Pluto

In the continuing effort to stimulate my interest in fictional tales presented in a graphical format by the citizens of the island nation of Japan I read the professional fan fiction piece, Pluto.

    Pluto is drawn and written by Naoki Urasawa, who is fast becoming one of my favorite mangaka. Urasawa is responsible for both Monster and 20^th/21^st Century Boys which I have enjoyed. Pluto is a serious and mature psychological/sociological future thriller/police drama. It takes place in the world created by Osamu Tezuka (the god of manga) with his creation Tetsuwan Atom (Astro Boy) and deals with the mystery surrounded the murders of the worlds most powerful robots and scientists related to them. The main person traversing the world searching for clues is named Gesitch, a detective with the international police body, Europol. Gesitch has personal interest in the investigation as he is one of the 7 most powerful AI in the world and those being murdered are his friends.

    In this future world robots and humans live in semi peaceful and accepting harmony. Four years earlier it was embroiled in a destructive and costly war in which a theocratic Middle Eastern nation, Kingdom of Persia, suspected of trying to create robots of mass destruction and of crimes against AI life forms, was attacked in an allied campaign lead by the United States of Thracia (read USA). The war ended quickly with the help of 6 of the most powerful robots in existence, but not before a great price was paid. The Persian nation was left is desolation and misery and democracy was forcefully brought to its people and AI were granted their international rights. Yet out of the destruction and hatred a demon was borne whose sole purpose would be the destruction of human life.

    Not only does the story explore the internal mystery with the murders and the motivations behind them it also tackles the ideas of artificial intelligence and it’s relation to humanity. The classic Asimovian robotic law that one can not kill a human is a center piece in the story. The ideas of AI and emotions also play a prominent role. Hatred and fear do as well, as we see a KKK likened mystery group who plots to overturn the international robot bill of rights.

    The story is finely crafted yet relies solely on tried and true plot devices. Ideas such as the perfect machine not being so perfect after all and genius creating evil out of good intentions are just some of the themes. While such regurgitations can be seen as poor writing the author presents them in excellent form. The story builds and builds to the breaking point but begins to fall flat near the end where it ends in a solid yet some what disappointing tone. Where realism and psychology are the major forces behind the majority of the story in the end it degrades to a fast paced homage to its source material as we see giant, classic era robots fight it out over the fate of the world.

    Aside from the ending and the un-inventive plot devises the only other real issue I had with the series was in the seven greatest AI. All but 2 of them are human looking, which is odd but somewhat understandable. The AI can choose bodies of their own.  All they have to do is move their AI chip between them. Yet two of the seven are in classic age robot forms while the rest are in human forms. It is as if these 2 where actually created that way while the other 5 were created to look human. Then again they needed the main characters to be human so we could relate with them on a physical level but there probably couldn’t be much to say about 7 of the greatest robots looking nothing like robots. Either way it’s just me nit picking and has nothing to do with the outcome of the story…it was just odd.

    The series is good, excellently written and drawn. The idea that he ran with a small arc in Tetsuwan Atom and created a fantastic modern story is great. It would be very entertaining to see this series in a condensed live action movie form and it would translate well, especially given our special effect abilities now. This is a great read if you are a fan of mature action and mystery titles or if you are a fan of the Astro Boy world and want to see it made for adults. There is a great write up about this series at the following web site http://tezukainenglish.com/?q=node/147