It wasn’t what I was looking for, but it dealt with equally worthy themes. Thankfully, I wasn’t disappointed per se, but I did need to recalibrate my assumptions about the show. If I ended up disappointed it would have been my own damn fault. My expectations were simply me imposing my own preconceptions on a show I didn’t know enough about. When I first signed up to blog Plastic Memories, I was expecting it to be hard science fiction, full of implications about robotics and AI, a version of Time of Eve from a more tragic angle. There’s not a lot more to ask of out of life. Some other anime can always explore what Plastic Memories did not. Fault Plastic Memories for not striving to be more, perhaps, but on seeing it neatly resolved in this episode, I’m not sure there should be more. It was, simply, about a short-lived romance, about living and dying. It just goes to show, the science fiction was never really the core of Plastic Memories. There’s no discussion of Isla’s Giftianess, what they did with the body, the future of Terminal Services in SAI’s corporate structure. Tsukasa gets a time skip epilogue, but that’s only to show him moving on from his grief. Isla has some final words, but we were well set up for that. I know not everybody is going to respond the same way to Plastic Memories, but on my part if all of the anime was to build to that one cathartic moment, well, I’ll consider it worthwhile.Īppropriately, perhaps, there isn’t really much more than that. Ah, and then the sad theme plays again for their farewell. Perhaps I’m use to the ambiance of Ferris wheel scenes to be gentle and nostalgic, which made this contrast palpable. The music at the amusement park stood out as very upbeat, which made the silence on the Ferris wheel stand out sharply. Sound and music has certainly been one of Plastic Memories strong suits, and here they show they know how to use silence too. In particular, I wanted to draw attention to the music. A lot of effort was certainly invested into execution of an otherwise simple scene. I didn’t bawl, exactly, but I felt that pang in my chest, and I think that if I wasn’t turning my mind so heavily to analysis, to taking notes and screencaps, to the general business of blogging, I might not have been able to control myself. But it still managed to affect me somehow. Considering the emphasis on the inevitability of death, this is really the only way Isla and Tsukasa’s relationship could have turned out. Like much of Plastic Memories, none of this is a revolutionary twist. Though eventually the tortured facial expressions start (that’s definitely one of the better forced smiles I’ve ever seen in anime) and it’s all quite obvious.Īnd so, predictably, there’s a moment, there’s a kiss, there are tears. Assuming it’s not just my ears playing tricks on me, I’d like to commend Takumi Yasuaki, the voice of Tsukasa, for managing to sound one degree more highly strung than usual. Were they not, I thought, too happy? Was Plastic Memories leading me into a trap? Or has someone finally snapped and decided to raise the chocolate rations to maximum? As I watched on, though, I realised that I recognised this happiness. So I wasn’t exactly surprised that Isla and Tsukasa were so very cheerful on the start of this episode, but I was wary of it. Drama doesn’t work as well when stretched thing, being more effective when gradually built up before crashing down. If the fear as described in Plastic Memories is that happiness only makes the parting harder, well… here’s people being happy! I doubt anybody expected a light-hearted final episode for Plastic Memories, exactly, but it’s not like they can spend all 23 minutes being sombre either.
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