After taking a quick video detour with our extremely serious and scientific RANKING OF ROBOTS - the Urasawa Boys are back to wrap up this season on Pluto! We spend some time talking about our final feelings on the comic before getting into some of the neat stuff from the afterwards of each volume, which Matt admits, he should have been reading the whole time! After that we get into a few quick questions, and then talk a little bit about what's coming down the road - a brief hiatus, and then the start of a new season on Master Keaton! Thanks for sticking with us through the ups-and-downs of our journey through Pluto, please enjoy this final episode of us getting into it on Tezuka, Urasawa, and all those dang robots! Folks, it's a good one!

Links to the supplemental content mentioned:

Bartkira - A collaborative rewrite/redraw of Akira inspired by The Simpsons

The Anime Business - Documentary series by AnimEigo

How to Read Nancy - A book-length essay on "The Elements of Comics in Three Easy Panels" by Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden

Dinosaur Comics - A truly classic webcomic by Ryan North

Jon - Garfield mini-comic by Gale Galligan

The D*lbert Project - Blog post and post-modern D*lbert cutup comic(?) by Kaleb Horton

Material Covered: Wrap-up / Listener Questions / Final Discussion

Next Time: Master Keaton (Chapter 1 - 12)

Urasawa Boys is a podcast hosted by S. Quinn Morris and Matt Fennell covering the collected works of Naoki Urasawa. You can follow the show on BlueSky and support us on Patreon. The theme music for this season is the track "Clues to the Truth" from the official soundtrack to the anime, composed by Yugo Kanno. Thanks for listening!

CONTENT WARNINGS

We're currently reading Pluto, which contains scenes of gore, violence, bodily fluids, racism, terrorism, death, suicide, weapons/guns, war, civilian and child casualties, war related trauma, the Ku Klux Klan, modern US politics, bugs, child abandonment, and parental trauma. Please proceed with caution!

A quick announcement! In lieu of the traditional wrap-up episode, Matt put together a tournament style bracket to determine which of the robots that appeared in PLUTO was The Greatest Robot on Earth! The full video is available now on our NEW YouTube channel, please go check it out - like and subscribe and all that jazz - and we will be back very soon with the promised wrap-up! Have a great Tuesday, and enjoy that video, because folks - it's a good one!

Material Covered: Pluto: Ranking of Robots

Next Time: Wrap-up / Listener Questions / Final Discussion

Urasawa Boys is a podcast hosted by S. Quinn Morris and Matt Fennell covering the collected works of Naoki Urasawa. You can follow the show on BlueSky and support us on Patreon. The theme music for this season is the track "Clues to the Truth" from the official soundtrack to the anime, composed by Yugo Kanno. Thanks for listening!

CONTENT WARNINGS

We're currently reading Pluto, which contains scenes of gore, violence, bodily fluids, racism, terrorism, death, suicide, weapons/guns, war, civilian and child casualties, war related trauma, the Ku Klux Klan, modern US politics, bugs, child abandonment, and parental trauma. Please proceed with caution!

Ah, Montblanc... Ah, North No. 2... Ah, Brando... Ah, Hercules... Ah, Gesicht... Ah, Epsilon... Ah, Pluto... You lived the live given you without hesitation, self-doubt, shame, or resentment... You carried out your duty, and then you were gone... When will they sit in judgment of the humans who created temporary life, out of a limitless lust for power and control, and then destroyed it?

And just like that - only 18 full months after we began, we've reached the end of our journey with PLUTO. It's been a long weird trek through Urasawa's adaptation of one of the most famous Astro Boy stories of all time - who would have thought that it would take us through the Iraq War, a global financial crisis, and the crushing realization that we're facing a climate apocalypse? Who would have thought that this decade-old comic would still be so relevant today? Join Matt and Quinn for a 5-star runtime discussion of PLUTO's finale - with all the things we love about its plot payoffs, its emotional beats, its cinematic fights, and its incredible artistic restraint and characteristically Urasawa simultaneous metaphoric excess. (Speaking of excess, what is Matt on in this episode description!) Thank you for joining us on this science-fiction odyssey, please enjoy this final outing - folks, it's a good one!

Material Covered: Pluto (Chapter 56 - 65)

Next Time: Pluto - Wrap-up / Listener Questions / Final Discussion

Urasawa Boys is a podcast hosted by S. Quinn Morris and Matt Fennell covering the collected works of Naoki Urasawa. You can follow the show on BlueSky and support us on Patreon. The theme music for this season is the track "Clues to the Truth" from the official soundtrack to the anime, composed by Yugo Kanno. Thanks for listening!

CONTENT WARNINGS

We're currently reading Pluto, which contains scenes of gore, violence, bodily fluids, racism, terrorism, death, suicide, weapons/guns, war, civilian and child casualties, war related trauma, the Ku Klux Klan, modern US politics, bugs, child abandonment, and parental trauma. Please proceed with caution!