Plastic Memories

Eighteen-year-old Tsukasa Mizugaki has failed his college entrance exams, but after pulling some strings, he manages to land a job at the Sion Artificial Intelligence Corporation. SAI Corp is responsible for the creation of "Giftias"—highly advanced androids which are almost indiscernible from normal humans. However, unlike humans, Giftias have a maximum lifespan of 81,920 hours, or around nine years and four months. Terminal Service One, the station Tsukasa was assigned to, is responsible for collecting Giftias that have met their expiration date, before they lose their memories and become hostile.

Promptly after joining Terminal Service One, Tsukasa is partnered with a beautiful Giftia named Isla. She is a Terminal Service veteran and considered the best in Giftia retrievals, contrary to her petite figure and placid nature. Time is fleeting though, and Tsukasa must come to terms with his feelings for Isla before her time is up. No matter how much someone desires it, nothing lasts forever.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Adaptation:

Plastic Memories: Say to Good-bye, Plastic Memories: Heartfelt Thanks

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Characters & Voice Actors

Isla

Main

Amamiya, Sora
Japanese

Mizugaki, Tsukasa

Main

Takumi, Yasuaki
Japanese

Kinushima, Michiru

Supporting

Akasaki, Chinatsu
Japanese

Zack

Supporting

Yahagi, Sayuri
Japanese

Miru, Eru

Supporting

Uesaka, Sumire
Japanese

Hanada, Yasutaka

Supporting

Tsuda, Kenjirou
Japanese

Kuwanomi, Kazuki

Supporting

Toyoguchi, Megumi
Japanese

Nina

Supporting

Kuno, Misaki
Japanese

Constance

Supporting

Hino, Satoshi
Japanese

Sherry

Supporting

Terakawa, Aimi
Japanese

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Staff

Toba, Yousuke

Producer

Oowada, Tomoyuki

Producer

Kananiwa, Kozue

Producer

Kamata, Hajime

Producer

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Opening Theme

"Ring of Fortune" by Eri Sasaki (佐々木恵梨) (eps 2-7, 9-13)

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Ending Theme

	1: "again & again" by Melody Chubak (eps 1)
	2: "Asayake no Starmine (朝焼けのスターマイン)" by Asami Imai (eps 2-7, 9-13)
	3: "Ring of Fortune" by Eri Sasaki (eps 8)

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Reviews

Jun 27, 2015

HaXXspetten

Recommended

When I first started watching Plastic Memories back in April I was immediately very impressed by it because the first episode was simply amazing. It forecasted an original anime with beautiful artwork, an ambient atmosphere, likeable characters and a lot of tragic drama. At the time, I really thought that it would become the next hidden gem, and the biggest surprise of the season.

As it turned out however, Plastic Memories instead ended up being one of the most misleading anime I've seen in quite some time. Unlike what the opening seemed to imply, in reality the show is mostly a cute and light-hearted slice of ... life comedy with quite a lot of romance in it. Now this doesn't mean the anime turned out poorly in the end, quite the opposite in fact, but it never reached the level that I thought it would have reached in the beginning.

The story takes place in a future world where humanoid androids are a common part of human society. The androids, named "Giftias", are fully equipped with human emotions, and help their respective human owners however possible. But the Giftias have very limited lifespans, and thus they need to be taken out of commission before too long. Enter Tsukasa, an 18-year-old boy whom is offered a position at the SAI Corporation; a group responsible for retrieving Giftias who are approaching the ends of their lifespans, and eventually scrap them. Right next to him, we have his fellow co-worker: the incredibly cute and loveable Isla, who is actually a Giftia herself despite her position. The two of them form a team by order of their boss, and they consequently start working together, socializing together, and of course fall in love with each other.

This is how Plastic Memories suddenly becomes something totally different from what it originally promised to be. Despite the premise, the anime is in fact not about the retrieval of various Giftias, nor is it about the SAI Corporation itself or any of the other people working there. Plastic Memories is about Tsukasa, and it is about Isla. That is all. And honestly, that's totally fine in and of itself because they make up one of the cutest couples I've seen in ages, and watching their awkward romance is surprisingly enjoyable no matter how much you see of it. But for a lot of people, this was nothing more than wasted potential because the cool and interesting premise of the story itself is heavily neglected in the process. For everyone who wanted to see a melancholic story about the tragedy of having to say goodbye to your loved ones and how they deal with it... you're probably going to be left disappointed, because Plastic Memories doesn't actually focus very much on that at all other than right at the very beginning. The only character the show ever really emphasizes this point for is Isla herself as her lifespan is of course also very limited due to being a Giftia, but for everyone else... not very much.

However if you can get past the fact that the show is more or less in disguise and try to see it for what it actually is (in other words a romantic slice of life story), then suddenly Plastic Memories is a very enjoyable anime again. Why? Because it actually has *proper romantic development*. Quite a lot of it in fact. This is not the kind of show which ends with a confession in the final episode and nothing more; no, there are actually things happening from very early on in a romantic sense, which is something that is unfortunately very rare in today's anime. Especially seeing Plastic Memories airing in the same season as Nisekoi was pretty amusing to me; they're like night and day in comparison as far romantic progression goes.

Overall, Plastic Memories is an anime which you will probably be given a very different impression of depending on your expectations on it. Is it a good anime? Yes, but it's a completely different anime from what you're most likely anticipating when you start watching it. That doesn't make it a bad show per se, but it feels a bit like false marketing. It's up to each and every viewer to do their best at adapting to what the anime has to offer.

If you're looking for a deeply touching and emotional melodrama like Clannad: After Story or Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso, then sorry to say but you're looking in the wrong place. But for a cute yet beautiful story about young love, it's hard to find a better example than Plastic Memories.

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Jul 5, 2015

ZephSilver

Not Recommended

Human/technology integration has always been a fascinating topic to me. Just thinking of humanity's next leap towards further development being aided by biomechanical intervention could cause even the cynical-minded to wax philosophical. It's a topic that's inspired countless debate and discussion for many; redefining the idea of what it means to be human with the continuously blurred line between man and machine. And what better way to view this delicate balancing act than by seeing it unfold through the guise of a romance. It's an interesting "what if" scenario, that, to those who share my fascination with the subject, could find many interesting facets on ...

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Jun 28, 2015

Link_of_Hyrule

Not Recommended

**SPOILER FREE REVIEW**

While Plastic Memories had the potential to be a unique and intelligent show, it instead managed to encompass all of the things that ruin dramas and cause them to fail every time. Forced plot devices that make no sense? Check. Inopportune comedy that ruins the show’s tone? Check. Shallow characters defined entirely by their archetypes or tragic backstories? Check. While this anime showed flashes of good ideas and has its moments, its poor execution dooms it to be lost among the sea of poorly written, mediocre emotion porn.

Synopsis: In the near future, technology has allowed for the invention humanoid-like robots known as “giftias”, ... who look, talk, feel, and emote exactly like actual humans do. The catch is that they can only operate for a little over a decade before they must be shut down, resulting in the loss of all their memories. The story follows Tsukasa, a human, and his relationship with Isla, a giftia.

The biggest and most obvious problems with this anime stem from its forced and melodramatic plot devices that range from just plain stupid to cringeworthy. For example, when Tsukasa and Isla first become partners at work, we are suddenly told that this means they have no choice but to live together! Because that makes total sense and is definitely not a lazy plot device to provide a setup for bonding and slice of life shenanigans! The other one that sticks out is the big “reveal” they make about what happens to giftias if they aren’t properly retrieved, which defies all notions of common sense and even basic science. That’s especially bad given that this show has a science-fiction setting for some reason. In fact… was there ANY reason for there to be robots in the first place? Literally the only difference between a human and a giftia is that giftias lose their memories after a certain period of time, so now that I think about it, that makes the entire sci-fi setting and concept of giftias in general completely pointless and nothing more than yet another contrived plot device for drama’s sake. They certainly didn’t explore any sort of difference between the two life forms; it’s very much an accepted fact that giftias are equal to humans, so why was everyone not just regular people to begin with? Was there no other scenario they could come with that incorporated death-like elements, like, y’know, DEATH? It’s this kind of thing that makes the show very difficult to take seriously.

There are other major issues with the show’s plot, namely how laughably predictable it is. You can LITERALLY guess every major plot point of the entire show by the end of the first episode, and I’m not exaggerating, because I literally did. I just kept waiting and waiting for something that I didn’t see coming a mile away to happen, and with the exception of a single contrived plot device which I already mentioned (a plot device that doesn’t even lead to anything…), it simply never does. Now, one thing that I will give the show credit for is that is has some genuinely sweet moments. The final stretch of the show made me feel something, at least. However, then it just sort of… ends. And it ends, like, EXACTLY how you would expect it to. I guess what I’m trying to get at here is that it left me with a feeling of “So what?” I mean, you told one of the most obvious and straightforward stories I’ve ever seen, so much so that I could have stopped watching after a single episode and gotten the gist of it, so what did you put into your show that justified the time it took to watch another 12 episodes? Were there any meaningful themes? No. Did the characters learn anything or change in any meaningful way? No. So why would anyone EVER want to watch the entirety of this show? *Sigh, I don’t know if this is making sense. Let’s just move on:

The last aspect of the plot that really bothered me was the random comedy that completely ruined the show’s tone by being interspersed throughout parts that are supposed to be serious. To give an example, the first episode of this show really hooked me. At the very end of the episode, there was a well-executed and genuinely emotional scene that was actually getting to me. I’m the kind of person who almost never gets legitimately emotional when watching a TV show, but this one scene was just hitting all the right notes for me. By the time it was over, I thought we had an extremely promising show on our hands. Now, guess what this beautiful, emotional scenario was immediately followed by: …A BATHROOM JOKE. That’s right. No relevance, no context. They just decided to throw in a random bathroom joke and ended the episode on a ridiculous note instead of a serious and powerful one. That, to me, is a decent microcosm of the entire show. Every time you might be about to get invested in a serious scene, WHAM! Random, generic, slice-of-life comedy comes out of nowhere and blindsides the plot. It’s just a disastrous display of a lack of tonal understanding and, ergo, bad writing.

I think the real thing that would have saved Plastic Memories for me was if the characters were given any form of depth whatsoever. Tsukasa, our protagonist, is a cardboard cutout straight from the generic, beta, male protagonists factory. My god, there was, nothing, NOTHING unique about him. I don’t think I’m alone in the sediment that I don’t care about other people’s relationships if I don’t know them, and I certainly didn’t feel like I knew Tsukasa, so how am I supposed to give a damn about him and Isla’s relationship? Speaking of Isla, talk about yet another shallow character. I put her squarely in the mary-sue category, given that she is an idealization of a pure, innocent, kawaii waifu with no real flaws whatsoever. Can she be funny at times? Sure. Does that mean I at all cared about her? No. As for the side characters? Boring. Bland. Generic. They are all basic stereotypes with nothing to distinguish them. I know they attempt to give a few of the side characters a backstory, but the backstories don’t actually accomplish anything other than just being sad. They do absolutely nothing to add a dimension to the character they are attached to and none of them are given any form of a story arc. I’ve seen casts like this a million times. The characters, to me, might be the biggest reason the show failed. I might have been able to overlook all the previously mentioned problems with the plot if this show actually gave me a reason to care about the couple of Tsukasa and Isla, but they simply don’t.

Pretty much the only thing I can definitively say I liked about Plastic Memories was the animation. It’s pretty fluid, but what really got me was the cinematography and shot composition. Besides the number of Evangelion references they threw in, there were a lot of well thought out and extremely well directed scenes that actually succeeded in conveying information and emotion without words. That’s VERY difficult for a show to do, so kudos for that. The settings were always detailed and full of bright colors as well. The world looked really cool, which is part of the reason I wanted them to actually tell me something about it. Like, literally anything would have been nice. Instead, the writing is so barebones that it could have taken place pretty much anywhere else, and that brings us full circle, doesn’t it?

I wanted to like Plastic Memories. Really, I did. It didn’t have to be some complex, philosophical inquiry into the definition of humanity and how it differs from artificial intelligence (which is the kind of show that many expected it to be); I would have been totally content with it just being a drama if they actually gave me a reason to care about its characters. If they didn’t ruin every moment they ever created with inopportune comedy. If they didn’t make the plot so damn predictable. If their plot devices weren’t so incredibly contrived. There were simply too many major problems to overlook, and that forces me to make the sad conclusion that Plastic Memories is a massive missed opportunity for what could have been a really enjoyable original anime. It lacked direction and coherent writing on all fronts, and I cannot recommend it to anybody.

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Mizugaki, Tsukasa

Kinushima, Michiru

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