Overlord | Review
Plot as provided by MAL:
The final hour of the popular virtual reality game Yggdrasil has come. However, Momonga, a powerful wizard and master of the dark guild Ainz Ooal Gown, decides to spend his last few moments in the game as the servers begin to shut down. To his surprise, despite the clock having struck midnight, Momonga is still fully conscious as his character and, moreover, the non-player characters appear to have developed personalities of their own!
Confronted with this abnormal situation, Momonga commands his loyal servants to help him investigate and take control of this new world, with the hopes of figuring out what has caused this development and if there may be others in the same predicament.
Ever since the successful release of the anime Sword Art Online, many mangaka, authors, and artists have been attempting to recreate the experience. Just imagine, being stuck in a virtual world where magic and magical beasts can exist! Sounds exciting does it not? Well as I said, many have attempted but few have succeeded in capturing the SAO crowd. Being a fan of the first season of SAO I too was one of those many whose attention they sought, with Log Horizon‘s first season was able to accomplish this and now I can add another name to that list; Overlord.
Set in the fictional game world Yggdrasil, the anime begins with the shut down of the Yggdrasil servers. Our main protagonist, a man who we only know by his character name: Ainz Ooal Gown, has decided to stay to the very last and take in the guild he and his friends built. A guild that was reserved for non-human characters, Ainz’s Undead Linch Lord fitting right in, Ainz sits down with the guild servants and protectors and waits out the remaining time reminiscing upon the guild’s accomplishments. But as the countdown ends Ainz finds the game has not yet ended, even more so, he is unable to contact any moderators or use some basic features of the game. As these things sink in Ainz is confronted with a brand new issue, all the NPCs around him have begun to act on their own. However without freaking out, he is able to quickly assess the situation and remain in control.
Ainz now finds himself trapped within Yggdrasil, but as I said he remains calm about the whole thing. He goes on to test what he can and can not do, including groping the chest of Albedo, an NPC whose background he rewrote to “be madly in love with him” before becoming trapped within the game. He calls for all the guardians of the guild to meet with him, where he orders them to scout around the guild, reinforce the defenses, and report back to him with what they find. Ainz himself eventually leaves the guild castle, where he confronts human NPCs who have all begun to act on their own. He even disguises himself as a human adventurer to get closer to discovering what is going on, and find if he can locate any other players who might have become trapped like him. It’s during these outings Ainz has one of the best moments in the series where he confronts some “bad” NPCs, and together with one of his maids he defeats them in a really brutal way.
One thing the series makes quite clear is that Ainz is no pushover, and is likely the strongest person in all of Yggdrasil. Be it casting the highest level of dark magic or slicing an ogre in half with a broadsword, Ainz finds no problem he can not handle. Until later that is, when one of the guardians named Shalltear falls prey to what is know as a “world-class item” and becomes controlled. Ainz does eventually confront Shalltear in battle, where his limits are tested, but in the end he prevails and is able to free her from the mind control. As a matter of fact, almost all of the battles in this series were so good, even the ones that did not involve Ainz personally. Because while Ainz is the end-all-be-all in combat, his servants and guild guardians are all up there on the totem poll of power.
Speaking of whom, in all there are seven guardians we are introduced to, and two that are mentioned in passing. There is of course Albedo, an NPC who guarded the throne room and oversees all the other guardians. Due to Ainz tampering with her character description, she is obsessedwith Ainz to the point of worshiping him. She freely allows Ainz access to her body, and can be seen making plans for having his children. (How an undead linch lord can impregnate someone though is beyond me.) What exactly Albedo is I can’t say for sure, her appearance seems to be a mix of a devil and an angel; possibly a fallen angel? We also never get to see her actually fight, but being the overseer of the other guardians we should assume she is not someone you want to mess with. Shalltear Bloodfallen is next, the high-vampire who eventually falls under mind control. She and Albedo dislike one another and often bicker, but if there is one thing they both love it’s Ainz. Shalltear is the only guardian who is ever seen in combat, and seeing as how she nearly holds her own against Ainz, it’s obvious she possess tremendous power. Her usual appearance of a busty loli in gothic-lolita fashion is just a facade however, as she shows us her true colors when decimating a human outpost.
The remaining guardians, Cocytus, Demiurge, Aura Bella Fiora, Mare Bello Fiore, and Pandora’s Actor all have smaller bit roles comparatively. They serve to provide commentary, and comic relief at times as well as more serious outlooks. Heck, even the maids and head butler do more than the majority of the guardians. Which makes this season feel like a good deal of introduction, to the point we only ever see what we can assume are the true antagonists at the very end of the season. Spoilers; it’s the church. Big shock there, I know. Still, for a season of set up, this series does a damn good job of keeping us entertained and on the edge of our seats. Be it the awesome fighting scenes or the funny interactions between Ainz and his guardians, this is one series I suggest anyone who likes the trapped-in-a-video-game anime to check out.
Genres: Action, Fantasy.
Animation: Some gorgeous animation is provided by studio Madhouse, the same studio behind other works like: Death Note, Hunter × Hunter 2011, and No Game No Life. I’ve yet to not enjoy the animation of a series down by Madhouse, even the few series they worked on that I didn’t like for other reasons. (Looking at you Needless.)
Voice Acting: Oh, oh! So good. Mmm, delicious deep voices everywhere I turned. From Ainz who was voiced by Satoshi Hino to Sebas Tian who was voiced by Shigeru Chiba, I was finally able to escape the non-stop combo of younger VA’s. Even the female actresses were great! Albedo in particular was voiced by Yumi Hara, whose performance was bloody brilliant.
Favorite Character: This one was a bit difficult as I really liked Ainz for his level-headed decisions and OP character, but when it comes down to it I’m a sucker for crazy girls and Albedo takes the cake. She’s beautiful, powerful, and obsessed with Ainz to the point she even has a body pillowof him. But this doesn’t mean she’s not willing to share, as she agrees that Shalltear will be a part of Ainz’s harem and only argues on the point of who will be his wife and who will be his mistress. While we don’t see her fight, she does scare the shit out of some humans who attack Ainz with her overpowering aura, plus she looks great in a full set of armor as well.
Fallen angel right? Got to be. As a monster girl aficionado, I hope I’m not mistaken.
Overlord gets a 9.0 out of 10
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