Netflix Sci-Fi Murder Mystery Series Takes Anime To Another Level
In the last few years, Netflix has pivoted hard into foreign markets to produce original content which rounds out their K-drama, C-drama, and anime library. One new anime mini-series on the platform deserves your attention, and is arguably one of the best projects Netflix has developed in the last several years. The show in question is titled Pluto, and the entire first season can be streamed in full on Netflix today.
Pluto Anime On Netflix
Pluto was developed for Netflix by Monster creator Naoki Urasawa, based on the hit manga series by the late, great Osama Tezuka. The series was developed in collaboration with Takashi Nagasaki, who previously worked with Netflix to develop the season 3 episode of Love Death & Robots titled “The Very Pulse of the Machine.” The original Pluto manga, which ran from 2003 through 2009, functioned as a modern and mature retelling of the Astro Boy story “The Greatest Robot on Earth.”
Certified Fresh Reception
Fans of the Astro Boy series were surely surprised to see Pluto popping up on Netflix back when it premiered in 2023, as the manga, while quite popular, was long thought to be impossible to translate to film. Plus, the series had been announced six years in advance, with no real updates about the production progress along the way, which left many fans to believe that the show had been scrapped.
Luckily, that was not the case, and the slow and steady production period clearly paid off, as the series touts a positively staggering 100 percent certified fresh critic score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Dystopian Sci-Fi Murder Mystery
Pluto offers eight hour-long episodes, each adapting a volume of the original comic, with perfectly-scaled pacing that never makes the Netflix viewer feel rushed or bored while binging the show. For those unfamiliar with the story, Pluto is a sci-fi murder mystery tale which centers on a not-so-distant future, where robots and humans coexist as equals. The plot follows Gesicht, a robot detective hot on the trail of a serial killer who travels the countryside, intent on slaying robots everywhere he goes.
Carefully Develops Its Characters
As Gesicht attempts to navigate the social and political landscape of robot equality with humans, he connects with Atom, a hyper-advanced android boy who is expected to be the next high profile target of the killer. Pluto‘s Netflix adaptation has been widely lauded as one of the best new anime series in recent memory, as the show carefully takes its time to breathe life into each and every character who appears on screen.
The series touts performances from the likes of Blade Runner: Black Lotus‘ Shinshû Fuji, as well as Yoko Hikasa, Rachel Slotky, Kirk Thornton, Michael Sorich, Erica Schroeder, and Pokemon Masters‘ Laura Megan Stahl.
Overwhelming Fan Response
The fan response to Pluto on Netflix has been absolutely massive, though it seems like the series is having trouble gaining traction with viewers outside of the traditional anime niche. If you’re looking to get into more anime projects but don’t know where to begin, be sure to stream Pluto on Netflix today. The mini-series is brief but quite memorable, and certainly sets the bar high.
