Often referred to as “the godfather of manga,” pioneering writer and artist Osamu Tezuka is widely credited with helping give Japanese comics and animation their distinctive look and visual language. But he inspired generations of creators in very specific ways, as well as in general industry-wide ways. The manga series Plutoserialized from 2003 to 2009, is an example – based on an arc from Tezuka’s signature AstroBoy manga series, Pluto was an award-winning and best-selling series, a series that reimagined Tezukas in the mid-1960s “Biggest Robot in the World” Story arc for a new generation, as a cyber noir tale about a future detective who pursues a series of murders that may have been committed by a robot.
Netflix has now released its first teaser for an anime adaptation of Pluto, which once again updates the look and feel of the original manga series. The four-minute trailer sets an explosive fight and other scenes from the series to music with no audible dialogue, but features fast-paced action, a cold yet artfully beautiful tech-centric future, and a grim, adult-oriented design from the manga series illustrated by Naoki Urasawa a screenplay he and co-creator Takashi Nagasaki co-wrote.
The series is produced by the anime house GENCO (Sword Art Online, Accel world), with animation production by Studio M2. The series starts in 2023.
