"Plastic Love" is a city pop song; its upbeat arrangement contrasts with melancholic lyrics that describe a woman who embraces a hollow, hedonistic lifestyle after being scorned by a lover.

[1] In an interview with The Japan Times, Takeuchi explained her songwriting process as wanting to write songs of different genres, like rock, folk, and country music.

[3] According to New York Times writer David Leonhardt, the genre "often pairs shimmery vocals with funky production", resulting in an "effervescent sound".

[4] Miranda Remington of Pen Magazine International described the song as being "arguably [Takeuchi's] most euphoric number".

[7] According to Takeuchi, the song's character "lost the man she truly loves" and "couldn’t shake the feelings of loneliness that the loss created.

"[1] Ryan Bassil of Vice described the song as "ode to a specific breed of loneliness: of being broken yet surrounded, lost to the night in fancy shoes and dresses; seeking out love beneath glowing lights while tip-toeing around the fear of commitment".

According to Oricon, this was an unusually strong performance; it is rare for singles to chart in the top ten purely off of analog sales, despite the increase of popularity of vinyl records.

[19] Thomas Calkins of Vassar College's Musical Urbanism noted the strong connection fans had to the specific upload by Plastic Lover, and outrage at its removal, as a social phenomenon; "users could’ve moved on to any number of clones of the video, or the myriad remixes and copies.

Kotaku writer Brian Ashcroft attributed the song's renewed success to a "combination of the now iconic photo, the instantly catchy vibes, and the earworm appeal of Takeuchi’s performance".

[19][4] Writing for Billboard Japan in April 2022, Hitoshi Kurimoto described "Plastic Love", as well as Miki Matsubara's "Mayonaka no Door (Stay with Me)", as "representative tracks that have become resurgent hits" in the city pop genre.

[24] Kurimoto noted a common pattern among city pop songs, including "Plastic Love", of being first discovered by the underground club music community – specifically the vaporwave and future funk sub–genres – before acquiring wider popularity due to uploads to YouTube and social media platforms like TikTok.

[25] The "breakout popularity" of city pop led record labels in Japan to re–issue albums as well as to issue new features and music videos, with sales in the genre "flourishing" on both CD and vinyl formats.

[3] In February 2021, Cat Zhang of Pitchfork said that "nearly every young city pop fan I’ve talked to has cited “Plastic Love” as their gateway to the genre, and the YouTube algorithm as their route".

[19] NME writer Tanu Raj noted the song, along with "Stay with Me" and Takako Mamiya's "Midnight Joke", functioned a "gateway for a younger generation to discover [city pop]".

[27] According to Miranda Remington of Pen Magazine International, "mashups with famous Western songs; fan-made English-language lyrics; and most prevalently, retro-futuristic ‘vaporwave’ takes" have circulated "ubiquitously" online.

[1] Shoumik Hassin of Bdnews24 felt the song connected with audiences because of its "melancholy" vibe, pairing the "shiny, plastic surfaces" of city pop with "hints of confusion, yearning, and loneliness"; "even in a language you might not know, and amid the bouncy beat and the bright brass, it feels like taking a smoking break and getting slightly too honest.

"[7] In Heichi Magazine, Joni Zhu noted the appearance of "Plastic Love" as expressing "a yearning for an eternal 1980s, and a Japanified future when Japanese trademarks would dominate the world".

[35] Vice writer Lex Celera described the video, which depicts a woman and a man briefly crossing paths and a glance in a hotel, as capturing "the exact mood the song projects: a gentle shifting between loneliness and adventure, coupled with a sense of nostalgia and a loss for something you’ve never had".

[42] In December 2021, Japanese idol group Juice=Juice released a cover of "Plastic Love" as a triple-a side single with "Familia" and "Future Smile".