Gesicht Character Analysis — Naoki Urasawa's Pluto

In both English-speaking and Japanese-speaking circles, Pluto firmly remains one of Naoki Urasawa's best-received and most popular manga of all time, being an incredibly ambitious reimagining of The Greatest Robot on Earth from Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy.

However, despite Pluto's strong reception, its protagonist, Gesicht, remains fairly under-discussed in both circles. And I think that's a bit of a shame. So in this video, I conduct a character analysis of Gesicht through the lens of the dichotomy of love and hate.

If you've seen my SciADV videos, I'm fairly vocal about how characters are usually a less important aspect of a story for me. What matters most to me is a story's themes and its overall message. I view characters as a tool for a narrative to convey said themes. They are an essential element to any story, but not the point of a story. Where I find characters truly compelling is when they are part and parcel of the message the story is trying to convey. And I think Pluto is one series where such a philosophy is most on display, with how intertwined Gesicht's character is with the humanist and pacifist themes of Pluto and Astro Boy. Thus, I felt that a character analysis for him was appropriate, especially with how people had been requesting that I make a character analysis for a good while now. This was the first time I've ever done one so I'd definitely appreciate any feedback you may have! Nonetheless, it's still a little amusing and ironic for someone who normally doesn't care too much for characters to be doing a character analysis. And that is all the more reason I would love to hear your feedback!

On note of this particular analysis specifically, I recognize there are other valid and important lenses to view Gesicht's character through. But to me, it was these two aspects of his character that stood out most to me. That being said, I do realize that I didn't quite get the chance to touch much upon Gesicht's relationship with Helena. But that too is a pretty significant part of his character.

People have been requesting that I do character analyses for a while.

Time Stamps
00:00 Introduction
02:19 Spoiler Warning
02:28 Familial Love and Fatherhood
08:03 The Cycle of Hatred