Overlord III

Franchises like Overlord has a tendency to overrun its ideas with every season. The first season concentrated on Ainz and his goals along with exploring the world fiction while building into the base story. The second season expanded its world although it didn’t exactly live up to its hype when it came to actual character building. Now, here we are. The third season that I crossed my fingers as it’s time for Overlord to prove itself if it’s capable of improving. Realistically, I came into the third season with moderate expectations. The first episode didn’t exactly get me excited after seeing everyone getting a reintroduction. Ainzis still the same as ever while we see the daily lifestyles of his minions. He is trying to live up to his name even though some of his character behavior comes downright as extremely silly. (I mean, he takes a bath in his “skeletal form”. That’s pretty much throws logic out window) No, what we have here is a season that tries to get fans to invested into the story. Frequently, I see Overlord’s world as expansive. It explores places with fantasy details that you’d expect from an anime like this and from this season, we visit the Carne Village. Here, we’re introduced to a place where goblins exist. Goblins are a common trend in fantasy shows so seeing them exist this season wasn’t much of an excitement. However, the real attention to pay attention to is a girl named Enri. Serving as a leader of the village, she commits to protect its people and ensure peace. Which is to say, she is a key supporting character this season. One of the more noticeable trends I noticed about Overlord is how it’s able to develop its supporting cast. Enri is a character that I grew to admire for her selflessness and courage. This is especially true with the village facing exterior forces who threatens its peace. Similarly, there’s Nfirea, a character with an inferiority complex yet isn’t afraid to take action when the right time calls for it. But meanwhile, there’s also Ainz and his own goals. Supported by his servants and minions, there’s no doubt that world domination is part of their agenda. Yet, Ainz is a calculating character. Despite being incredibly powerful, he isn’t the type that directly goes on the frontlines often. From this season, he commands his servants like Lupisregina on important missions. His other servants such as Demiurge offer their own advice to him. In later episodes, he begins to show a more dominating personality to prove the testament of his powers. You better get used to a diverse and growing character cast. In the latter half of the season, we are introduced to Worker Groups of adventurers that includes Foresight, Green Lead, Heavy Masher, and Tenmu. At this point, I feel like it’s where Overlord takes a step back for its character cast. Because let’s face it, some of these characters are going to be jobbed out and treated like fillers. This is proven when some of them fall to victim of the denizens at Nazerick. I can’t even remember some of the names of these adventurers like the one that got tortured by Neuronist Painkill or those killed by monstrous cockroaches. Ainz himself also makes some of these adventurers look fools such as the ones from Foresight. In one particular episode, he shows the difference in their power while crushing all their hope for victory. And to be honest, none of this should come as a surprise. We know how powerful Ainz is and this season continues to prove that. There’s no one who can truly stand a chance against him whether it’s Emperor Jircniv (a character that appeared at end of Season 2) or army by numbers. Even an alliance between The Baharuth Empire and Kingdom’s army feels more like a desperate struggle to survive. When it comes to war, Ainz is able to decimate forces with his powerful arsenal of spells such as summoning death knights and the Dark Young. It’s the type of curb stomp battle that doesn’t last very long. With season 3’s unorthodox story structure, I feel like it’s important that they don’t make us forget about its established cast. Remember Albedo or Shalltear from the previous seasons? While they get their moment of fame, it’s definitely not on par when they were first introduced. Others like Sebas is pretty much forgotten despite their development from season 2. To me, that’s a bit of shame since I grew attached to some of the main supporting characters. I do have to admit that Season 3 managed to commit to some of its other supporting cast such as Enri though. Hell, even the goblins became relevant with names given by her. I just wish more characters got treated in such a way. By now, the meme of Madhouse not making sequels should be more long disregarded. Not only did Overlord receive a third season but the break is only 3 months. This implied that the second and third season may have been planned as a split cour from the start. Regardless, I feel like Madhouse should’ve committed more time for at least a half year break to boost its production quality. Don’t get me wrong though. The third season definitely had some great visual quality moments especially during some of the battle segments. World building in Overlord still stands out as a prominent feature that people shouldn’t overlook. And those character designs really evoke emotions. Just looking at characters such as Neuronist Painkill or Shalltear’s killing instincts should be enough to get a reaction. Unfortunately, not all reactions for this season will be positive such as the case with the Dark Young. Thanks to the atrocious CGI, their presence reminds me exactly how NOT to adapt character models for a show like this. Three seasons of light novel adaptations doesn’t come by too easily these days. And often, they get treated poorly with the pacing or omission of content. Overlord doesn’t fall under those pitfalls but still suffers from its character building at times. I’m not going to lie. I enjoy the novels but this adaptations isn’t really a great representation of value. The fact is, Overlord is a reputation by name but is far from perfection.

Basically Sword Art Online for people who are too embarrassed to admit they like Sword Art Online or think they're above it when they're not. Three seasons in, and Overlord III still manages to be as embarrassingly terrible as the series has ever been. Apparently Madhouse managed to split up the budget for one cour worth into three, and it really shows. How this series is still so popular despite Madhouse's awful adaptation and the original material's abysmal writing can be very easily described in two words: Power fantasy. But what makes this particular power fantasy so profitable and appealing? It's the fact that the protagonistis a spooky skeleton man with very stereotypical villainous role archetype assets. Ability to summon undead minions? Powers that generally involve darkness(tm) and death? Completely loyal evil minions that are comically cynical towards humans and also have similar abilities, all with their own gimmicks? He's got them all, and kids love him. There's a reason why something like "Dark Flame Master" is a running joke in shows like Chuunibyou, and it's because it's pretty common for kids to love the bad guys more than the good guys. They have cool abilities, look cool, and act cool! It's every kid's dream to be Dark Flame Master. But does that mean every Overlord fan is a kid or a manchild? Not necessarily. The series does have some merit, but it's certainly not the animation or the writing. The animation is pretty abysmal- The OP animation is incredibly lazily made, and the ED animation is just a slideshow of still images, which goes to demonstrate how little budget went into the show. Add that up with constant stillshots of Ainz's completely unmoving skeleton face and just embarrassingly common usage of bad looking CGI in nearly every episode, and one could feasibly argue that Madhouse really did split the budget for one cour into three. Even the worst of the worst harem isekai shows tend to have fairly impressive, or at the very least, decent looking openings to pull people in, but it seems that Madhouse knew their fans will eat this shit up regardless of how little money they spend on it. There's quite literally nothing positive to say about the animation. The soundtrack is pretty mediocre, and doesn't really distinguish itself from other similar shows, which is also a disappointment. Then there is the writing of the show, which is easily the worst part of the series. Conceptually, this should be interesting- It's supposed to be a story from the perspective of the villainous protagonist, which is genuinely rare. Sure, there are plenty of stories where the main character is some variation of demon lord or whatever, but at the end of the day, they still end up being no different from just any generic isekai harem protagonist. Did Ainz manage to separate himself from this common trend? Sure, if being a cardboard with a different coat of paint counts as a separation from the norm. The issue with telling a story from a villain's perspective is that it's not very easy to make the protagonist likable for the audience to care about. Essentially, when a character becomes too villainous, they become harder to be relatable because they would have to be borderline sociopaths, and the focus shifts from the character to what the character does. One exception to this would be if the character's motives were interesting or empathetic, but Ainz's motives are boring as shit and he's more or less just going by what his minions tell him, so sadly he doesn't make the list. Ainz has never been interesting as a character, and the focus has always been on the spectacle of what he does with his power, rather than him as a character. Basically, he's barely a character, and the power he wields is more of a character than Ainz himself. If a main protagonist is solely defined by their power, then the writing has already irredeemably failed. The another issue with this is how this different perspective affects the antagonists of the series, who would naturally be heroes, and rarely other villains that belong to other factions nobody cares about. When the focus is mainly on the villainous protagonist, it becomes difficult to portray the would-be heroic antagonists as anything but generic "good" guys. Normally this wouldn't be too much of an issue by itself, but yet another major problem makes this a significant issue: Lack of an actual antagonist. Throughout all three seasons, there hasn't been a single character that was a credible threat to Ainz that also had consistent screentime to get proper development past their character page description. Not only does this make every encounter completely predictable, but it also kills any anticipation for what could happen next because the outcome is always preordained. And when there isn't an antagonist that fits this criteria, then every heroic antagonist ends up being just carbon copies of another with no distinguishable feature of their own beyond surface-level general characterization and motive. And if they're not going to be dynamic characters, it makes them harder to empathize with, which in turn, doesn't make them seem interesting to be distinguishable from every other character. They're essentially cardboards that just say some cliche'd throwaway lines that a typical protagonist would say, and that's all there is to them. Basically, villains generally don't need much screentime to begin with, because most of the time, their villainy is portrayed just through their villainous actions. Meanwhile, heroic characters need them, because heroism is a trait that requires empathy. Instead, Maruyama decided that it was a smarter idea to make more irrelevant fodders for Ainz to defeat and conquer, and devote way too much time into their vague, generic characterization that will stop mattering after their inevitable loss. If the writing is good, empathy for the characters should ideally come naturally through storytelling that actually adds to the plot, rather than attempting to force it through Overlord's patented method of wasting your goddamn time telling you about how Tom loves his kids and how he's the family man. When that isn't happening, it's devoted for long inner monologues about the antagonists to think about how strong Ainz and his minions must be, which Ainz and his minions do for themselves already, which just makes it incredibly repetitive and pointless. It's just shit writing at its finest. And the lack of credible, persisting threat makes every arc feel like a filler arc that serves very little to no purpose to whatever the overarching story is, which is why all three seasons of this series are nearly indistinguishable from each other. The common defense for this is "But Ainz is the threat!" but that completely misses the point. The heroes should ideally be a constant threat to the villains as much as the villains are a constant threat to the heroes. One sided victories are boring as shit when villains are the ones doing it just like how it's boring when shounen protagonists always win in the end. It should be noted that neither an overpowered protagonist nor a story told from a villainous perspective is inherently bad. It's the combination of the two being handled incompetently at the same time that puts the writing of this series into absolute trash territory. Sadly, Maruyama is a terrible writer, and Overlord as a series is like watching a grown man playing with his action figures alone in his room while indulging himself in the same old dance that he's done a million times with his self-insert Skeleton Stu that never loses, which really does reflect in Ainz as a character. Maybe this is some galaxy brain tier 4th wall poetry and all Maruyama wants is for his friends to play DnD with him again. But just because the writing is complete garbage doesn't mean it doesn't have any merit- One of the most common misconceptions is that something bad can't be enjoyable, which is why a lot of people will really reach to defend the poor writing if they enjoyed the series. Most common method is to cite the original source and pretend it's better than the adaptation when it's pretty much just as bad. I mean, if they enjoyed it, clearly it must have been good! Somehow! You just didn't GET it. But that's just childish narcissism, and a lot of people fail to understand or just refuse to admit that trashy writing can still be fun. While Overlord may be just as poorly written as Sword Art Online, what it has over SAO is that the spectacle is sometimes genuinely fun to watch when the focus of the series isn't on the side characters, albeit repetitive and poorly animated. And that's basically what the appeal of power fantasy is- Watching smug protagonists stay smug while watching smug antagonists getting blown up.

Overlords 3rd season continues the overrated story of anime’s most beloved skeleton without facial animations. VERDICT: 3 – Bad. STORY: Slow, boring and confusing. 3rd season starts with a filler episode and proceeds with mediocrity and boredom from then on. The drive behind every action in this show is not apparent to the viewer, so that in the end I was questioning the events happening on screen. Why was Ainz destroying Carne Village again? Next topic is the pacing. Boi does this season move S L O W. In addition, it is void of any substance, significant characterization or development. Noteworthy action – also nonexistent. CHARACTERS: Huh? Weget to see more reoccurring characters in this season, Overlord himself being one of them, since his presence in the 2nd season was minimal. Maybe it was this long absence from the viewer, but Mr Momonga turned into a sadistic psycopath. It was hinted, that due to his undead nature Ainz loses affection towards humans, however presented changes are sudden and harsh, some in between stages would make this development plausible. Oh, and he got another name tagged on to his greatness. What a conceptional disaster. The second most important character is the blond girl from the 1st season, whatever her name was. Well, she develops some useful skills, reasoning behind this development is yet unknown. Everyone else is just there as a requisite. ART & ANIMATION: Wouldn’t look good 15 years ago. Character models are inconsistent and backgrounds thrive in mediocrity. Animation did not strain the budget either. Just like horrific CGI. Mass produced soldiers, goblins, skeletons or ogres look unbelievably bad, nothing you would expect in 2018: especially those abominations in episode 12. SOUND: They gave up. It feels like everyone on this project, be it voice actors or music composers, have enough of this IP. Music is more of the same, sound design got worse or even laughable. Voice act is boring. I was missing new impusles or joy from involved stuff. Then episode 12 happened and I wanted to stab my ears – well done. One day before the final episode aired, I got a chance to see “Tensei shitara Slime Datta Ken”. The amount of emotions or joy blue slime blob shows in 15 minutes surpasses 3 seasons of Overlord. If you are looking for “Isekai” anime with an overpowered non-human protagonist and noticeably better production quality, I suggest the story of the slime.

This is the first time I've ever felt about reviewing a particular show on MAL. Perhaps, my love for this show is significantly greater than any show in existence? What I’m about to state in this review is relatively the truth... Alright, so what's Overlord III about? What has Ainz-sama achieved so far till this season? What were the main events that took place before this season? Has the premise of the series changed? THIS REVIEW MIGHT CONTAIN MILD SPOILERS. So, previously in the first season we see Momonga somehow "mysteriously" getting teleported to a new world or getting trapped into a game called Dive Massively MultiplayerOnline Role Playing Game, also known as DMMO-RPG Yggdrasil (while Yggdrasil being the new release of the game), on which he spent his whole life at, and finally created the guild weapon, the Staff of Ainz Ooal Gown, a symbol of the guild namely Ainz Ooal Gown. Now when the game’s about to see its end, we see the guild members leaving the guild, and hoping to spend their lives much better since they had spent most of their life on this game, which they realized was worth nothing. Momonga, being the guild master, was quite furious over the shutdown of the game and blamed his guild members for not spending their last moment with the game. And calling them traitors, when they actually had spent their whole time on the game and without their efforts, the Overlord, Ainz-sama would’ve never achieved such strength and power. Or shall I say such arrogance and ignorance? Now being teleported to a new world, and being shocked at how this event took place. Momonga summons his guardians and orders Sebas, the butler, to investigate the surrounding of the great tomb of Nazarick. And see if they had really been teleported to a mysterious place/world, while ordering the floor guardians to stay on guard. Then we see Momonga-sama taking a tour of the first floor in his great tomb and being discovered by Demiurge. We see Demiurge outsmarting Momonga-sama. Which outrightly surprises Momonga-sama. But being the great overlord, it also meant him being “all-knowing” and he just couldn’t let any of his harem members realize that. Now, while being accompanied by Demiurge, Momonga-sama utters, “...taking over the world might be enjoyable.” Which he obviously didn’t mean it at all, but Demiurge was really surprised and felt outclassed by such thoughts of Momonga-sama. Thus being a side premise of this season. Continuing on, we see Momonga-sama using the Mirror of Remote Viewing magic item. Where he notices a village being attacked by the knights. To which Momonga-sama rushes to their aid, of course, not with the “true” intentions of saving them. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to call himself an evil overlord in front of his harem. Now Momonga-sama outclasses every knight, and chases them away and meets the Royal Head Warrior, Gazef Stronoff. Now the Slane Theocracy strikes back with a trump card at their hands, a 7th tier magic item. Which again is outclassed by the great Momonga-sama. After the visit to the Carne Village, Momonga-sama decides to change his name to Ainz-sama i.e. the guild name. To which the sole purpose was to spread this name, the name of the guild, and see if he meets anyone else in the new world. His objective was to explore this world and see if there were other players from Yggdrasil, and trying to figure out how he could return back to his own world. Which was the main premise of the season. Now Ainz-sama orders Sebas Tian and Solution to explore more about this world. And orders Shaltear to accompany him. While him visiting the E-Rantel Fortress City accompanied by Narberal Gamma, one of the maid pleiades, as wanting to be adventurers. To spread the name of Momon, the great adventurer, and again to gain knowledge about the new world. The potion given to one of the adventurers by Momon is taken to the best pharmacist. To which to her surprise is the potion that has the healing abilities of a God. Thus, leading to the meeting of Nphirea with the great Momon-san and Ainz-sama. Momon-san joins a guild for new adventures, since those adventures were of no match to him. Also, so that they could be witnesses to the power of Momon-san, the future’s greatest adventurer. But now, even Ainz-sama or Momon-san isn’t perfect, Clementine, a member of the Slane Theocracy, ruins the plan of the great Momon-san by killing all of the adventurers. To which Ainz-sama responds to by crushing her to death, and killing the rest of her comrades. Meanwhile, we see Shaltear, Sebas and Solution on their mission. And at the middle of their travel, a group of mercenaries halt the carriage and attempt to take them to their place. But they are massacred by them, and later they find out the nest of the humans that attacked them. Now Solution and Sebas part ways from Shaltear. And Shaltear heads towards the nest of the humans to test out the skills of Brain Unglaus, a man who knew martial arts and had fought Gazef on equal terms. To her surprise, is disappointed by the the abilities of Brain as he even fails to pass as a nail clipper. Now Shaltear absorbs all the blood, she had gathered by killing the humans and goes berserk. Massacring even the adventurers who arrived to explore the base of the soldiers turned mercenaries. Until she recovers by seeing the red potion, the potion which Ainz-sama had given to an adventurer. And discovers that the adventurers were actually split in two teams, and the second team was already headed to E-Rantel. Knowing that, she immediately chases them in her blood-frenzy mode. At the end someone amongst that group casted a mind-control spell on her, causing her to revolt against Ainz-sama. Accepting the quest as Momon, Ainz-sama heads towards Shaltear for battle. During this battle we see how great Ainz-sama is, completely surpassing Shaltear. And later revives her and plans to use Sebas and Solution as decoys. Sasuga Ainz-sama was secondarily the premise of the series. Now outraged by the brainwashing of the only loli in his harem, Ainz-sama immediately launches an attack on the lizardmen. And completely overwhelms them and kills the leaders of the tribe. And makes them accept him as their ruler. This arc was of no importance to the series. The whole event took four episodes of the season. Afterwards, we see the second season focusing on Sebas and on the kingdom. Which again was of no significance. Overlord sure knows how to waste its time on insignificant bullshit. The rest of the season focuses on the Eight fingers. Who are captured by Ainz-sama and are experimented on by his harem. While capturing them, Entoma, one of the insects in the harem, suffers a serious damage by the adamantite adventurers. Who’s later saved by Jaldabaoth, the Demon Emperor. At the end, we see Momon emerges as the greatest adventurer of the world. Since he defeats the great Jaldabaoth. And adds another member to his harem i.e. Evil Eye. Perhaps, the only two lolis in his harem? In this season “Sasuga Ainz-sama” had become more or less a primary premise of the series. The second season itself had so many plot holes, but since the review is about the third season, I’ll only mention the least concerning one in my eyes. That is, no one ever questioned Momon-san about how was he able to beat Jaldabaoth, a magic caster whose power level was of 66+ according to Evil Eye, without casting away his humanity? There’s no way a human could beat such monster. Yet no one bothered asking him anything. And if they had Ainz would’ve had to reveal his identity. Of course, they wouldn’t either, since the whole show is just “Sasuga Ainz-sama” or “Sasuga Momon-sama.” Ainz sure knows how to get praised in every single form. Story: 1 This season begins with a filler episode; the only episode which was actually worth watching in the whole season. In the episode, it’s revealed how massive the harem of Ainz-sama is; completely unparalleled, incomparable to any harem anime in existence. After the first episode, the story begins its focus on the objective of Nazarick. And thus, the words that Ainz-sama had uttered in the first season. Now Ainz-sama trying to outsmart his harem clearly fails, and then tries to play along their plans, otherwise he wouldn’t be an evil overlord. In simple words, being controlled by them since he’s supposed to be “all-knowing” and great, otherwise, you know, he really wouldn’t be the Sasuga. And the whole premise is “Sasuga Ainz-sama.” The show either forgets its main aim or just casts it away since “Sasuga Ainz-sama” is a very important premise. In this season, we see Ainz desperately trying to prove he’s the only Sasuga in the world. He tries to stoop to the lowest level just to prove he’s the Sasuga, instead of acting like all-knowing or all-whatever. This season shows that the whole plot of Overlord isn’t as complex as it was meant or shown to be in the first season. From watching this show, it has become clearly evident that it’s just Ainz-sama and his harem squashing ants. And the series gives off the vibes as if even an amatuer could come up with such a mediocre setting. Since the first season we’ve been seeing Ainz desperately trying to appeal and please his harem. And now, he even goes further by killing and torturing innocent people and accusing them of being evil. Ainz still thinks about his image, despite getting such loyalty and devotion. They wouldn’t dare say “Ainz-sama are you really an evil overlord”? He’s already a god for them. At this point he shouldn’t care about what his harem thinks and just give them orders, yet he doesn’t dare so. Ainz, despite being an evil overlord, still worries about meaningless things. Continuing on, this series has no plot. We’re constantly introduced to new characters, we get entire episodes of how their lives are, their aim, who they love, etc. What has happened to this series? Why should I care about the ants which will indefinitely get squashed? Ainz will without a doubt rule the world, their fates are sealed from the very beginning. Everyone will either submit to his will or get killed/tortured by him and his harem. This show keeps on introducing more and more insignificant characters who are killed miserably usually with one hit from even the least powerful members of the great tomb of Nazarick. This is a waste of time, yet the show still gets dragged on pointlessly. Ainz can easily conquer the whole world without even using a fraction of his power, yet he and his harem play from the shadows. Plus, the whole series is very slow-paced. Characters: 1 This show has a very terrible character development. For example take the four episodes in the second season, where we were introduced to lizardmen, their lifestyles, who they love, what they wish, etc. and then they get killed and become test subjects. The third season also does the same, this season has been nothing but a waste of time. Where time is spent on developing minor characters who have no future and will contribute nothing to the plot since no matter what Ainz will have his way and they’ll either get killed, experimented, or becomes slaves; just like lizardmen contributed nothing and their struggle i.e. the drama was pointless and useless. Animation: 2 The 3D animation looks very cheap and is of extremely low quality. For a third season, this is completely unforgivable. And as for the rest, it’s nothing special. The overall quality has dropped immensely. And almost every character looks the same. Sound: 2 The voices of the characters in the series was quite satisfactory. This series has been re-using the osts of the first season. It hasn’t even introduced any of the new osts; neither this season nor the previous one. It keeps on playing the same osts which were played in the first season. A very very low effort indeed. Enjoyment: 1 From the second season, this show had gone down abruptly. And this season is nothing but a disaster with a lot of useless development and unnecessary crap. But I do get the appeal of this show and why many would enjoy it. For example for the harem members. This show has quite a variety of members like vampire loli, a wolf, an insect, a lizard, etc. and there are many other reasons too... Overall: 1

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