A legendary manga will soon get an animated adaptation. Streaming giant Netflix announced Pluto, a new anime series based on the manga of the same name. The manga was created by Monster and 20th Century Boys creator Naoki Urasawa.
A four-minute preview clip of Pluto on Netflix was also uploaded to the company’s YouTube channel.
The sneak peek shows off the visuals from the series, which blend 2D characters and 3D CGI for objects and backgrounds. The clips, which have dialog muted in favor of the background music, feature humanoid robot inspector Gesicht. Gesicht is on the trail of a series of murders, which seem to be connected to the world’s “Seven Great Robots,” some of which are advanced enough to become weapons of mass destruction. Clues from the scenes suggest that the murderer may in fact be a robot themselves.
Pluto is actually based on Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy, and reimagines a specific story arc from the series titled “The Greatest Robot on Earth.” In the original 1964 story, a foreign Sultan creates a robot called Pluto, and orders it to challenge the seven strongest robots on the planet to earn the title of “King of All Robots.” Astro Boy (or Atom) is on that hit list.
Pluto on Netflix is being produced by studios GENCO and M2. The confirmed voice cast so far includes:
- Gesicht – Shinshu Fuji (Joseph in Blade Runner, Black Lotus, Kanetsugu in Wave, Listen to Me!)
- Atom – Yoko Hisaka (Kal’tsit in Arknights, Kyoko Kirigiri in Danganronpa)
- Uran – Minori Suzuki (Angie Yonaga in Danganronpa V3, Freyja Wion in Macross Delta)
The Pluto Netflix anime will air on the service in 2023. The original manga is published in English by Viz Media under the title Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka. Netflix is also set to debut a mini-series based on classic kaiju Gamera.
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