Plastic Memories

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 ... exploring that very idea.
Can such a nebulous idea of "true love" be found with a man-made being? Where do we draw the line between augmented reality and primal attraction? Many different forms of media have tried to tackle this intriguing concept; from movies like 2013's "Her" and 2015's "Ex Machina," to novels like Jonathan Lethem's "As She Climbed Across the Table." There are even a few anime titles that tackled this subject as well, such as Eve No Jikan, Armitage III, Chobits and many others. When this topic is done right, it can be a highly rewarding experience, leaving the viewer with something to wrap their heads around.
So when I sat down to watch Plastic Memories, a show that had the right ingredients to make something truly thought provoking, just flush this potential down the toilet, for what essentially was forced melodrama... let's just say I wasn't a happy camper when everything was said and done. Under normal circumstances, I would categorize shows with Plastic Memories's setup as a bait-and-switch, but from the way it was presented, it never seemed to care about, or even acknowledge the ideas it could have implemented. What we have here instead was a cookie cutter rom-com that was oblivious to its own potential.

So no, I didn't get what I wanted, but does that render the rom-com that took its place bad?... Unfortunately yes, it does. It's a show that forces a catch-22 on the audience with an inevitable conclusion spurred on by contrived logistics. It suffered from heavy-handed manipulation at the cost of proper buildup and engagement, which was made all the more noticeable when you take into consideration the setting the show presents everything in.
In the future, sentient androids known as "Giftias" has become incorporated into everyday society. However, like everything else that has a beginning, so too does the Giftias have a limited lifespan as well, with about a decade or so of functionality before they are decommissioned, resulting in their memories being erased (which is the android's equivalency of death). This, of course, becomes the core focus of the show, as we're introduced to our protagonist Tsukasa, a human, who finds himself involved with one of these Giftias named Isla. And from there onward, the show chronicles their daily interaction and growing relationship. And as you would guess, it becomes a tale of a fleeting would-be romance with only one possible outcome.

When trying to present a romance, there must be proper interaction between the main love interests in order to sell their position as lovers. We as viewers need to see this bond slowly form, see the chemistry that they share, and the mannerisms that they portray when expressing themselves to each other. To get down to brass tacks, we as viewers need to be convinced of their validity as a couple for it to feel organic. If this isn't handled properly, it can cause the relationship and development to feel forced or manipulated. This is Plastic Memories 1st noticeable blunder. It tries to build this chemistry on a premise that just screams victimizing; with a character predestined to be terminated from an expiration date, a protagonist that makes no visible effort in repealing the outcome, and a romance bound to go nowhere because of it. It isn't bittersweet nor is it heart-wrenching since the reason these androids expire is contrived and contradictory to the world setting presented. How may you ask? Well, let's explore the ill-defined logic the show tries to spoon feed us.

We're made to believe that this show takes place in a future where the creation and distribution of androids are a fairly commonplace occurrence. In other words, it's an advance society that's leagues ahead of us in terms of technological breakthrough and scientific advancement. But at the same time, the show wants us to believe that they have no methods of storing or switching memory from one device to another. And I shouldn't have to spell it out but do you see how this nonsensical explanation doesn't work? A society advance enough to have androids with empathy, but not advance enough to store memory or transfer it? So if you own a USB flash drive, then congrats, you've officially surpassed this society's current intellect. And that is just the tip of the iceberg when talking about this show's implausible setting. Later on, we find out that after an android passes its expiration date and isn't decommissioned, they take on a savage state, becoming dangerously violent against humans, escalating to the point of murder (in other words, they go ape-shit). Which begs the question, why in the hell would anyone endorse a machine that can go "Terminator" on citizens when they lose their memory? It's unfathomable to think any governing body with a modicum of common sense would allow such a hazardous time bomb to be integrated into society. There was even an episode dedicated to showing how such a terrible downside could reek havoc, or even worse, be exploited as a weapon, but like the setting it's a part of, it was never explored beyond that. It was simply brought up and never mentioned again by the next episode just so they could allow for more rom-com moments to continue undisturbed. Just look out for the 'Psycho-Pass' episode, you'll know it when you see it.

Tsukasa and Isla both work at the same job, and it's also the place they 1st make contact with each other. From what you can easily read in the synopsis, they both work for the Terminal Service Department: a subdivision of the larger company responsible for the distribution and recall of androids. They're tasked with retrieving androids that are approaching their expected expiration date from their owners. This, of course, brings up yet another question; why is the task of retrieving androids so primitive and counterproductive? Like I've stated, these androids are like ticking time bombs with the added bonus of being empathetic. You would think something as important as this would be tasked to a more organized unit, but what we're introduced to instead is a motley crew of quirky characters that only share one personality trait and act so outlandish that entrusting them with such a task is almost ludicrous. It's like handing police duty over to the circus. It's like the creators were dead-set on an end goal and didn't care how little sense it made getting there. On a whole, the sci-fi elements of this show were never explored or utilized. It was simply used for flavoring, and it quickly became apparent that they didn't care about common sense when they duct-taped the narrative and setting together.

The relationship was also diminished by the fact that 3/4ths of the show's run-time were dedicated to slapstick comedy and silly misunderstandings. Half of it was wasted away where it could have been used to develop the relationship between the characters, which was made even worse given the short episode count the show was already working with. While I'm not the biggest fan of shows like Clannad or Toradora, I at least acknowledge that it did this aspect correctly. It utilized its run-time by building the relationship between the characters, either by their direct contact with each other or the indirect result of their influence on each other. It allowed us as an audience to grow attached to their interaction and relationship.

Most of the characters, like I've already stated, are just a range of archetypes. From your tsunderes to your beta-male, they all follow one-note traits and won't be remembered for anything else. This also applies to our two main characters. Tsukasa is as generic as a protagonist can get, ripped right out of the pages of cliché-land. You've seen his type many times before, and to be quite frank about it, he's indistinguishable from the lot of them. Isla is yet another Rei Ayanami clone, completely packaged with the silver hair, red eyes, and the signature porcelain complexion. Dull, monotone and devoid of personality, the only good thing I can say about her is that she truly acts like an android. Outside of the main cast, we're occasionally introduced to androids and their masters that the team has to retrieve. But they're introduction is done more so for forced "feels" than for actual world building. Just toss in a sappy backstory and an unavoidable conclusion and it really becomes more annoying than anything.

And really, that's the main problem with this show in a nutshell: it's constantly trying to get the audience to care but doesn't seem to have any idea how to do so without coming across as fake. It's a show that forcefully tugs at your heart strings while thinking that people will easily be duped into falling for it. It thinks that simply playing melancholic music and animating tear ducts is more than enough to fool viewers, while forgetting that genuine character investment is what allows the audience to sympathize with hardships. And who knows, maybe this falsehood would fool some into buying the creator's snake oil. There are certainly viewers out there willing to suspend their disbelief, regardless of the amount of mental gymnastics required to do so. But for those well-versed enough to see past the smoke and mirrors, it's a detracting quality that causes the show and its conflict to implode on itself.

The art and animation for Plastic Memories were above average and made the whole experience better than it would have been without it. It was bright, vivid and used a broad range of color palettes to convey whatever mood or tone they were going for. While it felt overdone at times, there were moments where it truly shined and help to sell the scene at hand; most notably the show's finale episodes and epilog. While the art and animation served their purpose, the character designs were a hit or miss. On one hand, a few had distinct features about them, but a lot were also cookie-cutter in a bad way as well. It helps to better personify their characteristics, but when they lack dimension and personality, it made them feel like carbon copies of other characters in the same vein as them. There was also moments where the show paid direct homage to Evangelion with certain scenes and shot compositions, which, while being a fun little tribute, didn't serve any purpose whatsoever. At best, they were Easter eggs for those that caught on to them.
The soundtrack was a mixture of pop and electronica flavoring. It was "fluffy" during the comedic bits and took on a more somber tone during the show's more "emotional" moments. While there weren't any noteworthy tracks, it was fine and served its purpose. Average but effective. The opening and ending themes were both fine and easy listens. Nothing that might stick with you but catchy and worked in unison with the show.

Like most titles of this nature, my problem doesn't stem from what it's trying to do, my problem comes from how poorly it goes about attempting it. If a show is aiming to get me as a viewer, emotionally invested, I expect it to do so in a manner that doesn't distract from its target intent. If I'm duped and fall for it, despite my better knowledge of its intent, I will credit it for its efforts. However, if I'm viewing the show and have to signal the "bullshit" flag every other minute, then as far as I'm concerned, that anime failed at its job.

Enjoyment: 4/10

My enjoyment of Plastic Memories was intermittent at best, but for the most part, the show was a face-palming experience. Because of the sloppy portrayal of its themes and forced melodrama, there was no engagement to speak of. The ending was decent, but the journey to said ending was buffoonish at best and can't be overlooked.

Overall: 4/10

Plastic Memories was an uninspired and underwhelming experience. It had the opportunity to craft a decent romance, or even better, a good sci-fi tale, but it did neither and ended up falling short of the mark. While some might find it touching, I simply couldn't buy into the dilemma for the reasons I've stated. If you decide to watch this show, do so with low expectations, for whatever it tried to do, have been done to a much higher and better degree somewhere else.

**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.

There is so much wrong with Plastic Memories that it should never have been created. It is literally about a dude who falls in love with a midget robot who also happens to be a minor.

Story 1/10 : The anime has no real plot progression because everything is pushed back to the beginning after the last episode. The show tries to have the audience learn some messages and themes through the experiences of Tsukasa and Isla, but Tsukasa is this basic dude who has no reason to be heavily impacted by these messages. "Giftias" are the focal point of the sci-fi setting, but they ... don't make any sense whatsoever. I don't believe one person would go to the pet store and decide to pick out the human.

Setting 5/10: The setting is the only decent thing about Plastic Memories is the futuristic atmosphere that is unfortunately overwhelmed by the stereotypical design choices

Characters -5/10: I don't even know what to say. Tsukasa is by far the worst main character I have ever seen in an anime who acts completely like an NPC throughout the entire show. Isla is a robot that you are supposed to care about because she is going out of commission in a year or so. Batteries die all the time and all you have to do is replace them.

*rest of the review here

Conclusion: If you want to sit down and actually enjoy a show, don't waste your time with Plastic Memories. Everyone says that it makes you "rethink your life", but the only thing you'll be rethinking was the last 4 hours you spent wasted on this show.

Have you ever seen an anime with a premise so uninspired and lacking in imagination that you know it's doomed for failure before it even gets a chance to show off? However, because you're an anime fan who finds it pointless to just watch stuff you like, you continue on out of sheer curiosity regarding how badly it'll be handled, only to realize you underestimated the depths a man can take to stretch said weak premise out in order to fit a full-series length? That's pretty much how I watch practically 90% of the anime I keep up with on a regular basis, and Plastic ... Memories happens to be one of said percentage.

Yes, trying to demand ambition from Dogakobo is like begging a grizzly bear to save you from hitmen despite the fact that he's a fucking corpse because you thought poisoning his berry patch would have been a funny to make on Facebook (you monster), so I wasn't too surprised that the show turned out as inane as it did. But whilst I've yet to meet a colleague who disagreed with me, the semi-good reaction this show has been getting from the overall community is more baffling than an Australian politician's general incompetence at being human. I know a lot of anime fans love “feels” and all, which makes these sort of shows both easy and difficult to criticize. Because whilst it’s easy to say what doesn’t work about ‘em, said method of storytelling is ultimately a style, the same way all music and humor is a style at the end of the day. It either works for you or it doesn’t, making any criticism you dish out being rendered ultimately pointless by the fact that your brain and childhood just isn’t hardwired to get it.

The thing is though, even by those incredibly irrational standards, Plastic Memories is pretty damn awful right down to the very concept. In some distant future exists humanoid androids called “Gifita” who only have a fixed lifespan of ten years, because any longer than that and they become more rabid than a pack of raccoons after being sprayed by a skunk. Just before said lifespan expires, they are retrieved by a group of "Retrievers" in order to be put to sleep, basically making them futuristic dogs except with the ability to talk and act out your pedophilic tendencies towards if you so choose. Except the show isn't really even about how dog retrieval life is like. It's about the actual partings and what they mean to people, with most of said story being told through an office worker and his "actually dog" partner. Reminds me of that awful era when Dogakobo was releasing visual novel adaptations that had decent premises on paper and proceeded to ignore ‘em completely in favor of either two things: shallow melodramatic shit and shallow melodramatic shit with poorly animated fight scenes.

Incidentally, the office workers in this anime look pretty damn young, don't they? I'm not expecting a huge growth spurt or anything after you leave high school, but the younger characters all look and act like the kouhai of the middle schoolers in Evangelion whilst the older ones are pretty much the grown-up Evangelion characters with some of the blandest designs you'll ever see. It would have been an improvement to just have them all wear black face.

The anime is written by Naotaka Hayashi, whose previous works were about taking high-concept sci-fi and proceeding to just throw it in the background whilst focusing on characterization that's basically just putting a bunch of nerd tropes together and giving them one gimmick that's not even all that important to the story half the time. But if those semicolon adaptations are the equivalent of a romance film starring Ryan O'Neal, Plastic Memories is the direct-to-video sequel that was never made because it was too stupid for the world to see. And it’s not just because I find the show overly manipulative. In fact, I think detractors in general overuse that criticism, never taking into consideration why and how something can even be considered overly manipulative in the first place. You can’t just say “I hate manipulation” because as I myself keep saying, ALL drama is manipulative. Even Mufasa’s death in The Lion King is manipulative, and it’s still considered by many to be one of the best achievements in western animation to this day.

But whilst it wasn’t the only reason why said scene was powerful for most people, at the end of the day, you can’t deny that The Lion King in general is a big film with grand ambitions beyond an annoying Jonathan Taylor-Thomas character crying over his dead daddy. Plastic Memories, on the other hand, is literally all about some bland guy we don’t even learn anything about getting sad about the fact that his dog is dying. Except in order to increase the manipulation, said dog is actually a small moe girl. I don’t claim to be an expert of the genre, but practically every single story about a dog from Old Yeller to that Silverfang anime from the 80s has always been sad, because they always involve parting with ‘em and...well...is there any way to spin a happy tale out of that? What matters is how you use said tragedy from representing growth to...erm...representing growth, and Plastic Memories doesn’t even do that.

By the end of this incredibly padded story - because someone thought that repeating the same toothless joke up to three times an episode at minimum and a random incident involving some black market dealers that’s never brought up again counts as a legitimate way to achieve a one-cour length from this - you know nothing new about anything. Only the main couple is important in the grand scheme of things, and they never grow up from where they started - something they were in dire need of because they have less maturity than a middle school kid who believes that Santa Claus is real and looks like Elmo from Sesame Street. There’s an ambiguous closing scene involving a Giftia whose face isn’t shown after a short time-skip following the final climax. And no matter how you spin it, said scene doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

If the Giftia’s body is whose I think it is, that would ruin whatever character journey you can wring out of the main. And if it’s not, then what exactly is the dude going to apply in regards to this new being? The show refuses to accomplish more than the very basics of what you can achieve with visual novel-style writing and tragedy stories in general to the point that I’m practically convinced at this point that Naotaka Hayashi is less of a real person and more of an auto-generating machine when someone wants to release a VN-style anime. Bland nice guy schmuck? Check. Little moe love interest who can’t take care of herself? Check. Tsundere who not-so-secretly helps the couple whilst desiring “bland nice guy” cock? Check. Potentially interesting world buried under banal personal problems? Check. Reminding us that Evangelion exists? Every anime does that these days, but check anyways.

As a result, no one from the creators to the actual characters this show is supposed to be centered on seem to be into anything, and that’s pretty much why Plastic Memories fails. Even if you ignore the cardboard stereotypes, the cloying melodrama, the flat visuals, and forgettable music, this show just doesn’t accomplish anything it sets out to do at all. The decision to set the anime in a futuristic worlds adds nothing to the story, the working environment adds nothing to the characters, and whatever moral I’m supposed to get out of the story is buried under a lot of crappy cliches. Even Dreamworks’ movies have made their agendas clear underneath their crappy pop-culture referencing and animation hiccups. And when you have less going for you than Bee Movie and Shrek 3...well then I’ve got no more words to waste on you. You sad, pity party-seeking loser.

So now that Spring season basically ended, it's time to review anime. Plastic Memories is an anime by Aniplex about this Corporation that is known for taking back these robots with human emotions called "Giftia" once it is time to take them back.

Before we get right into Plastic Memories, I would like point out something about Aniplex.
Aniplex is known for working on Angels Beats and Anohana. Just by me mentioning those two, you pretty much know what to expect from Plastic Memories.
I thought Angel Beats was alright, but it's praised for having such a sad ending and many tragic moments. I found the ... show to lack character development and the pacing was awfully rushed. It would've been a great show if it took its time to present the story in a better way and if the show was 24 episodes. Worst of all, I didn't find it to be really all that sad.
I can't say much about Anohana; I watched 3 episodes and it's now on-hold, but for what I've heard, it has
"The saddest animu ending evaaa!!"
For what I watched in those 3 episodes, it felt like nothing was really happening and it was all just a build up to a sad ending.
And now we have Plastic Memories, which is being called the "saddest animu of this year!!"
Where do I stand with this
judgement? Well...

Plastic Memories wasn't good, it was pretty bland. The first episode was actually pretty good, I was very interested in the story and the concept it presented. Though, the characters looked extremely generic and boring, they weren't too bad in the first episode. But then the show took this really weird direction, for some reason.

Plastic Memories has only one tag and that tag is "Sci-fi." I can understand if this was the tag for the first episode and maybe the second, but everything after it isn't a sci-fi at all. It's a complete RomCom that has some sci-fi elements from time to time, but nothing to call the whole show just a "sci-fi" anime.
The story is actually pretty interesting and something I wanted to see play out well, but it was never focused on it. It all just feels like the show had a great direction, but then an idiot changed the script. Episode 3 is the start of this series starting to build this RomCom and drifting away from the plot we were supposed to be focusing on. Lots of stuff are introduced throughout the series when it tries to go back to the actual plot, but they barely explain it and it ends up leaving a few plot holes. I think Plastic Memories should've balanced the plot with the romance instead of just ignoring the plot entirely, just to focus on the very generic and boring romance.

The characters were all dull and none of them felt like real people. If the show is not gonna focus on the plot much, then they need great characters to keep the show going. Unfortunately, this was a complete waste. The dialog in the show was very standard and made the humans feels like robots more than the actual robots. The characters are utterly bland and are flatter than a 4 year-old's ass.

Isla is one of the Giftia's that is working with our male main character, Tsukasa. Isla is simply a loli and there isn't much to say about her. She's the typical shy girl that slowly opens up to the main character. She's not well developed and she's not interesting at all.

Tsukasa is super generic, bland and just very uninteresting. He's the nice main character that is very shy. You never really care for him and I never found myself liking his character at all. I didn't hate him, I was just not invested in his character.

The other characters simply feel like plot devices to get our main characters together before the ending. Also, most of them are characters you would expect in a generic RomCom, like the typical Tsundere. The whole show is just one build up to the ending, that you can predict after watching 2 or 3 episodes. Everything that happens can be predicted easily, not only because it's very easy to spot and they make it extremely noticeable, but also, because it has been done to death already. It's not unique in any way and has nothing new going for it. Now, I'm not saying that you have to be completely original and not do something that has been done before, but at least give it a new spin instead of making me watch the same show I've watched before. I mention this because some people would bring up that making something original these days is very hard, and I completely agree, but making the exact same show with very little change to it is kinda lazy. I mean, Plastic Memories tried to do something new with the plot, but it never focused on it well after the first 2 episodes.

The animation was pretty standard Romantic Comedy kind of animation. Nothing really stands out and it never impressed me, it was just pretty average. The soundtrack is not really worth mentioning. It's alright, the OP is good and the ED is good, but the score is pretty average. The character designs were completely generic. The thing that bothered me so much about them, is that the mains looked exactly like the mains in Absolute Duo, which I just wanna forget about by now.

The comedic episode in Plastic Memories never felt like they belonged in the show. Especially just little moments in the show where they just make a very out of placed joke, that wasn't really funny at all. Like, yeah, that is completely subjective, you might find it hilarious, but you're supposed to know when to place the comedy. You're not supposed to place comedy seconds after a very serious and dramatic scene. It's very unbalanced and it ruins every sense of emotion behind it. It's like a bipolar person wrote the script at times, and said, "Well, fuck this guy, let's kill off everyone and now, for a very well placed joke to make everyone feel better."
It just ends up reminding me of the comedy in Your Lie in April. Only that in Your Lie in April, the comedy is sometimes delivered in a good moment, but Plastic Memories has no idea when it's time for a good moment.

Overall, Plastic Memories is a huge disappointment for people that liked the first episode like I did. The whole thing is a build up to the ending, which actually wasn't bad, but the journey to get to that ending kinda was. I would be lying if I said I wasn't entertained while watching it, but it's mostly because I had nothing else to do. Now, I'm aware that some people will enjoy this show, and that's not a bad thing. I'm only saying how I feel about this anime, and if you're a person that would be bothered by the things I mentioned in my review, then I would suggest you skip this one. I'm pretty sure that most of us can agree that this had potential to be better, and I'm gonna give Plastic Memories a 4/10.

🚨🚨🚨Spoiler Section🚨🚨🚨
This is gonna be a quick spoiler section for the ending. If you don't want the ending spoiled, then please skip this, if you already watched the show or you don't plan on watching it, then keep reading.

Why the fuck didn't Tsukasa do anything about Isla at the end of the show? If you don't know, Isla basically dies or they simply take her back. But I mean, Tsukasa didn't try to somehow save her? She's not dead, she's just sleeping forever. There was so much potential to be had with this anime, but the writers didn't care. After the credits of the last episode, we see Tsukasa coming back months after to work with this new person. Exactly when that happened, it reminded me of the ending for Angel Beats.
Really, Aniplex? No fucking creativity at all?
"Oh, it's supposed to be sad, because she dies."
The only thing that died was the potential for an anime that could've been alright.
🚨🚨🚨 End of Spoilers 🚨🚨🚨

"There's one thing about this job you need to remember: doing this job never feels rewarding." -Isla

Well thanks for that, Isla. Sometimes that's the reviewer's life too.

Onto Plastic Memories-


The Good Stuff:

Sound and Voice Acting: 7
...
So, we've got some super veterans like the awesome Megumi Toyoguchi (Revy, Black Lagoon, Winry, FMA/B) as the underutilized, but funny psycho boss, Kazuki. Sora Amamiya (Touka, Tokyo Ghoul) also heads up as Isla, and does a good job playing the airhead, naive character. There's also Mr. "Screw The Rules" Seto Kaiba himself, Kenjirou Tsuda. The OST is a bit underwhelming, and during some key moments is actually silent. Very forgettable.


The Aight Stuff:

Artwork and Animation: 5

Pretty plain, run of the mill animation. Nothing flashy, nothing outstanding, just does what it does. You've got the different characters you can tell apart by their hair color, and pretty much everyone else fades to the background in shades of brown and gray. Chibi faces, blue with shock, and all kinds of blushing are here, and teasing the girl with big boobs, if that kind of stuff appeals to you.


The Rest (Rest in RIP, more like):

Story and Characters: 2, 1

I'm going to be frank- Plastic Memories is a case of false advertising. Oh but the fanboys will cry foul with how "feelsy" and "sad" it is. Yeah, it's "feelsy" and heartfelt if you're a complete sap sucker. Anime fans seem to be drawn to this nebulous and utterly trite idea of "feels" over and over in these pathetically thin "tragic love stories", and for no good reason. It's turning into a genre of its own, this recycled tugging-at-heartstrings narrative- so much to the point where we're literally watching the same kid and his dog die every week, with a slightly different coat of paint. If I want to watch that crap, I'll go to the Hallmark channel, dang. This show is grasping at straws for a romance narrative after starting out onto the path of what seemed to be an interesting psychological show.

You see, the Plastic Memories fans have conveniently forgotten how terribly paced and off topic the first several episodes are compared to what it transitions to later in the show. In the beginning, Plastic Memories was dropping lines like "Ripping apart memories is our job" and "Having happy and beautiful memories won't always bring you salvation. The more beautiful a memory is, the more painful it can become". That's some dark and heavy shit. That's not romcom material.

Furthermore, the plot was asking questions of itself like, "what happens to these androids when they're retired?" and "why is it that science only allows for them to have this limited lifespan?" which are never addressed.

It's this taste of a psychological narrative about loss and the meaning of kinship and companionship that I thought this show was going to be about that interested me in it in the first place. If I were to infer what the story was about by the synopsis provided by MAL, I would not conclude that this was a story about loss and coping, along with maybe some action and a touch of comedy, mostly serious stuff. I never make note of the tags that shows are listed by, because they're irrelevant anyway, but Plastic Memories takes the irrelevance cake- it has one tag: Sci-Fi. Well Ho-lee crap, tell me something I don't know.

Kind of like the title implies, Plastic Memories has an identity crisis going on.

-----

The Giftias (the androids central to the show) are imprinted with varying personalities. One of the ones retrieved (the universe term for being disposed of when their predetermined lifespan runes out) was a bodyguard for a Mafia man, another was a child for a parent, one a parent to an orphan, and all sorts of other familial relations. The effect of the loss of what's effectively a close family member is touched upon early, but dumped in favor of yet another teen romance show.

While this could be a great setup for "is it human love that we require, or a sense of companionship?" or another existential theme about "are the androids capable of their own thought?" but no. They even touch on a deep political and sociological subject of "since the Giftias are owned, can they even become people?"

No, Plastic Memories is too heavy handed in exposition for that. Rather than leaving it up to the audience to decide, they just lay it all out there. Despite the completely arbitrary "Made For TV™" drama of a 10 year life span, it's explained that Giftia owners have the option to re-use the body of the Giftia when it's retired, and they can even REPLANT THE SAME PERSONALITY inside of it! There are murmurings of "Can the Giftias remember anything from their past incarnations?" But this is quickly dropped in favor of "OMG HOW SAD THE GIFTIAS ARE THIS POOR TIME BOMB OF FEELINGS WHAT DO YOU DOOOOO!?"

-----

So, despite the fact that you're hit with what you know to be end of the show in the first two episodes, and the solution is also already given... the authors decide to change gears to this melodramatic sob fest filled with tsundere side chick, overbearing people trying to live Tsukasa's life for him, and a general clusterf*ck of slice of life and cheap romance.

You can't even blame these plot holes on a crappy adaptation, because Plastic Memories is a WHOLLY ORIGINAL anime! The writers at Doga Kobo started off with a passable concept, and then passed the pen to somebody who just got done reading some garbage ass, written with an 8 year old's concept of love Twilight fanfic, and then tried desperately to plagiarize it while drunk!

-----

The characters, much like the story, fit the title perfectly. Plastic. Fake. Artificial. Phony.

What's perhaps the most damning part of how fake this show is, is that we're shown through Isla's words and actions that she, as a Giftia, has NO EMPATHY. (For the vocabulary challenged among us, empathy is being able to UNDERSTAND emotions, not feel sorry for someone- which is sympathy.) {Have sympathy for people who suffered through this show, but empathize that you understand their anger and frustration.}
That's right- Giftias can't understand human being's emotions. They MANUFACTURE their own """Plastic Feelings"""", emotions and moods and project that outwardly. Kazuki herself explains what the feeling of regret is to Isla in episode 10, on top of how many times we see "love" and "sadness" explained to the Giftias.

So my question to the plot and writers is now, "why the hell should anyone in the show {much less a viewer} even care about Giftias being taken away when their lives end?" Sure, something that's been a staple in your life for 10 years being excised one day could hurt, but they're not humans. They're basically just glorified pets. Doga Kobo makes NO attempt at trying to make the Giftias more human, particularly because the other Giftias in the show are even more robotic than Isla is! Guess what? The best part is that they replace the Giftia's personality with a new one, for FREE! Who's to say that Isla's body isn't someone else's long gone child or girlfriend??

Make some new memories, Tsukasa, preferably with a real person this time. They have OKCupid in this world, right? (Also, wtf happened to nepotism in the future?)
Tsukasa Mizugaki:
Age: 19
Sex: No
Location: Terminal Service (lol not the hospital morgue, but I want to kill myself)
Interests: crushing on robots, being a sappy, bumbling idiot, having no sense of social cues, and ignoring the advances of real women in favor of robots.
Looking For: A clumsy girl who refuses to talk to me and/or a hot and cold spicy redhead.


Overall and Recommendation: 3

If you want a really generic SOL romcom that starts like crap and ends with THA FEELS (or inversely, an interesting premise of a psychological show that goes Hindenburg after about 4 episodes)... Knock yourself out.

Drop me a line for whenever you feel that fanboy rage building up after reading this one- I look forward to it.

I had high hopes for anime with this idea, but seeing how things are going its not looking good.
the company that our main character is working for is completely incompetent and would never work in real life what so ever. My case in point is their lack of a manual, a lack of a tour and explanation of their product and how things work to the new employes.
I can forgive the main character for not knowing anything about the giftia but for a company to not even have a manual for its new employes to read and find out how the giftia function and what ... is expected of both the human and giftia, on top of all this the company failed to notify the office that the main character will be working with so they did not have a partner for him.

Now on to the poor guys coworkers, who mind you are not any better then the higher ups. They fail to tell him that his partner has only so many hours of run time left and that is why she is messing up so much, as a matter of fact they seem to all be rather bland character just there to be in the background and do nothing but provide the info our main character needs when the plot demands it to be so.
This gives the whole show a rather scripted feel and I have no incentive to find out anything more about the world or the characters because of it, speaking of scripted.
It seems non of the people who buy Giftia know that those things have a 9 year and 4 month running time, if this is another poor choice of the company or just scripted to add more "emotion" to the other wise bland show. I do not know which it is but both are just as bad.

one good thing it has is its sound and art, the art really matches the little feeling there is and all the feelings you do get are from the sound which matches very nicely.
I would recomand this to any storyboard writer to know what not to do but that is about it.

Honestly I don't know how this anime got such a high review. First off, I have to painfully push to watch 5 episodes of this snooze fest until I couldn't take it anymore. I'm going to keep this review nice and short. If you're into some weird robotic pedo-esque relationships then this anime is for you.

You have the main character (don't remember any of their names because they're all boring) fall in love with a 12 year old robot that is eventually gonna lose its brains. There was no real development of feelings or personality. The 12 year old robot just sits there sulking ... all day that she will eventually lose her mind and says 2 words per episode while making tea.

The rest of the Characters are useless and extremely boring. The whole interacting between all of them felt extremely awkward and forced.

I may have been tempted to keep watching this anime if the main female lead wasn't a small 12 year old child.... but I digress. Save you're time, watch something else

Plastic Memories is an anime that quickly works itself into a bit of a kerfuffle. It is an anime that, after finishing the first episode, you will know exactly where it is headed and how it will end. Now some might be turned off by a story with such a predictable and inevitable conclusion, but I think this kind of set-up is not always a bad thing; because sometimes the journey is more important than the destination. The question that now arises, is the journey worth it?

It could be worth it if the elements that this show comprises of weren’t so mediocre or sub-par. One ... big selling point of the show is the romance element, which is a crucial element in making the viewer want to watch through the rest of the series. The biggest problem with the romance presented by Plastic Memories is the two main characters. For a romance to be engaging, the viewer should at least like the two characters, the viewer should want the two characters to be happy and it should be clear to the viewer why the two characters like one another. So how does the romance in Plastic Memories fare? Well, we have Tsukasa and Isla, and I did not like either one of them in the slightest. It’s not just me being sour; it is a fact that the show gives us very little reason to like either one of these characters. Tsukasa is the generic ‘nice-guy’ character who, in the pantheon of romance anime protagonists available, is an absolute bore to watch. I really don’t understand why writers don’t try just a little bit harder to make a character (the main character, no less), just a tiny bit more memorable. Give him an attitude. Give him an unusual personality trait. Give him something inspired and unique, for the love of god. But nope. We quickly form an opinion of him and it does not change much at all in the 13 episode run of Plastic Memories. Isla is another uninteresting character whose only appeal is the fact that she occasionally acts cute, often tripping over and acting moe. That’s it. We never get a good sense of why these two bricks feel affection for each other. The very first scene of the anime shows us a crappy ‘love at first sight’ scenario, which I think is supposed to explain away why Tsukasa loves Isla. But, because Isla is an emotionally detached can opener, she seemingly does not return his feelings at this exact moment and goes on to act uninterested in him for a good span of episodes. When she suddenly DOES fall in love with him, it feels extremely unnatural and again, we are left with no sense of why she actually likes him. There is actually a scene in the final episode where the two characters are on telling each other what they like about each other. The reasons they come up with are incredibly plain and stupid (‘I like the way you are always smiling, I like how you are so clumsy’), which continues to cement the artificiality of the romance. It is a trite and bland romance which is, for some reason, egged on by the even more trite and bland supporting cast (who are so trite and bland that I do not think they even deserve a paragraph written about them). The romance element is nothing but sub-par, and is not a good incentive at all to not drop the show after one episode.

Despite being a massive component of the show, one could always try to turn a blind eye to the flawed romance and attempt to enjoy some other element of Plastic Memories. However, such an action would also result in disappointment. Plastic Memories takes place in a sci-fi setting, and its premise is something that actually piqued my interest. However, if the science fiction elements were judged by usual science fiction standards, Plastic Memories ends up being undeniably abysmal in this respect. Plastic Memories depicts a world where advanced AIs called Giftias have integrated into societies (don’t ask why they exist in the first place, they seem like more trouble than they’re worth) and the main characters engage in Retrievals, which is when you basically euthanize a Giftia before their AI goes haywire and turns them into dangerous berserkers. It is not long before any astute viewer will be able to pick holes in nearly every aspect of this premise, rendering it improbable to the point of spoiling any enjoyment or intrigue presented by this world. There is no clear reason for the existence of Giftas, other than to act as stand-ins for family members or to act as ‘love-bots’, for the lack of a better term. If this is truly the reason for their existence, the show does not explore the deeper ethical concerns of commodifying love. Beyond thematic shallowness, you can find more evidence of a poorly thought-out plot devices. There is no reason for their ‘berserk’ state to exist, as any forward-thinking person would program the Giftias with a timed deactivate, in preparation for the extremely likely event that someone will try running away with a Giftia (so likely that it happens all the time). In one of these ‘gone berserk’ scenes, we clearly see that these Giftias have superhuman strength, given the way that they can leap around cityscapes effortlessly. Again, this begs the question, what is their purpose? If they are really just stand-ins for people, why do they have the strength and dexterity of some kind of combat cyborg? If they will inevitably go berserk, why give them such dangerous latent strength? These things are ticking time-bombs, raising further questions as to why anyone would want to make a business out of creating these, and even if they choose to do so, why they weren’t designed with a fail-safe to stop the berserk phase, and FURTHERMORE, why such a small and inefficient department is taking care of this extremely important Retrieval process. Occasionally, the show tries to make us empathize with the ‘gone-berserk’ Giftias, which doesn’t work at all. We are clearly shown how dangerous they are, and how they urgently need to be put down. However, whenever a character does perform this highly necessary action, they are generally depicted as evil grunts with no humanity. It can become difficult to root for who they want us to root for when the 'baddies' seem to be absolutely correct in their choices.

World-building is also woefully lacking, an essential element of science fiction. Not only is the setting already unconvincing, but it teases us with potentially interestingly elements that are never developed any further. One example is the black market collectors who try to kidnap Giftias right before their scheduled Retrieval, but we never see why they would do such a thing in the first place. We are left to guess. Are they harvesting the robotic parts of Giftias? If so, why do it so close to the Retrieval date, where they are literally less than a day away from going berserk? Many interesting ideas are simply skimmed over, making the world of Plastic Memories extremely underdeveloped and a real waste of potential. Other sci-fi build and develop their worlds to the point where the setting itself reflects the central themes of the story. I am not asking for such an insane level of world-building, but I am definitely not satisfied with the scraps that Plastic Memories offered me. Plastic Memories only develops its sci-fi world and setting just enough to please the ones who aren’t really watching it for the sci-fi world and setting.

So if Plastic Memories is not using its time to world-build, then what is it doing? What element could be so important that everything else must be put on hold? I’ll tell you what. Plastic Memories is trying its hardest to split your sides with its 'comedic' relief. The cardboard cut-out cast spew repetitive punch-lines constantly, none of which are unexpected or particularly well-delivered. Not only is this humour unfunny and a real waste of screen-time (remember, this is only one-cour), but the comedic relief on multiple occasions can even ruin the tone set by a preceding scene. A perfect example is at the end of the first episode, where a teary-eyed Retrieval sequence is absolutely put to waste by starkly appearing and absolutely unnecessary toilet humour. Yep, TOILET HUMOUR. Most of the other ‘humour’ is Isla making funny faces after making a funny mistake (ha ha), Tsukasa being accused of being a pervert (lol rofl lmao) , or Isla and Tsukasa being forced into embarrassing, ecchi-type misunderstandings (oh stop my sides are about to split). Lather, rinse and blatantly repeat. Some may say that the comedy of Plastic Memories makes the characters more likeable or stops the tone from becoming too dark, but to me the only thing it adds is immersion shattering tonal dissonance. And this is needless to say, not a good thing at all
.
There are only a few aspects of Plastic Memories that keep it just barely watchable. When watching Plastic Memories, I did feel like there was some level of care put into how this anime was directed, and a good amount of thought put into some of the visual motifs present. A good example is the chair that Isla sits in throughout the series (https://imgur.com/gallery/iyGXqsI/new). Given that the Retrieval process involves sitting down in a chair, a visual motif such as this serves as a constant reminder of what is to come, and how the characters are aware of this impending inevitability. There were a handful of other meaningful, memorable shots that again, quite well, reflected what the characters may be feeling at that particular time. The finale was also a pleasant surprise. Throughout the series, I was expecting it to be an irritating, over-the-top scream-fest like the ending of AnoHana. But to my delight, it was remarkably subdued and communicated what it needed to without ever becoming too sappy or too melodramatic. No tears were shed, as I did not particularly like or care about either of these characters, but I would say that the final few episodes were a tasteful departure and something of a small reward for sitting through the rest of the show.

Plastic Memories delivers just enough sci-fi to count as a sci-fi, just enough romance to count as a romance, far too much comedic relief, and a few tearjerker/heart warmer scenes that, unfortunately, do not wash away the aforementioned sins. If you are a sucker for romance and melodrama, no matter how average it may be, then by all means proceed beyond the first episode. If you are anyone else, there is no good reason to complete the entirety of this half-baked anime.

I don't write reviews for everything, but this one I felt like I needed to.

Where do I even start. It was like a romantic comedy that trys to to be serious and make you cry at the same time, but the problem is they don't time things well. At one moment your trying to take in a sad event but then they drop a joke into it ripping apart the atmosphere created. It was like watching two virgins awkwardly attempt to be boyfriend girlfriend with each other which is wholesome but then the add comedy into the mix with is fine and ... all but then when they try adding sad stuff, thats a big no no for me.

Story is interesting and easy to follow. 6/10

The art is mediocre for the most part, nothing special for the most of the story, your typical anime art style for it's time. 6/10

Sound, I love the OP but the sound in the episodes itself were mediocre again, expect for some key plot moments in the show, even then nothing stood out to me. 5/10

Characters - Main Characters were Enjoyable, lovable, and fun, yet boring. Both of them felt like your typical shy kid. All the side characters were uninteresting and forgettable. 3/10

Overall - I found myself laughing at the stupid awkward moments created by character not because they were funny, but because they were stupid. I found myself forgetting about this show and coming back days or months later to try and finish it only to do the same thing again. After about the first 5 episodes, I found myself sending this show to the dropped section twice. It took me a week to watch one ep. It was not because I did not enjoyed it, it was because the show was predicable. I knew what type of ending was coming up and I didn't want to see it. The Present is Always Better than the Future. 4/10

This was one of the worst animes I have ever seen. The plot was so predictable and insulting!

If they wanted the audience to cry they shouldn't have explained what happens to a giftia when they expire so close to the beginning!

common sense of "why can't they transfer a Giftia's memories to a new model? We do the same with computers" tears this anime apart.

EVERYONE ASKS THAT WHEN THEY'RE TOLD THE PLOT!

This show is a tear jerking trap. Crying scenes are supposed to be earned.

... The tears are not earned!! DENY THE TEARS FOR THIS SHOW!

I watched it a second time and I still can't get over how dumb it is.

The only good things are the art and animation look nice and the voice acting isn't that bad.

This review is mostly spoiler-free, not that it should matter anyways.

I'm going to keep this review short, because I don't think it deserves any more time out of my life than it has taken already. It seemed really promising in the first episode, but then it all went to hell by the second.

STORY - 2/10 - The plot ended up making almost no sense at all and it had SO MUCH POTENTIAL.

Why is there a specified number of hours on a Giftia to begin with? Is it a bug, or intentional? What kind of human makes slave-like robots capable of feeling emotion, and why would ... you create them that way? Why are Giftias even necessary in their universe?

I have barely scratched the surface. These are not very difficult questions, either. Why did the writers of this anime not address these SUPER glaring faults and instead fill time with unnecessary comedy to fill their time slot? How does comedy even make sense in this series? There I go asking questions again, and I bet that NONE of them will ever be addressed. It's really a shame that these flaws were overlooked. Even 10 minutes or so of backstory, scattered between episode even, could have saved the story element entirely.

Art - 7/10 - Sure, the art was nice. I'm sure you know that already, and seeing as though Aniplex made this, it should be expected. Most well-done part of the show for sure.

Sound - 5/10 - The only thing that specifically caught my attention sound-wise was the intro theme. Everything else is forgettable at best.

Character - 3/10 - This anime has very basic characters. You have your innocent protagonists, the jealous tsundere third wheel, and all the other characters are just... bleh. Not interesting at all, unfortunately. Isla was definitely the best character of the bunch, and seeing her evolve over the course of the show was pretty cool. Tsukasa, on the other hand, is just another familiar face.

Enjoyment - 1/10 - When you make your show a ticking time bomb, you know it is bound to explode.

And that is what happened here.

As much as I want to say I appreciated the smaller moments in the show, I end up remembering what the show is about in the first place, and it completely ruins the experience. There's always that thing nagging at the back of your mind that you cannot get out, and it will stay there right up till episode 13. This is a spoiler-free review, mind you, so I won't disclose that - but you will find out what it is MUCH too quickly.

Overall - 4/10 - Giving this show a 4 is extremely painful. I absolutely loved the concept of the show, and to see it fail so badly is really sad. One of the hugest issues of the show is the pacing and poor use of airtime. If I were to rewrite the show, I would put the episodes roughly in this order, from first to last:

1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 2, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 13.

Now, obviously you would not want to watch them in this order as it stands. But if you consider all the main plot points, the path of the show becomes much more clear as it transitions from unusual romance story to edge-of-your-seat drama. This episode order builds up an immense amount of suspense, rather than the poor use of time Aniplex decided upon. I actually have no idea why they would spoil something so early in episode 2. Call me crazy, I suppose.

See ya next time.

Watcher beware!

I knew the anime was going to have a lot of sad moments from the numerous memes online that meld this with other classics like "Angel Beats", "Clannad Afterstory", "Little Busters", and "Anohana". I was ready for some feels, but instead all I received from 7 episodes was a ludicrous plot and forced tragedy for the sake of creating forced pain and drama.

The whole plot that surrounds the idea of androids that have a set lifespan/memory/personality but are fully treated in every way as a human, especially emotionally, is just plain annoying and not even remotely believable.

Why would anyone invest so much ... emotion into an android knowing they exact date they will leave you and why would anyone allow them to raise children or act as surrogates for family members?

I tried to suspend my loose grip on reality so that I can try to enjoy this anime full of demented logic and plot holes, but I just wasn't able to suspend reality to that extreme.

I really did give "Plastic Memories" a full shot, but in the middle of episode 7, I promptly dropped it and am much satisfied with my decision.

I'm not a hater of tragic anime. Heck I've watched "Grave of the Fireflies" and have kept a somewhat faith in humanity even after watching it. "Plastic Memories" just made me not want to emotionally invest in any character once you understand the plot premise because you just know how it will go. People will emotionally invest in androids that will "die" on a specific time and you will be hurt.

Plastic Memories tells you a story about a situation where AI technology advanced to the point where they are indistinguishable from any human. This makes them capable of living among society, mostly as a rehabilitation mechanics for those with trauma or other reasons. Sadly, they have limited lifespan of 9-ish years, enough time for human to get attached to. Thus, it left you with only a fabricated memories that are doomed from the start, something that might stay with human, but not with 'human'. You might remember who that 'person' is, but if that 'person' is 'inactive' and has no recollection of those memories...does the ... memories you had even exist...or is it just plastic memories?

To be honest, the pilot episode of Plastic Memories sold me. I won't deny that I cried by the end of the first episode. It sets me up for what I was hoping to expect from the series: an anime about the relationship between two different, but alike species that tries to do their job of retrieving 'human' from human who are almost like a family to them before they go, rogue...an interesting way of looking at the prospect of 'letting something go'...with a little sprinkle of comedic rom-com in there.

Sadly, that little sprinkle turned out to be a shower and the comedic rom-com engulfed the whole show. It turned a show with an interesting premise into another comedy. The show itself is still decent with what you expect from a rom-com that tries to force drama. But when something you believe will be great turns out sour, it's a backstab like no other.

If the show sticks to the idea of Augmented Memories, it will go far.

Don't get distracted by the underlying sci-fi themes in the setting. At it's core, Plastic Memories is meant to be a tragic love story, not a sci-fi. In fact, there are no visual differences at all, ever. There's very little separating the androids from people except an arbitrary limited lifespan that's shorter than humans for no reason than to create drama. Besides the androids, there are no technologies that truly change daily life in the setting.

In short, don't watch this show because you want to watch a sci-fi.

If you still want to look into it, instead of the normal three episode test, you shouldn't have ... to watch anything beyond the first episode to understand the atmosphere and execution of the rest of the series. It plays out like a slice-of-life anime and ends with a tragic love story. I have to applaud the show for setting their slice-of-life in an office building instead of a high school but that's about all I can really compliment it on.

There are a couple moments meant to make you cry, but they feel cheap. Just like a terminal illness is a bad writer's crutch when they want to create drama.

In any case, I'd recommend finding something else to watch.

Although a decent tear jerker, Plastic Memories felt like an anime without proper planning or direction.

Story 4/10
The plot revolves around the trite cliché of losing one's memories, which is often a surefire method to stir up the viewer's emotions. Plastic Memories tried too hard with the comedic situations which often conflicted with the melodrama- both of which caused the essence and meaning of the anime to be discounted. This led to a good number of watered-down episodes which only served to build up the finale. The pace felt awkward and not spaced out well. However, giving credit where credit is due, the resolution episodes ... (11-13) were executed appropriately and served well to evoke emotion.

Art 8/10
The art was exceptional and the animation was smooth. The character designs were individually unique.

Sound 7/10
I especially enjoyed the OP and the background music complemented the animation nicely.

Character 3/10
This section was where Plastic Memories fell flat. Both the MCs, Tsukasa and Isla, were generic and boring, without any quirks whatsoever. The relationship progression between Tsukasa and Isla felt terribly contrived. It felt forced to the point where I had to check if I had skipped an episode.

Enjoyment 4/10
The over the top dramatics, coupled with predictable textbook scenarios, proved to be painful to watch at times.

Overall 4/10
All in all, Plastic Memories could have been a good romance, but failed miserably.

As I write about so many anime, the premise here is interesting. The story takes place in the not-too-distant future, and humans have developed androids (giftia) whose only difference from humans seems to be that they have a lifespan limited to 9 years. Tsukasa, our main character, starts working for an agency who retrieves giftia whose lifespan is almost up, since if that time passes, the giftia lose their memories and "humanity" and become dangerous.

As I also write about so many anime, the premise is not fulfilled. Plastic Memories does, in fact, do a worse job than average, because as it turns ... out, the premise is just a thin bait-and-switch. After an interesting first episode, and a wee bit more sfnal content in the second, the plot becomes bog-standard romcom. I resented that, especially since the romcom wasn't even remotely good.

Story: dreadful. This could have explored some really interesting concepts, fascinating issues to think about. And I don't actually include "can a human find true love with an artificial life form" because otaku the world over have already proven that indeed, grown men can fall in love with 2D characters with whom they don't even have an actual, personal relationship. That's not particularly interesting to me. But what place artificial lifeforms might take among us in general, in what ways they would differ from us, what we might have in common, in how far we could understand each other, what rights androids might have, whether we might have to protect them from ourselves (and us from them) -- so much rich, fertile soil for thought.

And if one wanted to deal with death instead or in addition (so as to properly jerk some tears), that too would be a legitimate story -- what does it do to somebody to know exactly when they will lose their partner? Is the pain worth it? The story tries to get into the last bit, but it is doing it so clumsily that I couldn't appreciate it. When we first meet Isla, she seems emotionally stunted, especially in comparison to other giftia, who are basically indistinguishable from humans, while Isla actually feels like an android. But we later find out that it was Isla who started the practice of allowing humans and giftia emotional closure upon retrieval. So why is she so totally clueless when to comes to both her partners? It makes no sense.

Pretty much none of the sfnal elements make sense either. What, we can create fully emotionally functional adult androids in a lab (something that takes humans at least 18 years), and we can load up an android with a new OS = personality in a day or so — but we cannot pull their memories back out? How do we manage the imprint then in the first place? And what's with the ridiculous idea that the androids go nuts? And why the complicated retrieval method; why not just have an internal off switch that gets thrown automatically? In truth the only reason there are androids here is that we can artificially limit the duration of the main characters' romance.

There are plot points that pop up only to never return: black market retrieval thugs who grab androids before the proper retrieval agents can get to then. What’s behind that? What do they DO with those terminal androids? We never find out.

The slapstick humour isn't hit or miss, it's just plain miss and comes at the worst times. Just watch the first episode to the end and you will see what I mean. I don't think I actually laughed a single time. Painful. The fan service was often crude (but that's not really something that makes this show stand out, just that it fit less well here than in most others). I just don't find women rubbing other women's boobies funny or erotic. The constant harassment by co-workers gets old very quickly.

Art: It hurts this show that I've just finished watching "Hibike Euphonium" by KyoAni, and in comparison to that the art and animation fall entirely short. However, when I force myself to push back that comparison, the colour palette is bright and vidid, the character design is decent; each important character is easy to tell apart from the others, and the character design overall doesn't look exactly like hundreds of other shows. The futuristic city is lovely, and some of the background art is rich and beautiful. The animation looked smooth for the most part, and the best part was the cinematography, that was above average. The only thing I really didn't like was Isla's hair, which stuck out in a completely unnatural pose and rarely moved well (Michiru's hair was much better done).

Sound: inoffensive, but nothing stands out for me, neither the voice talent nor the music. Only one of the voice actors I follow is present (Tobita Nobuo as Yamanobe) and his role isn't much, but he does a good job of it.

Characters: poor. Especially Tsukasa, who feels like a generic harem insert character even though this isn’t actually a harem show so why the hell couldn’t they give him some actual personality? Frankly, I wouldn't ever want to insert myself in place of such a boring, incurious doormat; it'd be embarrassing. Everyone else feels like so much stock. And it's completely unbelievable that, say, in the year 2100, even Japanese men still go frantic over their love interest washing their underwear. Oh, and that androids worry about their boyfriend seeing their boobs. *sigh*. I am guessing the idea of Tsukasa and Isla actually having sex before she dies is out of the question. Not that I need to see that, but could we be just a little less prudish here? These people do not act as if they live in the future, they're still in the 1950s when it comes to romance and the idiocies they commit instead of *gasp* communicating. Some genuine affection would be nice.

You can probably guess that I did not enjoy this. I just finished episode 10 and sorely tempted to just drop it, but will stick it out and keep the review open until I finish. You never know, maybe the ending will blow me away.

Well, it didn’t do that, but the last 3 episodes dropped the stupid slapstick and at least made me feel like there was real affection between Tsukasa and Isla. I could have done without the very last bit; that was anti-climactic, and I sure hope they didn’t imply what they might have implied with that final handshake. But at least Tsukasa grows a wee bit of a backbone and is there for Isla. Alas I never really got invested in them.

Spoiler free



Well, if u have come this far, u know the story. The story is in my opinion very poorly presented and concept itself is not new. "Guy falls in love with a robot" , but bc she is a robot, she is going to expire eventually, losing all her memories and ect. in my eyes, this had alot of potential. this could have been a sad anime showing what it means to love someone even near their death. a lot of people could relate to this with one of their relatives suffering a disease which is slowly stripping them off time. but this anime ... took the idea and forgot about it until it suddenly comes back in the last episode. most of the anime is just charcters messing around, typical romance comedy stuff but puting all that in an anime dealing with such serious topic is disgusting. another art they completely wasted is the potential for world-building. i have come across many things in the anime, where i wanted to know what does it do. like the ring they put on for retrievig.


The art is not bad and is quite nice to look at but i have to congratulate them on making such characters which look like they have been copy and pasted from another anime.


the characters are very bland and are never fully developed on. and i mean no character, including the main ones. we never get to know why isla changes character in the past and every background character is very quickly forgotten about.


overall, this anime has made me trust the top reviews more than the actual rating showed on the main page of the anime

Warning: this review might contain minor spoilers
This anime has an interesting premise, and it started well. But then went south, at least for me. I just don't like the tsundere characters, and there are two of them here. One of them especially gets over the top angry, and physically harms the main male character, if that were reversed and any of the male characters acted in such a manner that anime would be universally hated. And because of the tsundere characters I found this anime unwatchable after 4 episodes.

The art, sound, and animation are all fine.

The main character, Isla, was interesting, she seemed to be ... questioning whether she was alive or was just a machine with a limited lifespan. It would have been nice to see how that developed. However, her male lead was pretty much bland and a cookie cutter character, apparently he's there mostly as a foil for juvenile jokes and the tsunderes' wrath, and, to provide a romantic interest for the main character.

Nothing about Plastic Memories stands out positively.

The set up is completely foolish. Welcome to the company where highschool dropouts pair up with hyper realistic robots to recover other robots just before their programmed catastrophic error happens. Oh, and you'll be living with your opposite sex robot btw.

The plot is as cliché as can be. "Oh no! Robot deactivating other robots has feelings!"

The characters are uninteresting. Their personalities and actions as original as the colors in a pack of M&Ms. Isla could be the photo of "cute anime damsel in distress".

Sound and artwise there isn't much to be critic about, it's as expected from a modern ... show.

The reason I think this show has an average rating better than 5 is (spoiler ahead) solely because of the sad death of a character meticulously designed as a waifu pillow.