Unnamed Memory: Chess vs Checkers
There’s an anime that’s finishing up called Unnamed Memory. The general consensus? It’s bad. But I thought it was a narrative masterpiece one twist away from revealing its true hand.
The story follows a prince who can’t produce an heir because he’s cursed to kill whoever he sleeps with. He climbs the tower of a witch who grants wishes to those who reach the top. Once he’s at the top, the witch reveals she just does what she can to help whether people defeat the tower or not. She doesn’t want to kill anyone so those that fail to reach the top get teleported the instant before a fatal blow lands and she alters their memories.
The witch says she can’t cure the prince but she could probably find some girl magically resistant enough to withstand the curse. Upon figuring that magic resistance was the trick, the prince asks the very magic resistant witch to marry him. The witch refuses but grants his follow up wish of moving to his castle for a year. Officially this residency was so she could figure out a way to break the curse but more obviously it was so he could try to change her mind about marriage.
The prince asks the witch numerous times for her hand in marriage while at the castle and on their adventures. Meanwhile the witch trains the prince to fight against her combat tactics and implies that one day he may have to kill her, even going so far as to have him kill her in a dream.
The prince is reasonably upset that he had to kill his crush in a dream so the witch apologies by sitting on his lap. Neither of them are flustered by this intimate interaction and he hugs her. This is oddly forward as the only contact the two have had before were denied marriage proposals.
Next episode the witch is throwing death flags everywhere. She’s even giving her important stuff away: the witch asks the prince to take care of her dragon and transfers ownership. Then she floats into his hands and they kiss. WOAH, WHAT? What is going on here? When did they become lovers?
And then, just for a moment, it all made sense.
The name of the anime? A witch that rewrites the memories of those that enter her tower? THIS IS ALL FROM THE PRINCES PERSPECTIVE AND SHE WROTE PATCHWORK LOVE SCENES INTO HIS MEMORIES. Maybe because he has to kill her later, maybe because she can’t requite his love, maybe just because that’s the best way for her to fulfill his reward for climbing the tower.
Oh my god it’s actually a 10/10 unreliable narration twist. So I jumped onto the anime subreddit discussions and…
Turns out this is just a really rushed adaptation and the reason their relationship development doesn’t make any sense is because they’re speed running the story and not because of some cool twist.