My review of the manga Pluto (Vol.1)

Hey Steemians! Hope that you guys had an awesome start of the week!

So today we will review a very popular manga that is called Pluto. A few weeks ago I ordered and read that Manga for the first time and it was such a pleasant surprise!!! So let’s go ahead and talk about it shall we? :)

1- Context and origin of the manga Pluto

Pluto is a re-adaptation of the manga “Astro Boy” which is still known as a masterpiece in Japan. Astro Boy was created in 1951 by the author Osamu Tezuka who envisioned narrating the story of a robot loved by all humans. The manga was so successful that in 1963 it was adapted to become the first ever weekly animated TV series in Japan. In September of that same year it was released in the US as well, with a great success.

2- The actual story and plot of Pluto (Vol. 1)

The manga starts with a very dark tone. The reader learns that there was a wildfire in the mountains and that the robot “Mont Blanc” was found dead by the firefighters and the Professor Reinhardt (his creator), in the middle of what was left. But Mont Blanc is not just a simple robot, he is a super robot that was really loved by all humans. Mont Blanc deeply cared about nature and piece for humanity. He was even developing a sustainable tree harvesting program. Mont Blanc was a unique robot. Soon, the reader finds out that there are some good chances that he was killed. But who could have killed such a strong robot? To make the matter even more complex, some horns are found on top of Mont Blanc’s head. Right there the reader is already intrigued. Inspector Gesicht also known as Robot Model HRS 0288 is in charge of the investigation. Very soon, he has to carry the investigation on another similar murder, a human victim found dead with horns on the head … Could it be possible that the two murder cases are related? Is the murderer a human being or a robot?

3- My impression of the book

I really enjoyed reading this manga because I found pretty interesting topics. Since I study artificial intelligence, I am very interested in robots. I am therefore very interested in the ethical questions that are related with them. The universe developed in the book is a universe where humans and robots work together as colleagues, where there are robots families, where a robot police officer can carry a top secret investigation … In the books, robots even need vacations! In a way, it reminded me of the new game “Detroit become human”, I found many similarities. But those two universe are also different because in the manga Pluto (Vol. 1) , most robots have very good reputation whereas in Detroit become human it is actually more complex than that. In Pluto, funerals are held after robot’s deaths. These seriously raises the question whether a robot will one day fully be considered a human? In Detroit become human, that question is there at any time.

I found the drawings pretty realistic and I like some of the hi-tech ideas that were in the book such as the “table-phone”. Basically a table that acts as a phone but on top of that you can see a hologram of the person you are talking to. Also, I like the idea that robots were absolutely forbidden to kill humans (whether they were good people or mass murderers). To me, that was a very good point in terms of ethics. Even the police officer robots did not have real guns but tranquilizers. Robots even have regrets after having participated in wars and they can even have nightmares. It means that in the book the robots are beyond self-awareness and they really want to emulate the human minds.

In terms of investigation, the reader never ceased to try to connect the pieces of the puzzle, because as the story goes more people get killed (in the most bizarre way). This keeps the story very intriguing.

4- Conclusion

If you are into fiction, AI or manga Pluto is the right book for you. The book raises many ethical questions. This book can be a real inspiration for anybody that wants to write fiction about AI or who is thinking about the ethics in AI. I also recommend the book “The moon is a harsh mistress” that I will review in a future post.

See you guys tomorrow for another post! :) Please refer to the link here [2] to see what’s coming next.

References

[1] Manga Pluto by Urasawa - Tezuka

[2] https://steemit.com/blog/@juv79505/updates-on-the-channel

Pictures

Picture 1 was taken from https://goo.gl/8WzCsc

Picture 2, 3 and 4 were taken from my Pluto book that I purchased on Amazon.

juv79505 sincerely thank you for reading this article. Please feel free to comment below in case you have ideas, questions, suggestions or simply want to criticize this article. Also, note that the first picture used in this article was extracted from the google section “pictures labeled for commercial reuse”. Stay tuned for more articles on health, environment, artificial intelligence, video games, technology in general, books, graphic novels, geography, history, sports and much more!

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