Pluto is a must read for any Urasawa fan, not only is shorter than must of his mangas but his take on sci-fi is truly unique, interesting and thought provoking. This manga is at is best when it discusses what makes an a.i truly intelligent or sentient. Urasawa also introduced one of my new favorite questions when it comes to technology , isn't the perfect artificial intelligence a flawed intelligence? I would honestly love to see more works that talk about this topics, sure some of the social commentary is not really subtle, like the racism and the anti war, but they are messages worth addressing and timeless and maybe conversations that we may need to have if robots become more common and intelligent. But at the same time the main plot is not fantastic, is good, better than most plotd, but the weakest part of the manga and the ending wasn't that good either, I would honestly consider this manga to be a 10/10 if it was just an anthology of multiple robots and their experiences of how they try to adapt to human life while dealing with discrimination and the fact that their memory is perfect so the truly horrible things they witnessed can't be easily forgotten, but as it is, I consider pluto to be an excellent manga and one that deserves anyone to go out of their way to read

Although it is an interesting story with several great characters, I just can't sympathize with robots. No matter how advanced an artificial thing is, it won't become a person, or at least I think it's crazy to think that it would. All emotional scenes in the story are dulled just by the fact that they mostly happen to robots. I don't care about what happens to robots, and while there seems to be a plot point that there many people in that world who don't like robots, it doesn't really pay off as there isn't any real conflict between robots and humans. In the end, robots are considered the same as people and they save the day. I wouldn't really recommend it unless you are a fan of Urasawa's works.

I was right.

Pluto is a sci fi series set in about 200 years in the future give or take. Everyone is driving cool cars, lives in cool buildings and have holograms and robots at there service. The series kicks off with a murder. Someone murdered a robot and our main character needs to find out who is doing and exactly who is capable of pulling this off.

As you'd except from a series with robots they ask the questions like what is a robot what is a human. Whats the difference between a robot and a human. What differentiates them. Where do you draw line. What do you do when someone crosses it. Its something done a million times before but I do believe it works here much better as they author actually tries to dig deep into this specific scenario and honestly executing it well.

If you couldn't tell i hated it monster. Calling it a bad series is me being nice about it. So imagine my surprise when i was somewhat enthralled by the first 2 volumes of this. Like the series does an excellent job in making the robots feel alive and blurring the lines of who gets to choose what has a heart or not. The reason for this is mainly due to the charisma of the main character. He is incredibly engaging. I really liked the dynamic between him and the humans and robots he surrounded himself with. The series isn't some masterpiece but it is interesting and exciting to make want to keep reading, the story is coherent and no one spends an entire fucking episode getting gas. However most of this feeling begun to dissipate when volume 3 starts or more specifically these KKK clan wannabe's join the story.

For a story thats able to convey emotion of the robots the author is ironically incapable of making the human characters convey the same emotion. Everything beyond volume 3 just begins to dissipate. The feeling of being engaged gets removed as the main characters takes a back seat for other less interesting characters to take the stage. Its worse too as there are more human characters that shows up that no one gives a fuck about. It also starts introducing weak subplots that pull the series down.

The later half takes more of gets even worse as the main characters takes even more of a backseat. The story starts slipping and my enjoyment lessens to much more significant degree. The villain was already weak and unmemorable but when the whole story gets unraveled the twist begun to show you start noticing cracks and inconsistencies. One of the main villains the titular character Pluto just doesn't make sense. His entire story is just weak. There wasn't a single villain that really was able to stand out besides being the general bad guy.

The ending is fine but if this is Naoki's best ending im gonna be incredibly disappointed for the rest of his series. He can make great premises but his execution are just horrifyingly poor. though the epilogue ending was just... eh.

Overall i was happy at first and then disappointed but im iffy on how to score. A part of me wants to rate it poorly but I feel like that would be unfair as it would be my bias in play. Which im trying hard not to put in. But at the same time i feel im being too nice. But considering how good the first 2 volumes of the series was.... i guess i'll barely give this one a 6/10

Story: 9/10
Art: 8/10
Characters: 8/10
Quality Polish Edition: 6/10
Enjoyment: 8/10
Overall: 7.8/10

>AbysmalAngel (Known status: C)
Really touching series, made me tear up a few times.
Excited to see how that anime adaptation comes along.

... Last updated on September 30th, 2019, 7:19pm

I've got nothing else to say. But robots dying will always be impossible and the story would immensely improve from just having human characters. None of the characters are likeable. Seriously who gives out these awards? I sure as hell don't care about a grumpy old blind composer that has a sappy backstory he tells the audience as if he's aware he's an actor. There's nothing here but one-dimensional characters and forced conflict in an inconsistent world. There's no depth, no argument, no speculation. The author clearly lacks knowledge on the characters he's writing. It's pretentious drivel and zero originality. Why settle for a cheap imitation? I've heard better arguments from the homeless than this hack of a writer.

About half of this story is riveting, interesting and thrilling -- mostly in the first half. The other half is tedious, sappy, pedantic, goofy, childish nonsense.

I had the exact same experience with Monster.

Volume 5 was a total slog.



... Last updated on July 2nd, 2019, 3:20pm

plot seems to be jumping on one thing to another
If you have read other urasawa works ie monster 20th century boys
you would notice similar themes i.e. mysterious circumstances, conspiracy plots
good character development etc

Overall its good enough with ending seems to be lacking

others may have already gush about the art where every characters have their own individual face, their personalities that feels like human, the sprawling plot that make you feel for everyone and interesting back drop of robot and human world that make you easily immersed in their world. but im going to only tell you one thing - the ending is very poor and some things still need to be resolved, but if you are ok with nearly illogical ending, do please read this - the journey is exciting enough even if the destination is pretty dismal.

Since there's so many detailed reviews echoing my opinion, I'll just sum my views about Pluto up briefly. It's gripping in the beginning but slightly tedious to read through around the other half of the story. The characters were varied and likable. The manga ended with an epic blast. Unfortunately, it also meant that there was no conclusive summation, leaving us with a vague grasp of what happened afterwards. Do take note that Monster, by Urasawa too, had ended this way too. Perhaps Urasawa likes to end his stories like that? Despite that, I liked the way Pluto ended. Other that than being said, Pluto's a great manga, even if it may not measure up to Monster's genius.