Pre-Order Isla Now And Save 14%!

Welcome to the Solaris Blog! ヾ( ʚ̴̶̷ .̫ ʚ̴̶̷ )ﾉ”
Plastic Memories is one of those anime where you realize almost immediately that emotional damage is coming. The only question is how attached you are going to get before it arrives.

The 2015 original anime takes place in a near future where SAI Corporation has created Giftia, highly advanced androids that look, behave and express emotions much like humans. There is one rather serious problem: their operational lifespan is limited to around nine years. When that time approaches, employees from SAI’s Terminal Service are sent to retrieve them before their memories and personalities begin to fail.

The story follows Tsukasa Mizugaki, a new employee assigned to Terminal Service No. 1. His job means entering people’s homes and asking them to say goodbye to Giftia that may have spent years living as friends, partners or family members. It gives Plastic Memories an interesting sci-fi setup, but the technology is really there to ask a much more human question: if you know your time with someone is limited, does that make getting close to them more painful or more important?

Naturally, Tsukasa gets partnered with a Giftia. Isla is an experienced Terminal Service employee who initially struggles to show much emotion. She helps the inexperienced Tsukasa learn the job, but despite her reserved personality, she gradually reveals a much cuter and more awkward side. She can be clumsy, painfully shy and surprisingly easy to fluster, especially as her relationship with Tsukasa begins moving beyond simple coworkers.

That makes Isla very easy to love, which is obviously terrible news in a series built around android expiration dates. Without going too far into spoilers, Plastic Memories becomes less about whether separation can be avoided and more about what Tsukasa and Isla choose to do with the time they have. Dates, amusement parks and simple moments together begin carrying much more weight because both the characters and the audience understand that there may not be an endless supply of them.

And that is what makes a wedding dress version of Isla hit considerably harder than your average bridal figure. Aniplex Shanghai’s new 1/7 scale Isla figure imagines her stepping toward the kind of happy future that Plastic Memories makes you desperately want for her.

The pose is deliberately simple and I think that is the right choice. Isla stands facing forward with the bouquet held gently in both hands, wearing a smile that feels much closer to her personality than a huge bridal grin would. There is still a bit of nervousness in the expression, which gives it that familiar Isla charm.

The dress is where most of the sculpting work goes. Multiple layers of white fabric cascade around her legs, with pink tracing the edges and a series of little ribbon bows decorating the upper skirt. The front opens enough to reveal her legs while the much longer sides and back preserve that dramatic bridal silhouette. From behind, the large pink ribbon adds another splash of color and stops all of that white fabric from becoming too plain.

There is a lot of white and pastel pink here, but Isla’s hair keeps the figure from washing out. Her pale lavender twin-tails fan outward nicely and pick up a slightly stronger purple tone toward the ends. The individual strands give some movement to an otherwise very still pose, while the little rose decoration in her hair connects back to the bouquet.

And the bouquet itself is surprisingly important. The mix of pink, cream and white roses provides a concentration of color, with green leaves adding some much-needed contrast. Since Isla is holding it directly in front of her body, sloppy flowers could have dragged the entire figure down. Thankfully, there is enough separation between the petals and colors to make it feel like an actual arrangement rather than a lump of floral plastic.

There is also a feature I was not expecting: the wedding dress is cast-off.

The long outer portion can be removed, turning the elaborate bridal gown into a much shorter mini-dress. That completely changes the figure’s silhouette and gives you two very different ways to display her. The full dress has the stronger emotional impact and definitely feels more appropriate to the wedding theme, but the shorter version is cute and puts much more focus on Isla herself. It is a fun extra that gives the figure a little more value than simply including another face plate or accessory.

The base is fairly straightforward, using a pale translucent pink finish with some subtle decoration. With all the layered fabric, flowers, ribbons and flowing hair, adding a giant wedding arch or elaborate scenery would probably make the display unnecessarily busy.

Overall, this is a really pretty Isla figure. Take away the context and it is an attractive anime girl in a nicely sculpted wedding dress. Know Isla’s story and suddenly the bouquet, gentle smile and bridal theme feel a little crueler. More than ten years after the anime originally aired, it is also nice to see Isla getting a substantial new scale figure rather than the series quietly disappearing into the anime history books.

Isla’s Wedding Dress Ver. is currently available for pre-order and eligible for an early bird discount!
Thank you for reading!