Unnamed Memory (2024)

Season 1

Director: Kazuya Miura
Studio: ENGI
Starring: Yoshiki Nakajima, Atsumi Tanezaki, Shuichiro Umeda
Episodes: 12

Synopsis:
A prince seeks out the aid of an ancient witch to break a curse that threatens to end the royal line.

Impressions:
I and many other viewers were initially attracted to this series because we have a rare assertive male lead and a self-possessed female counterpart that promised a nice battle of wits seguing into romance. Character designs are appealing and production values seemed solid if not outstanding. However, it soon became clear that the source material had been tossed in a blender and odd chunks were picked out and awkwardly strung together in what can only be called a mockery of a narrative. Almost every episode feels like you missed two or three in between, leaving character motivations and character development ciphers at best. The development of Oscar and Tinasha's relationship, which should be the main feature, comes in jumps and starts like a broken-down lawnmower, leaving you with no real sense of natural progression. It's an utter mess. Supposedly the source material doesn't have these issues, and at first I was considering giving it a shot to get the story in its proper form, but now I don't even want to do that, so this series' purpose as promotion for the source material has failed miserably. The fact that a second season is already in the offing means that the continuation was already approved, so why didn't they take the time to properly tell the story? (Oh, and the season finale is garbage, unsurprisingly. Maybe if we'd got all the development in between, it might have actually had some punch.) Well, whatever. I won't deny that maybe in its original form, this could be a pretty good story, but in this incarnation, you'd do well to spare yourself the frustration. Pass on this.

Rating:
Avoid It