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Plastic Memories
Episode 7

by Gabriella Ekens,

This is Tsukasa and Isla's date episode, and it's as bad as you'd expect.

Plastic Memories doesn't have enough story to properly fill out 13 episodes, but this shouldn't be a problem. There are tons of fascinating implications to a world where corporate-owned replicants with the lifespans of house pets are common. But instead: romance a dying girl. There are ways to make this work, but you have to address rather than ignore her impending mortality – or even mortality in general. Tsukasa killed a person two episodes ago. This should still affect him. Maybe he's the one with memory problems? Either way, it's lame and unrealistic and I know that they're just going to crank the melodrama machine up to eleven for the finale. Dying robot love is so beautiful. Barf.

Plastic Memories still has the lamest sense of humor in the world. Most of it is of the “not really a joke, just look at these kids try to fumble through romance” variety. Isla reads a book of marriage advice (that she just has?) and accidentally propositions Tsukasa, to his horror. Michiru is also into Tsukasa, but she's a tsundere, so she wants to get with him while also being as mean as possible. It doesn't help that Tsukasa also gets flustered by the slightest indication that sex exists. Isla washes his boxers, so Tsukasa freaks out because that's where he keeps his sex-parts. The one good joke (that I'm not sure was supposed to be a joke) comes when Tsukasa collapses on their date and faceplants into Isla's boobs. It's a super serious romantic moment and then – WHACK – face in mammaries for several seconds. It's funny in the moment, but ultimately it's not a good moment. Tsukasa only collapses to delay the physical culmination of their attraction. They even joke about it – he has a condition where he collapses during important life moments! Laugh off our lazy writing! Ugh. Tsukasa and Isla have been obsessed with each other since the moment they met. Let them work it out so that we can get back to the interesting stuff.

So yeah, this episode is a total writeoff. The show might still be salvageable if it hunkers down to focus on its interesting premise for the rest of it, but that looks unlikely. Plastic Memories has squandered multiple chances. It's a shame – the show has some serious bright spots. Episodes one, two, and five are still solid. This one even had some good production values. There's nice character animation (the shot of Isla rifling through her diary) and directorial moments (Tsukasa reaching the blank pages at the end of the diary). There's just nothing for all this to amplify. Unfortunately, Plastic Memories is less speculative fiction and more bottom-of-the-barrel melodrama.

Grade: C-

Plastic Memories is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

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


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