Overlord

This is a complete and utter great anime. Lord Ainz is both badass but merciful, and he makes for a great main character. The animation style is beautiful, and the story has a deep meaning. It is your proper setup to an amazing series. Season 2 is already in the making and hopefully this can become a long running series, I wouldn't complain! This deserves a watch if your in to fantasy and action, I won't spoil too much.

There is little original or new about the premise, young man trapped in a MMORPG game with incredible powers, the way its done is amazingly entertaining. While all powerful, the world is unknown and the attempts at exploring this new world is both entertaining and interesting. However, we are not dealing with the good guys here. While Momonga shows an ability to help the helpless and avenge the wronged, he is not a good guy. This balance is actually critical as the key tension is the balance between being a good guy and being an evil character. Well worth the watch, i only wish the DVD's would come out quicker so i can fully view season 2 and 3.

The worst part of this anime is the overarching bigger picture plot that is never discussed and hardly ever reaches any conclusions. Of course that is the fact that the mc is stuck in a video game and never answers any of the questions to why he is trapped in that world and what will he do about it to figure out how it happened. Only head canon theories can the fans lean towards but this show should bring some closure to this point that he might never get out of this matrix. They are milking it dry of Ainz taking over the lands and becoming a ruler but nothing about his "real life" origins or a need to return back. Sword Art Online literally did it in 12 episodes and us the viewers knew exactly what was going on with all those people being stuck inside the virtual environment. No investment mystery box that makes you want to keep watching. It doesn't matter, things just happen and we are supposed to feel engaged to know more about it. It isn't a slice of life. Not enough cliffhangers of intensity to generate conversation.

I'll start by saying it's a good watch overall. While the whole "being trapped in a video game" thing is tired, this book adaptation does well in execution. The characters are well acted, the story lines interesting and complex (usually in a two-faced political sense), and most characters likeable.

Now here's where the show falters for me:

1. Much of the show (especially the second season) actually kicks Ains's story to the side to spends several episodes on side characters, building them up as their own protagonists, only to have Ains kill them off and never be mentioned again, essentially wasting the viewer's time and emotional investment.

2. Ains's (the protagonist) allies, the NPCs him and his friends created, constantly worship him. It was humorous at first, but after three seasons, this gets very, very grating. Some scenes are literally just stroking the ego of the main character, who is in actuality a huge turbo virgin who never leaves his house.

3. To use a video game term, being a shut in and doing nothing but leveling up and getting the best items, Ains is way too OP (overpowered). The show only gets its value by expounding upon the backstories of its side characters that exist within the video game, the ones that aren't Ains or the NPCs who serve him. His fights are somewhat boring, because again, they only serve to stroke the main character's ego.

3. Ains is wholeheartedly, unapologetically evil. Something went wrong when he was trapped in the game and he lost any humanity he had. Sometimes the show will build up a character's backstory for several episodes only to have Ains or his NPCs kill them brutally and anticlimactically. Or have them tortured and then killed. Or enslaved. The show does a good job to make sure you dislike its protagonist, and root for his enemies. Maybe that's by design, but it's not for me.

Let me just start off by saying, the premise is interesting and I was surprised by how strong the storyline was to keep me entertained throughout. Unlike other anime, this one doesn't include excessive internal dialogue which is a saving grace as that's normally what detracts from their potential in my experience.

The backstory, that being an indestructible protagonist that must face off in combat, is at odds with there being character development or risk. The episodes are too short to properly explain the motive for the main character. In the fourth season, a mysterious dragon is introduced which carried promise, however nothing more seems to have released since 2022. And four seasons later is a bit late to introduce an antagonist. So in a way the meta storyline is pretty slow despite the short episodes.

There's a lot more that could be done here. For instance, why is he there? Nothing has been explained. There's no game-breaking exploits, glitches, etc. He's sexually distant despite being in what can only be described as a man's dream, surrounded by beautiful subjects throwing themselves at his feet for sex. Very little panic about the fact that he's in an inescapable simulation? Why's he still hung up on players when the NPCs seem to be fully sentient and practically real?

It has a game of thrones style political discourse which is excellent. But then why make it so obvious who the victor is? His enemies are trumped at every step, it's just giving the expectation that they're insignificant.

Despite what other people said, I thought the ego-stroking was a good feature of the show. It was really funny when they attributed his coincidental presence at the arena to a stroke of strategic genius. I thought they were building up demiurge to be the main antagonist, but that never happened. Four seasons and basically nothing changed.

Shame, I'd like to see more but it seems to be getting made quite slowly.