The third volume of Pluto doesn’t really focus on Inspector Gesicht like the previous volumes, instead it builds the world around him further and sets up more pieces for the rest of the story. Gesicht still appears throughout the volume, but he’s mentioned more than he’s actually there. It’s still an essential piece of the story that really develops the themes and other characters.

Atom’s sister, Uran, who appears at the end of volume two features heavily. She has the ability to sense the emotions of robots, humans, and animals from miles away and discovers a robot who is distressed and nearly dying hiding in a park. Slowly she nurses him back to health, discovering that he’s painting on the walls. There’s a great moment where Uran gives him more colours to paint with and for one panel the manga is in colour to show his painting of flowers. It’s a brief moment of beauty in the dark and often grimy story.

At the same time Adolf Haas plays a big role in this volume. Three years ago, Haas’s brother was killed and his body was kept for three years by the police. Once Haas has recovered the body, he starts to suspect that a robot, Inspector Gesicht to be precise, is the one who killed him. Haas is also part of a anti-robot rights group that fears the prominence of robots. It’s compared in the manga to the Ku Klux Klan, and that’s exactly what it is. Discrimination is one of the major themes of the volume and a really dark part of the story is revealed in this volume, as the group wants to use Haas’s brother’s death to push their ideology. The reason that Haas’s brother dies is also not revealed, just that he did something horrible when he alive, as everyone wants to make it clear that they don’t condone his actions. It’s very gripping and you just want to know more about what’s happening.

Pluto is a really special manga that has been consistently good from the first page. Naoki Urasawa adapts the classic Astro Boy story into a much grittier story that deals with some heavy themes. It’s very gripping and I’m looking forward to reading more of the story.