Pluto

Mangaka: Urasawa Naoki

The original Astro Boy manga introduced young readers to the realities of racial conflict by presenting them on a level children could understand and discuss with their parents, but this meant that Tezuka could not fully explore the more mature psychological and moral issues in the background of Astro's grim world. The rough and episodic nature of Astro's adventures and the long time over which Tezuka developed the world and character also limited his capacity to bring to the fore the emotional and philosophical potential of the universe and characters he had created. Naoki Urasawa's Pluto is, quite simply, Astro Boy for adults. The work is a retelling of the Pluto chapter of Astro Boy, originally entitled 'The World's Strongest Robot,' which looks at the seven most powerful robots on earth as their programming and human vanity force them to fight one another. The original story focused on Astro being asking why humans create these temporary life forms, robots, then bind them to specific programs and hardware which lock them into limited roles in life, and why ultimately do humans make robots destroy each other. Naoki Urasawa preserves this central question, but adds to it many subtler questions about the psychological and social tensions which would arise in a society as densely populated with robots as Astro's.

One new question is how the existence of extremely human-like robots affects both human and robot identity. How do non-humanoid robots feel about those robots who can 'pass' for human? How do humans feel about their growing inability to distinguish human from robot? How do low-powered robots feel about the sophisticated robots who are immeasurably more powerful and important than they are, not by chance, but by human design? How do other high-powered robots feel about Astro, whose uniquely sophisticated electronic brain makes him the only robot to have real human-like learning capacity and to experience nearly-human emotions, and who is also the most universally beloved robot ever created? One might envy Astro as the 'ambassador of peace,' friend to all humans and robots, destined to bring the two races closer, or one might pity Astro as the first robot truly capable of feeling the pain of the conflict between the races and the loneliness of being the only one.

Another focus is robots' capacity to love and have family. The central character followed by the narrative is actually not Astro but the robot detective Gesicht, one of the original Great Seven robots, who is assigned to investigate the Pluto case. Following him we see the experiences of a humanoid robot working with human and robot colleagues, human and robot victims and human and robot witnesses. We also see him living with a robot wife, and dealing with the widows and orphans left when robots are destroyed. The backgrounds and families of the other Great Seven are also filled in, and we see how different super-robots have or have not imitated human lifestyles and friendships. It is also our first real chance to meet Astro from the perspective of an outsider, rather than taking the boy hero as our point of view. References to Astro's home and family remind us of the grim fate of the robotic parents Dr. Ochanomizu created for Astro who, as we recall from the original manga, will be destroyed at Dr. Tenma's order.

Urasawa also adds a detailed investigation of how the existence of super-robots would affect war and the balance of global politics. Taking the shallow political despot who was responsible for the conflicts in the original story, Urasawa creates instead a very realistic middle-eastern war, similar to those which have been so controversial in the last years, and then asks how the existence of robots would change it. How do robots, who are forbidden by their programming from harming humans, feel about fighting wars for the humans where they are forced to destroy one another while unable to harm others? How would mechanized armies change the speed and cost of warfare? How is it fair for there to be a Robot Law when there is no corresponding Human Law limiting humans' capacity to do harm to one another or to robots? And does making robots more and more human also inevitably mean making them capable of hate, irrationality and murder? These philosophical themes are not absent in the original Astro Boy manga, but here Urasawa has brought them much more to the foreground, presenting a mature philosophy of warfare which is clearly closely related to Tezuka's own treatment of it, both in early works like Metropolis and in late social commentaries like Adolf and Ayako.

The art style of Pluto is perhaps as starkly different from Tezuka's original as it is possible for art to be. In Urasawa's rendition, all people and places are reproduced in near-photographic detail with far more realistic proportions and faces than one sees in most manga today. At the same time, Urasawa preserves a very Tezuka-like pacing and layout, with very detailed cityscapes and landscapes of the style Tezuka used to punctuate his work. Urasawa even includes the characteristic 'emotional abstracts' which Tezuka used to convey very intense scenes. (US readers will know these best from the rape scene in Adolf and the enlightenment images in Buddha and Phoenix, but they may be seen as early as the Moth and Flame scene in Crime and Punishment.) The effect makes the visuals a perfect match for the tone and story – this is Tezuka, but a harsh, adult Tezuka, not stylized for children anymore.

Pluto has received the prestigious Osamu Tezuka Cultural award, and praise and honors from all directions, with good cause. Urasawa reminds us why Astro was the most moving and influential of the many hundreds of stories and characters created by the 'God of Manga.' I cannot overstate the quality of this work, nor its emotional impact. After reading it, I found myself re-reading the original Tezuka manga with fresh tears in my eyes. Masao Maruyama and Rintaro, creators of the Metropolis movie who worked with Tezuka on many of his animated works, spoke at AnimeNEXT 2006. I heard a fan there ask them what manga and anime they liked best out of everything Japan had produced. Rintaro answered that they both treasured each and every page Tezuka ever drew. Maruyama added, 'Also Naoki Urasawa.'

This manga review was taken from here

20th Century Boys

by Naoki Urasawa

Plot/Story
To be the greatest superhero you have to understand one thing and thats how to be the greatest supervillian. Kenji runs a former liquor store that is now refurbished into a convience store. Running on hard luck, Kenji has had to fumble with his duties to his convience store and his niece, left in his care by his runaway sister. All these pressures pale in comparison to the coming of a conspiracy that only he and his childhood friends will have to face. Will he be able to figure out the mystery? Can he stop what is to happen in time? Can they really prevent what is foreseen to happen? It really seems impossible.

Characters
The story begins with Kenji and mostly centers around him with his childhood friends. I'm not going to give every character since there is way to many to describe. I will say that each character has his/her own personality. You will start to feel as if you are these character's friend and not just reading a manga... more like you are part of the story trying to save the world along with them.

Drawing Style
I was really amazed by this style. At first I was skeptical thinking it was just another typical style, I was completely wrong. I truly appreciate the characters that exist in this manga and the detailed backgrounds. Urasawa Naoki doesn't do the sexy girls/guys. If you are hoping to find busty girls this manga doesn't have your ecchi intentions in mind. You will find scenes that will give you goosebumps and make your hair stand on the back of your neck as you read on.

Enjoyment
Enjoyed isn't capable of describing what I felt about this manga. I spent 8 hours one night trying to finish this series off. I couldn't put down the volumes even if I had wanted to. The complex and always changing storyline keeps you wanting more. Even if you aren't a fan of mystery which by chance I'm usually not, you will most likely appreciate this one. May turn out not to be a favorite but I have a feeling you will still enjoy reading. When I do finally finish this manga I truly believe I'll be satisfied but at the same time begging for more.

Overall
Excellent story, great artwork, and this all adds up to be one of my all time favorites. I've read lots, lots, lots, (this could go on for a bit) of manga. In the end I always mention 20th Century Boys as a manga someone should pick up or download. Every person I've passed this manga along to has become a radical fan as I have. Nothing more to say than I hope you will join the fan ranks as well.

Story/Plot - 5 out of 5
Characters - 5 out of 5
Drawing Style - 5 out of 5
Enjoyment - 5 out of 5
Overall - 5 out of 5

This manga review was taken from here

Monster

by Naoki Urasawa

The bright white cover of Naoki Urasawa's Monster (VIZ Signature) belies the subject matter of this gloomy suspense series: a serial killer story centered around a gifted Japanese surgeon who may have saved the life of a nine-year-old murderous psychopath.

Set in Düsseldorf, Germany, both before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Monster's hero, Dr. Kenzo Tenma, is introduced as a young brain surgeon on his way up in the highly politicized world of Eisler Hospital. He's engaged to the beautiful and acquisitive daughter of the hospital's director and appears to have it made until a young boy and traumatized girl are brought into the ER. Their parents, a former East German advisor and his wife, have been murdered while the boy Johan has been shot in the head.

Our hero, still smarting over the death of an Arab laborer from the night before, saves the young boy, but at significant cost to his career. He refuses to leave the operating theater when a politically important patient is also brought into the hospital ("No life is worth more or less than another," he states more than once, but as the story progresses, this belief will be severely tested), and the politico dies. Fast-track Kenzo is quickly relegated to a less prestigious position in the hospital; his promised promotion to director of surgery is taken away from him and his fiancé quickly dumps him for a new rising star. In frustration, Kenzo vents his anger to the seemingly unconscious Johan. And before you can say, "Careful what you wish for," both the director and Kenzo's rivals are slipped some poisoned hard candy.

The story quickly moves forward to 1995 – where Kenzo is once more firmly established in Eisler Hospital. A series of murders is in the news, and they look to be duplicates of the killings that originally brought Johan and his sister to the doctor's attention. Investigating both sets of slayings: Inspector Lunge of the Bundeskriminelamt (the German equivalent of the FBI), who looks to be this series' Javert. Sharp-eyed and with a fully catalogued memory that he accesses by tapping an imaginary keyboard at his side, Lunge is sure that Kenzo is connected to the still-unsolved hospital killings. This suspicion will doubtless be compounded when a potential witness to the serial slaying dies while under Dr. Tenma's care.

Throughout the first volume, there are hints that the boy and his sister are connected to something larger. The candies that were used to poison the hospital director, for instance: were they meant for their final victims or for Johan himself? Our serial killer is described by one of his henchmen as a monster, and his ability to show up from one place to the next borders on the preternatural.

Too, throughout the book we're regularly reminded of the first killings' political dimensions. "I thought the world would be a better place with the fall of the Berlin Wall," one disgruntled cop observes as he contemplates the city's escalating crime rate, "but nothing good has come out of it." As with Kenzo's moral decision to save the life of that helpless boy, what seems to be a positive act has possibly led to negative consequences.

Urasawa lays this potentially murky morass straightforwardly. If at times his characters speak more bluntly and thematically than necessary, in part this can be seen be seen as characteristic of the diagnostic world in which they live. Urasawa's art is clean and immediately accessible to Western eyes, while his page layouts frequently can be quite compelling (he's especially strong setting up silent suspense sequences, but can be equally striking just building up to a significant conversation between Kenzo and his flighty fiancé).

Rated for "older teen" readers, Monster has its bloody murderous moments (not to mention a few overhead brain surgery shots), but it's nothing that a CSI fan can't see any night in pre-prime time reruns. Me, I wonder how many teen readers will get caught up in this well-mounted serial's moral ambiguities which, in best noir fashion, are effectively designed to make the reader question what at first seem fluorescently lit moral certainties.

Review Score:

Story : 8,5 / 10

Art : 8.5 / 10

This review was taken from here