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Now I've never been a fan of Astro Boy, nor a big junkie on Osamu Tezuka's works in general. I used to think it dumb, silly, and completely irrelevant (despite knowing that it was the first anime to air internationally.) I've always seen it as more or less a kid's show, children's media even.
I think I may have been wrong... And there is no better piece of media to teach me that than PLUTO.
PLUTO is a work by Naoki Urasawa (Yes, THAT Urasawa; MONSTER(2002) that is a complete adaptation of an entire arc of the Astro Boy manga series. It takes the silly designs and wacky encounters in a much more serious light; reimagines them as realistic and human-like characters who are goal driven and tragic. Using this "Greatest Robot on Earth" arc from Astro Boy, Urasawa has created an incredibly deep story that dives into themes of humanity, what it means to live, and what happens when artificial intellegence treads the line between the two.
I wanted to use this as my first review, for it's fresh in my mind and I was deeply impacted by it. Genre wise I would call this a "Murder-Mystery" or at least that's what it starts out as. It very quickly develops into a drama of sorts as you learn about character backstories and grow attached to them. Do not read further or SUFFER the consequences of SPOILERS~ OOOoooh~!
I'll essentially go over the first two chapters briefly here...
We start off following the life of Europol detective Geischt as he wakes up from a nightmare of his own making. His wife tells him he's been working too hard. Yet as he leaves for work the next morning, he is already on another big case. He does admit that he needs a break before leaving, though. As he makes it to the location, the current inspector is standing over the dead body of... well we don't know yet. We see that the dead body has sheets of metal stuck inside him, fashioned into a set of horns... Some noises transpire outside, a police responder calls it in; our characters quickly run into action to find out that a nearby traffic officer has been attacked, and his robot partner destroyed(murdered!). Geischt leaps into action, jumping off the bridge and quickly tracking down the perpetrator. As he has him at gunpoint, he tells the perp- and us finally- that he's a robot. Scene.
We return with Geischt visiting the wife of the robot who was killed in the attack, as he performs the duty of informing her of his death. She's an older model, but still informs us the readers that robots merely mimic human behavior to a point by telling Geischt that he'll "only be able to pretend to drink her tea." She tells him how she's a maid for a human family, and the boy there was born in the same house as a dog was. The boy and the dog were so close to one another that they were inseperable, and then. The dog died. As the boy cried everyday, she learned a lot about grief. She felt the incredible sadness then as she does now at the death of her husband.
Geischt offers to erase part of her data to ease her mourning.
She refuses. "Please don't erase... my memories of him..."

Really fucking heavy opener huh? Robots are all over the world and some of them look like you and I. There's a murder, and a killer on the loose; on top of the death of a robot and the concept that robots are made to imitate us in order to learn. In order to become more human, perhaps?

Leaving spoiler Territory Now...
I think it's a very gripping intro, and the world itself is so intriguing. I actually got half way through the series before REALIZING it was connected to Astro Boy at all; that's how well they capture that whole mystery and mystique vibe. Geischt is a VERY compelling character later, trust me, in fact an instant obsession with him is what led to this set of website updates! As he grows through the story and we see the mystery of the murders AND his nightmare come to light, I had fun.
How Human... is too human? And does being human... make us predisposed to violence?

I could sit here and paraphrase episodes more and more, but let me just tell you now that I watched the DUB version. Jason Vande Brake's voice as Geischt may be what caused me to obsess so much, he delivers lines in such a somber and painful tone that I felt instantly connected to the good Detective. Mike Pollock of Dr.Eggman fame as Professor Ochanomizu and Patrick Seitz performance as North #2 were also fantastic. I do despise that ProzD (SungWon Cho had a role in this voice cast, though it was thankfully minor; and you know what's funny? His act includes heavy modulation of voice lines anyway. (I may talk about the disease on the industry that is ProzD soon...) In any case, the dub was absolutely fantastic and I recommend it over the sub, a rare occurance but one that I always point out if I prefer it as it is always a special occasion.

I'm beginning to get tired of all this typing, so I'll close this entry now. Please do give it a shot, as it might be what pulls me into the wacky and zany world of Astro Boy...... Only time will tell... Edit: an hour after typing this I realized I forgot that Tezuka created Kimba, Black Jack, and Unico. All things I actually enjoyed before...