“Pluto” is an anime series streaming on Netflix based on the popular manga of the same name.
Let’s dive into some trivia and facts about the series.
- Pluto is a Japanese manga series
- The title is stylized in all caps
- The series is written and illustrated by Naoki Urasawa
- It was serialized in Shogakukan’s seinen manga magazine Big Comic Original from September 2003 to April 2009
- With its chapters collected into eight tankōbon volumes
- The series is based on Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy
- Specifically “The Greatest Robot on Earth” story arc
- It was named after the arc’s chief villain
- Urasawa reinterprets the story as a suspenseful murder mystery
- In the series stars Gesicht, a Europol robot detective trying to solve the case of a string of robot and human deaths
- Takashi Nagasaki is credited as the series’ co-author
- Macoto Tezka, Osamu Tezuka’s son, supervised the series
- Tezuka Productions is listed as having given cooperation
- The series was licensed and released in English in North America by Viz Media under the name Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka
- An original net anime series premiered on Netflix in October 2023
- The anime series was produced by Genco
- With animation production services by Studio M2
- Pluto was a critical and commercial success
- Winning several awards
- Including the ninth Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize
- The manga series sold over 8.5 million copies
- An anime adaptation by Studio M2 was announced to be in production at the 2017 Annecy International Animated Film Festival in June
- In May 2022, the adaptation was confirmed to still be in production by Studio M2 founder Masao Maruyama
- Toshio Kawaguchi is the series’ director
- With Urasawa as creative advisor
- Shigeru Fujita designed the characters and serves as supervising animation director
- Yugo Kanno composing the music
- The series made its premiere exclusively on Netflix on October 26, 2023
- It consisted of eight episodes
- Each episode was produced with assistance from another studio
- It adapts one of the manga volumes
- The 2023 Netflix anime adaptation received positive reviews from critics. Ali Griffiths of Digital Spy said, “Pluto sets a new gold standard for Netflix original anime”
- Devin Meenan of Slashfilm compared the complexity and characters to the celebrated graphic novel Watchmen
- Elijah Gonzalez of Paste magazine applauded the story’s fresh takes on themes first introduced in Isaac Asimov’s laws of robotics
- Joshua Rivera of Polygon called Pluto “one of the best sci-fi murder mysteries you can watch this year”
Got anything to add?