Plastic Memories

Episode 9

Like a couple of episodes before it, this one was a waste until the last few minutes.

It was mostly a storm of clichés. Tsukasa has been in a stupor since Isla rejected him. His coworkers take the opportunity to prank him for several minutes of unfunny comedy. Isla thought that Michiru and Tsukasa were in a relationship and became jealous. Worst Character Eru sexually harassed Isla. The office is obsessed with Tsukasa's romantic life. Yadda yadda.

It all leads up to one worthwhile scene. Isla tells Michiru about her impending death. Shocked and grief-stricken, Michiru runs off. Tsukasa finds her and they start talking. Their relationship finally makes sense to Michiru, and she apologizes for all of the horrible things she's said about Tsukasa. When she learns how long Tsukasa has known about Isla's lifespan, she becomes angry. Michiru remembers how she wasn't able to accept her father's death and fears that this will happen to Tsukasa, but Tsukasa reassures her. He just wants to make happy memories with Isla during the time she has left. In the episode's most emotionally raw moment, Michiru vents her frustrations by screaming. She then approves of their relationship, telling Tsukasa to go find Isla. It's a mature move for a character whose primary purpose is Isla's romantic rival. Plastic Memories wastes a lot of time, but at least it knows when it needs to be serious.

When Tsukasa gets back to his apartment, Kazuki is there. She breaks up Tsukasa and Isla's partnership. I hope we learn more about what happened between Isla and Kazuki soon. They've been dangling that for a long time. I hope it's not just that Isla couldn't work on the day that Kazuki lost her leg. What really happened to Isla that day? Was her dementia setting in already?

By this point, I'm convinced that the show has blown its potential as a work of science fiction. There's not much time to explore the interesting questions about Giftias in society posed by the first few episodes. I guess they might bring the illegal Giftia retrievers back to up the stakes in the finale, but overall, the science fiction trappings were just a pretense to set up the specifics of Isla's situation. It's a source of melodrama.

What kills me about Plastic Memories is that it has managed both emotional resonance and fascinating speculation in the past. The first two episodes are still solid. It's just rarely accomplished both of these things at the same time, and only between episode-long doses of the hackiest romantic comedy antics. In the hands of a better writer, Plastic Memories could have excelled in both regards. Now it's just this limp morass, 1/3rd sci-fi, 1/3rd melodrama, and 1/3rd nothingness. Maybe it'll end on a high note?

Grade: C

Plastic Memories is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Gabriella Ekens studies film and literature at a US university. Follow her on twitter.