Plastic Memories – 10
This episode, Isla joins the mob…
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Well, everything gets more complicated with Isla involved, it seems. Well it makes things complicated with Kazuki, and that has a blast radius….with sake bottles, apparently… |
Sake Bottles
No one is safe…
Overall, you would watch this episode for the last few minutes, as it had all the satisfaction you could ever want from a love story’s single episode. But that doesn’t mean that we didn’t learn a thing or two along the way about our cast of characters. It wasn’t just Isla, Tsukasa, Kazuki either, as we got to know a just how boss Constace is capable of being. That was some prime dude coverage he gave Tsukasa….
As I said, when Isla’s emotions are involved, Kazuki develops an emotional blast radius. She’s had some time to develop it, and keep it under lock and key for just the right time, or wrong time, depends on your point of view. But she’s worked on it for three years, and it does have it’s very strong influence and defiantly it’s own office culture. She’s the de facto boss of the team after all. I feel she got to far ahead of herself, calling of the two’s partnership in that fashion, but that seems like her character right there as well.
Don’t make me angry Kazuki, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry…
After all, the plot has to center around Isla, as we learn this episode. I think we took it as said that Kazuki herself was responsible for the change in the office dynamics. A marked departure from the way other offices do retrievals; Andie’s team job with them being a very marked point. But actually it was a Giftia that developed this plan all along. Isla herself.
She’s in the thick of it after all, and understands better than non-Giftia that the act of tearing apart memories cuts deeper than SAI expects. I’m sure her fellow Giftia in the office had no problem with it. But, Isla did work herself awfully hard, and the stress came out of that. I’m thinking she began to doubt her methods if not her ideals, and that had an effect on Kazuki.
Red Kazuki is the Red Hulk?
But, luckily, one choice job came along for Kazuki to test out her theories on what was developing with her former, and now current partner. People, and that includes Giftia, deserve to have as much time together as possible. If time heals wounds, then time can possibly prevent them from happening as well. And Isla cannot afford to be selfish with her time, for her sake and for the sake of the one she loves.
This is why office romances are bad…never a private confession…
And so we have one great celebratory confession of love. Which is exactly what you want from a love story. I’ve been critical in the past about the lack of punch in the shows sci-fi elements. But that was weeks ago, and I’ve given it a rest. It was never the biggest plot point, just a vehicle to deliver the applicability of the story. I made a point about how attached we can get to gadgets in the shows First Impression. But this show goes far beyond that. I don’t think the Giftia are a perfect metaphor for the limited time we have with each other, or how useless some excuses are for why we exclude each other from our respective lives. But it is a useful one….
About skylion
All around nerd that enjoys just about any anime genre. I love history, politics, public policy, the sciences, literature, arts...pretty much anything can make me geeky...except sports. Follow me @theskylion
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
It’s Jem! Now she needs her Holograms.
The LOLi Don. The Godmother.
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…can’t you see she’s riding LOLi…
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Well, there is a Godfather. So it’s only right there be a Godmother also.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Well, I’ll say I didn’t expect Kazuki to cave in and give Tsukasa and Isla another chance so easily. You’d think she’d hold out longer but all it showed was that not much resolve went into her splitting them up.
I’m hardly a fan of the romance bit. Actually, best said that I’m not. But given everything else this show is made up of that’s more dominant even when the show is average, it gets a free pass. It’s used as a plot device, so it’s good enough.
Isla joining the mob would be something to see. Makes you wonder what kind of operations she’d want carried out.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
The show is an unrepentant love story, and is unapologetic and in your face with it. But I’m sure it appreciates the free pass…
I think they could have stretched Kazuki’s part in the drama out to a much larger deal, but it would have made it more her story that Isla’s at a given point. She extended her authority perhaps a little to much, and then made a testable assumption with their next job. She wanted to know if the old Isla was still in there. Constance pointed the difference out. So I thought they handled those bits with all the need they…needed.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
And make no mistake it’s a rarity because as you surely must know by now that genres like romance and slice of life are at the bottom of the barrel where my interests are concerned.
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Not to long ago I judged stuff relative to the top or bottom of the barrel. This was when anime was a “genre” that I wanted it to be i.e. “only relative to my interests”. Which is fine, but it’s a medium that has a great deal to say about itself. Puella Magi Madoka Magica got me back into watching anime, but honestly, K-ON was what managed to pull me in more this time around.
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This is pretty much where I wanted the show to be. I think it has the opportunity to be part of a good discussion about “end of life” and how people deal with it. It’s a bit idealized, of course, because usually people don’t have the opportunity to be in perfect health as they approach a known end of life, and of course Isla and Tsukasa don’t have to deal with anything like the ravages of cancer or development of Alzheimer’s. But on the other hand, perhaps that can help free up the feelings that people have about it, without the emotional weight of visibly seeing someone fail.
And I like the way that the show has managed to bring Isla up to everyone else’s level as an adult, something that was just not there in the beginning of the show. Her looks, a bit of her attitude, the presence of Zach, her own actions, and the overprotective and condescending way that Kazuki and the others interacted with her tended to combine to infantalize her, but with the more recent episodes, we see that that’s not really who she is, or maybe it’s more correct to say that’s not how she was, and she’s now returning to that person. And it helps to bring her character around also, because early in the show, it really was difficult to imagine that Isla was Kazuki’s, or anyone’s, partner.
So we’ll see how the show handles this, but I’m actually pretty hopeful. And one other thing that I like is that the show has taken for granted that Giftia are people, or at least the group we see (and indeed, most of the people they interact with). There have been other shows about the divide between androids and humans, and I think it’s fine that this show isn’t that. In this show, there isn’t such a divide.
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I feel the show is going on pure emotional thrust. This might explain why some of the plot things are a bit wonky. I actually did write a whole section on planned obsolescence, then scrapped it as it felt specific, and not quite as applicable as I think the story is aiming for.
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The show could have gone down the road of “why are the Giftia time-limited” but it didn’t do that. So I think we’re better off not really thinking about it and just accepting that’s the way it is. They even went to the trouble of shutting down the “but maybe they could…” with respect to Andie / Olivia, with a pretty solid “No, they don’t remember who they are”, and even followed that up with a nice “… but they are now someone new, who can be nice also.” It was a really nice touch and an interesting thing to think about that Eru and Andie became friends, with Eru accepting that Olivia is gone and Andie is there now.
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I’m getting to the end of the “could have gone” road, but my memories of the trip are still quite vivid. If anything, the Andie/Olivia arc was also there to show us the marked difference with SAI 01’s collection routine, and what is typical, but it also showed us that beyond it not mattering if the old memories are gone, I think it was there to give us a peek into a bit of human nature. That is the basis of personality why some memories are formed and valued. Andie still enjoyed Eru’s company after all, so there was something in there that is essential to her despite the personalities changing.
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Due to the lightness of this season, I managed to find some backlog time. Just marathoned through 7 episodes, and I approve of how the story developed.
That said, the first couple of episodes felt a little aimless, as if the show wasn’t sure which direction it wanted to go and what it wanted to focus on.
The gradual healing of Isla and her coming out of her self-imposed shell was nicely handled, even if they glossed over all the other background details (i.e. the sci-fi elements), which is a little disappointing, as I would have liked to dwell a little more of the what and why. I’m sure the last few episodes are going to be tear-jerkers.
One thing that did bother me was around the OS. If they can be replaced, can’t they also make backups? Although you’d lose some memories, at least you’d have the previous ones. You could choose where you’d want the backup to start from, where it meant the most, whether it be just the personality and character with no memories, or at some point later down the road. If the core is still there, then you can create new memories, since the issue seems to be the degradation over time of the OS and not the body (which can be re-used with a new OS).
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Hey, nice to see a comment on a show I worked on, in what seems like ages ago! GJ finishing it!
Yeah, there was some decent weight to the first few episodes, but as you say, it was searching for a direction; I think it was stuck somewhere in the sci-fi it wanted to present, and the emotional landscape they would eventually start exploring.
As far as the OS is concerned; they’re magic androids…they ain’t gotta explain $#!+! That’s the best I could come up with. The point is that they are practically human, and it’s worth exploring their limitations as you would any other human character.
Please, feel free to comment when you finish!
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1557 comments
Yeah, but the third option of re-installing a new OS for Giftia owners is interesting. I wonder what the options are? What does the OS base model(s) look like, and what options can you buy? Hmmmmmmmm…….
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You’ll just have to wait and see…
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Curse you spammy.
Is there a certain word limit that automatically triggers spammy’s appetite? I feel like my longer posts automatically get eaten but smaller posts have no problem.
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I think it’s that, plus when WP starts to get cranky? If you have a longish comment, do it on a seperate document, then copy and paste it over to the comment section, then reply. That usually works…
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1557 comments
Hmm, I think I’ll try that next time. Thanks for the advice!