Posted in: Anime, Netflix, TV | Tagged: anime, Astro Boy, manga, Naoki Urusawa, netflix, Osamu Tezuka, pluto

Pluto: Netflix Releases Teaser Previewing Astro Boy Series Reboot

Netflix presents an anime adaptation of Naoki Urusawa's Pluto, a reboot of Osamu Tezuka's classic Astro Boy manga arc, to debut in 2023.

Netflix released a four-minute teaser trailer for Pluto, the anime adaptation of the manga by Naoki Urusawa that's a gritty reboot of a classic Astro Boy manga from the 1960s. The new anime series will premiere on the streamer in 2023. The globally acclaimed manga has won numerous awards, including the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize. The 2015 stage adaptation of PLUTO returned in 2018 by popular demand and toured Japan and Europe.

Pluto Reboots Astro Boy for Sad Robot Deaths

Pluto is based on the 1964 Astro Boy story "The Greatest Robot on Earth" from the original manga series. As the synopsis for the manga goes, "In an ideal world where man and robots coexist, someone or something has destroyed the powerful Swiss robot, Mont Blanc. Elsewhere a key figure in a robot rights group is murdered. The two incidents appear to be unrelated…except for one very conspicuous clue – the bodies of both victims have been fashioned into some sort of bizarre collage complete with makeshift horns placed by the victims' heads. Interpol assigns robot detective Gesicht to this most strange and complex case – and he eventually discovers that he too, as one of the seven great robots of the world, is one of the targets."

As if the original story by Osamu Tezuka wasn't sad enough already, Urusawa's grim and gritty reboot story introduces more politics, war, atrocities, and war crimes into the narrative as the robots stand in for war veterans. Miraculously, it still managed to be PG-rated enough for kids to read his version. Don't let Tezuka's Disney-influenced wide-eyed, cute artwork fool you – he was always out to make you cry with his stories, no matter how old you were. Urusawa's more realistic artwork makes it all even MORE poignant. Robot detective Gesicht is a melancholic war veteran turned cop investigating robot murders, and the innocent younger robot Astro Boy will be pulled into his case as the story progresses. Lots of nice and sympathetic robots die, and since they're machines, they don't have souls that go to heaven. They're gone forever. That's what happens in many of Tezuka's manga stories and what happens in Urusawa's Pluto as well.

Pluto: Adapting a Classic to Create a new Classic

"I applaud the courage of everyone that has taken on the challenge of making an anime based on PLUTO. I am excited about the birth of this new series to win over people's hearts. I hope that now more than ever, Osamu Tezuka's message reaches the world," says author Naoki Urasawa. Co-author Takashi Nagasaki adds: "PLUTO inherits the philosophy of Tezuka and does not merely convey a message of  anti-war, but reminds us that there is suffering on both sides… but still, the only remaining answer is peace." Supervisor Macoto Tezuka, son of the late Osamu Tezuka, adds: "The animated PLUTO is the real deal, and in addition to this being Urasawa's latest work, this is also a new Tezuka anime. I can hardly wait to see how this new generation of anime turns out."

So get your handkerchiefs ready for Pluto on Netflix sometime in 2023.

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