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{{work|wppage=Pluto (manga)}}
[[File:Pluto_title_3790.jpg|thumb|350px]]
{{quote|
|'''Professor Tenma'''}}
A manga by [[Naoki Urasawa]], the man behind ''[[Monster (
▲{{quote|''Perfection is in the mind that makes mistakes... And that, Professor, is what will give birth to'' [[Arc Words|the greatest robot on Earth]]...|'''Professor Tenma'''}}
In a world where humans and sentient robots co-exist, someone or some''thing'' is targeting the seven most advanced robots, killing them off one by one. Even more disturbingly, the same killer seems to be murdering humans as well. Only a supremely powerful robot could be killing the other robots--but [["Three Laws
▲A manga by [[Naoki Urasawa]], the man behind ''[[Monster (Anime)|Monster]]'' and ''[[Twentieth Century Boys]]''. The story is an [[Ultimate Universe]] reimagining of an old ''[[Astro Boy]]'' story arc.
▲In a world where humans and sentient robots co-exist, someone or some''thing'' is targeting the seven most advanced robots, killing them off one by one. Even more disturbingly, the same killer seems to be murdering humans as well. Only a supremely powerful robot could be killing the other robots--but [[Three Laws Compliant|all robots are hardwired to be unable to kill humans]], with one very important exception.
German robot detective Gesicht, who is so advanced as to be nearly indistinguishable from a normal human, investigates the killings in an effort to learn the secret link between the advanced robots and humans being murdered. This is an especially urgent matter for Gesicht, since he's one of the scheduled murder victims...
No relation to the former planet, [[Classic Disney Shorts|nor the]] [[Pluto the Pup|cartoon bloodhound]], nor the [[Sailor Moon|Sailor Senshi]], nor the [[Classical Mythology|Roman god of the Underworld]]. {{spoiler|Okay, maybe that last one.}}
Universal
Also, this manga [[Pluto Is Expendable|is not expendable]].
{{tropelist}}
* [[Abusive Parents]]: Tenma ''sold'' Atom. Is that abusive enough for you?
* [[Adaptation Distillation]]: While it mostly focuses on expanding a single story arc, it also incorporates elements from the greater Astro Boy mythos at large. For instance, Atom's death and return were taken from the tail-end of the ''Blue Knight'' saga and the idea of Darius trying to legitimize his dictatorship by claiming descent from an ancient ruler from antiquity comes from the ''Cleopatra's Heart'' storyline.
* [[
* [[Amnesiac Dissonance]]: {{spoiler|Gesicht}}.
* [[Anyone Can Die]]:
** To give you an idea on just how far this trope goes: {{spoiler|Gesicht, ''the main character'', dies two volumes before the end.}} Though if you've seen the original 'Greatest Robot on Earth' story anywhere else you could pretty much see that coming.
* [[Arc Words]]: "500 zeus a body."
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* [[Ascended Extra]]: Gesicht didn't last seven pages back in the original story, now he's the hero.
* [[Badass Bystander]]: Hogan the bodyguard is a large, beefy robot assigned to protect Epsilon (he notes the irony - if not for the weather, Epsilon could protect a whole continent on his own). Normally he wouldn't fall under this trope, but he protects Wassily from the collateral damage caused by Epsilon and Pluto when they finally fight.
* [[Become a Real Boy]]: Many robots try to act as human as possible, wearing clothing and even eating food; in Atom's case, he even goes to the bathroom (although not for the reason you'd expect) despite it not being necessary.
** At the other end, Heracles is a notable exception, being well aware and perfectly comfortable with his not being human.
* [[Big Damn Villains]]: {{spoiler|Brau 1589. It says a lot when a barely functioning robot somehow escapes a high-security prison and pretty much ''crawls'' to the rescue of the President of Thracia while having a giant spear stuck in him.}}
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* [[Break the Cutie]]: Atom comes awfully close a few times.
* [[Brick Joke]]: Gesicht's conversation with little Ali the first time they met. {{spoiler|The second time they meet, Ali kills Gesicht}}.
{{quote|
'''Gesicht''':Yes, I'm sure you will. }}
* [[Calling Card]]: Pluto's mark is leaving something in the shape of horns by or on the victim. It's a method of identification until {{spoiler|he does it to Brando (using his arms as the horns and his memory chip as the head)}}, where it has more of a "bragging" feel to it.
* [[Can Not Tell a Lie]]: Invoked as part of the [["Three Laws
* [[Chekhov'
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: Atom and his sister are frequently misidentified as human, even by other robots. This ability becomes an important plot point later.
* [[Comic Book Fantasy Casting]]: Dr. Tenma is Leonard Bernstein. Mr. Mustachio is Wilford "Diabeetus" Brimley ([[Monster|in his second role in a NaokiUrasawa production]]).
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* [[Consulting a Convicted Killer]]: Gesicht is tracking a serial killer who might be a robot, and consults Brau 1589, previously believed to be the only robot who ever killed a human.
* [[Continuity Nod]]: All over the place; "Pluto" is basically Urasawa's tribute to [[Osamu Tezuka]].
* [[Cool Old Guy]]: Prof. Ochanomizu. As the Science Minister, he tells ministers more powerful than him (in theory) to shove it. As a man of science, he works throughout the night to try and save a dying robot dog. And as a lover of peace, [https://web.archive.org/web/20170618041218/http://view.thespectrum.net/series/pluto-volume-1.html?ch=Volume+04&page=24 he would rather die than allow Atom to fight an unnecessary battle.]
* [[Creepy Child]]: Atom falls into this occasionally - he seems to like being a normal kid, but doesn't hesitate to shed that persona when things get serious. Wassily too, although he's suffering from some form of PTSD.
* [[Curb Stomp Battle]]: Atom vs. Pluto: If you can even call it that...
* [[Cute Bruiser]]: Atom. {{spoiler|When he grabs and stops Pluto's [[Combat Tentacles|tentacle]] dead before it can skewer him, rips it out, then forces himself out of Pluto's fist to twist his arm off, I'd say he qualifies}}. Uran is also at least as powerful as a human adult, but never has to show off.
* [[Darker and Edgier]]:
* [[Death
* {{spoiler|[[Decoy Protagonist]]}}
* [[Do Androids Dream?]]: AI units have a subconscious and in some cases the ability to dream, with the additional benefit of being able to save them to memory. This proves to be a major plot point later on.
** Beyond that, Gesicht seems to have incorporated a transmission from Atom into a dream at one point, such that it's basically a [[Psychic Dreams for Everyone|prophetic dream]] until he figures out what happened.
* [[Doomed
* [[Dub Name Change]]: Of a sense. Gesicht was named the much more generic and stereotypical German name Gerhardt in the original Tezuka stories.
* [[Eagle Land]]: The United States of Thracia.▼
* [[The Empath]]: Uran.
▲* [[Eagle Land]]: The United States of Thracia.
* [[Even Evil Has Standards]]: The anti-robot Ku Klux Klan stand-ins were horrified when one of their members killed a robot child. Also, {{spoiler|
▲* [[Endofthe World As We Know It]]
** The first one might be a subversion. While the robot KKK were horrified, they had no problem using the consequences (
▲* [[Even Evil Has Standards]]: The anti-robot Ku Klux Klan stand-ins were horrified when one of their members killed a robot child. {{spoiler|Also, Brau 1589 does not take kindly to an [[Omnicidal Maniac]].}}
▲** The first one might be a subversion. While the robot KKK were horrified, they had no problem using the consequences ( {{spoiler|the enraged robot father breaking the laws of robotics to kill the man in vengence}}) to their advantage.
* [[Expy]]: Several characters look ''a lot'' like characters from some other Urasawa series.
** Granted, several of those Urasawa characters were Expies of Tezuka's Star System, so they're really just coming full circle.
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* [[Fantastic Nuke]]: Epsilon's Photon Energy, which seems to be something like solar-powered intense radiation.
** Not to mention the Anti-Proton bombs that Urasawa is so fond of.
* [[Fantastic Racism]]:
* [[Foregone Conclusion]]:
* [[Girlish Pigtails]]: Uran.
* [[Government Conspiracy]]: {{spoiler|The Bora Investigation was part of a setup to establish the United States of Thracia as the world's main superpower.}}
** Not to mention {{spoiler|the cover-up the European Union pulled when it turned out Gesicht wasn't [["Three Laws
* [[Hair of Gold]]: Epsilon.
* [[Hannibal Lecture]]: Brau 1589, although not in the usual way<ref>We only ever see him interviewed by robots, and the traditional Lecture doesn't quite work on them</ref>; Gesicht eventually exchanges memories with him (to get a killer's perspective on the weird crap that's been happening) and this has a negative effect later on, but he's otherwise cooperative. (Aside from this, he emits powerful magnetic waves that will kill unprotected 'normal' robots within a certain range - 4 have already died this way before the manga starts.)
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** Not just {{spoiler|Gesicht}}, but {{spoiler|Epsilon}} as well.
* [[I Am Not a Gun]]: Pick a powerful robot. Heracles was the most comfortable with the war as a fighter, and even he laments that "That war was no fight" - the others don't handle nearly as well, and deal(t) with it in various ways. (Moreover, given how inclusive society has become, they have no trouble fitting into civilian life, possibly excepting North #2.)
* [["I Know You
* [[Implacable Man]]: Pluto.
* [[Instant Death Bullet]]: Averted with {{spoiler|Gesicht}}; it takes him a while to realize he's been shot with a ''Cluster Cannon''.
* [[Ironic Echo]]: Montblanc didn't like the idea of a statue of him littering the Alps, and while the pedestal was built, the statue apparently wasn't. Heracles didn't like the idea of a statue of him littering the Greek
* [[Just a Machine]]: {{spoiler|The child robot that Gesicht rescues, in particular.}} Otherwise averted, although Ridiculously Human bodies are only that without a mind in it.
* [[Lawyer-Friendly Cameo]]: There's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it one for [[
** ''[[Kimba the White Lion]]'' also makes a cameo as an escaped zoo animal during Uran's debut.
* [[Locard's Theory]]: The fact that no trace evidence can be found at any of the murder scenes leads the investigators to conclude that the [[Serial Killer]] they're looking for is a robot.
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*** In fact, Brau is probably a mistranslation. It's probably supposed to be Blau, German for blue.
* [[Mouthy Kid]]: Uran.
* [[Mythology Gag]]: Several. The various jabs about the doggy cop cars, [[Kimba the White Lion]]'s brief cameo & more. The most brilliant one, though comes from the North #2 mini-arc. Paul Duncan mentions his life was saved by a famous Japanese doctor. But since the doctor's name & face are never shown, we're left wondering whether he's [[Black Jack
** It's almost certainly [[
** In many panels Atom sports a kind of double cowlick, referencing his [[Trope Maker|trope making]] [[Anime Hair]].
* [[Norse Mythology]]: Brau 1589's character design seems to be based off of Odin, particularly the story where Odin sacrificed himself to himself.
▲* [[Norse Mythology]]: Brau 1589's character design seems to be based off of Odin, particularly the story where Odin sacrificed himself to himself.
▲* [[Off With His Head]]: {{spoiler|Epsilon.}}
* [[Out, Damned Spot!]]: Happens to a robot that served with Heracles.
* [[Pacifist]]: Epsilon refused to be drafted due to this, although he readily admits to some cowardice. (The irony being that he's easily the most destructive of the strongest robots.)
* [[Papa Wolf]]: {{spoiler|Gesicht's [[Unstoppable Rage|rage]] at his "son's" death is so great that he breaks one of the [["Three Laws
* [[Person of Mass Destruction]]: Montblanc, North #2, Brando, Heracles, Gesicht, Atom, and ''especially'' Epsilon.
* [[Perspective Flip]]: Essentially this is the original Astro Boy story from the POV of a (previously) minor character.
* [[Post Cyber Punk]]
* [[Posthumous Character]]: Montblanc {{spoiler|and the real Dr. Abullah}}.
* [[Power Born of Madness]]: This is what happens when a robot is filled with rage and hatred, apparently.
* [[Powered Armor]]: Brando and Heracles both use these when fighting in the war and the ring (they're wrestlers during the day), though they have to detach their heads from their general-use bodies.▼
* [[Power of Hate]]: According to Tenma, the only thing that separates humans and humanoid machines is that humans have the capacity to hate others. A machine that possesses this quality is no longer considered merely a machine.
* [[The Power of the Sun]]: Epsilon, as long as he has time to (re)charge in sunlight.
▲* [[Powered Armor]]: Brando and Heracles both use these when fighting in the war and the ring (they're wrestlers during the day), though they have to detach their heads from their general-use bodies.
* [[Red Herring]]: {{spoiler|The fact that scanners identify the figure in the dead policebot's memory files as human. Abullah believes himself to be human so hard that he acts it convincingly enough to fool modern equipment, even when performing obviously inhuman feats like vaulting between two skyscrapers.}}
* [[Replacement Goldfish]]: Atom was [[Trope Codifier|originally created]] by Dr. Tenma as a [[It Was His Sled|replacement for his son]] Tobio.
* [[Restraining Bolt]]: All robots are equipped with a device that dampens emotional responses as one of the failsafes to ensure that they stay [["Three Laws
* [[Retirony]]: {{spoiler|Gesicht}} attempts to retire or get vacation time only pages before he dies.
* [[Ridiculously-Human Robots]]: Almost all of them, except Montblanc and North #2. Gesicht has trouble telling that Atom is a robot at times.
** Many robots, such as Brando and Heracles, use a Ridiculously Human body in their free time in addition to a more "robotic" body for their main jobs, finding that easier to fit in with society.
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* [[Robotic Reveal]]: {{spoiler|Abullah is in fact the robot Goji, who Dr. Tenma created.}}
* [[Robot War]]: The 39th Central Asian Conflict 4 years ago.
* [[Sealed Evil in
* [[Seiun Award]]: In 2010.
* [[Senseless Sacrifice]]: {{spoiler|Brando tried a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] by fighting against Pluto, so Gesicht can use live footage from Brando's eye camera to find Pluto's weakness. But then Brando's life flashes before his eyes, [[Tear Jerker|ruining the Pluto footage and rendering it useless.]]}}
* [[Shell Shocked Senior]]: Several of the robots that participated in the 39th Central Asian Conflict, but ''especially'' North #2.
* [[Shout-Out]]: Arguably, the first appearance of Pluto in Chapter 1 ([https://web.archive.org/web/20170618040805/http://view.thespectrum.net/series/pluto-volume-1.html?ch=Volume+01&page=11 see here]) is a reference to [http://atticannie.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/the-scream-edvard-munch.jpg Munch's painting,] [[The Scream]].
** Accepting that, one gets a second [[Shout-Out]]. Tezuka enjoyed referencing famous works of art in his work, and doing so could be considered a Tezuka reference in itself.
** While Prof. Ochanomizu looks about what you'd expect him to in Urasawa's style, he's apparently based on ''Tezuka''.
* [[Taking You
* [[Teach Him Anger]]: In a double example, {{spoiler|Tenma does this to to both Goji and Atom to awaken them.}} It works, but in completely different ways, and not quite in the way everyone expected. {{spoiler|Goji, overwhelmed by the hatred Abullah carried with him at his death, awakened and proceeded to convince himself that ''he'' was Abullah, and therefore human. Atom instead learns the folly relying on anger and hatred to win, and in fact realized the futility of those emotions instead}}.
* [[There Can Be Only One]]:
* [["Three Laws
** And {{spoiler|Abullah/Goji/Shadow, though this may not technically count, since he apparently [[Tomato in
* [[Ultimate Universe]]: Frequently compared
* [[Unobtanium]]: The Zeronium Alloy that Gesicht is made from, as well as the ultra-heavy Zeronium weapons. They can tear through almost anything, and it takes a special type of particle gun to destroy it.
* [[We Can Rebuild Him]]: Part of Abullah's back story. {{spoiler|A fraudulent part.}}
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:
[[Category:Pages with working Wikipedia tabs]]
[[Category:Manga]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Mystery and Detective Anime and Manga]]
[[Category:Astro Boy]]
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