Forum - View topicQuestion about Plutos relation to Astro Boy.
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Dan297na
Posts: 96 |
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I watched Monster a while ago and recently finished the 20th Century Boys manga. After greatly enjoying both of those I am interested in reading Urasawa's Pluto. The only issue is I have never watched or read anything related to Astro Boy. I see this is listed as a spin off of it, So would I be able to read this without any knowledge of Astro Boy? Would I miss out on anything?
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zawa113
 Posts: 7358 |
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The only thing you really have to know about Astro Boy before reading Pluto is:
#1) Astro Boy's standard origins and a few character relationships:spoiler[ Dr. Tenma made him after his son Tobio died to look like Tobio. For one reason or another he essentially disliked Astro for not actually being Tobio so now Astro lives with Prof. Ochanomizu, kinda like a surrogate father. Dr. Tenma is kinda crazy and kinda rethinks this and goes "wait, I made a super power robot, I should do something with that! But oh curses, he's not actually with me" so he will take opportunities sometimes to modify Astro to have less of a soul from time to time. Prof. Ochanomizu can do most basic repairs, but only Dr. Tenma can repair Astro when he's been destroyed beyond belief.] #2) The Greatest Robot in the World arc. I'd watch the 1980 version of it. In sub for the love of god. It's two episodes long. Or you can read volume 3 of the Astro Boy manga (as Dark Horse has it published, some libraries will carry Astro Boy manga). Pluto is kinda an extension of this story line. spoiler[There are 7 robots said to be the greatest in the world in terms of horsepower and whatnot: Astro, North #2 (also called Norse), Brando, Epsilon, Mont Blanc, Hercules, and Gesicht (also called Gerdhardt. They're not all necessarily fighting robots or anything, they're just highly advanced. With the help of a crazy scientist, a rich sultan creates Pluto and orders him to destroy the other 7 said robots so that he'll be the greatest robot in the world. The mad scientist of course makes his own robot, Bora, that's even stronger than Pluto.] spoiler[Pluto is actually told from Gesichtt's point of view for the most part and changes the story line from being a straight fight 'em up thing to being a mystery-drama thing. Also changes events and order of stuff and whatnot]. I would expect that because Astro Boy is so well known in Japan that the Japanese audience already knew this storyline before they started reading Pluto, much like we know the basic Romeo & Juliet storyline before seeing any reworking of it. Now I think you could read Pluto without knowing any of this, but I think the background information would help too. I didn't really have a choice since I already knew this story arc so you'd have to ask someone else who had read it with no background then found out info later if they would've preferred the background info at the time or not, but I'd imagine it'd make it easier. At the same time it might've taken out some of the suspense because I already knew the storyline basics, but it also reworks the story too. But if you would need to know anything before starting Pluto, it'd probably be the above spoilers. |
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Drazic
Posts: 5 |
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I don't think there's anything you need to know about Astro boy to be able to enjoy the series. (If I recall correctly they explain pretty much everything you need to know about who made Atom (astro boy) and such.) If you do want some background info then I only agree with classicalzawa's first spoiler. Knowing more about the story would just spoil it.
I read it like that and think it's always better to start a series without knowning too much about the story and think it's the same here. |
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