OverLord – 13 (Fin)

In a battle so epic it needed two parts, Momonga—sorry, Ains Ooal Gown—turns the tables for good. Having told Shalltear that everything has gone according to plan, he transforms into “Perfect Warrior”, the armor of Lord Touch Me, a former playmate. He then proceeds to summon superweapon after superweapon, so fast and unpredictably is the onslaught that Shalltear must abandon defense altogether and focus on offense, losing an arm in the process.

But Shalltear wasted all her skills and most of her MP in the first half of the battle, when she thought the two participants were a lot more evenly matched. Turns out, Ains was simply lying to her, as well as failing to correct her incorrect assumptions about his weaknesses. The only weaknesses Ains had against Shalltear were dealt with in that first half, which is why he thanks her so profusely before Part Two begins.

Once a timer goes off, Ains dispenses altogether with the fiction that Shalltear had the slightest chance against him and casts “Fallen Down.” As she utterly disintegrates in the light of her overlord’s power, a smile marks Shalltear’s face. He was every bit as great as she thought, and then some. Of course she couldn’t win against him.

The same reason Ains had all those cool weapons is the same reason he’s able to ultimately resurrect Shalltear, albeit, unexpectedly, without her ample bosom (something she laments once she notices). That reason is cold hard cash. I’ve played my fair share of RPGs long after the main quest is complete and amassed fortunes so large I could buy everything there was to buy, which is what Ains does. And while it costs a cool 500 million to resurrect Shalltear, it isn’t as if there was anything else for him to buy.

It’s all too common for villains to simply disappear into oblivion, cursing the name of the hero who defeated them. OverLord is different. Not only is Ains not a hero but an antihero, but Shalltear isn’t a villain either; she was under mind control, which we learn was only partial, but it still did the trick in terms of having her rebel against Ains. And she comes right back, mostly the same as she was, and certainly just as in love with the adorable Ainsy-Winesy.

With Shalltear returned to the fold and Nazarick back at full strength, Ains gets back to work, learning all there is to be learned about this new world he finds himself in. He’s awarded Orichalcum Plate, and plots to fortify Nazarick and discover the entities who tried to steal Shalltear’s Mind—we learn they’re from the Slane Theocracy, and they’re not done yet. We also learn that Brain Unglaus is still alive, as Stronoff finds him in an alley.

There’s no official indication at the end of this extended epilogue that there will be a second season OverLord, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was, whether it’s in Winter or next Spring or Summer. There’s certainly plenty of material left to explore, lots of awesome one-sided battles to be fought (and perhaps some not so one-sided), and, of course, the central mystery of What Exactly Happened to the human MMORPG player inside Lord Ains. Though, at the same time, I’m kind of glad weren’t spoon-fed all the answers.

OverLord – 12

As it did so marvelously with the Clementine fight (which was nowhere near as technically challenging as this one), OverLord once again delivers with an extremely fun and satisfying payoff to all of the buildup surrounding Ains’ duel with Shalltear. The battle that took up most of this episode’s running time got my adrenaline pumping and didn’t let up, right up to the delicious ending.

And yet it still gave us some time to check in on Ains’ guardians back at Nazarick. Albedo admits she let Ains go based on emotion rather than logic—a decision she likely wouldn’t have made had Ains not altered her personality to love him deeply. Demiurge, who he didn’t alter, thinks they’re being derelict in their duty to protect the one remaining supreme being by fighting in his place, but Cocytus considers it blasphemy that Demiurge would question Lord Ains’ orders or question his ability to win.

The bottom line: No one is going to interfere in this fight. So, like us, they sit back and watch. And let me tell you: they’re treated to quite a show.

When Ains confronts Shalltear once more, she’s still inert and unresponsive, allowing him to cast a variety of high-level buffs that will prove crucial in surviving her attacks as well as doling out his own. Here’s the full list of pre-battle spells:

Body of Effulgent Beryl Fly Bless of Magic Caster Infinity Wall Magic Ward, Holy Life Essence Greater Full Potential Freedom False Data, Life See Through Paranormal Intuition Greater Resistance Mantle of Chaos Indomitability

Sensor Boost Greater Luck Magic Boost Draconic Power Greater Hardening Heavenly Aura Absorption Penetrate Up Greater Magic Shield Mana Essence Triplet Maximize Magic, Explode Mine Triplet Magic, Greater Magic Seal Triplet Maximize Boosted Magic, Magic Arrow

That’s a lot of buffs, but it’s exactly what one expects of such a high-level fight. And while there’s some fun to be had in having your way with lesser enemies, squaring off against an opponent that will actually put up a fight—an optional super-boss, for instance— is one of the unique joys of RPG play. Watching Ain buff himself took me back to my own preparation for Yiazmat, the strongest foe in FFXII who has 50,112,254 HP in fifty separate million-HP bars.

That level of preparation amplifies the sense of occasion, and Ains’ internal monologue establishes that even he doesn’t know exactly how this is going to go down. Then the fight begins, and a red battle armor-donning Shalltear cuts loose, matching Ains blow for blow. He surprises her with a few traps and attacks (and bluffs about more, knowing he must preserve his MP), but she has a few skills he’s not aware of, which he’s never witnessed her using but which she assures him her creator Peroroncino built into her.

Most intriguing of all, there are moments when Shalltear realizes she has no idea why she’s even fighting her former master, but then whatever parameters were overwritten to make her rebel (or which activated after a timer went off) kick in, and she presses her attack.

Reality, Lightning, Fire, Dark, Holy; elemental and non-elemental magic flies in both directions, with moves and counter-moves coming as quickly as the two combatants can call out the enchantments. Indeed, the one thing I think the battle could have benefitted from was more of an enchantment “shorthand”. Sure, it’s impressive that all Ains and Shally have to do to cast ridiculously powerful spells is say the name of that spell, but the lengthy English spell names are a double-edged sword, giving the spells weight but also slowing the casting pace.

But who cares about long spell names, when we’re treated to Lord Ains conjures an effing Sharknado. (He calls it a “Shark Cyclone”, but still, pretty sweet). I also enjoyed the seemingly mono-directional stream of light-spears that suddenly change direction and hit Shalltear, surprising both her and us. The two just keep pulling out of their bags of tricks.

But Ains is slowly draining his MP, and Shalltear knows it. Hoping to break the stalemate, she summons her trump card (but probably not her only one), an ethereal doppelganger, Einherjar, as well as her “household” of lesser beasts. Ein lunges at Ains while Shalltear kills her own beasts in order to heal herself. But Ains is ready, activating the skill “The Goal of All Life is Death”; a giant clock counts down, and when the hands reach twelve, both Einherjar and the household disappear, leaving Ains and Shalltear alone again in the midst of a sandy desert where the forest glade once stood.

Their surroundings thus drastically transformed, the two combatants assess their present state. Both are nearly out of MP, and Shalltear is almost out of skills, but she has all of her HP, and she believes the battle is all but wrapped up. But it would seem Ains was coy even in his internal thoughts, as he expresses to Shally how grateful he is she went all out and fought him with everything she had to this point, believing draining his MP would be the key to defeating him.

But that’s not the case: by not fighting him cautiously, she allowed him to arrange an even larger plan beyond the battle plan executed thus far. And next week, it will be time to show her just how badly she miscalculated. I can’t wait.

OverLord – 11

Last week demonstrated just how dark and nasty Shalltear can be, but she was also neutralized by a mysterious force in a forest clearing, and the true nature of her condition was not elaborated on with great detail. In effect, we were as in the dark as Ains. This week, he works to shed some light on what exactly is going on.

He uses a God-level item to locate Shalltear, and then he’s summoned by the Adventurer’s Guild. He tells them the vampiress is someone he’s been hunting for years, and if he nabs her—and he’s pretty confident he will—he wants Orichalcum, none of this Mythril mess.

When other adventurers accompany Ains on the hunt, even though he warned them they’d definitely die if they did, he makes good on that warning by having Mare kill them. That’s some Ice Cold Ains.

The expected confrontation with Shalltear comes surprisingly quick, and is surprisingly brief. The episode subverts expectations that Ains can undo what’s been done to Shalltear with an ultra-rare item which enables its wielder to make a wish, by having the ring reject his wish. Shalltear remains still and silent. It’s then, when Ain’s rare “super tier” magic item fails to work, that he decides to beat a hasty retreat to reassess his tactics. I like how the show doesn’t always make things laughably easy for the big lug.

I also like how he was holding back, even with that wishing ring; he’s got loads more trump cards locked up in his fancy treasury, minded by a guard of his own creation: Pandora’s Actor. The shapeshifting sentinel initially appears as a supreme being like Ains: Albedo’s creator; which is a pretty great shock when it happens, for it momentarily confirms he’s not alone on this world, nor is he unchallengable in power.

However, it’s just Pandora’s Actor, whom Ains hasn’t seen in a while and, now that he’s older, realizes how goshdarn lame the fellow is, what with his saluting and German (though I agree his threads are pretty sweet). I appreciated this scene of relative levity despite the solemnity of the task before Ains; he’s been at this game so long, he’s literally no longer the young man he once was: a guy who made goofy characters like Pandora thinking they’re cool, or who saved up all summer for the Shooting Star ring.

Things return to seriousness when Ains and Albedo travel deeper into the depths of the treasury, into a mausoleum where he raised statues for each of his former comrades before they retired from Yggdrasil. Albedo remarks on the fact he calls it a mausoleum, and wonders out loud if Ain’s Supreme bretheren are dead and gone. He says that’s not quite the case, but wonders to himself if it actually is. This isn’t a game anymore, after all.

Finally, after showing Albedo the sconce where he plans to raise a statue of himself, Albedo can’t take it anymore, and begs her great lord to stay in this world and rule over everyone—over her—forever. He then tells her, he’s come to collect enough world-level items to face off against Shalltear, knowing he’s probably the only one who can stand against her (a revision of my understanding that Albedo was the second-toughest of the Guardians, or maybe Ains is talking about Shalltear in her current state).

With her tears and determination, she eventually gets him to promise to come back from the fight, no matter what ends up happening. But the truth is, Ains is using this Shalltear dilemma as an opportunity to prove to himself he’s worthy of being the Overlord of Nazarick, or if he’s in over his bony little head.

OverLord – 10

News from Albedo that “Shalltear has revolted” was definitely a nice stab to end last week’s battle with Clementine and Khajit, and left me with a complex response. On the one hand, if it’s true that Shalltear revolted, it means this world is a lot more dangerous than had been apparent thus far.

But if Albedo was simply overreacting based on her latent dislike of and rivalry with the vampiress, it still speaks to a trend of internal court strife that started out playful and harmless but could spell big trouble, even for the Supreme Lord.

I’m pleased, then, that the actually answer to the question of what happened with Shalltear fell somewhere between those two possibilities, with qualities of both.

I’m also pleased that OverLord’s quality of storytelling did not falter greatly just because Momonga was out of the picture for the vast majority of the episode. He’s a powerful, dominant presence both in the world and show, so his absence, while felt, was mitigated by giving us a closer look at Shalltear, including her downright frightening “attack” form.

Like Albedo and Narbarel, she looks about as far down as humans as one can, but goes further, looking upon them as food, or, at best, an entertaining “playmate.” But someone who considers humans even more as mere food and toys is the accompanying maid Solution, who is beautiful and seductive, but in reality is a shape-shifting slime monster whose boobs turn into a mouth that swallows a hapless dolt whole.

But interestingly, it’s not a total cakewalk for Shalltear & Co., at least not as much as it was for other Nazarickians thus far. Shalltear not only comes across the redhead to whom Momon gave a red potion (which she uses to save herself), but a well-coordinated force of NPCs manages to hold off a few of Shalltear’s attacks, and may or may not have taken temporary control of her mind.

It’s that event, and its registry on the master screen, that causes Albedo to suspect a revolt. We can be reasonably clear she’s mistaken, however, and that the reality is more complicated; another mystery Momonga has to figure out with that big bony head of his. I appreciate the nuance of the situation, which is far more interesting than if Shalltear had suddenly decided to rebel against the lord she’s always loved (long before Momonga altered Albedo’s personality to love him), which would be way out of character.

And that’s also something the show keeps present in our own heads: the (anti-)heroes of Nazarick who serve Lord Ains Ooal Gown are the product and offspring of their creators, “supreme beings” like Ains who just happened to also be his friends (at least friends within the game, if not outside of it in the “real world”). As such, aside from his love hack of Albedo which was his doing, everyone who serves Momonga is acting in accordance with the parameters set by their creators, i.e. those friends of his.

So if it was Shalltear’s creator’s will that she revolt against Ains, so be it…but neither I nor Momonga are willing to concede that absent further information. For now, he simply has to find Shalltear…and hope whatever she has doesn’t spread to his other generals.

OverLord – 09

This was probably the best OverLord episode yet, not just due to the sheer shattering of expectations just like so many skeletal dragon bone shards, but also because of how goddamn FUN it was to watch. I was laughing out loud hard at the master-level pwnage going on this week. Even though I knew full well that as big as they talked, both Khaj and Clem were dead meat; I just wasn’t prepared for just how dead a meat they turned out to be.

What’s so great about the pwnage is that by the end, we’re actually empathizing with the two human opponents, loathsome they may be. Clem is a superior  warrior, and I believe her when she says there are only a handful of humans alive who can hang with her in battle. She shows off her terrifying speed and strength by blasting at Momon numerous times, and is even able to smudge his armor.

But in the end, Clem is human, and Momon isn’t—he may as well be God on this world. Against the Lord of Nazarik, she’s as defenseless as a baby mouse in the clutches of a cat, and Momon is merely keeping her alive long enough to learn something about martial arts on this world. And if he has a little fun with some evil showmanship, so much the better.

It’s also worth noting that Momon isn’t the only one fighting with a handicap (though he’s mostly just standing around); Narbarel is fighting as “Nabe”, yet still holding her own. But when Momon gives the order, she sheds her alias with relish, and calmly and glibly explains to Khajit just how fuckin’ screwed he is before vaporizing his dragons in the blink of an eye and turning him into a steaming stain on the ground. His five years of evil toil over and done with, just like that. That’s the power…of one of Momon’s mid-level attendants.

Having ordered Narbarel to quit messing around and finish up, Momon decides to do the same, setting his swords aside and letting Clementine buff herself up and come at him with everything she’s got, “fully prepared to die,” because while she thinks she has the upper hand against this “meathead”, death is all that awaits her once she enters his reach. She takes her shot, stabbing Momon through both eyes and blasting him with lightning and fire, but to no avail.

…Then Momon grabs Clem, and things stop being funny for a couple minutes. Fear finally registers on her crazed countenance as she realizes no matter how much she flails and struggles and lashes out and sheds her teeth biting Momon, she cannot free herself, and he’s not going to let go. The plates attached to her outfit fall one by one and clank on the ground; her death knell.

This is Clem at her absolute most pathetic and sympathetic, but then Momon reminds us she took her time killing his adventuring companions, so he takes his time with her, squeezing harder and harder until she just…pops. Yikes. But hey, at least there’s still a body left, unlike Khajit. R.I.P. Clementine: I will miss your craziness, but it would have gotten old eventually.

Their human opponents thus dealt with, Momon locates Nphirea, destroys the Crown of Wisdom, and carries him out, as Nabe collects the equipment of the defeated. For their trouble, they both get upgraded from Copper to Mythril plates (though they hoped for Orichalcum), and Momon arranges for Nphirea and his grandmother to move to Carne to make potions for him.

Then he checks his messages and learns of the next crisis in his quest to dominate this world: According to Albedo, Shalltear Bloodfallen has rebelled against him. Now, that sounds like bad news, but among the possibilities, Albedo may just be exaggerating about her rival for Momon’s heart, or Shalltear, while powerful, is still no match for Ains Ooal Gown and his remaining followers. But no matter how bad it ends up being, I’m certain of one thing: it will be fun—and occasionally disturbing—to watch Ains deal with it.

OverLord – 08

Given that the show had built Clementine up to be one of the toughest baddies yet to appear, it was pretty clear Nphirea was going to end up being captured, even with the Swords of Darkness defending him (one of which, who I thought sounded like a girl, turned out to be a girl). In the time it takes for Momon to register Hamusuke, Clem takes care of the lot of them, not just killing them, but turning them into zombies whom Momon has to put out of their misery. But before she does, she details her great plan, as villains are wont to do:

“…Although it’s impossible to control all the undead we summon, we’ll be able to lead them in various general directions! IT’S THE PERFECT PLAN!”

I love this monologue by Clem, because she prefaces her assertion that her plan is perfect by pointing out that it’s not perfect. But Clem is strong and evil enough not to care that much about the details. As long as the world is on fire, she’s happy to watch it burn. Yuuki Aoi continues to breathe life into the “inhuman warrior” with her zany, gusto-filled performance.

When Momon learns all his former comrades are dead, just like that, he is “displeased”; he doesn’t wig out or scream or fume like your average shonen hero. This is the undead OverLord, people; and Clem’s victims were above all “tools to raise his name,” not friends. His beef with her is the fact she destroyed his tools, not that she cut his close human bonds.

Furthermore, he treats Nphirea’s rescue as a transaction; his granny agrees to pay him everything she has to save Nphi, and Momon has no cumpunction whatsoever about exploiting a grandmother’s unconditional love. Notably, there’s a lot less internal monologue from Momonga this week, suggesting an ever-greater comfort in his new, apparently permanent overlord skin.

Like Clem’s imperfect plan, even in an episode where most of the characters from the last couple of episodes have been murdered finds places to infuse moments of comedy, such as when Nabe has to carry Hamusuke on her back as she flies over the undead army in the cemetery.

Between that and all the scroll spells they cast to locate Nphirea, there’s a firm practicality to Momon’s course of action, which isn’t ideal due to the time constraints. He may not know the bad guys’ plans, but he knows Nphi isn’t long for his world if he dawdles. But in taking out the bulk of the zombie army before several city guard witnesses, he’s already succeeded in furthering his name. He just has to stick the landing by defeating the bosses.

Finally, Momon and Nabe come face to face with Clem and Khaj, and I’m reminded of the cocky Slane army with their formidable-looking mecha-angels. Clem and Khaj aren’t exactly shaking in their boots, and Nabe’s first lightning spell, while taking out all of Khaj’s subordinates, only manages to give him a small scratch. So either Nabe’s going too easy on him, or he’s the first truly tough customer she’s had to deal with.

Similarly, Clementine, she of the many tones of voice and twisted facial expressions, is confident she can take Momon, because she only knows of a few people who can hold their own in a fight with her. Of course, since one of those names is Stronoff, we know for a fact Momon will have no trouble eliminating her…eventually.

So it’s less a matter of if he defeats Clem, but how. Just to turn things around and piss her off, Momon declares he’ll implement a handicap in fighting her, refusing to go all out on her, no matter what. We’ve only seen playful, confident Clem up to this point, but I’m certain next week we’ll see her truly pissed off and on the defensive for perhaps the first time in her life. But one thing I can’t believe is that Momon will lose. If he does, it’ll be because he wants to.

OverLord – 07

This new world Momonga finds himself seems a little smaller this week, as the girl Nphirea likes (and is sadly unable to propose to) turns out to be Enri, the girl Momonga saved. She summoned helpful goblins who help keep the village safe and are even training the villagers to defend themselves. I for one am glad not all goblins are bad. Of course, Nphirea former knows him as Mr. Momon, while Enri knows him as Lord Gown.

Thus Momonga ends up getting caught in his own web of lies. Fortunately, Nphirea doesn’t have a malevolent bone in his body; he just wanted to follow and learn from Momon, and promises to keep the fact he has multiple identities a secret. Nabe offers to kill herself for blabbing about Albedo, but Momonga considers the incident closed and all is forgiven.

Nphirea asks Momon not to kill the Wise King of the Forest if he encounters it, lest the power vacuum of the forest lead to an uptick in monster activity (the King is the lesser of two evils). His domain is a lovely, lush, dense forest primeval that reminds me of Mononoke-hime, and Aura’s giant talking beast friends continue that theme…

…As does the unveil of the Wise King himself: a giant talking hamster. I…was not expecting that, though when I first saw the squirrel-like eyes in the dark I suspected something rodent-y. This is absurd and a little trippy, and Momonga, knowing an ally of his had a similar pet, doesn’t really want to deal with this guy, so I really like how everyone else is so in awe of this Wise King, despite being a giant hamster. Even Nabe sees power in its gaze (I didn’t catch a gender).

He also achieves what he wanted originally: to gain prestige and create buzz back in the city by capturing and registering the legendary beast, while inspiring Nphirea to ask if he can join his team. Momonga gently refuses, but promises he’ll help protect Carne, and in the meantime Nphirea is welcome to keep observing and learning from him.

Back in town there’s the sense that everyone had just undertaken a great adventure and are now back home sweet home. Nphirea himself is ready to settle in for the night when he notices his grandma isn’t around, and that’s when he finds Clementine lying in wait for him, offering her chilling sing-song “Hiiii.” This is not good news for our long-banged pharmacist, but it is good news for the show. Things are moving along, slowly but surely.

OverLord – 06

OverLord continues to plod along at a leisurely, deliberate pace, but there’s something to be said for a show of this genre to not move at such a breakneck speed that nothing that happens matters as much as what happens next. Momon is playing the long game here, so it makes sense for the show to focus on his first job as an adventurer, protecting Nphirea alongside the Swords of Darkness.

This episode was almost assured an 8 just for the scene of Demiurge walking in on Albedo in Ains’ bed with her recently-crafted Ains body pillow. Utterly ridiculous? Sure, but I won’t deny I laughed out loud at that ridiculousness. And Demiurge’s casual reactions completed the sale. Momonga’s changes to her character are locked in, he must reap what he’s sown. I wonder if Albedo’s obsession will only get worse to the point it becomes a crisis…but considering the comedy angle with the pillow, I also highly doubt it.

Back in the field, Momon gets a chance to both see the DarkSwords do their thing, and to show them what he’s capable of, which is bringing down a giant ogre with one swipe. Nabe takes two out with one lightning bolt, not even having to unsheathe her sword. The Swords don’t embarrass themselves either, as Momon notes how good of a team they are because they know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and work to close each others’ gaps. The ogre/goblin mob didn’t have a chance.

That night, the team feasts, and Momon runs into a practical problem, as he can’t eat or drink without exposing the fact he’s just a skeleton beneath his armor. But he has a bigger issue in that spending all this time with a tight-knit team of adventurers is incredible nostalgic, to the point of wistfulness and melancholy. He remembers he used to be like this with his comrades, and is resigned to the fact they may all be dead now, and he alone ended up in this weird new world.

It’s also nice to see people acknowledge responsibility for what they carelessly say to each other, whether it’s the flirty guy asking if Nabe is Momon’s lover (causing her to carelessly blurt out Albedo’s name) or the boy mage carelessly telling Momon he’s sure he’ll see his friends again when he doesn’t know that.

As for Clementine, she prowls the streets of E-Rantel, killing and torturing and un-killing for intel on Nphirea. But when she visits Khajit, the two don’t seem on the friendliest terms. Khaj wants to turn E-Rantel into a city full of undead, but doesn’t that mean Clementine won’t have anyone left to kill, torture, and turn undead?

How will she satisfy her “corrupt personality” in Khaj’s undead E-Rantel? The clash of Lawful (Khaj) and Chaotic (Clem) Evil makes for a good antagonistic duo, and Clem’s Yuuki Aoi really chews the scenery well with her up-and-down voice.  I just wish one of them would encounter and face off with Momon already.

OverLord – 05

Momonga’s starts to fulfill his desire for the name Ainz Ooal Gown to become known far and wide throughout the world starts out modestly, by entering E-Rantel posing as a young adventurer “Momon”, accompanied by one of his battle maid Narbarel AKA “Nabe”. He knows that he can’t conquer a world he knows next to nothing about, and a great way to learn more is to play things by the book and rise in the ranks of the adventurer guilds.

Momonga is making a conscious effort to do things carefully and empirically, not making to much noise. Yet his potential to be a bull in the proverbial china shop is evident when he tosses a would-be bully across a tavern, knocking over another adventurer’s precious potion. He gives her one of his to make things right, but his potions are red, not the usual blue, so she takes it to the local pharmacist, Nphirea, who then learns about Momon and is intrigued.

By then Momon, needing coin but unable to secure high-level jobs, agrees to join an adventuring party, Swords of Darkness. Nphirea seeks out Momon, and both he and the Swords agree to accompany him as his bodyguards on an herb-collecting excursion. Even after annihilating an entire Slane army, Momon remains cautious and is hesitant both to guard Nphirea alone at his present state of knowledge of the new world, and also just plain doesn’t want to go back on his word to join the Swords of Darkness, instead including them.

Throughout all of this, Nabe remains dutifully by Momon’s side, voicing her displeasure with having to jump through hoops for human trash (though I understand why he didn’t bring Albedo along; she’s more powerful than the battle maid and hence hates being around humans even more than Nabe). There is something to both Momon and Nabe having to restrain themselves in order to fit in and get the knowledge and experience he wants out of this.

Meanwhile, the next antagonist in Momon’s adventure reveals herself to the audience with lots of helpful expository dialogue with another baddie. They’re members of the secret society of Zuranon, and she, Clementine, has secured a magical item that consumes the one who uses it. She’s heard about Nphirea in E-Rantel, and wants to use it on him, gaining the help of Khaj.

I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes, and the inevitable showdown between Momon/Nabe/Swords of Darkness and these would-be spreaders of chaos and death. But the long and short of it is, we didn’t get to see any of that in this episode; it was largely setup, albeit with some decent world-building.

OverLord – 04

Everything about the mages the Slane Theocracy sends to Carne, led by Nigun Grid Lewin of the Sunlit Scripture, indicates they’re tough customers by any measure, and there’s no better way of demonstrating that than by methodically beating down Re-Estize’s head warrior Stronoff with wave after wave of summoned Escaflowne-style mecha-angels.

Stronoff has offensive magic and is able to carve through a few dozen, but they just keep coming, and his soldiers aren’t strong enough to help him. On the edge of defeat and death, Lord Momonga—sorry, Ainz Ooal Gown—uses the item he gave Stronoff to switch places with him, with Stronoff ending up in the villager’s shelter and Ainz and Albedo facing off against a huge and confident Slane force.

Lewin and his forces look strong and they feel strong, and they definitely did a number on Stronoff. But as great and famed a warrior as he is, Stronoff is still only a human, and so are they. And the strength and magic of humans turn out to be of no consequence to Ainz and Albedo. He entered the battle prepared for a tough fight, but he turned out to be overly cautious. But that’s okay, because I expected them to put up a fight too.

Which is why it’s so strange that I don’t feel cheated in the slightest by the fact Luwin and the Slane mages are nothing but ants before the power of Ainz. After watching them have their way with Stronoff, watching Ainz utterly turn the tables by defeating every weapon at their disposal with comical ease was a lot of fun. I keep using that word because that’s what this show is: loads of badass, giddy, contagious fun.

Even Albedo (who granted is infatuated with Ainz) can’t restrain her glee at the spectacle she witnessed, setting aside her objections about him even bothering to face such puny opponents and reveling in his awesomeness, along with the way he used Stronoff as a pawn to collect more information on the strength of the local powers, which he’s determined is pretty pathetic.

Back home at Nazarick, Ainz declares his new name and orders the assembled guardians to make sure it becomes an eternal legend that spreads across the world. That, Inner Ainz believes, is the best way (not to mention the most entertaining way) for him to attract the attention of other human players from Yggdrasil. If they made the trip with him to this new fantasy world, he intends to find them.

OverLord – 03

From his magic mirror in the Tomb of Nazarick, Momonga is able to watch a group of knights sack a village, brutally slaughtering men, women, and children with impunity, and he realizes something: it’s not really bothering him. The sight of such real violence would have made him sick in the world he came from, but here he finds himself unusually hardened. Instead of watching the pillaging with outrage or disgust, he sees it as an opportunity both to test his abilities and gather information.

But he also wishes to repay a debt to “Touch Me”, another player who once saved him from a band of enemies because “it was common sense”. Do unto others, and all that. Momonga didn’t even have to ask, and neither to the villagers of Carne, as Momonga practices various magics while saving a couple of little kids from their doom, for which they’re grateful, if a bit freaked out by his scary looks.

It’s immensely fun to watch as he uses lower-level spells to smite the murderous knights, and a slightly higher-level one to reanimate one of their dead into a giant, virtually invincible zombie warrior. Even if he’s a stranger in a strange land figuring things out, he has the advantage of being one of the most powerful beings in that land, at least compared to the people he’s encountered.

Other than Sebas in the cold open, the fully-armored Albedo is the only one of Momonga’s guardians who appears this week, and while it seems like she’d rather smash all the lowly pathetic humans into jelly, she stays her hand and obeys every order her beloved issues.

It’s great that not only are we following extremely powerful, elite beings in relation to their world, but they might not even be the good guys. Only Momonga, who is, at least in his thoughts, still human, even bothered visiting this village, dragging Albedo along more for procedure/precaution than necessity.

Touch Me’s words about rescuing the weak being common sense ring true, as Monomga, AKA Ainz Ooal Gown, collects some useful info about some of the geography and politics of the world he finds himself in. But he also reflects an empathy for humanity his beastlike guardians lack; reflected in the Chief Warrior of the Kingdom of Re-estize, Gazef Stronoff, who came from a village much like Carne Village, always wished for help to come when trouble struck.

Help never came for him, but now he works to make sure other villagers aren’t subjected to the same disappointment and neglect. The strong have a duty to protect the weak. Momonga just happened to beat him to it in Carne. And as Stronoff arrives, ahead of another wave of potential enemy knights, Momonga may end up in deeper than he wanted at this juncture, but with all the tools he needs to prevail.

OverLord – 02

Without being too direct about it, this second outing confirms that OverLord means to ask the question, “If a game were about to end and you were the last one logged in, would the NPCs make you their god?” It also answers that question with a fairly unequivocal “yes”, although those two floor guardians not present and the army at the end of the episode may be cause for concern.

But not that much concern, as the people he does have on his side pledge to gladly “perish as his shield” if need be. Their skills are apparent and their loyalty appears unswerving. Momonga is someone different to each of them—beautiful, strong, kind, merciful—the recurring theme is that of ebullient praise in every possible aspect of ol’ Skullface, which seems to trigger his insecurities: what did he do to deserve all this?

Well, it would seem he deserves it because he was the last human player left. If you’re an NPC of the game, the human players are supreme beings, and without them, you don’t exist. So it’s a big deal that he stayed, even if he didn’t even mean to be the last one there.

It would seem that in his careless state near the time he believed the Yggdrasil servers would shut down, Momonga’s seemingly innocuous decision to make Albedo fall in love with him caused an unintended imbalance in the dynamic of his “court” of guardians. To whit: a character he didn’t modify already has romantic feelings for him, making Albedo a threat.

The two smitten ladies bicker at length until deciding Momonga should have at least two wives—the two of them—making it just a matter of who’s the first wife. The other guardians seem to rally around Demiurge’s idea of Momonga producing an heir, so that the NPCs would have someone to follow should he leave or die.

Meanwhile, after issuing general orders to conceal the suddenly exposed Tomb of Nazarick, Momonga continues to test the limits (or lack thereof) of his powers and survey what has apparently become his kingdom by default. Looking at the bright starry sky and glowing full moon, he is filled with a desire to possess everything his beady red eyes see, a goal his guardians can certainly set their watches to.

Keeping this ridiculous-looking character grounded is the fact that beneath his scary and imposing facade, there’s a guy inside with no friends or family in the real world, and his frequent little jumps of fear and surprise really humanize him. Hino Satoshi’s multifaceted performance really makes up for the lack of facial expressions. Plus Momonga tends to slump, decreasing his sinister aura somewhat.

To that end, Momonga starts to make it easier for his guardians to move around, issuing Ainz Ooal Gown teleportation rings like the one he wears. He may have made a slight slip-up in awarding the first one to Mare (who is a boy btw), because for a moment Albedo seems slighted; but she seems appeased when she gets hers.

Meanwhile, as the work to hide Nazarick continues, a stern-looking general orders the destruction of another village. Are these more NPCs given sentience like Momonga’s guardians, only not loyal to him? It looks like the honeymoon may be over, but the true threat level of these guys, if any, remains to be seen. Maybe they’ll be pushovers, or swear fealty in the fact of Ainz Ooal Gown’s awesome power.

OverLord – 01

I initially stayed away from OverLord when all I heard was that it was another show about a guy who got trapped in a virtual reality RPG, because, well, that sounded pretty familiar. But in the last couple weeks I’ve heard some good things about it—it’s not just a lazy SAO clone; it has great characters and a sense of humor; etc.—and after finally diving in, I have to say I agree.

OverLord’s setting isn’t all that novel, but its premise is both enticing and refreshing: rather than a hero’s journey about rising from the bottom to the top, our “hero” Momonga starts out on top…on the very top, having done just about everything there is to do in Yggdrasil, just in time for game’s servers are about to shut down for good. He’s basically looking on all his works.

Just look at how lonely Mononga looks at that huge table. The scene is suffused with the lingering energy from all the great battles that were planned and all the great victories celebrated; but like the throne room of a ruined castle,with the grandeur comes melancholy, as “much that once was is lost.”

Then, just when Momonga thinks the game is about so shut down for good…it doesn’t. Not only does the game keep going, but the console and all connections to the GMs, admins, and outside world are gone. Even more interesting, NPCs suddenly look, sound, smell, and act more realistically, as if they were flesh-and-blood people. Momonga jokingly revises the character profile of his chief guardian Albedo to be deeply in love with him, and now she’s stuck that way. Even in love, this guy is set.

As he surveys his vast holdings and loyal retainers, Momonga notes that while the controls of the game have changed, he can still do everything he used to, from order everyone around to teleporting wherever he pleases to summoning fire elementals with the game’s Ultimate Weapon, Ainz Ooal Gown.

I think it’s a very cool and effective choice for the show not to even bother getting into how or why this happened, but just lets us share in the bemused (and not panicky at all) Momonga.

And why should he panic? Look at that diverse group of badass guardians under his command. Heck, look at him. He’s like Skeletor’s credible big brother. This was a relatively laid-back first episode, but it was a lot of fun. So much so that I put out of my mind the fact the animators saved a lot of work making the protagonist speak without moving his mouth, and simply enjoyed the fact that for once we have a protagonist who is not an underdog, but, well, an overlord.