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A review by thisotherbookaccount
Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka, Vol. 7 by Osamu Tezuka, Takashi Nagasaki, Naoki Urasawa
2.0
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[I’ve decided to post the reviews of the final three books at the same time]
Instead of telling you what happened in this volume of Urasawa’s ‘acclaimed’ manga series, I want to tell you about an experiment I did recently.
For the longest time, I was on a hunt for a good manga or anime. I grew up with them, but discovered, in my adult years, that most of them weren’t actually all that good. Every manga/anime series that I have ever read were based on tired, overused tropes, with endings that dive head first into a dumpster fire. Still, the allure was there, so the hunt never ceased.
Recently, Fullmetal Alchemist — both versions — became available on Netflix. It’s often been called the greatest anime of all time. So, with time on my hands, I watched all 64 episodes of this supposedly ‘greatest anime of all time’ over the course of a few weeks.
The verdict? Not great. It’s better than most, but it’s painfully average at best. Characters follow the same note from beginning to end, the oft praised ‘magic system’ is actually nonsensical if you spend just five seconds thinking about it and the writing/plotting is just lazy. Greatest anime of all time? This ain’t it, chief.
Pluto by Naoki Urasawa is like that.
Volume 7 is full of nonsensical, technobabble you know the author pulled out of his ass. A robot that can SENSE a grieving person halfway across the city? Sure. A catatonic robot programmed with billons of human personalities that can only be woken up by introducing ‘anger’ and ‘hate’ — sure, whatever. Each of the seven books thus far introduces a character, barely builds him up as one, only to kill him off at the very end in a flashy fight in the sky. Rinse and repeat. Meanwhile, we are none the wiser with regard to the central mystery.
Who is Pluto? Who is Bora? Who is Abdullah? What does he want?
Who cares.
[I’ve decided to post the reviews of the final three books at the same time]
Instead of telling you what happened in this volume of Urasawa’s ‘acclaimed’ manga series, I want to tell you about an experiment I did recently.
For the longest time, I was on a hunt for a good manga or anime. I grew up with them, but discovered, in my adult years, that most of them weren’t actually all that good. Every manga/anime series that I have ever read were based on tired, overused tropes, with endings that dive head first into a dumpster fire. Still, the allure was there, so the hunt never ceased.
Recently, Fullmetal Alchemist — both versions — became available on Netflix. It’s often been called the greatest anime of all time. So, with time on my hands, I watched all 64 episodes of this supposedly ‘greatest anime of all time’ over the course of a few weeks.
The verdict? Not great. It’s better than most, but it’s painfully average at best. Characters follow the same note from beginning to end, the oft praised ‘magic system’ is actually nonsensical if you spend just five seconds thinking about it and the writing/plotting is just lazy. Greatest anime of all time? This ain’t it, chief.
Pluto by Naoki Urasawa is like that.
Volume 7 is full of nonsensical, technobabble you know the author pulled out of his ass. A robot that can SENSE a grieving person halfway across the city? Sure. A catatonic robot programmed with billons of human personalities that can only be woken up by introducing ‘anger’ and ‘hate’ — sure, whatever. Each of the seven books thus far introduces a character, barely builds him up as one, only to kill him off at the very end in a flashy fight in the sky. Rinse and repeat. Meanwhile, we are none the wiser with regard to the central mystery.
Who is Pluto? Who is Bora? Who is Abdullah? What does he want?
Who cares.