It seems they don’t know what to do with Osamu Tezuka’s creations, they are iconic but have a hard time being relatable to modern audiences. This includes their biggest character Astro Boy. They don’t know what they want to do with the franchise and they’ve been super experimental and liberal in who they let they use their IP. We’ve seen him turned into a grade school cartoon and we’ve also had an astro boy has reboot coming for almost a decade now. This is not including weird projects likea fundraiser trading card game that had a realistic take on his characters. WIth that said Pluto grabbed me by surprised as a concept, an anime based on a very memorable arc, but why did it look so realistic? Could this actually work? The positive consensus seemed to say so but I wanted to check it out.
At first I didn’t even know if it included Astro Boy, and it does although he goes by his Japanese name Atom which I’m alright with. Now This is based on a manga from the 2000s so it’s not exactly a new concept either, it just finally got the OVA treatment and it had always been a popular take on the character since it was first released. The anime is weird since it looks nothing like the Tezuka’s designs we’ve gron to know and love. It’s somethign else, a more serious and adult odd take based only on the strongest robot story arc. At only 8 episodes with varying ngth from a hour to a bit more it just seems so off brand but i can be on board with this.
The manga was 8 volumes so each episode does try to adapt the manga. Now I save this space for the Strongest Robot comparisons for when i rewatch those arcs in the 3 previous animes. But to make things brief it’s always been one of the highlight arcs. the 60s show was too episodic and normal but even this version it was epic and felt different. The 80s version is likely the best adaptation of the manga story and the 00s a very good decent take even if not superior.
The anime starts with a mystery, it’s a detective story after all and we have the death of a robot everyone loved and somehow i do feel bad bad for that robot. In general the franchise has always made you feel so bad for these cartoony looking robots. Yeah the story is a bit dated at times since it’s the generic Asimov robot laws story in the beginning. It’s trying to be something different and it is. The creator of the story really loved this arc and wanted to write a version that felt as epic as he felt it when he first read the original manga as a kid since it was totally different from what had come before.
In general it’s not mind blowing but still a nice mistery with some twists. We have a handful of robot, 6 of them lef including the murderous robot and it’s nice to see each one get highlighted and feel who they were before they meet their destiny.. The Greatest Robot on Earth manga take by Naoki Urasawa got a great anime adaptation and the murder mystery translated well to the format. I ended up learning most of the robots names like North no 2, brau5181, brando, hercules, atom, mont blanc deat. It’s indeed weird seeing realistic interpretations of the cartoony designs and it took me a while to get over that.
The anime overall is sad, emotional, slow and a bit boring. But a bit good. I can’t say it’s the classic everyone seemes to have made it to be but it also didn’t deserve to be forgotten so quickly after its release. This project feels worthy of being part of the Astro Boy franchise among the other great adaptations and I’m so glad to have seen it made. I’d love to watch other Astro boy story arcs in this same style. Astro boy fans and curious people should check it out.