There are two tropes in anime that never get old: humanoid robots and dying girls. Whether it's Astro Boy or Apocalypse Hotel, there's something innocent about seeing metallic dolls learning what it means to be human. Not even the AI apocalypse could ruin this concept, though some have tried (Dusk Beyond the End of the World). Meanwhile, works like Clannad and I want to eat your pancreas show that people can't help but admire bedridden characters who continue to smile. That's why, usually, I won't complain if a sad anime leans on these tropes. But what happens when you try to do both? There is such a thing as trying too hard.

Winner of the 2004 Animax Award for script-writing, Hotori: Simply Wishing for Hope was considered a hidden gem in internet forums back in the day. ANN Founder Justin Sevakis featured it in his Buried Treasure series, describing it as “remarkably grounded and mature in how it approaches a number of sensitive issues.” It has also never had a home release until now, giving it a sense of mystique that obscure anime tend to get. The back cover of this release says it's “The tale of a boy being injected with memories, and a girl who is losing hers.” To put it another way, it's The Fault in Our Stars if Augustus was a robot.

All jokes aside, there's a reason why both these tropes got used: how they value memories. Both live in a world where brain research and AI development has led to early tests into backing up people's memories. The robot boy, Suzu, is being fed memories of his foster parent's dead son, Ryo. He's developing his own mind just to have someone else occupy it. Meanwhile the sick girl, Hotori, is forgetting her childhood when it's only just begun. She's already forgetting her family just as she meets a new friend. To put it in children's literature terms, it's Pinocchio meets The Little Match Girl. As Suzu learns to be a real boy, Hotori has someone to light a match with. Hotori tells him why people smile even when they're sad, and Suzu shows what it means to live in others' memories. Thematically, I like what it's going for. So what's the issue?

The problem is most of this story is simply told to us: we don't actually get to see much, let alone feel it. A lot about the main relationship is left to the viewers' imagination due to their limited screentime together. Suzu talks about memories being implanted that we never get to see. Hotori talks about how lonely she feels, but her moments actually being alone never get shown. It's more interested in pondering about these themes rather than experiencing them. This put a damper on how closely connected I could get to these characters, so I wasn't emotionally destroyed once it took its tragic turn. At most, it made me go “ah, that sucks.”

That disconnect between how it wanted me to feel vs how I actually felt also affected my suspension of disbelief. To put it bluntly, some parts of this story felt rather silly. The way these kids have full access to secret rooms, lab equipment, and even weapons felt more like part of a visual novel. I get that part of the story's point is that children have more going on than adults assume, and that we shouldn't belittle them due to lack of life experience. But there's a difference between being forced to grow up early due to dire circumstances and hiding a perfectly-encased loaded gun in the indoor garden. When the short opens with Suzu aiming that firearm at Hotori's face, I kept thinking of that one viral video where a mom asks her baby girl what she's holding at a party before said baby shouts “A KNIFE” while smiling.

That said, some parts of the script did grab me. There's a subplot regarding Hotori's father who also invented the human memory card central to this story. For someone willing to use this technology for Ryo's parents, he's not confident enough in it to back up his own daughter's dying mind. But seeing Suzu become his own self as he interacts with his daughter affects how he approaches his creation and family. I also did like the ending. It's a very literal way of writing “you live on in me” into a sci-fi story. But it's also at this point when I started to wonder whether Hotori even needed to be the same age as Suzu. While it's inherently sad to see a child miss out on life, I'm curious how I'd feel if Hotori was a much older dementia patient. It's not like they were established to be soul mates (though kind of yes), so I think it'd work.

On the technical side, this remaster has done a fantastic job bringing this title to HD. For a mid-2000s digipaint production, the restoration manages to retain all the details previously locked at Standard Definition. There's zero aliasing issues, the lines pop more, and they've corrected a slight tint in the original's color. While some of the wide shots do look blurrier on bigger monitors, the close-ups are crisp enough to resemble a re-render. AnimEigo doesn't skimp when it comes to their upscales, and here they've successfully squeezed out more detail out of half the resolution.

Visually, though, I was more impressed by how they cleaned this up rather than what was actually being shown. The actual animation here is depressingly stiff, and the inexpressive character designs don't help. I understand the robot struggling to emote, but even the human characters share this deadpan stare that makes it harder to get emotionally attached. I wasn't really impressed with the directing either. This was helmed by Takashi Anno of Yokohama Shopping Log fame, so I expected him to get the somber atmosphere right. But the overreliance on wide shots for a setting with rather dull scenery just makes it feel distant. If this really was a story that could only be told, at least have them speak closer to us so we can see them emote. Either that, or make it look more like the picture book aesthetic in the credits sequence.

The voice acting deals with a similar issue, especially the new dub. Admittedly, this was not an easy job to take for a cast of newcomers. The original performances were somewhat monotone, making it harder to tell when they were supposed to sound tired or depressed. As some of the voice actors put it, they don't sound very “anime.” So the cast seem to have gone into their performances with a less-is-more approach. Some said their lines in their natural voice, while others held back their more animated selves. In trying to replicate the original though, it just ends up sounding stilted and dull. To be fair, some creative choices were made: they added a missing grunt after one character bumped into a desk. Suzu in both languages sounds robotic on purpose before sounding more natural as they become more human. But Hotori's underlying sadness is harder to tell, which is why I recommend sticking to the sub.

There is one aspect, though, I was thoroughly impressed by: the music. For a mostly silent short film, Ayako Ōtsuka makes the most out of just a handful of tracks. Much like our two leads, it marries together synth and orchestral instruments in a way that complements one another. Its theme song in particular proved to be extremely malleable, fitting into both soothing conversations and explosive outbursts. By the time the full song is sung at the end, only then did it hit me how often I heard its exact melody throughout the film. While she hasn't worked on many anime soundtracks since, she immediately got picked up to do Zegapain and eventually collaborate with Yōko Kanno for Aquarion Evol. To me, her music carried this short.

For what it's worth, I do appreciate that a work like this got a professional release. After two decades, people can finally see this in HD without the Animax logo in the corner. For people nostalgic over finding this short on a whim, getting to see how it was intended must be a real treat. Outside of the music though, I found this more interesting than emotionally compelling. It'd take a heart of stone to come out of this not feeling sad, but at times it felt scientifically engineered to do so. When it comes to implementing a cancer allegory into a story about androids, the ending to Plastic Memories hits closer to home.