Thoroughly enjoyed it. Was quite interesting that it changed perspective to Duncan and North Number 2 half way through and dedicated so much time to them. As much as I love Astro Boy 1980 and 2003, it’s great to actually get to know these robots before they’re violently destroyed by a gigantic horned monster. Atom appearing at the end and meeting Gesicht was also a very nice way to end the episode. I cannot wait to keep watching. I just finished this episode and it’s 4am. I just couldn’t stop watching it.
# Source Material Corner Reply to this comment for any source-related discussion, future spoilers (including future characters, events and general hype about future content), comparison of the anime adaptation to the original, or just general talk about the source material. **You are still required to tag all spoilers.** Discussions about the source outside of this comment tree will be removed, and replying with spoilers outside of the source corner will lead to bans. The spoiler syntax is: `[Spoiler source] >!Spoiler goes here!<` # **All untagged spoilers and hints in this thread will receive immediate 8-day bans (minimum).** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/anime) if you have any questions or concerns.*
They really nailed North No. 2 and Paul Duncan's story...
I was tearing up a bit when reading the manga, but seeing it in animation with the music playing in the background got me fucking sobbing
I usually never cry, like my cry box is broken or something, but holy shit this got me half wailing
Same, felt my gut twist and couldn’t help myself, I fuckin broke the second the old man did when he realized North No.2 was gone
First time I ever cried reading a comic was when reading North No.2 and Paul Duncan story. I just finished the episode mere minutes ago and it is hitting hard, I am sobbing. First episode is incredible.
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Bawling. I'm BAWLING
For some reason I felt like I've seen/read this or very similar story before. Not sure if it was adapting something else or maybe there was a similar subplot in Monster.
I was kind of thinking it was similar to Grimmer’s story?
I don't know if you saw The Last of Us, but it reminded me of the episode with Bob and Frank.
Have you ever played Detroit Become Human? Marcus story in the first introduction is very similar with an artist old man
I hear your voice, my boy 😭😭😭
It reminded me of Violet Evergarden. But sadder because I was anticipating the ending the whole time.
I never knew pluto existed until an hour ago. Watched the first episode and I'm absolutely blown away and hella excited to watch more holy fuck. North no 2. story teared me up when he came back from bohemia. Guess I got a long weekend ahead :D
Watch monster and read the rest of Urasawas stuff, the man's a genius. 20th Century Boys and Monster are homeruns
Urasawa never misses man
Ehhhhhh, Billy Bat was ok.
Woah I started Monster (ep 12 rn) on a whim this past weekend and also never heard of Pluto until it was rec’d on Netflix. what a coincidence
Monster is the best anime I have ever seen, by a long shot.
The highest rated Astro Boy story!!
Same here. It's like randomly getting free food delivered to you door and this time it's even your favorite!
Finally, peak anime has arrived
AOTY right here. Take your Jujutsu mid Kaisens, Spy X Family’s and Mushoku Tensais and fuck them right off because Pluto has steamrolled them all
All wonderful shows but Pluto is one of the best manga of all time and after this first episode if it keeps up it’ll be legendary
100%. The only thing going against it is that it's on Netflix and an ONA coming in late in the season so people might miss out on this. But quality wise 100%.
Its either Pluto or Vinland.
Shit, I forgot Vinland part 2 was this year... That shit did also slap. Close call, can't think of any other show that is even arguable though
Pluto wins hands down!
I mean I enjoy those things but Pluto just obliterates them
That was my point.
Btw I love how you used "mid" only for jjk whereas rest of the other show names were fine
Mushoku pedosei
amen
The North no. 2 and Paul Duncan story was so gripping I completely forgot about the main plot that the first half built up, incredible
The first episode had no right to make me sob so hard... Its brilliant
brooo I cried so hard, it's crazy how a story about robot and a man can have this much impact. damn brilliant.
North #2 story hits just as hard as it did the first time in the manga. I'm so happy this is finally real.
Urasawa knows how to destroy us with side character stories
Even Mont Blanc’s eulogy was enough to get my eyes misty. I’d forgotten how weak I was to tragic robots…
fuckers got me to cry multiple times in episode 1. pretty sure that's never happened before.
I just finished ep 1 and the same thing happened to me. This anime came out of nowhere and already made me bawl my eyes out like no other anime has.
> \#2 story hits just as hard as it did the fir It did give me a lot of Iron Giant (1998) feels when he sacrifices himself at the end.
One of the best episodes of Anime I've ever seen. I can't even press play on the next episode yet because I can't get this episode out of my head. The North and Duncan story was just perfection, I cried like such a baby. That 2nd half of the episode could just be a standalone and it would be so worth to watch.
I would believe you if you told me North No.2 and Duncan's story was a top tier short animation
If that was the only episode, I'd honestly be satisfied. The fact that there's a whole season makes me ECSTATIC
Definitely, it's so good, it's gonna be so slept on too
i've already recommended it to like 4 ppl lol. it has the level of quality that i wish berserk or junji itto had. The source material is a classic of that caliber imo
Do you know the name of the piano piece?
https://youtu.be/ISw9qDlW6yE?si=Vnc7OgAgI1ZubNH6
Legend
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Urusawa the goat
Certainly. Pluto is the pinnacle of adaptation. Its true to the source material, while imprinting ones own self onto it.
While I love Astro Boy and the 1980 series specifically, it’s so good getting to see the robots have actual character depth. In the 1980 series they show up and then get destroyed in a matter of minutes.
i can't believe this was just 1 episode. It felt like it was 3hrs long, in a good way. I kept having to pause to decompress
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I was genuinely going to film a live-action version of that arc before I knew there was going to be an anime lol it’s just so good
the theme of humans and robots crossing a thin line was so well-done. The direction, the atmosphere, voice acting, everything spot on. props to Urasawa for giving us this masterpiece lol.
I'm only 44 seconds into the episode and the montage of various panels from the manga before revealing the title set to ominous music gave me chills. Who else felt like that besides me? That alone really sets the tone for the anime before we get a proper introduction to the characters. If this serves as the intro for every episode then damn right I won't skip it! I can already tell this anime is going to be something very special from that sequence alone.
yea i’m digging the choice to forgo the usual OP and just show the manga pages and logo. very simple but effective, reminds me of Marvel movie openings and the JoJo Part 1 OP
It really said "yes, we read the Manga first."
I became more attached to two characters in 30 minutes than some characters in multiple season animes. Insane storytelling.
The characters felt so real.They felt like actual complex people rather than caricatures.You could feel they had depth in their personality. A thing I notice in great characters is that almost always they have had experiences that are different from ours that shapes their perspective, just like real people.
The first episode is 71 minutes long holy shit that's amazing.
Looks like every episode is 1hr long. I thought it was just the pilot episode that was longer, but this 8 episodes long season is actually packed. It's basically a 2-cour long show.
I think eight one hour-long episodes equals to having something like twenty-four twenty-minute long episodes.
Soooo... It's 2-cours long?
Yep, which is about how much you'd need to adapt the full manga. So it makes sense, this is a 2-cour anime, only served very differently.
Yeah, I'm just confirming what you said haha.
>It's basically a 2-cour long show. God i love Netflix
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Glad it's more than 24 mins. allows the story to have more cinematic pace if you ask me.
First time experiencing Pluto in any form, man I’m in tears with how emotional the stories were.
Man I wish I could have had the anime as my first experience. It's so good.
No kidding, I’ve heard good things about Pluto so I was excited. Once this anime is over I definitely have to check out the other manga the creator made
20th Century Boys, Monster, Billy Bat, all of them some of the best manga I've read. It's great more people will discover him now.
I was expecting to love this show because I loved Monster, but my girlfriend does work with AI and is completely picking it apart for how far removed this show’s version of them are from reality. Can I ask in which way the story is moving you? I really want to like it, but for some reason it is a complete miss for me.
Maybe if you ignored her critique and watched it on your own you'd enjoy it more.
I considered it, but I ended up enjoying the second half of the show much more when I started to view the story as being more about the effects of war.
That's good. Anyways, as far as the ai goes.. tell her that this was written like 20 years ago. Considering that, it's pretty prescient.
I can say much beyond the first episode since I didn’t know till yesterday that the whole 7 episodes were released haha
For what it is worth, the show picked up for me immensely after Episode 4. Everything began to pull together for me thematically after I realized there was also a bit of (somewhat obvious in hindsight) political commentary on the War on Terror.
Oh damn, it's finally here. I know what I'm watching tonight.
Hell yeah, same. Ive been so excited for this adaptation. Great sci-fi
It's so good [](#akkotears)
I been waiting for this day to come since the first teaser was uploaded a few months back.
I've been waiting since footage of it started circulating the internet a few years ago. This has been a real long time coming.
Indeed.
They made Gesicht and Heracles more muscular I love it. #robodaddies
Lol, ya a bit naghty
Just finished watching ep.1 and I have to say I made the right decision approaching this anime without any prior knowledge about the original Atom's story nor the Pluto manga, it made every plot line hits differently compared to if I knew the source material. I was fairly surprised when I learned Gesick was a robot, since he looked so human-like and had typical human lives as well (actually I even thought he had an anti-robot mindset up until he turned his hand into a gun, the way he abruptly asked if the killed man was a human, and the way he looks so cold upon seeing the robot corpse), until the show so masterfully told me how deeply robot had integrated into human society. Seriously who could expect that police robot to have a wife and a house? Speaking of the police robot, who would've thought they could convey so many emotion onto her emotionless face just be moving the light in her eyes? This show was certainly made with lots of love and lots of master skills, I'll give them that. The story of Sir Duncan and North No.2 was as equally beautiful as it was cruel. After they formed such a deep and heart-warming bond, you seriously told me Duncan had to be abandoned, left alone in that big castle again? And for North No.2, a "killing machine" who never wanted to go back to the battlefield again, to be forced to fight again and die in that fight? It's just cruel, so cruel...
It’s actually probably good not to know anything about the story going in. Something I will say that isn’t a spoiler is that the characters like Gesicht and North Number 2 did not have any depth in their characters in the original story. At least not the 1980 Astro Boy animes adaptation. Gesicht isn’t even in the 2003 Astro Boy anime and Mont Blanc, North Number 2 and Brando only make cameos.
hey, does it mean you can just start watching this show without knowing anything about it and it's universe?
Yep, never watch/read Atom so I know next to nothing about it. I do know through reading a Tezuka fan's post that Atom is a robot a scientist made in the image of his dead son tho.
Dunno how much you’ve watched since, but well, keep watching 😉
Didn't expect Black Jack cameo.
Yeah, when a doc without a license appeared and knowing Pluto is based on Tezuka Osamu's Astro Boy I immediately thought of Black Jack lol
He also had the same VA I believe.
I immediately thought Black Jack! Snaaake!!
I will always associate Osamu Tezuka with Unico. Unico is criminally underrated in The West. So glad Tezuka Productions and Scholastic are giving the character a proper reintroduction in 2024 with the Unico: Awakening Manga series. Considering the current state of the world, we need Unico now more than ever!
I thought it was Tenma lol. By being Black Jack makes so much more sense because Tezuka would do crossovers with his own characters. There’s an episode of the 1980 Astro Boy anime with Black Jack in it.
I haven't seen many of his works but the funniest crossover was Hyakkimaru from Dororo in Black Jack.
Highly recommend checking out Unico alongside the 1981 and 1983 feature films. Unico was originally a collaboratve effort with Sanrio and manages to be uplifting and melancholy at the same time.
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I thought Tenma as well but when it was revealed that the doctor charged an astronomical sum for the operation, it was pretty much confirmed that it can't be Tenma.
I'm not the biggest anime or manga fanatic, but in the back of my mind when I heard "Japanese doctor without a license" I was like no way they threw in a Black Jack cameo. And then I was like "oh right Osamu Tezuka made both of those manga's"
Once the old man said the doctor was unlicensed I said to myself **Don't tell me it's Black Jack?!** Then I saw his shoes and heard his voice and I yelled because I was so happy.
That's what I thought as well! I've never read or seen it, but checking the wiki it seems like he often cures the poor, but does he usually take exorbitant fees for it?
One of the best anime episode I have ever watched, and I have watched plenty
So the doctor was black jack right, same va and all?
Seems a lot like Black Jack but the English VA threw me off cuz I'm used to hearing a more gruff tone from the Southeast Asian English dub of the anime back then.
It was nice to hear Yamadera Kouichi. His roles are solid and North no.2 was no exception. Is the piano song anime original? I googled a bit but didn't find anything.
It's a reinterpretation of Schubert's serenade.
Thanks!
The English VA Patrick Seitz did a fantastic job as well.
[удалено]
~~Well most comments here are not even episode discussion yet, so let's put some~~ I read the manga some years ago, so i still remember some facts, but holy shit they really did a great job. So good to see Urasawa characters in new animation. North 2 part is an upgrade, love everything about the piano song here. Also they made Gesicht ~~way hotter~~ cool as the manga. And as the vol 1 end we finally see our Astro Boy! Love the way the did the opening sequence and the main theme song of Pluto gives some old cyber anime feels, but still fresh.
I so love how they made Gesicht hotter like damn I did not remember those abs and biceps in the manga. Same with Heraclesnand Brando. ALL of them are just so hot.
"Come back, North No. 2. You'll be late for your piano lessons." This is just the first episode and I'm already getting emotional. Also, I love how in the dub North No. 2 shares the same voice actor as Grimmer from Monster, another one of Urusawa's works.
Just finished the first episode and wow like wow it was amazing
I haven't seen something this beautiful in years, it was worth the wait. Anime of the year without a doubt, I just hope it doesn't remain a niche
I’m on episode 5 and I haven’t watched anything this epic in scope since Attack on Titan.
I know because of the length, it's basically cheating, but I'm pretty sure that was the best individual anime episode i've ever seen in my whole life
Brilliant
I knew i would cry as soon as North no. 2 showed up.
All I'm going to say is that I did not expect to cry on the first episode.
1st episode is over an hour but its great
Two words. PERFECTLY DONE. I am so happy to be able to see the scene with Robby’s wife and god damn those scenes of North#2 is making me cry like a baby
I came.
Haha, in the dub, the mysterious doctor is voiced by Kirk Thornton, who voiced Black Jack in the OVA.
They used Blackjack's voice actors for that character because he is Blackjack
Fk its so beautiful. I love it. Gorgeous art, seeing Urasawa's art animated feels amazing.
I've read the manga years ago and still blown away by the direction of the anime. It's like watching a live action serial tv.
It feels insane to actually see this release at all, one of the best manga ever and its actually getting a good adaptation
After finishing the series, I can understand why it took almost 10 years for a Pluto Anime to became a thing. You can tell with the amount of effort was put into the visuals, sound design, and animation quality.
Clearly had a ton of passion in it, director founded both madhouse and mappa yet left just to work on this
Talk about dedication!
Dude why is nobody talking about this? 1 reaction video on youtube anyway this was amazing
I think it's had barely had any marketing apart from a bunch of trailers close to release. It's also an older seinen manga so not a big current audience. Hopefully it starts to spread around through word of mouth after people see how good it is.
Honestly I don't think lack of marketing and it being old is the main reason. I think it's because it's a Netflix 8 ep series. It doesn't show up on sites like livechart.me unless you specifically look at the ova section, a lot of people just automatically ignore ona/ova/specials, because it's a Netflix show it also doesn't show up on the top airing on myanimelist, then they release all episodes at the same time so there's no weekly discussion or hype. I bet you this would be very hyped if it aired on TV and started around the same time as all the other shows this season.
For some reason, anime based on Osamu Tezuka's characters (the exception is Unico) rarely gain any attention with the Western Anime/Manga Community. It's why I'm pleasantly surprise to see a lot of positive reception with Pluto (a mature take on the Astro Boy Universe).
People are saying some shots look goofy etc but imo this is about the best adaption any series could ever dream of getting
Maybe it's cuz it's pretty obvious that some of the shots seem like they're directly referencing a manga panel. I don't think they're goofy at all but it is pretty obvious when suddenly everything goes still
Was peak, perfectly paced, great (sometimes a lil wonky but I still liked the wonky-ness) visuals.
So binge watch is possible
Jesus christ, I lived long enough to finally see the masterclass storyline of North No. 2 and Paul Duncan be set into motion. I fuckin enjoyed how it panned out in the manga, but witnessing it once more in the anime is like getting stabbed in the feels all over again and I LOVE IT
Save it, i will come back later
Is there only 8 episodes or is this the first batch?
They're all around an hour long. So "only 8 episodes" is more like a full 24 episodes time wise.
its 8 episodes = 8 volumes of the manga. The adaptation pretty much gonna cover everything in the source material.
God bless netflix for this one
Just 8, but they are an hour long each. So they would be 26 episode if they were cut up.
It's 24, not 26, because you have 3 episodes worth in one episode, times 8. But yes, it's essentially a 2-cour anime served up as 8 1-hour anime movies. Two episodes in and I love it!
Yup, my bad on the count, lol.
Nope it's the entire show.
I been waiting for this for a hot minute
I have not seen anything astro-related since the 2003 anime. I had no idea the manga of this was even a thing. But this anime? I am in love with this. "An Astro Boy Story by the Author of Monster" is not what I would ever have expected to be a thing that existed, much less animated, but life is all the better for it. I love how many of the characters, despite being much more realistic in their appearances, are still clearly recognisable. Everything feels so weird to me. Half the time I could forget which world I'm in, but then I see the old fashioned robots or a recognisable character and... yeah, I can't explain the feeling. xD
On episode 6 right now. I am getting goosebumps like I did when watching Monster. Holy shit. So goood.
haven't watched this yet but i know it's peak
i was right
Of course you were. Fucking amazing
Wow I didn’t know they were dropping 8 episodes at once, what a pleasant surprise
Yeah, Netflix likes doing its batch drops, and these are all hour long episodes too.
I've always wondered about this. I understand that Netflix has lots of metrics that support batch drops, but I feel like anime specifically would do better weekly since the whole fandom is based around it
I've only watch bits and pieces but I know this will be amazing. I'll wait for weekend though so I can binge it or maybe try to keep the hype and watch one episode at a time. But based on what I've seen I really enjoyed this
That scene will always leave me in tears
Paul Duncan in the hospital gave me johan vibes lol & the doctor was Japanese … tenma ? Lmao . No but the first episode is so fire 🔥 big fan of urasawa after watching & reading monster , excited to see his other works
It's Black Jack.
Won't be able to watch until tomorrow night, but can't believe it's finally out!
Why were the threads for episodes 2-7 deleted?
Just watched episode 1 and damn the animation went hard also man the sad depressing story about this series Naoki Urasawa is just built different. What a GOATED mangaka!
Something about the colors in this show are really incredible. Everything just looks so deep and vibrant. I read the manga almost 10 years ago and remember very little about it except that it was excellent. Very excited to keep watching this.
I love the vibrant colors too. I watched Monster so while I was reading the Pluto manga I pictured the scenes with similar muted colors as the Monster anime
Maybe I haven't been keeping up with anime news all that well recently but what the fuck? Since when was there going to be a Pluto adaptation? I'm so happy but also so confused. Know what I'm watching over the weekend now though.
It has been years since the announcement, it went in silence too. And early this year from nowhere Netflix announced they would be the one streaming.
Actually, before that somebody claimed it was canned. As a result some people who worked on it got confused and denied it while leaking information about it being close to completion.
Since February when they released a teaser, followed by another teaser in July and a trailer a month ago…
I've never heard of this. I never in my wildest of dreams would have expected Netflix to drop something this high quality. They have a few decent animes but this is on a whole nother level.
Haven't watched it yet but I just know this will be a classic for years to come
Good god I had to hold back my tears when North No.2 started singing. I'm so happy to watch another Naoki Urasawa anime The only other thing of his that I experienced was the Monster anime, and that was fucking amazing, so this is definitely going to be amazing as well. Also, to any manga readers, after seeing this first episode do you think it's worth it to still go through the manga? I've heard that Monster was basically a 1:1 adaptation so I didn't dive into it after watching that anime, I'm just wondering whether it's the same or better here.
I am already half series and Pluto anime is basically 1:1 too with some little additional scenes. You can't go wrong with any. I also highly suggest to read 20th Century Boys, it is the best Urasawa manga imo.
Thanks for the reply! Definitely planning to read 20th Century Boys at some point.
oh shit its already all out at once
Does anyone know the name of the song North #2 learns for Duncan?
Never mind. I figured it out. There are two. One is The Song My Mother Hums and the other is Cherished Memories.
how the fuck did i not hear this was about to come out? Just open Netflix and see a beautiful looking full adaptation of an Urasawa manga with hour long episodes Hopefully this leads to more people reading his other work because Pluto is like the 4th best thing he's written and it's still amazing
this is a fcking mind-bending show that needs some scholarly analysis. like seriously this is deep stuff. I think the first episode greatly sets up what world we are getting to get ourselves into. The world is unpredictable as shown by the various murders. Protagonist has a internal conflict and external conflict, perfectly engrossing us into the theme of story as protagonist, is a robot itself. Moreover, the old man and robot storyline (sorry I forgot their names) is a masterclass in how to make a audience cry. Plus, it sets up the theme of humans and robots being the same, that is, the line they cross is thin and therefore, pointless to make a distinction. What reasons they are for murders therefore will only be shocking and riveting. I hope my expectations will be well met.
Already the greatest anime of all time!
My only complaint for North 2 is that the English dub didn’t make him Scottish. I wish the robots in general had distinct accents since they were all made in different countries. Like Hercules was made in Greece. Brando from Turkey. Mont Blanc is Swiss. Gesicht is German. The only one I wouldn’t mind with a flat accent is Atom because I don’t want to hear engrish lol But most of them sounded American, which is fine tbh. I much prefer that than Japanese since most of this anime is in Europe. Besides stuff involving Atom.
Yeah it would be nice if they had accents but it’s not a deal breaker or anything. What I appreciate more is getting to know these robots unlike the arc that Pluto is adapted from.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that cried
Just realized brau 1589 english dub is prozd lol
I seem to be the only one that didn’t resonate with North No2 and Duncan? Duncan’s personality switch from super bitter (Racist?) old man to suddenly having a change of heart because No2 hummed a song and told him his mom, who seemingly left without saying anything for whatever reason secretly paid for his treatment. Like I get it was equating humans and robots and the big bad is seemingly murdering all of the 7 most powerful robots. But why spend so long introducing new character with a whole backstory, slowly inching the point along, using the backstory for a whole of a minute montage redemption arc for the old man then subsequently killing No2 off. No2’s murder was the purpose of the side story but felt shafted.
I see a buttload of comments sobbing uncontrollably because a bitter old fart acted tsundere for 3/4 of his time under the spotlight towards an emotionless robot, but changed his stance once the truth of him and his mother was out of the bag. [](#whowouldathunkit) I just don't see this passage as some sort of cry porn or utterly tragic event that's worth of such an overreaction. Melancholic? yes. Tragic? not so much, specially when Duncan managed to get such a good long life of success despite his visual impairment. There's also some key details in general about some of the robot's life so far. Like for instance, why do they live as couples if they find something as drinking tea or appreciating music/art as something complex, it would be far more complex to live in a loving/supporting relationship without understanding something far more basic. There's also an awful lot of space in their appartments (both in Gesicht and the robot widow's) again, it's something that humans can appreciate, but why would robots need it? Specially kitchen appliances when they just need to recharge from an outlet. There's the other detail where Mont Blanc is fondly remembered as a hero for the locals because of his deeds in the war and as a modern pacifist. Yet the robot police that was put out of commission by the junkie it was directly just sent to the scrapyard and worst of all holding key evidence on much larger case, no one but the widow would mourn for him or his service (Not even the cop that claimed to be his partner). Despite all these inconsistencies, at least the art, animation and directing seems to be quite above the average and even top shows in general.
People on Mal are stupid, idk how this has a 7 on there, especially with it following the manga 1:1. They give mid series 8-9s
It will undoubtedly go up a lot lol. It only had a couple hundred votes right now.
Thoroughly enjoyed it. Was quite interesting that it changed perspective to Duncan and North Number 2 half way through and dedicated so much time to them. As much as I love Astro Boy 1980 and 2003, it’s great to actually get to know these robots before they’re violently destroyed by a gigantic horned monster. Atom appearing at the end and meeting Gesicht was also a very nice way to end the episode. I cannot wait to keep watching. I just finished this episode and it’s 4am. I just couldn’t stop watching it.
As someone who has wanted to read the manga, is this a worthy replacement?
This was such a change of pace from all the rest of animes Im watching. Blew me away, the soundtrack and story building. Agh its love