Unnamed Memory

Episode 6

We all knew that Tinasha must have had a terrible backstory, but the reveal of her history is still brutal. It makes perfect sense now why she'd have a full panic attack when she found Oscar carrying her to the bed a few weeks ago; it's not the threat of sexual violence (or at least, not entirely); it's that the last time a man she trusted carried her somewhere, he lay her down on a ceremonial slab and murdered her. That's the kind of experience that leaves at least two kinds of scars, and while we don't know if the one on her body remains, clearly, the one in her mind is still very much present.

When Tinasha tells Oscar this week that she should have died four hundred years ago, she's telling nothing but the unadorned truth. I'm not sure that Lucrezia should have been the one to inform Oscar and the audience of his nearest and dearest Tinasha's story because that feels like something she ought to do herself. Still, I can't fault the impulse because things look pretty bad for the not-so-young witch. But as it's explained, everything she does this week is in anticipation of the return of her murderer, Lanak, a man who is sadly more interesting than Oscar simply because his motivations and feelings are twisted by the passage of time and the possibility of death.

For Oscar's purposes, the most important reveal is that Tinasha is a princess – the crown princess of a kingdom that fell four hundred years ago. Her overwhelming magic power was clearly both a boon and a curse to her because it's the reason why she was chosen to inherit the throne but also why Lanak desired her death: so that he could steal her power for himself and become the only ruler rather than the consort to a more powerful wife. When her power spun out of control after he tried to extract it by ensuring that she'd stay alive while he stabbed her more times than the Roman Senate stabbed Julius Caesar, it both made Tinasha an immortal witch and destroyed the land she should have ruled. The more interesting question is what happened to Lanak in all of this because he doesn't look all that dead. Was he also revived as an immortal mage because he cast the spell that rebounded? Did someone revive him? And how does he seem to have forgotten what he did to Tinasha?

Because he seems to have forgotten or at least rewritten it, he's delighted to see Tinasha in her newly grown-up body (she was thirteen to his seventeen back in the day), and he appears to believe she's also happy to see him. He thinks he's going to start a new kingdom with her and that she's all-in on that, and she is doing a pretty good job of going along with it. Her main goal seems to be to protect Oscar, drawing on him in blood while he's sleeping and making sure that Lanak can't harm him using magic. It would be a lot more touching if their relationship made any sense at all, of course – their kiss comes out of nowhere, and he's weirdly chill about her having drawn all over his naked body in blood while he was asleep.

And that's the problem with this series. Even in a better episode like this one, where we get concrete plot points and a reason for Oscar to want to go after Tinasha, the central piece of the story doesn't hold up. I don't buy Oscar and Tinasha as a couple, and her giving him her dragon doesn't do much to change that. There are good elements here, but until Oscar has more personality than a damp sponge and Tinasha acts like she wants to be there (or involved with him at all), this won't be able to rise above its current level.

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Unnamed Memory is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.