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Major spoilers ahead
Preface

Have you ever wondered why the ancient greeks or romans had so many gods that all had a certain job?
It was because they need a deity to explain the unexplainable. Thunderstorms, the ocean, harvest, love and most importantly in this context - Hatred.
Some emotions are engrained into us, they are part of our human existence. Every living person has probably felt them and will continue doing so until they are dead.
Hatred is something we all have experience some way or another. May it be someone stealing our toy in elementary school or more extreme, losing someone precious because of another person.
In Pluto Naoki Urasawa examines hatred as part of our human condition and if it is possible to overcome it through a futuristic society with characters based on an old Astro Boy story.
__ "The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."


In 2003 the United States of America began invading Iraq with the premise of them being in possesion of nuclear weapons. This wasn’t just an impulsive decision but a long planned strategy following the 9/11 terrorist attacks that left America in shock, since there had never been such an attack on what was considered the worlds greatest country (atleast by themselves).
Although the war itself was not that long it left the country of Iraq in a state of terror that resulted in a brutal civil war and in total 103,160–113,728 civilian deaths compared to the “small” number of deaths in 9/11 (2.996). Atleast Bush had now proven that he wouldn’t just watch as the 100.000+ Iraqi civillians planned to terrorize the world.

In Pluto Urasawa pretty much copies the Iraq War and uses it to forge the historical backbone of the story. The United States of Thracia, an obvious reference to the USA, invade The Kingdom of Persia under the same promise of destroying the robots of mass destruction that Persia is supposed to posses (which later of course turns out to be untrue). This leads to a giant war between robots and humans that leaves thousand of people and children dead. And although the war was won by the United States of Thracia the seven robots that fought in the war still suffer from it and some question their decision and actions in the war. Heracles especially realizes that the war was driven purely by hatred and that this hatred is still lingering on to this day. Other aspects that show deepen this reference is the "Bora Investigation Squad", a hint at the Battle of Tora Bora which was an underground cave system in which US forces fought against al-Qaida.

Ultimately the 39th Central Asian Conflict is what gives birth to Pluto through Abra’s hatred and trauma that he suffered from it. Persia was left broken with it’s citizen either dead or traumatised. Can you truly blame Abra for giving in to his hatred in such a desperate situation ?



Cycle of Hatred

“All I remember is running for my life, naked. Running from something. I don’t know what it was but it was terrifying”

Another aspect of Pluto, which shows Urasawa’s genius storywriting and historical knowledge, is an allegory to older times. To be exact Urasawa connects a historical event from 334 BC to emphasize on the cyclic nature of hatred. In 334 BC Alexander the Great, king of Macedon, decided to invade the ancient Kingdom of Persia and subsequently defeated it by slaughtering thousands of soldiers and leaving the capital in flames. King of Kings of Persia at that time was Darius III who was defeated by Alexander and died later in battle. The reference to Bush and Hussein is obvious, both serve as a direct image of Alexander the Great and Darius III aka President Alexander and Darius XIV. Two leaders that are lead by hatred and killed thousands of people. The Thracians also were a folk that lived near Macedon making the reference even more clrea

However it’s not only war that leads to hatred, it can be much more simple. The KR became more popular when “Robot Layoffs” created a huge force of displaced unemployed workers who could not provide for their families and blamed their anger on the robots that “took” their jobs. This anger reflects upon their children who grew up to become anti-robot extremists although they had never experienced any discrimination from robots themselves. It’s a common thing in our modern society as well. In the US the vast majority of parents passes on their political views and religious opinion onto their children without giving them a chance to form their own. Children should be able to from their own opinions instead of being passed down their opinions through their parents.

As I mentioned in the start deities have always been used to explain essential parts of our human existence. Hatred being one of these parts is shown in these allegories quite well. Event hough Alexander and Darius fought themselves long before our time we have learned nothing from it and continue to give into hatred and slaughter each other like beasts.

All to Human

“You should be able to understand something this simple!! If you’re one of those fancy robots!!”

Robots have grown eerily close to humans in Pluto. Not only do some of them look like humans but their ways of living have evolved to be more and more like ours. Brau-1589 (1589 may be a reference to the Tianmen-Square protests) plays a central part in the story as he is the first robots that ever killed a human, something that seems unexplainable since robots should be unable to ever harm a human. After investigating Brau they found out that there was nothing wrong with him, his circuits worked just as normal but he still managed to kill someone. Through Brau-1589 Urasawa tries to show that the hatred that us humans posess is what had driven Brau to kill someone, he had become to close to us and was able to feel our hatred. Professor Tenma even warned the other researchers about this exact problem. A perfect robot is not a robot that is capable of feeling human emotion but one that is devoid of it.

“The scars carved deep… you must reach in… and pull it out. You’ll remember clearer than ever, the true hatred…”

Gesicht starts noticing this after getting involved with the KR (a anti-robot version of the KKK) and rethinking his old experiences. He killed a human out of pure hatred and had his memory erased so that he won’t have to deal with the repercussions of it. But these repercussions are exactly what he has to deal with and confront. He cannot just forget about what he did, he has to accept it and learn from it. It is fine to hide our experiences from others but we should never repress them and forget them. North #2 used a cape to hide his body that was made for killing other robots but he never forget the terror he created in the war. In this aspect us humans are prone, we forget things which robots do not. Hercules, who sufferfed greatly from the aftermath of the war, explains it quite well “As long as our memory isn’t erased it stays forever… I can still remember that war, fresh and clear...”. He never forgot about the war and this gives him a clear view on his own and others hatred. His final battle against Pluto is not driven by his hatred that he had abandoned but by logic. He only wants to prevent more death not kill Pluto out of revenge.


Overcoming hatred

With all that Urasawa already tried to tell us there remains one question: Is it possible to overcome hatred since it is one of our most basic emotions and apart of our human condition?

Pluto was the result of hatred and trauma from war. Abra created him by putting his own son into the sleeping body of a perfect robot and let it run rampant on a single emotion but he himself was just a slave to his own emotions as Uran notices: “He’s not the only one being controlled…even Mister Geppetto (a reference to Pinnochio’s creator). For some people, like Abra, it is impossible to turn back. They have given into their hatred for far too long and it has become their essence of life. When Tenma revealed to Abra that he is only a robot of his original self that runs on the emotions he felt before he died in the war he goes crazy because he cannot comprehend that he has been enslaved by his own hatred. Pluto is different although he is also driven by hatred he was never fully enslaved to it. In his heart remained his old self who was a pacifist that shared a similar dream with his father of reforesting his destroyed homeland.

Overcoming our own hatred is what it means to be human, a robot driven purely on hatred can never become like us. When Atom reawakened after his death he almost lost himself in his anger but managed to overcome it. This is what finally proved that he has become human. He earned something worthy of being called a heart, as Brau-1589 calls it. In his last act of the manga Brau-1589 does not only pull out the lance that was stuck inside of him but also his own hatred even though it is sure to kill him; a beautiful analogy to overcoming our hatred.

"If you understood everything that someone went through, you would understand why they do the things they do,"~~~__

Hatred is like a drug, it’s amazing and gives you drive. Suddenly you have a goal and the power to reach it but once you do you realize it was all for nothing. Hatred makes us lose our logic, it reduces our thinking to emotions and we forget what others have gone through. It requires a good amount of self control to overcome your hatred and recognize others for who they are and what has made them that way. Abra wasn’t born evil and so wasn’t Pluto, they were turned evil by their gruesome experiences during the war. However the difference between them is that Pluto had no chance to become good while Abra gave into his hatred. It is only with empathy and logic that these things start to make sense.

Pluto is easily Urasawa’s most underrated manga. Each character has a purpose, which adds a lot to the story and the message behind the manga, even if they appear for only one chapter. Often dismissed as an odd Astro Boy adaptation that is too rushed and too short it shines as a historically charged murder mystery that tries to explain the existence of our hatred.

Thanks for reading.