Unnamed Memory

UNNAMED MEMORY

ANIME

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
12
RELEASE
June 25, 2024
LENGTH
24 min

DESCRIPTION

"My wish as champion is for you to descend the tower and be my wife."

Seeking to end a curse thwarting his lineage, Prince Oscar sets out on a quest that leads him to a powerful and beautiful witch, Tinasha, and he demands a unique bargain: marriage. Though unenthused by the proposal, she agrees to stay in his castle for a year while researching the spell cast upon him. But beneath her beauty lies a lifetime of dark secrets that soon come to light.

(Source: Yen Press, Crunchyroll)

CAST

Tinasha
Atsumi Tanezaki
Oscar Farsas
Yoshiki Nakajima
Lucrezia
Ayako Kawasumi
Kav
Kouhei Amasaki
Sylvia
Yuuko Natsuyoshi
Meredina
Chinatsu Akasaki
Nark
Chitose Morinaga
Travis
Jun Fukuyama
Lanak
Junichi Yanagita
Lazar
Shuichirou Umeda
Leonora
Chiwa Saitou
Als
Takuya Satou

EPISODES

Dubbed

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RELATED TO UNNAMED MEMORY

NOVEL AdventureUnnamed Memory

MANGA AdventureUnnamed Memory

ANIME AdventureUnnamed Memory Act.2

REVIEWS

Treepy
50/100
How to Speedrun 3 Volumes Any%: An Absolute Disasterclass in Adaptation
____(Spoilers Ahead)____

[Translation] When I told my editor, "It's going to be difficult to compress it into 12 episodes. Should I just rewrite it to fit the right length?," he just ignored me, as if saying, "You're just talking nonesense...". It's better to leave it to the professionals...... surely......!
- From: Kuji Furumiya's (deleted) tweet (Author of Unnamed Memory) | mirror link
Classic Studio ENGI, when every reader’s dream of getting an anime adaptation for their favorite LN is finally realized and they see your studio being the one in charge of it, that dream just turns into a complete nightmare.
I don’t like writing negative reviews, and I rarely write reviews anyways, but something about this adaptation just rubbed me off the wrong way so I’ll try to articulate my thoughts here. To keep myself sane I’ll at least start off by listing the things that I did actually like about the adaptation because as much as I disliked it, I do still think there are some positives.
Firstly is the music. The opening and ending themes’ vibe and lyrics really fit the series. The BGM is nothing particularly outstanding but again, it just fits the series very well. I can see myself listening to the OST while reading the LN/Manga. I can’t say much in-depth about things like composition and melody so I’m basing this purely on my opinion and personal taste, simply put - I like it, it’s very good. __Music: 85/100. __
_personal favorite track (opening)_

Voice acting and cast choices were on point. Even the minor/side characters’ voices really fit how I envisioned their voices while reading the LN. In particular the standout performances for me are from Tanezaki Atsumi as Tinasha, and Kusunoki Tomori as Miralys. Atsumi has had a knack for voicing powerful mages that are hundreds of years old recently, and this time is no exception, she delivered a very engaging performance, especially with emotional scenes that I can appreciate despite all the problems I have with the script. Tomori voicing Miralys was a surprise for me, and even though her character in the show was effectively reduced to just being a one-off side villain (as with the other major villains in the story), I believe that she delivered an excellent performance despite the extremely limited amount of time that her character was on screen. __Voice Acting: 85/100.__

Animation was decent, particularly the early fight scenes, however it was definitely noticeable that they cut corners for the non-action focused parts for later episodes (horse riding scenes in particular, them riding on the horse with the way they just jaggedly spun around killed me inside). ENGI book move frontloading all the budget into the first few fight scenes to bait you into thinking you were watching a good show. __Animation: 60/100__

Now, as someone who can say that Unnamed Memory is one of their favorite LN series, despite all of the things that I can respect about this adaptation, I cannot in good faith recommend this show to anyone. There is one simple reason for this - the pacing of the show is absolutely horrendous. Whose bright idea was it to adapt three volumes, more than a thousand pages, into a single cour 12 episode anime? It would have been better to just completely adapt the first volume or two instead, or at the very least follow the manga’s pacing, but with that they did it was pretty much impossible to follow the story if you’re only looking at the anime. Yes, the important plot points are adapted, and that’s the core of the story, but it's just completely skipping entire chapters of buildup in order to meet the 12 episode deadline.
The main problem with having this pacing is that a lot of the charm of the series is lost. For example, in between major plot points, there were side stories and mysteries that showed characters in lower stakes situations which allowed the characters’ individual personalities to shine and show actual development. These stories often foreshadowed major elements of the later plot and expanded a lot on worldbuilding. However - these were completely cut in the anime, which lead to the development of the two main protagonists’ romance (which is pretty much the focal point of the entire series) just feel completely forced and out of the blue without the proper context, and it also makes them a lot less likable. Example; an episode ago our two leads seemed like they were at the same distance as before, with Tinasha routinely denying Oscar’s advances, then suddenly a kiss happens and they act like this is completely normal? Obviously something happened, but we are not shown this at all. Those who are uninterested in reading the source material or wiki snippets are completely unable to see the full picture.
There is only the payoff to Oscar and Tinasha’s relationship, and none of the proper stepping stones to actually make it satisfying to see develop. It felt like they ripped the pages of the book which contained the main plot points, rewrote some parts of it, and presented it like a full story. It’s an absolute disservice of the source material. If they are planning to make the second cour keep up with this pacing that they’re doing, it will be an even worse mess. __Story: 30/100__

If you’re completely new to this series, I would honestly recommend skipping this anime and go read the LN instead. If you still want to watch this after reading the LN, just treat it as a visualization of the important scenes (like LN illustrations), it will save you a lot of sanity.
I believe that adaptations should be made to elevate the source material and give a great viewing experience to both newcomers and those who were already familiar with the work equally, and painful as it is, Unnamed Memory completely fails on both of these regards.~~~~~~
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izuminee
50/100
a wasted potential, everything feels rushed ; therefore confusing ; hence useless
Well. Disappointing and confusing.

I will be speaking as someone who didn’t read the novel.

My biggest problem is the pacing/rhythm. Everything happens suddenly and seems to be randomly stacked and we viewers have to get through this.
Nothing happens in the first episodes except their meeting and the lake situation which is a way to introduce Lanak.
Speaking about him, his arc is the most confusing. It starts off very suddenly, literally in the first 5 minutes of an episode then Tinasha breaks Oscar’s curse and switch sides in the next 5 minutes.

Then they have their first kiss out of nowhere, Oscar get poisoned for no reason then we get the Leonora arc at the end.
About this, Lanak’s arc at the end would have made so much more sense, because it contains way more challenge and importance regarding the storyline. And at the end of the day, none of this has a real impact on the storyline except on Tinasha and Oscar's relationship that itself feels rushed, even though this is my favorite part of the anime.
Feels like a waste of time… most of the time.

Then this ending. I get its because of the ‘Unnamed Memory’ title but it was far from needed as it (in one single episode) :
1- made the whole anime even more confusing.
2- made everything that happened before totally useless, as it was very confusing already. As someone said in a discussion, 11 episodes throwed in the trash in the spawn of 20 minutes.
3- is overall an useless ending that I wished, would've never existed.
4- feels like what any bad writer would do at the end of their book to make some sort of plot twist : « and it was all a dream » like hello????
(not to mention he kissed a 13 years old girl but thats another discussion.)

I saw in others reviews that the anime adaptation was indeed a massacre as it didn't do the novel any justice. I also saw they were gonna do an act 2 but how???
This ending leaves us no way to project ourselves in any future.
For me, an ending is supposed to leave some room for the viewer’s imagination. But I dont see anything with this shady ending.

Finally all my comments above are probably so harsh because I had high expectations for this anime (which is this time, not it's fault).
There was so much potential but the potential got skimmed, rushed, smashed, dragged through the mud by ENGI.

conclusion :
EVERYTHING happens suddenly with no explanations and more importantly, half of the anime feels like a waste of time (50% bcuz of that ending), time that could’ve been used to deepen a lof of things.
And indeed, NOTHING is deepened in this anime even though this IS a deep anime.
Which makes everything more confusing.
I feel like the whole storyline was rushed and in order to have an impactful ending nevertheless they well… did this ending that makes the whole anime feels empty and useless, when there was so much potential, which was truly wasted. Loved the romance and visuals tho.
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TiringQuill
35/100
Skip this anime just like the anime skipped its plot
Often when LN readers complain about the anime adaptation skipping stuff, it's not as bad as they're making it out to be.
However, as an anime only, in the case of Unnamed Memory, they are 100% right. At least, I hope for the LN's sake, that this anime is skipping a lot.

To briefly touch on aspects other than the story and characters, visually and audibly, the anime was fine. The music was fine. The OP was good in particular. Animation was serviceable as wel. Not great, not bad. Actually very little CG. Props to that.

For the rest: I will use spoilers, but to give you my score up front: 35/100. It's awful. Poor character development, poor world building, poor pacing, skipping important information etc.

The anime starts off fine. Nothing ground breaking, but it's nice. Prince Oscar meets Witch Tinasha and Tinasha goes with Oscar as a kind of bodyguard to cure his curse. Then, halfway through, the cracks start to show. You start to notice that you are missing crucial information, world building or character development that probably should've happened in the first half as character motivations and plotpoints start to not make sense anymore.
For example, you're being told the world hates witches and magic, but are shown the opposite. Only being shown the supposed hatred by the ones you're supposed to dislike and when it's convenient for the plot. Yet a large part of the plot is based on that supposed fact.
Then they suddenly start rushing like all hell broke loose. You can't even call it rushing anymore. It's like it's just listing bullet points on a powerpoint presentation without actually bothering to connect them or build up to them. Major events that would usually be (midseason) finales are happening one after the other. One episode they're dealing with Tinasha's main motivation for living, the next they're fighting a god, the next they're fighting demons of a different witch. In between all of this, Oscar's "curse" gets fixed as a sidenote. Oh, he also becomes the king somewhere.
One clear example of the rushing is episode nine. Oscar gets poisoned by a incurable ancient poison. Literal minutes later he gets cured by Tinasha, but she removes his memories of him (motivations for it are poorly explained). Barely two minutes later he remembers her again, finds her and sees she's now poisoned by the same poison and looks like she's dying. Next scene transition, she's totally fine and all is well now. All that took barely even half an episode. A lot more happens in that episode on top of that. That episode alone should've been three to five episodes.
Other times, the most important stuff all gets handled off screen and we only get to see the last bit and that's that.
The anime never recovers and then for the final episode they have the gall to basically retcon everything. All that happened no longer matters. Here's to season two.
Will they try to refer to stuff from season one in season two as if we're supposed to know about it even though they probably skippes it? Probably. Will it make sense? Probably not, as, again, all the important stuff was skipped.
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