Many great fairy tales treat love as something no magical curse, giant tower, or fire-breathing dragon can tear apart. In worlds occupied by fairies and magic, love is the most real part of any fantasy; a passionate force that conquers all. Unnamed Memory Act.2 follows that precedent by having its leading characters Oscar and Tinasha share a romance that transcends time and memory. Quite literally too, since there's a plotline involving multiple timelines that puts it in with Madoka and Haruhi just as much as Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel. Throughout Unnamed Memory Act.2's twelve episodes, Oscar and Tinasha's romance is pitted against large-scale battles, amnesiacs, and alternate realities that unfold in a very labyrinthian manner.

As mentioned, Unnamed Memory Act.2 takes place in a different timeline than its previous act. Oscar Farsas's effort to travel hundreds of years ago to save Tinasha from her witchy fate has caused his universe's space-time continuum to fracture and restart. Tinasha's kingdom of Tuldarr has been saved from its imminent destruction, and the memory of the old world has been long forgotten. The only person who hazily remembers all this seems to be Tinasha, who put herself under a sleeping spell to reunite with her beloved Oscar. Tinasha's awakening is a rather rude one; she finds that Oscar, once so head over heels for her, can't initially reciprocate her feelings of love due to amnesia, and that a legion of witches and other magic users are out to do away with Oscar, Tinasha, and their kingdoms all together.

I'm far from the first person to point out how Unnamed Memory's first season quickly skimmed over the plot points of the light novel. The bits of the light novels I've read don't wow me; the worldbuilding is nice, the prose is well-written and flows nicely, but I'm not too invested in Oscar and Tinasha's romance. Still, I can see why their anime adaptation drew the ire of some of its readers. What could have filled an entire season of anime was something that chose to speedrun through its major plot points in just a few episodes. The result is a story that has more slashes than a Guns' N' Roses concert. Season two suffers from the same slapdashery, oftentimes feeling like a Sparknotes summary of the story instead.

We get this right away in Act 2's first episode. In the Winter Preview Guide, I said that the biggest issue this episode had was that it was sequenced improperly. It should have been the second episode of the season, with season 1's finale being this season's opener instead. I still stand by that. But rewatching it was when I truly saw how the story's breakneck pacing continued to drag things down. For instance, right after fighting a battle with a witch, Oscar and Tinasha decide to have some fun at a festival, where they find a pool of blood on the streets. Before they are given time to ponder that, the two stand at the top of a tower looking down at the festival lights. Some unknown entities fire magical projections at the two from a distance, and before the two can even figure out exactly who's shooting at them, they decide to immediately go back to their castle. The two can evade their attackers and return in one piece. How? It's all off-screen, so we're never shown.

With multiple timelines and forgotten memories thrown into the mix, the anime adaptation has the perfect excuse to not only disregard the light novels' plot but make it nonsensical and convoluted too. The plot seems less thought out and more like its basic elements were playing a meek game of connect the dots. Yet, the dots barely connect here. When Oscar and Tinasha experience flashbacks of their previous lives, we're given details that feel randomly pulled out like a rabbit out of a magician's hat. An episode has Oscar confronting his witchy grandmother, who forces him to relive the memory of his mom saving his life as a child. There is no build-up to this, not much to hint at prior. It just happens--I don't even remember Oscar's mother being brought up as a plot point before this event. I tried making heads and tails of all this, but having not read most of the light novels, I soon found myself checked out.

Whereas the first season seemed to emphasize Oscar, here, Tinasha seems to be more of the lead. This is one of the better parts Unnamed Memory Act.2 has going for it, since I always found her to be the more interesting character. She pines for Oscar here in Act 2 just as Oscar did for her in Act 1, and being stuck in an alternate timeline with vague memories of her previous life builds some intrigue. The pacing of the storyline, however, leaves Tinasha's character arc to suffer a death by a thousand cuts, squandering her potential of being a more interesting and lively character. I wish her feelings towards Oscar were a bit more explored here, but in Act 2, her love for him feels as one-dimensional as Oscar's was in Act 1 at times. Tinasha's character is made even worse by how the story also can't decide whether she should be strong or weak. She's no longer a witch, but now a powerful mage in this timeline, meaning Tinasha still can mow down opponents with fireballs. And yet, despite wielding such magical firepower, Tinasha still can't prevent herself from getting kidnapped a couple of times at the hands of magical hoodlums.

The one thing that saves Unnamed Memory Act.2 from banality is none other than Akito Matsuda's compositions. It's a true testament to Matsuda's ability, considering how Sound! Euphonium's final season was just a year ago, yet the man still cannot stop cooking. Matsuda's score remains as strong as ever, and even the weakest pieces here are still better than what you'll hear in any given generic fantasy soundtrack. A particularly climactic scene in episode seven has Matsuda go absolutely hard on the music. For over four minutes straight, Matsuda conjures up symphonies so brilliantly composed and operatic that they perfectly elevate the emotion in what would have been a rather benign sequence. It was so good that I almost forgave the series for being such a hackneyed mid.

Going back to the Winter Preview Guide, I mentioned that this anime played out like a commercial trying to sell you light novels. For those interested in what they offer, you might want to see the anime adaptation only for its pivotal moments, as hacked and slashed as they are, to see if they are enough to convince you to read the source material.