DGFischer

The viewing of Plastic Memories comes at a sensitive time for me.  Over the past half year, I had lost my mother and my father-in-law.  Often my wife chats with mom-in-law and I can hear how often she breaks down with the sense of loss.  This was the missing element in Plastic Memories.  It strives to be a sensitive study of demise and separation, but the loss is too well planned to be nothing more than an empty premise.

This arises from the fact that one of the main characters is Isla, who is the highest achievement in android technology ... a Giftia.  Such as she is programmed to function for 9 years and three months (this 81,000 hours till expiration nonsense makes the Giftia lifespan nebulous ... years and months make this mess clearer).  She comes to us as moody and stoic, almost at war with the notion of forming and cherishing memories.  And she is cute.

Anime Snob is correct.  The story dies if Isla is a flabby old man.  It is her cuteness that brings that other MC, Tsukasa into the drama.  If Isla is introverted, Tsukasa is incompetent.  Tsukasa has failed to enter college, at there are hints that Tsukasa had psyched himself out of this opportunity.  A new opportunity comes up for Tsukasa, a position at SAI Corporation, the brand name in Giftia research.  Or, in Tsukasa's case, the role of apprentice recaller in Terminal Services.  Isla is confined to tea service duties, but she is promoted to be Tsukasa's partner.  They are to gather Giftias nearing that nine year, three month expiration date.  The pair is to contact owner and Giftia that time to surrender android has come, and in a timely fashion as over-reaching the expiration date could be catastrophic.  Attachments between owner and Giftia can be hard to break and chase scenes are a-plenty.  But Tsukasa has a talent to adapt as he learns to approach this matter of separation the emotionally bonded owner-Giftia with gentility and tact.

Ah, but now the irony ... Isla is on year nine, month two when she becomes Tsukasa's partner.

The relationship between Isla and Tsukasa is one of drawing each other out.  Tsukasa becomes more confident in his abilities and talents; Isla learns to smile and not fear the creation of memories she knows she must abandon once she is terminated.  At best, a Giftia can be up-graded, the shell being installed with a new persona, making the Giftia 2.0 a novelty the original owner could not relate to.  This was the stressing point to the premise.  Losing people is to be traumatic, and creating a class of Giftia doesn't ameliorate the process.  The idea of willingly embracing termination of a cherished being is remote, and plot developments and twists can't surmount reality.  Tsukasa does cry tears as the prospect of turning Isla off approaches, but then the time of adjustment was short.  Such preying on emotions seems cheap, and this would be Plastic Memories’ weakness.  It seemed that the redemption of the sullen Isla to meet her end as a resolute cheerful android was adequate for the story.

The dark hues in the animation played well against the brightness of the offices at SAI Corp. Terminal Services.  The characters displayed a wide range of personalities, from the always angry Kazuki, the fun-loving Ren, the socially inept Takao.  All fine backdrops to the doomed love story into which Plastic Memories would devolve.  And to what point ... I'm still searching for that.

n the end, it was a satisfying viewing as the compelling  premise offered a growth of a character through the decline in the fortunes of one who would have the shortest of existences.  What made it unsatisfying was that the story was doomed from the onset.