

The first of these is Cocytus, who was a bit of a let-down. Sebas, whilst still crazy strong, has nothing on his God-tier master, and the addition of human companions, who are vulnerable by their own admission, brings back some much needed dramatic tension, even if it is somewhat undone by the existence of resurrection magic.Īlthough Ains’ doesn’t get a ton of screen time this go-around, his sacrifice is not in vain, as we see two characters who were previously in support roles get a larger spotlight. Whilst the goings-on with the Lizard Men directly involved Ains, the main conflict in the Eight Fingers arc sees him out of the picture entirely, and despite how much I love the character, this does absolute wonders for the quality of the show. Luckily, the second half of Overlord II finds ways around this crippling design flaw, as we shift the focus to Ains’ butler Sebas.

When the main character can steamroll anything and anytime with no effort, you quickly find yourself running out of reasons to care. Ains, for all we have seen in the anime so far at least, is easily the most powerful being in existence, meaning that all the screen time spent showing the Lizard Men coming up with plans to combat Ains and mounting a defence is all moot, because you know they don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell at winning.
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It is also when watching this arc of the show that a gaping flaw comes into view on a conceptual level too, and that is that Ains is far too powerful, and it strips the series of any sort of tension in the slightest. When you look at it like this, it becomes very hard not to see these episodes as an exercise in excessive time wasting, the likes of which I’d thought would be relegated to Naruto and its ilk. The benefit of foresight also means I know that they barely appear in the show’s third season either, meaning that’s a good eighteen episodes before these characters might actually become relevant again, and that’s just on the assumption more anime even happens at all, which it might not. You spend five or so episodes with these new characters, who essentially become the protagonists for a while, only for them to never be relevant again after the sixth episode. Taken as its own story, I have absolutely zero qualms about this arc, there are some new characters introduced that are very likeable, and a sizeable chunk of good action to boot, but when you take it as part of Overlord as a whole, it suddenly becomes quite flawed. The prime example of this is the entire first half, which involves a tribe of Lizard Men attempting to combat an oncoming attack from Ains. His appearances this time around are rather sparse, outside of a couple of episodes, sometimes not even showing up at all, essentially being relegated to a side character in his own show, zapping a lot of the initial enthusiasm I had for the franchise in the process.Ī lot of the time, it feels like an entirely different anime as opposed to an Overlord sequel, with the actual plot of world conquest not really being furthered much at all. So, it was to my initial disappointment, and I imagine to the disappointment of many others, that Season 2 opts to almost immediately jettison Ains from the show entirely. Not only did his attempts to rule the world set him apart from your average bland protagonist, alongside his distinct skeletal design, but he was just a whole ton of fun to watch, making for an engaging lead and excellent audience surrogate. So, with a solid foundation in place, did Overlord’ s sequel build on its predecessor? In some respects, yes, but it is a mixed bag.Īs I previously mentioned, a lot of the main appeal of Overlord came from the protagonist Ains Ooal Gown.
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It was a solid fantasy anime, nothing that particularly broke the mold, but an enjoyable watch nonetheless, with the unique angle of having an anti-hero protagonist being enough to make it stand out amongst the dozens of shows looking to cash in on the isekai craze that went into full swing in the wake of Sword Art Online’s monumental popularity. Thankfully, his most loyal subordinates are more than willing to give him a helping hand in securing his takeover.Īlthough I’d say I liked the 2015 light novel adaptation Overlord a little more than Demelza did in her review of the first season, generally speaking, my thoughts line up fairly nicely with hers. Between the uprising of a tribe of Lizard Men and keeping up his double life as the adamantite adventurer Lord Momon, Ains truly has his work cut out for him. Continuing in his quest to rule the new world he found himself in, human turned sorcerer supreme Ains Ooal Gown, ruler of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, continues to put the pieces in place to secure his conquest of the land of E-Rantel.
