Pluto may not be a manga that is widely perceived in the English circle, but if you are a fan of “the God of Manga” Osamu Tezuka or have ever heard of the name Astra Boy, you’ll understand why the expectation of an anime series is high-rocketing when it first reveals its steam in Netflix earlier this year.
On Saturday at the Netflix panel at Anime Expo, Pluto executive producer Masao Maruyama took the stage to talk a little bit about this upcoming adaptation of Naoki Urusawa’s famed take on Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy. At the packed Main Event panel, Maruyama mentioned his aspiration of producing this signature manga into a fully-fledged animated series.
“I joined the Japanese animation industry when there wasn’t a word for “animation.” We called it moving pictures at that time. And ever since that, I’ve been in this industry for 60 years. And I’m pleased that I could showcase my 60 years of history in this anime series,” said the co-founder of Madhouse, as well as the founder of MAPPA and Studio M2.
Maruyama added that the Pluto anime series was created by a group of energetic creators who just want to do something fun. “We’ve worked Pluto for around ten years and it is probably the longest production we’ve ever made. We basically give it our all in this anime.”
As one of the most experienced producers in the Japanese animation industry, Maruyama has worked in Tezuka’s Mushi Productions in his earlier years, making him the perfect person to be in charge of this anime series that pays tribute to the prominent manga artist.
Reimaging Tezuka’s mid-1960s “Greatest Robot on Earth” story arc for a new generation, Pluto revolves around a cyber-noir story about a future detective chasing down a string of murders that might have been committed by a robot. And to let us understand more about the efforts that the team has poured into the anime, a new trailer was shown during the panel highlighting the conflicts between humans and robots.
Debuting on October 26 on the streaming service worldwide, Pluto will have eight one-hour episodes adapting the complete story told in Naoki Urusawa’s Pluto manga series.”We’ve put a lot of details in every frame of the anime and I basically live on this project for the past ten years. It’s very long and heavy, but there’s a lot of fun either,” Maruyama added.
Maruyama also admitted that when he first saw Urusawa’s interpretation of Astra Boy, he didn’t realize that it was the boy that he was familiar with that signature high pointy hair. “I’m struck by this adult version of Astra Boy. Urusawa has designed the character brilliantly by putting a human side to him. And for this show, we’ll be seeing Astra Boy from the perspective of the protagonist, Gesicht, a detective who is investigating a string of murders targeting advanced robots and key figures in robot law.”
As Maruyama mentioned, the Pluto anime series has a lot of volume and his team was challenged to work every minute in order to recreate the original taste of the manga. “The show actually made us suffer more than having fun. But as Urusawa has said, he also suffered while creating this work. I guess we are two masochistic people who enjoy suffering,” he laughed.
While the world of Pluto takes place in a distant future where robots are argued to be granted equal rights as humans. “Just like the modern where conflicts and battles never ceased, the series is all about hopes and dreams, a common theme that is related to all of us,” the veteran producer concluded the panel with a positive note.
▍Pluto Synopsis
Europol detective robot Gesicht races to solve a string of murders targeting advanced robots and key figures in robot law, uncovering the greatest evil in history. Praised by many as a masterpiece, the manga PLUTO is based on Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy ‘The Greatest Robot on Earth’ arc from 1964 and created by Naoki Urasawa (20th Century Boys, Yawara!, Master Keaton) and his long-time co-creator Takashi Nagasaki. The suspense drama takes place in a neo-futuristic world where humans and high-functioning robots live in complete harmony. The globally acclaimed manga has won numerous awards, including the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize.
▍Pluto Staff & Production
Based on PLUTO by Naoki Urasawa & Osamu Tezuka
Producer: Takashi Nagasaki
Creative Supervisor: Macoto Tezka
Supported by Tezuka Productions and ‘BIG COMIC’ Published by Shogakukan
Executive Producers: Masao Maruyama, Taro Maki, Yuji Yamamoto
Director: Toshio Kawaguchi
Character Designer / Supervising Animation Director: Shigeru Fujita
Creative Advisor: Naoki Urasawa
Supervising Animators: Kazunori Aoki, Kaku Saito
CGI Director / Special Effects Compositor: Takahiro Miyata
Art Director: Chikako Shibata
Compositing Director: Mitsuhiro Sato
Audio Director: Masafumi Mima
Music: Yugo Kanno
Animation Production: Studio M2
Produced by GENCO
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