Common Name: Overlord
Score: 7/10, 3/5
Length: 2 Seasons of 13 Episodes, 14 Short-form OVAs
Genre: Action, Comedy, Adventure, Political, Magic, Supernatural, Video Game, Ecchi
Summary: In the VRMMORPG known as Yggdrasil, Momonga was an undead leader of Ains Ooal Gown, a guild of renowned warriors that captured and held dominion over the dungeon known as the Great Tomb of Nazarick up until that same MMO shut its servers down. Right up to the last minute, Momonga loved the world of Yggdrasil and all the friends it gave him, but that doesn't mean the fun is necessarily over. As if in response to his wish for the fun to never end, Momonga, the Great Tomb of Nazarick, and all the items and NPCs held within don't vanish when Yggdrasil's servers finally go. Rather, they find themselves in a whole new world similar but vastly different from the world of Yggdrasil. While most everything around him remains physically the same, some things have definitely changed. For one, the Tomb has moved to a whole new area. Secondly, the NPCs that served as the attendants of Ains Ooal Gown and guardians of the dungeon have gained some level of sapience, able to think, act, and emote without a command to do so. While Momonga might not have a way out of this new world, he doesn't seem to mind all that much now that he has a new goal: To become the Overlord of this new world.
Review: There's something that can be said for a show that exists for and functions wholly on catharsis and the simple, maniacal pleasure of watching a pesky bug get utterly annihilated by something greater. Unfortunately, not all that can be said is necessarily good. In other words, as much as I love Overlord and its absurd power levels, it can't be denied that there is something fundamentally wrong with this show. In fact, I'd go so far as to say there's a lot wrong with this show, fundamentally. To speak nothing of the pervasive, sexual objectification of this show's female cast, the entirety of this show is built on the back of a contrivance that only serves as a vehicle for an escapist power fantasy. What the means, in the long run, is that this show is forced to walk a very thin line propped up by a premise that is shaky at best. The line I am referring to, in this case, is the show's ability to maintain two, distinct artistic visions without falling wholly on one side, causing any number of tonal inconsistencies or the outright exclusion of half the show's audience. On the one side, there is this show's vision of being a serious grand, political theater of conquest with the show's titular Overlord, Momonga, at the helm. On the other side, there's the inherent comedic nature of this show that is meant to satirize standard MMO and RPG tropes, as well as a few standard conventions of anime today since that is the medium they're using. So, again, while this show is entertaining for a good number of reasons, it is always in a precarious position where it needs to find a way to appease both of its halves, else it'll risk failing horribly.
To reiterate though, on to of that larger issue, there are a number of other nits I could pick with this show
but, in the interest of not sounding like a broken record, I'll hold off on listing those 'til the end, if at all.
Critical as I might sound, I will state again that I do like this show. In spite of its precarious nature, I think it does a fine job managing its dualistic nature. Not only that, but in its better moments, this show is nothing short of excellent at evoking that cathartic high that kept me interested in the first place. Particularly during the show's first season, Overlord found such an ideal balance between its two ideas that I'd have gone so far as to call it great. From the word go, we are given and shown a lot of the foundational information that sets up the vast majority of this show. For starters, we both see and understand that Overlord is a very different kind of "trapped in an RPG" story where the main character's goal is not to escape from this world but, rather, the eternal escape from the real world as the human Suzuki Satoru invests himself wholly into the character of Momonga, renamed Ains Ooal Gown in honor of his old guild, and the total conquest of the world he's trapped in. In other words, we are immediately led to understand that the show's main character values this literal escapist fantasy over the world he was born into, making him immediately distinct and relatable to his audience. What drives the audience's interest in him further, however, is the categorical understanding that he is the "Supreme Being" among a collection of insanely powerful, Raid Boss-level NPCs. To make this point all the more clear, the first season not only states but proves that point by having said NPCs swear total fealty to him in spite of their new-found sapience or, in other words, they freely choose to serve a being who is, in terms of both function and power, their god.
And, for the most part, he actually finds a way to act the part.
So, it just figures from that point on that Ains is powerful enough to make his dream of total and absolute conquest a reality. Before that dream can be realized, however, the show needs to take its time actually establishing this world that he's supposedly going to conquer. So, doing just that, a large part of Overlord's first season is dedicated to Ains traipsing around one of the world's established capitals in disguise as an adventurer, showing off how strong he is even when he's limiting his power drastically. And so begins the show's insanely large and complex sociopolitical game of gaining information and plotting so that Ains might steadily reach his goal, all while he is swapping between the various roles he takes on to obscure his true identity and intentions from any would-be competitors.
Competitors who, in spite of being human, somehow end up being more evil than Ains, who is directly
meant to be a satirical allegory for the "Demon King" seen in every JRPG ever.
Unfortunately, the longer this story goes on, the less interesting and engaging it becomes. By the show's second season, it's pretty much confirmed that Ains has absolutely no clue what he's doing. Powerful and influential as he might be, he has no skill at sociopolitical warfare. The simple fact of the matter is that all Ains is actually good at is acting and planning in the style you'd expect of a hardcore MMO player. Fighting, organizing party formations, and monitoring statistics, he can do with ease. Plotting the downfall of several nations and eventual conquest of a world, not so much. So, during the second season, we're focused more on the servants of the great an powerful Ains Ooal Gown as they actually do the work of engineering his conquest. Starting off simple, Ains sees fit to test his servants and his ability to rule over the easily conquerable lizardmen, a faction that the rest of the world has little interest in monitoring. While this goes on, other groups within the Tomb of Nazarick set about establishing the supply chains and destabilizing the local kingdoms in anticipation for the wars to come. Though Ains is rarely seen in this season, there is an underlying point of intrigue that the first season addresses but doesn't look into since Ains was too busy establishing this world and his intended role in it. Specifically, rather than the catharsis that pervaded the first season, the second is more focused on considering the implications of the sudden sapience of a group of NPCs who, until now, had no free will. Seeing these NPCs as analogs to his old comrades--beings akin to their children--this season is meant to impart upon the audience the same love and curiosity toward how these young characters will grow that Ains possesses. What this ultimately means, though, is that, by this point, this show basically lives or dies based on whether or not it can make you care enough to keep watching even though the show has wholly switched its focus.
Unfortunately, from my point of view, this second season sent the series into an appropriate
kind of undeath, a state in which I was neither invested as I once was
nor was I entirely against it going on.
During this second season in particular, that balancing act that the show managed so well in the first season began to wobble from side to side, threatening to tip over in either direction. While the season was, on the whole, more focused on the super-serious conquest plot of the show, it also tried to play up its comedy in a manner far more crude and unpolished than the last season's. So, as the show's trapeze act started to falter, both sides of this show's grand design ended up being muddled and distracted each other that I can only bring myself to call it a bit of a mess in its better moments. As intriguing as the acceleration of the conquest plot and the consideration of what giving NPCs intelligence might mean were, they were rarely ever given the attention the show needed to make these plot points something worth real consideration. Even as the show hints at the possibility that the NPCs might turn against Ains, since their leader has no actual idea what his subordinates are doing to see his goals achieved, the show doesn't actually spend more than a few moments to tease such an idea before immediately moving on in spite of that possible threat. Yet this isn't the only time the show actively hints at a looming threat only to ignore it entirely for the remainder of the show, leaving only a feeling that it doesn't actually matter. Both at the beginning and end of the season, we are introduced to wholly new characters that are clearly meant to be important (given their strange designs) but nothing about who they are or what they want is firmly established. By show's end, I could barely recall that some of these characters existed, let alone how they were supposed to factor into the larger plot. That fact alone should speak volumes about how poorly this show's grand conquest scheme is actually handled.
I swear, I feel like there were some moments in this second season that were added specifically
to troll anime viewers who haven't read the light novels this show is based on.
Sloppy and unfocused as the second season might have been, though, I still won't deny that I like Overlord. It's an interesting take on an old and trite idea--namely the "trapped in an RPG" plot. When all its pieces are actually working as intended the show is fun, thoughtful, and pleasing in a way only a true power fantasy can be. Troublesome as it might be at times, it works with its material fairly well and manages to make the issues of most OP characters seem wholly natural and acceptable. Namely, because Ains is meant to serve as a satirical parallel to the standard JRPG "Demon King," it makes total sense that he starts off the show at such a ridiculous power level.
Where plot armor and pulling the "you haven't even seen a 10th of my total power yet" line are seen as dumb and cheesy in any other work, these characteristics fit for a character who is categorically non-human; all the more so for a character who, from any other perspective, would be the final boss, the ultimate evil bent on world conquest. Yet, because Ains is just as much a monster as he is human, his dualistic portrayal as a bumbling idiot and a genius mastermind manages to work in spite of how much those two roles conflict.
Just trying to puzzle out all these weird characterizations and twisty subplots is giving me a headache.
So, in a way, I suppose I appreciate this show for trying something different and interesting and struggling with it, rather than going whole ham on either of its two, distinct parts. I might have appreciated it more if it had just stuck to one of the two, but it would have been nothing short of another derivative work that has been done to death in either circumstance. Needless to say, I'm cautiously looking forward to the next season, but I'm definitely going in with the same high expectations I had at the start of the second season. Even if it's utter garbage, though, I'm sure I'll still enjoy it on some level. After all, the actual production of this show isn't half bad. The art, while far from perfect, is quirky enough to be eye-catching. While typical, the show's Dark Souls-esque gothic soundtrack does set the appropriate mood for the show's grander moments. Muddled and confusing as the show's plot might be, there is always a few diamonds in the rough to be found in this story and I suppose that's half the reason I've stuck with it. So, in the end, the best I can say is to take my recommendation of this show with a fair amount of salt. As I said before, the ability to enjoy this show hinges entirely on how much you like cathartic power trips, fantastical satire, or stories that feature clear analogs to machines gaining true intelligence. If none of those things interest you, then this probably won't be the show for you. If at least two of those things strike your fancy, I'm sure you'll love it and hate it just as much as I do.