Pluto
	 Volume 3
	  Postscript : Why Is Pluto So Good?
	   by Fusanosuke Natsume : Manga Columnist

	Well, I can't just write, "Naoki Urasawa is great!  The End."  After all, I'm getting to 
write the postscript for Pluto itself.
	So what makes Pluto so good?  If the answer was, because exciting things happen and the 
clever presentation draws us in, the question wouldn't need to be asked.  It should be, why 
Urasawa, and why Pluto.
	As the readers of the manga volumes already should know, Atom, the protagonist of 
Tezuka's original work, only appears at the very end of Volume 1.  After it seems this is just 
the story of some plain robot cop Gesicht and the stuff he goes through everyday, you're 
thinking, "What kind of manga is this, anyway?" and then at the very end, Atom pops up, and he 
looks like a completely normal little boy.
	"Wow, so this is Urasawa's Atom!  What powers does he have?  What's he gonna do," you 
think, and at the very end of Volume 2, Uran shows up.  You might say, aha, very clever, but at 
this point, the reader has already been turned into an accomplice.
	At the start of the project, this manga was preceded by the excitement and expectations 
of the very Urasawa from "Monster" and "20th Century Boys" making his own homage to Tezuka manga 
with a remake of Tezuka's "Tetsuwan Atom, the Greatest Robot on Earth" (1964).  But Urasawa set 
out to create something that would not only excite readers who aren't familiar with Tezuka, but 
fulfill the fantasies of hardcore Tezuka fans and manga aficionados as well.  Which is why he 
introduces characters and stories from other Tezuka manga besides "Atom," while still adhering to 
the world and humanistic views of established Urasawa manga.
	For instance, I responded to not only Police Chief Tawashi (Inspector, in the original) 
and Section Chief Nakamura (Inspector, Manager, Chief in the original), but also the dog-style 
police cars and the episode with Uran and the wild animals (From "The Red Cat," although Uran was 
not in this), as well as the Maid Robot's look (from the Future Arc of "Phoenix," I believe), all 
very much Tezuka characters, rendered in Urasawa's style and settings.  But there must be readers 
who simply read and enjoy the story itself much more than these things.
	In other words, this is written so that readers spanning all different ages and 
backgrounds can enjoy it from varying levels of manga literacy.  It is a cocktail of high-level 
collage and homage, full of Urasawa motifs (such as, are human emotions and personalities created 
externally?)
	Now we focus on the art and presentation.  When Urasawa entered college, his art was 
clearly Shinji Mizushima and '70s Tezuka (in fact, an experimental work he created then was 
perfect '70s Tezuka down to every panel), but after Katsuhiro Otomo's 1979 "Domu," his art took a 
sudden shift to the Otomo Children style, afterwords adding enthusiasm and cute girls to the mix 
with "Yawara," and finally establishing the Urasawa style with "Monster."  This can be described 
as a mix of realism and cinematics, brought about by a perfection of Otomo and "gekiga" art 
combined with movie-like angles and panel construction.
	For one thing, Urasawa's characters do not "sweat with impatience."  When asked about 
this, Urasawa laughed, "Well, we don't actually sweat when we feel that way."  Yes, Urasawa is a 
basic follower of cinematic realism.  You can see several of his characters with movie star 
resemblences.
	But the level of realism is different from Tezuka's version of "cinematic."  Tezuka's art 
was a holdover from Disney and early post-war manga which made possible all the bizarre, 
fantastic settings, the blatant disregard for the laws of physics, the gags such as arms 
stretching like rubber.  But unlike the more-realistic Tezuka art from the 1970s onward, the 
origins of Pluto were still in his "kid's art" days, in the worldview of "manga-esque" absurdity.
	So, has Urasawa completely overwritten this absurdity with realism?
	The answer is no.  Urasawa's art and presentation may mislead you, but he still deals 
with the absurd quite often.  "20th Century Boys," for example, is a melding of absurd settings 
and realism.  It is a work, based around the World Expo of the '70s, that depicts the realization 
of "manga-esque" dreams of the children at that time into a nightmarish, dystopian future.  The 
memories of manga history within Urasawa, starting with Tezuka (yes, memories being another key 
to Urasawa's work), are turned into nightmares when portrayed in Urasawa realism.  You could say 
that while nightmares are Urasawa's main theme, the stratification of post-war manga history is 
revealed through his material and methods.
	In fact, Urasawa has always had the "manga-esque" world rendered in realistic art and 
presentation.  In Pluto, you can see him using Tezuka's original robots to provide readers from 
their teens to their 50s with the "memory" of post-war manga history.  And all in the time that 
seinen manga is rapidly losing steam...  THAT, is the present meaning of Urasawa, and Pluto.
	But Urasawa is an author that by his nature, is always attempting to betray the reader by 
showing that their established reality and effected emotions "are all lies."  So Pluto might 
someday betray us, as well.  This unease and expectation is another pleasure of being the reader.

	February 2006