About 2 weeks ago I decided that if I was really going to dive into comics properly I should give Manga a fair shake...but where to start?? I looked around on the internet for a while and realized that there were a LOT of manga titles out there (and a lot that just did not interest me in the least), but eventually I jotted down some titles and set off for the library. I found almost all of the series that I had put down, and grabbed a couple that had the first volumes available at the moment. I settled on Buddha, Vagabond, and the subject of this review...Pluto.
Pluto Urasawa x Tezuka Vol. 1 is the first of 8 volumes released in English and published by Viz Media. Written by Naoki Urasawa (who wrote a few other series that I am excited to check out at some point), it is loosely based on Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy (also to be checked out soon). The plot basically revolves around the investigation carried out by Gesicht, a robot, focusing on a string of human and robot murders.
Story:
The writing by Urasawa is very good here, and I think a special pat on the back should be given to the translator. The story is an intricate murder mystery, and this first volume gives you a good introduction to some of the characters as well as introducing the central murder conspiracy at play. Urasawa does a great job of making you feel for the characters, especially the non-human ones. The story is also very well-paced, something I think is characteristic of the majority of manga works. Since you have basically the equivalent of a 75-100 issue run in the 8 volumes, Urasawa can take these little side-trips to further develop his characters and world. I though I got just about the perfect amount of story for the first volume of eight and was excited to start the next volume.
Art:
I enjoyed the art just as much as the story here, and that's saying something! The art is more realistic than what I was expecting, and quite a bit different than many of the other books I flipped through in the manga section of the library. In the couple manga titles I've checked out so far, it always amazes me how little writing the authors need to do to get the message across, simply because the art conveys the message instead. I really liked the sketchy feel of some pages intermixed with the shaded, technological feel of the cityscapes and the actual robots themselves.
Overall:
I really enjoyed this book and it has convinced me to give some other manga titles a go.
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