Overlord III

You know what? Sometimes it is fun to route for the bad guy. Sometimes you are drawn to the villains of a story by their overwhelming power, how cunning and intelligent they are, or their unquestionable charisma. A good villain always leaves a mark during and after the story is finished. So what happens when you take those villains and make them the protagonist of their own stories? Well you get shows like Overlord. A series that has had three seasons now when we thought it was a one and done series. But nope, Madhouse has stuck to this series with another season. And nowOverlord, in my opinion, is taking its stride. Why do I say that? Well I'm about to tell you. Sit back, relax and make sure you demand SILENCE! while you are reading this review as I present to you the anime review for Overlord, Season 3. Let begin shall we. Story: 8.5/10 So Ains Ooal Gown (or Momonga, or Momon or Papa Bone Daddy, whatever you want to call him) has now established Nazerick in the world they they still have no idea how they got there. Now that he has established Nazerick, his next course of action is to take over the world as is power and presence must be known across all of the kingdoms and countries. Or at least that what Demiurge believes and Ains is just rolling with it. In order to maintain control of Nazerick and his subjects, he must essentially go along with it although he never planned it in the first place and confront the nearby kingdoms in order to rule the world. Once again the show is separated into two story arcs where each arc follows different characters and how they are tied to Ains' plans and objectives. The first arc follows the village that Ains saved back in season one and how they are progressing. The second arc follows the actions of the Empire, a faction that was teased at the end of season two, and how they are tied to Ains progression of ruling the world. Now world building is once again, focused in Overlord and it is one of its biggest strengths. It doesn't just focus on the inhabitants of Nazerick but the people outside it. It helps give depth to this world and its characters. You get invested into these characters to the point where once they interact with Ains Ooal Gown, you hope that they make it out okay. Speaking of which, the polarity of who to route for in this show has taken full swing in this show. While season two also did this, season three is where I think it now has more weight. As the escalation grows in this show, you hope that some of the world's core characters make it out unscathed, especially when they confront Ains or his subordinates. You want to route for Ains because he his the main protagonist and the character we get invested into the most, but you still want to route for the "good guys" because they are developed enough to get invested into them. Sometimes that is the case. Sometimes it is not. This just shows you how defined the world is and how putting investment into it helps flesh it out. Characters: 8.5/10 This season really does give us more insight into the mind of Ains Ooal Gown as it shows that he is just going along with the ride. Like I said earlier, Demiurge believes that Ains is now planning to take over the world whereas Ains didn't think on doing that. Now that the other floor guardians believe that, he essentially must do what they believe he will do in order to maintain control of Nazerick. He is portrayed as always being 3 or 4 steps ahead but in reality, he is just making it up as he goes along. He also has to practice his lines and poses in his spare time in order to maintain his image. It's a nice reminder that he isn't some all knowing, all seeing Overlord, but rather a simple, human businessman who was invested into an MMORPG pretending to be an evil Overlord. Of course that doesn't mean he doesn't do it well because when he requires to do some evil deeds, he will do them without remorse. This season just reminds you that Ains is indeed a straight up villain. The previous two seasons sort of portrays Ains as both being good and bad. While he did some evil things, he also did some good things as well (Mainly when he is under the disguise of Momon). BUT NOPE. This series pretty much gives you a solid reminder that Ains is indeed the main evil that puts all other evils to shame. This season is by far the darkest season we've had because the actions that Ains took in this series are just pure villainy. Word of advice, if you ever threaten Nazerick, dig a grave. Then immediately fill up that grave because your body isn't coming back. Then stick a bunch of red flags into your head as you skip ever so gracefully into Nazerick to never be seen again as you will be remembered as the idiot who went into Nazerick looking like a t**t. As for the characters that were focused on in the arcs, we have two to talk about. First there is Enri Emmot, a member of the village that Ains saved personally and Jircniv Rune Farlord El Nix (we will just call him Jircniv), the ruler of the aforementioned Empire who is always at war with the kingdom from the second season. So Enri is the main vessel from where we see how the village has progressed since season one. She is somewhat the figurehead of the village as she also the leader of a platoon of goblins that were summoned to protect the village. We see her over the course of the season take more responsibility as she it put into situations where she requires a level head and figure out the best course of action. She is essentially the kind and courageous person you would see take charge as the lead character, unaware that she is serving Papa Bone Daddy who is completely evil. But the problem I find with her is that I don't see nothing more than just a vessel used to show the progression of the village in the show's world building. I don't get invested into her as much than say Zaryusu Sasha from season two because his motives were defined enough for me to get invested into him. For Enri, everything develops around her, rather than she is the main person involved. However, there is good use of foreshadowing where she will have to take center stage and have situations that involve around her in the future. As for Jircniv, he is a good case of how looks can be deceiving. First impressions might describe him as a pompous a***ole who doesn't give a s**t. But actually, he is not that. He is cunning as he needs to think what is best for his Empire and plans out what the best course of action is that will benefit him and his Empire and to make sure it does not crumble, mainly when confronting Nazerick and Ains Ooal Gown. While he gets less screen-time than Enri. He is the kind of character that you can get invested in because you know definitely, he is going to play a big part in the future. That's not to say other characters in this show do not get defined enough. From the workers who raid Nazerick to the goblins who protect the village to more established characters like Gazef Stronoff and Nfirea Bareare. Each character is defined enough to get invested into and to look forward to see what happens next for them. Not all of them are hits but the majority of the cast is enjoyable to watch. Animation: 5/10 I think that I should come to expect that the animation quality isn't going to change for the better. So the animation will always be stuck on good but not great. However, I have also noticed that this season has increased the use of CGI animation and yeah, it does not look good. It just lacks detail and polish as it loses some of the impact of some scenes in the anime. Anyone that has watched episode 12 will pretty much agree with that statement. Trust me, you will notice it when the quality of the CGI animation gets bad. What I don't get is that it uses both CGI and hand drawn animation on the same models and likes to switch between them. Why Madhouse won't stick to one type is beyond me. Probably for budget reasons but that just feels like a sorry excuse of not allocating resources properly. While it does make sense for some character models like the Death Knights since they are larger than the average human, it just looks bad for other character models like the goblin and human soldiers. Sound: 8/10 Once again, the same soundtrack returns to Overlord III with haunting instrumentals and bombastic choir vocals. It is the soundtrack that can only be associated with a bad-ass, freaking Overlord. But my problem is a lack of notable new soundtracks (if there were any). The ones that I remember are the ones that we are already established with, which is quite a shame. It is not bad as the OST overall is still good but lets get some new stuff in here shall we? Before we start looping in circles. The opening is something different and yet familiar at the same time. This time, MYTH&ROID swap with OxT to do the opening and my word, did MYTH&ROID and Tom-H@ck do a good job on the opening. The opening, "Voracity," is much better choreographed than the previous two openings and is the most visually impressive out the three openings. The instrumentals as well are much better with them sounding much more heavy than the previous two but still sounding like an Overlord opening. This is also backed up with the lyrics being catchy as hell and able to stop and start without it feeling tedious. This all culminates to being the best Overlord opening out of the 3 IMO and one I have listened to countless times. I've never appreciated Overlord's ending sequences till now because this one was an enjoyable ending sequence. OxT did the ending sequence this time with a more slower piece of work than their openings but still using heavy, electrical instruments to match the instrumentals with the opening. But what really stole the show were the illustrations used in the ending as they looked gorgeous; somewhat reminiscing the art style of the Light Novel's. I'll have to make sure not to skip these from now on if they keep up this quality. Conclusion: So what did I mean when I said Overlord is taking its stride? Well what I meant by that was where we are in the story and how established its world and characters are, Overlord is now going full steam ahead with its trajectory and it doesn't look like its planning to stop until it reaches its destination. While its animation quality has taken a dip and the OST is now starting to go in a loop. Its heart and soul will always be its world and characters because that is what it does best. We always look into the world and its inhabitants and get attached to them before Ains and co. swoop in and probably take over their lives. It is kind of funny how this show has gone from finding out where they are and if there are other players there as well to watching a powerful Overlord start to take over the world. If you were not a fan on how Overlord II was structured and how the attention was always driven away from Ains, then this season won't change your mind as it is pretty much more of the same. If you were a fan like I was, then you should be happy. I would imagine Madhouse would want to see this anime through since it is popular enough to have three seasons already. And you know what Madhouse? I will still continue to watch Overlord and bow down to THE GREAT SORCERER KING, AINS OOAL GOWN!!! My Personal Enjoyment: 9.5/10 Overall score: 7.9/10 Recommendation: Watch it (If you haven't already.)

There are four major aspects of Overlord that make it appealing. 1) Protagonists are villains. 2) Protagonists are ridiculously overpowered. 3) Protagonists are non-human. 4) Solid world building. Works well as a hi-fantasy series. These points summarize Overlord well, and if you find them appealing then this series is just for you. Tired of goody two- shoe protagonists who are holier-than-thou with no moral faults? Overlord’s protagonists are nonhuman and villains. Have you had enough of linear progression in storytelling, where the protagonist overcomes progressively stronger antagonists, almost conveniently? Overlord’s protagonist and his minions and the minions of his minions are overpowered compared to the vast majority of everything else inthe world. This is not a tale about knights in shining armor who save the day. This is about the strong and the weak- with heavy emphasis on the strong. No “friendship triumphs over all” speeches to be found here. The last aspect, which does not apply nearly as much to the anime as it does to the light novels it’s based on, is it’s world building. The map is fairly large, with different countries and a large selection of recurring characters representing each country showing up periodically. They all have different traits and while I wouldn’t call most of them “deep,” the little things they do help give the world of Overlord meaning. They’re not cookie-cutter background characters that do the most predictable and straight-ahead thing. It’s showing the world is alive with many individual people pursuing their own goals. The story is basically a “MMO isekai,” but that it doesn’t go as far as others in the same genre. The MMO feature is just used to explain easily the mechanics of the world and just how powerful Ainz and his minions are. You could almost ignore that fact and the plot works just as well. In essence, this series is almost like Lord of the Rings, with the protagonists being villains. Story: 9/10 I mentioned in the above two paragraphs the appeal of Overlord's story and characters. To date the series biggest weakness for the light novels has been pacing. Books 4, 5, 7, and 8 are the weakest entries in the currently 13 volume series, and it was primarily because of that fact. A slew of characters for books 4 and 7 in particular were introduced. Many of them weren’t interesting and most of them weren’t important to the plot beyond their respective books. The anime does glaze over many details from the novels. This works both in its favor and to the vexation of hardcore fans. It skips over many of the details which help make the world feel so alive, while also “fixing” some of the pacing problems a few of the middle volumes in the series had. Season 2 was a good representation of this. This third season adapts volumes 7, 8, 9, so expect more of the same in that regard. Art: 5/10 The anime’s biggest flaw. Although the CGI they use works out in it’s favor at times, particularly with some battles, at other times it can be jarring. Some animation scenes are lazy, such as the one involving Leinas face in a frame. The goblin battle in episode 11 was borderline comical. It’s unfortunate because So-bin, the illustrator for the novels, does a fantastic job. Sometimes it’s good, but there is a lot of mediocrity here as well. Sound: 7/10 There are a couple of good soundtracks used here and some of the sound effects work well. The English dub is also respectable. Overall it’s good, even if it’s not outstanding. I still think the first season had the best OP and OST. Still good, however. Character: 9/10 There are a lot of them, and like any series this can be both good and bad. With so many characters, it’s hard to get significant development on individual characters. When you do get good development, afterwards they may have long absences from the story when the focus shifts to other characters. On the other hand, having so many characters helps make the world feel alive, and with the wide variety, it gives everyone at least a few characters to care about. As mentioned, this series biggest allure is its ridiculously overpowered, nonhuman villain protagonists. Yet neither are they evil for the sake of being evil. They are wholly dedicated to themselves- and if that means killing a few hundred thousand people in the process, then so be it. There’s just something so self-satisfying about seeing a protagonist like that. You don’t get to see that often enough. I think an understated emotion for any series is that of admiration. When you admire someone, you tend to overlook their flaws. The relationship between Ainz and his subordinates is a tender one. Unsurprisingly, the light novel does a much better job than with developing it’s characters. The anime is only the general story and cuts some details from the novels. Enjoyment: 8/10 The animation drags it down, but the story is unique and the characters are engaging enough to keep you invested. Ultimately the most satisfying things in life are the things you didn’t know you wanted until you got it. Overpowered, nonhuman, villain protagonists trying to conquer the world in a high-fantasy setting turned out to be just that. If you love Overlord and are still here for season 3, I highly recommend picking up the light novels ASAP. Overall: 8/10

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.