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I think Black Jack may have been included in the Pluto Manga.
Edit:
The second panel proves it!

I noticed that too! There's also a white lion in Pluto; could that be a reference to Kimba?

I think so! It's pretty neat that there's a bunch of references here and there

That's how I personally interpreted it!

Just like Tezuka, Urasawa made a strong anti-war comment in his manga. These two pages are clearly a statement against the war against Iraq, and the false statement by president Bush about the finding of Weapons of "Mass Destruction there". Is 'Thracia' a Japanese synonym for 'America'?

I can't really answer your question, Tetsuwan Penguin. But I'm just going to add another question of mine about PLUTO.

Who is Brau 1589? Did he appear in the original manga? Or is he a completely new character made by Urasawa?

I'm sure that Brau1589 was not in the original Tezuka work. Pluto's origin under Tezuka was either by an evil Sultan (the manga and the 1963 and 1980 animes), or by Tenma (2003 anime). I forget what the name robot that actually built Pluto was (Shadow built Pluto for Tenma). Urasawa transposed the story to a new setting in an analog of the real world. IIRC ancient Persia included land now occupied by the countries of Iran and Iraq, along with parts of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel.

I think Thracia is definitely meant to be the United States. The evil teddy bear is named Roosevelt, and the big caldera thing is in the US too. Wasn't there a movie about that thing erupting and destroying most of the earth?
Anyway, there's little doubt that there's a political commentary here. It makes for an interesting backdrop! I wouldn't name my fictional country Thracia though. America is much prettier-sounding.

"Rejoyce" wrote:I think Thracia is definitely meant to be the United States. The evil teddy bear is named Roosevelt, and the big caldera thing is in the US too. Wasn't there a movie about that thing erupting and destroying most of the earth?
Anyway, there's little doubt that there's a political commentary here. It makes for an interesting backdrop! I wouldn't name my fictional country Thracia though. America is much prettier-sounding.

In fact there is a super-volcano under Yellowstone that erupts every 600,000 years or so. It may be overdue for an eruption right now. Note that the USGS scientists do not believe that a supereruption is due, it is more likely that something less dramatic will happen, like on the scale of Mt. St. Helens or less. A supervolcano eruption would not be the end of the world, or as bad as the meteor strike that extincted the dinosaurs. It would be a major disaster that could render much of the US uninhabitable for decades.

Not if there's a giant bomb inside the caldera, apparently.