What an auspicious start to the episode.
— I like how Knights of Sidonia was supposed to be about humanity being hunted to the brink of extinction by a mysterious alien threat, but lately, it’s been all harem antics. Likewise, Plastic Memories was supposed to be about androids and how they cope with their emergent yet short-lived humanity, but we’re going to go on a dey-to.
— Again, at what point does Isla feel like an android? Sure, these androids are human-like. Sure, these androids have thoughts and feelings just like us. But they can’t be all human. What would be the point, then?
— So despite all this technology, they can’t afford a dryer?
“B-but some garments will shrink if you use a dryer!”
So we can create super human-like androids, but we can’t solve the problem of clothes shrinking? And besides, you can certainly throw boxers into a dryer…
— And yes, our hero is to embarrassed to let Isla handle his dainty, little boxers. This dude wants to ask a girl out, but he’s literally turning red because she’s touching his polka-dotted boxers. Get real.
— Later, Tsukasa seeks advice from the guys. One of them suggests that if our hero’s honest, Isla’s sure to understand his feelings. What does that even mean? So what if I understand your feelings? Nothing necessarily has to follow from that. But this is really the sort of advice that anime loves to espouse when it comes to the matters of the heart. If you work hard and if you’re honest, then you’re just entitled to her affections!
— Meanwhile, Isla’s still trying to prove her worth, so she’s trying too hard to find things to do for Tsukasa. As a result, she just keeps screwing up. For instance, she accidentally threw away some important papers on his desk in an attempt to tidy his workspace up…
…then she gets lost trying to drive them home. Again, why would an android get lost unless she’s truly faulty? It’s one thing to give an android humanity. It’s another thing to make her incapable of finding her way home. Again, how does she even remotely resemble an android? How is she any different from any anime shoujo? Oh, I guess this one is forced to obey the anime hero, which is just fantastic.
— Yep, more powerful character development. I sure am glad we ducked out on addressing the deeper implications surrounding human-like androids in order to have scenes like this one.
— Of course, Isla says yes. Kazuki then puts the fear in Tsukasa, reminding him that he has to work hard. As a result, he’s about as dumb as his anime slave girl android, and decides to overwork himself. Hey, he’s just getting himself ready to become a breadwinning salaryman.
— You’re not eating right, huh?! As an anime haremette, I’m legally required to make you bentos! Just say the word! Are you eating right, just okay, or not at all?! Which one? Which one? Which one?
— Aaaaaaaaand now it’s Isla’s turn to get some dating advice from the girls. What a super high-concept sci-fi show. It’s a perfect complement to Knights of Sidonia as well!
— Yeah, go to the aquarium! Anime bitches love aquariums!
— In the end, the anime slave girl android decides to go to an amusement park, because she has happy memories of spending time there with Kazuki. Oh, I guess some memories are worth keeping after all.
— On the day of the dey-to, Tsukasa stares slack-jawed at Isla’s outfit. I think it looks hilariously childish, but then again, he’s pretty much dating a child anime slave girl android.
— When they get to the amusement park, Isla parks her ass on her favorite bench. As it turns out, when she used to come here with Kazuki, they would literally just sit there. She never rode any of the rides or anything.
— The bench turns into a psychiatrist’s couch as Tsukasa not-so-subtly probes the child anime slave girl android’s feelings and memories. She reveals that watching happy people simply makes her feel warm on the inside. A breakthrough, people! What a breakthrough!
— We then get a montage of the two of them doing generic amusement park things. I definitely watch this show for the dey-to montages.
— In the end, however, a foolish and overworked Tsukasa finally passes out and faceplants into the child anime slave girl android’s boobs. Top notch character driven anime.
— When he finally comes to, Isla confesses her dokidoki feelings:
— Tsukasa wakes up the next morning to find that he’s all better now. Unfortunately, Isla stayed up overnight so…
This is pretty much the only time in the entire episode that the character feels even remotely android-like. Beautiful.
Moe Sucks 
“he’s pretty much dating a child anime slave girl android” lool didn’t need to cross out child. That’s definitely what Isla is. Why is there even romance? Isn’t she a robot? She’s also a child.
I was unaware that they had batteries until that final scene.
comparison between this and sidonia couldn’t be more true.
“I want you to always smile” Man who comes up with these cheesy lines? I’m pretty tired of hearing it, even if someone smiles that doesn’t mean their happy and no one is always gonna be happy.
“…then she gets lost trying to drive them home. Again, why would an android get lost unless she’s truly faulty?”
We saw her improve in her practice not long ago too. Strange. Also what’s so difficult in telling someone they look good, this sort of thing always happens in anime for some reason.
Yeah… important inventory of the world conveniently dropped and then SUDDENLY re-surfacing isn’t great. Not surprising, just really sloppy writing, and these kinds of episodes accentuate it.
A real in-depth search for androids (Wikipedia) makes it seem that Giftia are Golem-types of androids. They’re made to be flexible, even from organic materials to appear to be life-like. Androids are apparently a marriage of simulacra and atomata, the latter having a key part of Artificial Intelligence.
But the thing is, there isn’t really a reason for an AI to genuinely and emphatically understand and try to be human. Not to mention that territory would tread into very gray and dangerous paths. For example, the laws of robotics. The robot/android doesn’t distinguish “friend” or “family”, it distinguishes “human” and “other robot”, any other distinction is a distraction from getting to the solution.
And there’s the failure of this show: it’s trying SO HARD to distinguish that there’s a difference between humans and Giftia (hourz ’til deth guiz im su scured) but then we things like this fucking episode.
Isla SHOULD be blushing BUT not because she’s actually in LOVE with Tsukasa; she should be blushing because simulacra kicks in to influence (or manipulate) Tsukasa to gather more data to process and move forward. That’s what an intelligent machine does, and genuine human emotions is logically a distraction that’s not even worth spending RAM (or whatever) on. It’s all about getting to the solution with the least amount of time and effort.
But what is Isla doing this in the show? She is being 100% a human being. Isla shouldn’t be directly asking for love advice (already bullshit). She’ll gather data from Magical Future Wi-Fi Internet or her AI will run millions of simulations a second to see how she can optimally arrive at the point to garner a positive reaction from Tsukasa and perform those tasks flawlessly. Again, organic human love shouldn’t even be in this show, or rather it should strictly be one-sided.
Superficially, the writer throws in a line or two to “remind” everyone that she’s NOT human. Again, just sloppy execution, basically akin to SAO’s amateurish attempts at trying to separate between game and fantasy-world setting.
I’m just waiting to see how this shitshow plays out. We’ll probably be shoe-horned with a HARD RIGHT TURN towards drama-bomb where there’ll be nothing BUT the sterile and mechanical nature of Isla’s termination, the same way we’d get dismantle a computer or whatever.
Or maybe there’ll be an asspull with a reincarnation-trope. That would be pretty baaad.
I dunno, SAI Corp… maybe it makes more financial sense to develop a more utilitarian model of android that would work 25+ years to do actual productive things than releasing a model that has shorter life, more expensive to manufacture, consciously fucks up, and has actual function and technological problems. But I dunno, I’m not a Future Economist (not even a regular one) and maybe Future Economies thrive on losing money.
I forgot to add: holy fuck this love shit is cringeworthy. And here I thought Joaquin Phoenix’s character in Her was kind of a loser, but here comes animu-boy Tsukasa strolling into the room.
Nice cat gif. That’s me but with a little bit more head shaking.
In all honesty Big Hero 6 gives a more interesting robot human relationship. While most of the film had me rolling my eyes, the way the robot did not understand the nuances of the problems faced by the main character while still stubbornly trying to administer therapy was an interesting and rather realistic idea.
If this goes on at this pace she’ll die without getting any dick ever.