Overlord

Overlord

Overlord Cover Art featuring Ainz Ooal Gown
Overlord Cover Art

Overview

Since Overlord season 2 is scheduled to release Winter 2018, I decided it was about time to watch the original season so I watched it all yesterday.  Also you should keep in mind that this genre of MMORPG-type life in another world isn’t really my favorite.

I’ll start by saying that Overlord is probably the best I have seen in this genre, though that isn’t saying too much when the others I can think of off the top of my head are Sword Art Online and Log Horizon.  In my opinion, one of the most surefire ways to make your life in another world anime bland is to go the MMORPG route.

Skipping over the genre’s clichés for now, I think my least favorite part of this anime was their use of 3D animation.  I’m sure they used it in parts where I didn’t even notice, and that’s fine, but I’m not a fan of the generic 3D animation look that all the skeletal enemies in the show had.

Characters

Momonga, or Ainz, is the main character and he looks like a large skeleton.  Luckily, he wore armor that hid his edgy looks for at least half of the anime.  Like many main characters in this genre, he is overpowered.  He could destroy everything easily if he wanted to so for the most part there aren’t any real threats.

Next is Ainz’ right-hand woman, Albedo.  Along with everyone else in the guild except Ainz, she is an NPC.  She could have been a great character, but they decided to turn her into fan service.  At least when she is in her armor and ready for battle they cut back on both her fan service appearance and attitude.  It’s really the way she acts that disappoints me the most.

From here on, we’ll just group the rest of the characters.

We have the Guardians which are led by Albedo.  They guard the different floors of Ainz’ guild hall.  Each one is some different stereotypical character such as a demon in a suit or, my personal favorite, the vampire who dresses in gothic lolita fashion.

Finally, below the Guardians are the various other NPCs who are basically servants.  Among these are the Pleiades Battle Maids who appear to be some of the best characters in the show.

Narberal Gamma of the Pleiades Battle Maids using magic
Narberal Gamma of the Pleiades Battle Maids

Conclusion

Since Overlord was decent enough, I am looking forward to the second season this Winter.  Unfortunately, however, my hopes aren’t too high for the next season because it seems like it’s going to become even more MMORPG based than before.

In the end I almost gave Overlord a 7, but decided that there were too many small things I didn’t like about it that added up.  This means it gets a 6/10 which as I mentioned at the beginning is still good enough to beat the other anime in the genre I could think of.

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