May 5th - Pluto (2023)

4/5

Pluto took me a month to finish. It's weird for me to try and talk about it. It's easily one of the best animes I've seen in a long time, but I feel that it speaks so well for itself that I don't have a lot to say about it thematically.

What I can say is this: I love the heart it has. "Nothing can come of hate." It is compassion and the desire for creation that bring beauty and life. It is taking the hate we have, and choosing something better. I like the questions asked about the distinction between robots and humans, and how it shows that those distinctions don't really matter, despite the constant reminders of the separation of humans and robots in society. Perhaps my favorite part, is how every character is important, and each were obviously written with love and care for their place in the story, and their existence as fully realized people. As an adaptation of an Astro Boy arc, I can feel the appreciation for the source material, despite having never read "The Greatest Robot on Earth" arc myself.

Looking more at actual craftsmanship, I really enjoyed the introduction to the series being a classic murder mystery, and missed some of those elements as the show got more of a "political drama" tone. However, I do think that shift was necessary for the narrative to achieve its goal, especially as an ultimately anti-war piece of writing.

Unfortunately, I do think the show had some structural issues. While I enjoy that the narrative was concluded within one season, each episode is an hour long, and contains multiple plot beats that I think would have worked better as shorter, individual episodes. I often found myself pausing in the middle of an episode and coming back days later, simply because it was such a dense watch. I am curious to check out the original manga, and see if taking that at my own pace eliminates those issues, and maybe read some of Naoki Urasawa's other work to see if that structure is similar.