Written by Heisuke Yamashita and Tatsurou Inamoto, it is based on the Pluto: Urasawa × Tezuka manga series by Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki, in turn based on the story arc "The Greatest Robot on Earth" from Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy.

The series follows the Europol robot detective Gesicht in his attempts to solve the case of a string of robot and human deaths around the world where all the victims have objects shoved into or positioned by their heads, imitating horns.

Ali Griffiths of Digital Spy said, "Pluto sets a new gold standard for Netflix original anime.

[9] Elijah Gonzalez of Paste magazine applauded the story's fresh takes on themes first introduced in Isaac Asimov's laws of robotics.

[10] Joshua Rivera of Polygon called Pluto "one of the best sci-fi murder mysteries you can watch this year".