Posted by Released on Netflix in October 2023, Pluto represented a new sensational release based on a popular Japanese manga series aimed at pleasing the fans of the genre. Based on the popular manga by Naoki Urasawa, the story follows a complex investigation set in a future where humans and robots try to coexist. The plot is dense with events and aspects that may need to be explained: who is trying to kill the most advanced robots on Earth? Who are Pluto and Bora? What is the final message by Atom, and what happens in the ending? Let’s explore everything together.
Netflix’s Pluto plot explained: Bora, the robots & the ending
The Netflix series Pluto is set in an undetermined future where robots are so advanced that they can no longer be distinguished from humans. There are laws that protect robots’ rights, but also rules the robots have to respect: they cannot harm humans in any way. Robots work in jobs like every other human, like soldiers, maids, or police officers. However, pretty early in Pluto‘s plot, we see the seven most advanced robots in the world being destroyed one by one by a mysterious entity: they die with horns staged on their head, simulating the Roman God of the dead Pluto, and this detail is not explained in the Netflix series until the ending.
Mont Blanc, North No. 2, Brando, Hercules, Atom, Gesicht, and Epsilon are the seven most advanced robots currently living in Pluto, progressively dying one after the other while fighting against a mysterious threat. As the plot in Pluto starts to reveal the motives behind the events, we discover that the scientists who created those robots are targeted, too. It seems it has something to do with the 39th Central Asian War and Bora Fact-Finding Mission, an expedition organized by Western nations to verify if Persia is really developing robots of mass destruction. No evidence will be found, but the war against Persia will start anyway, destroying the country. As Pluto progresses, we realize that this is the event that triggered everything: let’s see how the plot has explained it to us.
The 39th Central Asian War against Persia was pushed by the United States of Thracia, which intended to invade Persia independently from the evidence found. The population of Persia perceived this as an act of aggression, and all the consequences generated a massive hatred in the war’s victims. The country will be destroyed; many people will die. Among them, Professor Abullah, the head of the Persian Ministry of Science, will lose almost his whole family. In response to that, he will summon Dr. Tenma, one of the most prominent authorities in Artificial Intelligence, to create the perfect robot.
Dr. Tenma will start developing this “perfect” robot by injecting into it billions of different personalities, from which the robot was supposed to pick the best one. But the selection process was too slow, and the robot needed too much time to decide: for this reason, he never woke up; he was never born. Dr. Tenma knows the solution: he will need to inject into the robot strong human emotions, such as anger, sorrow, or hatred, that will speed up the robot’s selection process. Meanwhile, Professor Abullah dies in the war. That’s when Tenma decides to insert into the robot Abullah’s emotions from his last moment of life. The robot wakes up with Abullah’s face. He’s the Abullah we see during the whole series: he wasn’t the real Persian Minister, but an advanced robot driven by hatred, seeking revenge against the ones who killed him and his family.
With this evil plan in mind, in the years preceding the events we see in Pluto, the robot Abullah will use his son, Sahad, to create Pluto, an aggressive robot programmed to kill all other advanced robots in the world. Pluto is responsible for the deaths of the other robots we see episode after episode. Abullah will also develop an alternative, fictional personality, Dr. Goji, and through it, he will create Bora, the evilest robot ever constructed, entirely driven by his hatred. Pluto and Bora act together with one simple purpose: to destroy the world, completing Abullah’s revenge plan.
When the plot of Pluto comes close to its ending, the most advanced robots in the world are all dead, but Professor Ochanomizu uses Tenma’s ideas and injects Gesicht’s emotions into Atom, bringing him again to life. Atom will be the one facing Pluto and Bora, but it won’t be a fight through brute force: Atom’s empathy manages to enter into contact with Sahad, the personality inside Pluto, changing his intentions. Pluto will ultimately help Atom destroy Bora, the robot filled with hatred. The antiproton bomb is deactivated, and the world is safe. Atom’s speech at the ending of Pluto represents how the series has explained the spirit of what happened: hatred does nothing but generate more hatred and brings no solution; the emotions that really drive the world towards its best are love and empathy.
In the ending scene of Netflix’s Pluto, we discover that even the robot giving suggestions to the President of the United States of Thracia, Dr. Roosevelt, had an evil plan, allowing the world’s destruction so the robots would rule it. After his plan fails, he summons Brau 1589, an old advanced robot, believing he will help conquer the world. But Brau 1589 kills Roosevelt, proving that the robots with the highest intelligence and human emotions can actually have a positive role in human society.
