The highly-anticipated Pluto anime is now streaming on Netflix. All of the eight episodes have been released, averaging an hour each. You can check out the final trailer prior to the series release:
Studio M2 is animating the series, while GENCO is producing it. Toshio Kawaguchi is directing it, with Shigeru Fujita as the chief animation director and character designer. Meanwhile, Studio M2 founder Masao Maruyama and Takashi Nagasaki will serve as the producers, Masafumi Mima as the sound director, and Yuugo Kano as the music composer. The cast for the anime includes:
- Toshihiko Seki as Pluto
- Shinshu Fuji as Gesicht
- Yoko Hikasa as Atom
- Minori Suzuki as Uran
- Hiroki Yasumoto as Mont blanc
- Koichi Yamadera as North No.2
- Hidenobu Kiuchi as Brando
- Rikiya Koyama as Hercules
- Mamoru Miyano as Epsilon
- Toshio Furukawa as Dr. Ochanomizu
- Eizou Tsuda as Dr. Tenma
- Romi Park as Geschit’s wife, Helena
- Michio Hazama as Duncan
- Hideyuki Tanaka as Brau-1589
- Kazuhiro Yamaji as Professor Abullah
- Kenyu Horiuchi as President Alexander
The Pluto anime was first announced in 2017 at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in France. It has been in production for 7 years, with Studio M2 founder Masao Maruyama confirming in 2022 that the anime is still in the works. The first sneak peek for the anime was released in February this year, then a key visual a month later.
The Pluto manga is based on Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy manga, specifically the The Greatest Robot on Earth arc. Pluto, written by Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki, was serialized in Shogakukan’s Big Comic Original magazine from September 2003 to April 2009. Viz Media has licensed the manga in English, describing the first volume as:
In an ideal world where man and robots coexist, someone or something has destroyed the powerful Swiss robot Mont Blanc. Elsewhere a key figure in a robot rights group is murdered. The two incidents appear to be unrelated…except for one very conspicuous clue – the bodies of both victims have been fashioned into some sort of bizarre collage complete with makeshift horns placed by the victims’ heads. Interpol assigns robot detective Gesicht to this most strange and complex case – and he eventually discovers that he too, as one of the seven great robots of the world, is one of the targets.
Source: Netflix
© Tezuka Productions / Naoki Urasawa, Takashi Nagasaki / “PLUTO” Production Committee
