Forum - View topicREVIEW: Plastic Memories Episodes 1-13 Streaming
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Ali07
 Posts: 3333 Location: Victoria, Australia |
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After hoping this would be a good show, found it mediocre. While the ending is one I thought they'd do, I was disappointed that they did not fully explore the emotions attached to their "repo-man" like profession.
They scratched the surface, really. And, I also agree that there is a lot of fluff in the series. Still, I found that the MCs were a likable pair. But, they alone couldn't carry the show through it's ups and downs. |
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Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
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Those involved with the production of PM should have taken one look at Naotaka Hayashi's script, said "this wouldn't pass as a light novel, let alone a $1million+ animation," called Makoto Shinkai & asked "hey, you know that episode of Chobits where the baker tells us how he used to be married to a robot with a faulty hard drive? Here's $1million+ to make one of your mawkish hour long features about their relationship." I'd have watched that.
As for the art, I was underwhelmed. It was a triumph of post production, sure, with the colour saturation & bloom lighting cranked up as high as they go. The actual art, though, was pretty bland. Character designs were generic (I think whatever the tsundere was called was just a tracing of whatever the tsundere in Saekano was called. Some cuts looked almost identical.) & outdoor scenes were notable for their absent or completely static background characters. edit: Also, super powered zombie mutant robots. Who the hell thought that was a good idea? Last edited by Lemonchest on Tue Aug 11, 2015 9:03 am; edited 1 time in total |
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HaruhiToy
 Posts: 4118 |
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^ This. And I agree with everything in the review. When I was watching I thought it was good enough to obscure what I was dissatisfied with. Rose's review summed it up better than I could have for myself.
One problem not mentioned in the review is the contrived nature of the individual crises. They were acted out real enough, but only if you suppose that the owners of the giftas were wholly ignorant of their nature when they were acquired. That's might be OK if the party is a child who was a toddler when the gifta arrived but not the adults. If you dismiss that problem then the concept improves. Another problem I had is that this came around too soon after Your Lie In April. spoiler[Another character you just didn't want to see die.] |
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ParaSitius
Posts: 55 |
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I pretty much agree with the review and above, so much potential which was utterly wasted on poor comedy and general faffing about. A more in depth take on the fake repo-men would have made for a good story.
I'm in two minds about getting this show if it gets a UK release, will wait and see I suppose. |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4426 |
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I'll probably pass on getting this one. Interesting concepts that were raised but not addressed, not terribly funny comedy, and the fact that I'm not much for the whole dying-person romance theme makes for a show that I'm not buying.
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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What I don't get is why people went gaga for this show in the first place. The first episode garnered absurdly high marks from our intrepid previewers. Proponents will claim that the show wasted its promising sci-fi and emotional potential with asinine melodrama in later episodes, but that's actually not true. Even right from the first episode it was obvious - at least, it was to those who kept their thinking caps on - that the melodrama was front and centre. Oh, and cringe-inducing comedy surrounding; anyone remember the "desperation" scene at the end of episode one? But more important than the bad attempts to be humorous were the numerous glaring issues with the story and characters, and that the premise itself was built on very shaky logic. And yet, despite all this, the first few episodes are held up to be amazing by people who should have known better. This isn't a case of a good show going bad, it is a case of a show starting out poorly and just getting worse from there.
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WingKing
Posts: 617 |
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100% agree with Rose's review. Not many shows have gone from my penthouse to my basement quicker than this one. I can partly blame my expectations, because I wanted a serious/thoughtful sci-fi drama, a-la Chobits or GitS, and the first episode teased that's what we were getting, only to fail spectacularly to deliver on that promise afterwards. Even so, I still could've lived with it evolving into a romantic comedy/drama if it had actually been written well. But as much as I enjoyed the first episode (and I think it still works well as a stand-alone short, lame ending joke aside) episodes 3 and 4 really killed it for me (especially episode 3 with its eye-rollingly awful running gag of "neighbor barges in on Tsukasa at a bad moment"), and at that point I just dropped it.
Last edited by WingKing on Tue Aug 11, 2015 10:51 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5424 Location: Iscandar |
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I totally agree with this. Episode 1 already showed questionable aspects. I never got why many people saw so much potential. I ended up watching the whole series, and I liked the romance between the leads, but Plastic Memories was supposed to be an intelligent sci-fi show, right? |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18187 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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I guess I must be one of the "fans of the tragic romance genre" that Rose was talking about, because I liked this a whole lot more than everyone else who has posted so far and found the series to be pretty satisfying overall. (Especially the last episode, which I found to be quite emotional and very well-done.) I will agree that it didn't fully live up to the potential it showed in the first episode, that it could have done more with some of the topics it raised, and that the lame comedy was a definite drag on the series in several places. However, I thought the direction it was going - i.e., that this was going to be more of a relationship and emotion-driven story than thoughtful examination of the sci fi elements - was established firmly by the first episode, so that's what I was expecting as the primary focus all along.
YMMV, but for me the strong points were enough to cover for the flaws. |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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If you actually take time to think about the setting, people buying robot companion, it's pretty obvious why they'd go into slap stick comedy and melo drama. Taking the subject heads on would lead to incredibly dark place. The number one use for them would be sex slave (with possibly lots of child robot) and even the more "normal" relationship would have incredibly dark aspect. If people just wanted perfectly normal relationship they'd just meet other normal human, why go trough all the trouble of buying an expansive robot that's gonna break? So you'd have people with big problem just not fixing them and using robot instead. So the violent husband who constantly beat his wife, well if she's a robot she can't complain (just have to program her to not complain, heck he could even program the robot to enjoy it).
If the show wanted to talk about loss of loved one, it'd be far simpler to just set the setting in an hospital, say have the main character be doctors that deal with people with terminal cancer. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18187 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Not everyone has that easy a time meeting compatible "normal humans" - and I'm not just talking about your stereotypical social losers here. For many people out there, it would be worth it.
Um, the whole point here is to put "loss of a loved one" in a fresher context. That would defeat the purpose. |
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Angel M Cazares
Posts: 5424 Location: Iscandar |
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To me Plastic Memories worked and was well executed as a romance show. The big problem is that the first few episodes made it seem that PM was going to be a story dealing with issues of very advanced androids in a futuristic society. It was clear that this series was not going to be a darker cyber punk like Psycho-Pass because it was going to have a romance and some comedy to lighten things up. Unfortunately, this premise (which sounded fine in paper) was horribly executed because the android/sci-fi stuff was largely abandoned after its first third. In its second third the show devolved into some of the lamest and most unfunny comedy ever made. The resolution to its heartfelt, central romance in the last third was good material. But in the end Plastic Memories is fundamentally a failure because it betrayed its very premise. |
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-Ana-
Posts: 75 |
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Two words: Wasted Potential
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Even if it had remained true to its premise, it still would have been a weakly written show. So rather than the direction it should have gone in, it's biggest problem is its writing quality. While it had some good ideas and a thought-provoking premise, the execution was sorely lacking. I don't think you should call the show a failure though. There were people, such as Key, who overall still liked it and got a lot out of it. At least for them the show succeeded. |
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Angel M Cazares
Posts: 5424 Location: Iscandar |
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I call it a failure not because I think the show was total crap; it actually had some nice things. But it fails because the producers were incapable of using its decent premise to create a smooth experience that combined sci-fi, romance and comedy. Those elements were present in the show, but they were horribly put together. |
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