Anime summer looks to be pushing into anime fall as yet another new anime is set to grace our screens in the coming months. This one comes by the name of Pluto and is based on the character Astro Boy – one of the most famous manga characters to come out of Japan in the 1950s. Here he appears to be reborn though he mysteriously isn’t the titular character. So who, or what is Pluto and when can we expect to see it?
Plot of Pluto
The upcoming anime is based on the manga of the same name written and illustrated by Naoki Urasawa. Based on Astro Boy, which in Japan is called Mighty Atom (鉄腕アトム, literally translated means Iron-armed Atom), Pluto is set in a world where robots and humans live together, though as technology advances it becomes harder to tell them apart. If Astro Boy were to meet Blade Runner and then turn into a manga, that is a very close approximation of what we have here on the surface.
The series is being produced as a Netflix original, with the site’s bio for the anime reading,
“When the world’s seven most advanced robots and their human allies are murdered one by one, inspector Gesicht soon discovers that he’s also in danger.”
The story does not seem to center so much on the boy-wonder robot but rather on the Europol robot detective Gesicht as he attempts to solve a string of robot and human murders around the globe that somehow appear to be connected. This mystery deepens further when evidence suggests that these murders were not committed by a human, but by a robot, which would be the first time such an event has occurred in eight years. The targets of these murders seem to be the seven great robots of the world, and the humans all working to fight for International Robot Laws that would grant robots equal rights.
Netflix released a trailer in July which would gave viewers an insight into the action and mystery that they would be thrust into.
The anime has been produced by Genco and Tezuka Productions, with animation services by Studio M2. It will stream exclusively on Netflix, which is working very hard to bump up its anime offerings, and will consist of eight 60-minute episodes.
Cast
The main Japanese voice cast are as follows:
- Gesicht: Shinshu Fuji
- Atom: Yoko Hikasa
- Uran: Minori Suzuki
- Mont blanc: Hiroki Yasumoto
- North No.2: Koichi Yamadera
- Brando: Hidenobu Kiuchi
- Hercules: Rikiya Koyama
- Epsilon: Mamoru Miyano
- Pluto: Toshihiko Seki
Yesterday, Netflix released the names of an additional six cast members in a tweet from their Netflix Anime account along with some stills of the series.
There is currently no word on whether there will be an English dubbed version of the series. It may be that information on this will come out closer to the release date, if indeed they do have a dubbed version available.
When can I watch Pluto?
Pluto is set to air on Netflix on October 26, and given its many horror elements (it currently has a 15 rating) and air of mystery it may certainly be a good one to binge over the Halloween season.
