Overlord (light novel)
This thread is intended for the anime-watcher that have question like: "Is SPLAT really that awesome?", so here's a sneak preview of what's actually happens in the LN. . . . Gucha (グチャ)  The pun here was ぐちゃぐちゃ (KuchaGucha) literally means sloppy. Do people seriously expect one punch man level of epic battle scene if that's all there was to the script? I mean that level of writing is no better than an imagination of a kid with ADHD trampling on ants mumbling GuchaGuchaGuchaGuchaGuchaGuchaa GuchaGuchaGuchaGuchaGuchaGuchaa GuchaGuchaGuchaGuchaGuchaGuchaa A sloppy CGI for such a sloppy writing, sounds fair enough. Regardless its still popular, I cannot believe it at first. But maybe if I were to give a comparison is because THIS is the future of art: GucciGangGucciGangGucciGang GucciGangGucciGangGucciGang GucciGangGucciGangGucciGang |
| nice try |
| I'm one of those people who close their eyes on bad CGI as long as plot is great. Overlord had pretty bad CGI since season 1, but season 1 was honestly interesting and i decided to ignore the visuals. Things began to change with season 2 and the introduction of lizardmen. I actually dropped the series after episode 3 since it felt like pointless waste of time. When plot is bad, you are less forgiving about other flaws like bad CGI, music and so on. When season 3 came out, i decided to give it a try again and watched season 2 to the end. I was pretty confused. My expectations weren't met, but i decided to go on because the plot was still not below average. Season 3 was starting to get boring and disappointing with its repetitiveness and seeing how despite it being the 3RD SEASON, art, animation, CGI staying the same and unimproved, i began losing my interest, but still kept on watching for the plot. After episode 7 and 8 though, i realised how awfully predictable, boring and one sided this show has become and decided to drop it after watching one last, episode 9. Everyone has a different taste, but i myself find it extremely disappointing people actually call it a masterpiece. The show in total has very few redeemable qualities. Season 3 has none! |
| It's a matter of adaptating an abstract "fill in the blanks in your head" scene from the LN. It doesn't work, or at least not everyone will be satisfied with their result, because the "SPLAT" writing is supposed to stimulate the imagination of the reader and the thing anyone imagines is probably quite different from each other. But that obviously doens't work for a visual medium. The CGI issue and the Japan "we never ever show a battlefield filled with dead soldiers who are bloody (because it reminds us of nukes or something)"-attitude were just the icing on the cake. |
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| Mr. I really want to belive this is not some sort of simple bait, to just provoke the fans. But if I must explain: The key to the famous splat dosent lie in just the onomatopoeia of splat, it recides in the context Here is the extract from the novel that to my opinion represents splat the best: Please keep in mind that it is fairly long The context explains us what is happening in that scene, crushing, we understand what is happening and the spat is just the way the author decided to demonstrate the size of that scene, not by showing again and again the scream like before the splat, just a simple word that combeied that meaning again and again in 110 splats. And that is why the scene was so disapoting, it was suposed to be a brutal scene showing us what one super tier spell can do if Ainz just decided to kill everyone, and the slopy apereances with the movement of the dark young just made such a brutal scene just ridiculous. |
AzorAhai said: I'm one of those people who close their eyes on bad CGI as long as plot is great. Overlord had pretty bad CGI since season 1, but season 1 was honestly interesting and i decided to ignore the visuals. Things began to change with season 2 and the introduction of lizardmen. I actually dropped the series after episode 3 since it felt like pointless waste of time. When plot is bad, you are less forgiving about other flaws like bad CGI, music and so on. When season 3 came out, i decided to give it a try again and watched season 2 to the end. I was pretty confused. My expectations weren't met, but i decided to go on because the plot was still not below average. Season 3 was starting to get boring and disappointing with its repetitiveness and seeing how despite it being the 3RD SEASON, art, animation, CGI staying the same and unimproved, i began losing my interest, but still kept on watching for the plot. After episode 7 and 8 though, i realised how awfully predictable, boring and one sided this show has become and decided to drop it after watching one last, episode 9. Everyone has a different taste, but i myself find it extremely disappointing people actually call it a masterpiece. The show in total has very few redeemable qualities. Season 3 has none! Hmm, considering just season 1 calling it a masterpiece isn't very off. Season 2's lizardmen doesn't pace well as anime so I'm not sure why they decided to spend so much time on it. Considering how little relevance it has to the overall plot season 2 as a whole would of been better without it. I'd say without the lizardmen season 1 and 2 together could be considered a masterpiece, as it still holds up well enough untill the end, even with its flaws, thanks to season 2 providing interesting character development for the human side characters and expanding the world building. At this point Aintz and co still has character development in the form of Cocytus and the buttler, and it pretty much feels like both story and characters can go to the horizon and beyond in whats possible. Unfortunately in season 3 it falls apart altogether. So from that perspective its quite possible that the people who call Overlord a masterpiece: a) only watched the first and maybe the second seasons. b) have ''buyers guilt''. Since they are invested in the series they dont want to consider the series ruined, so they instead believe season 3 (and LN content afterwards) is of similar quality. c) are into sadist fetish displays (in which case it only ''gets better'' as the series progresses I considered Overlord quite a good series as well, and it wasnt untill season 3 that my suspense of disbelief was finally broken. It's really a shame since they could of been an amazing series. On the bright side, since I ended up here on MAL (again after a few years) it did end up showing me more interesting series like the Kings Avatar and Isekai Maou (and a few others that peeked my interest), so all is well in the end. Amusingly enough even Goblin Slayer seems more interesting now. Well I'm just glad the other outstanding series for me in recent memory (Kings Avatar) did not end up disappointing unlike Overlord. As for the ''splat'' topic. I'm not aware with the scene in question (since I neither read the LN or progressed the anime past episode 8 or 9, whichever it was), but to me from reading peoples comments on it, ''enjoying'' it seemed purely a childish form of sadism to me. Like squashing bugs and finding it fun. Apparently there's children that enjoy that sort of thing. |
| “Ha ha, the synergy between my left and right hand made them feel scared.” Ye Xiu said. |
| Madhouse probably gave zero fucks about this shit, and so did the author. The anime watchers despite bad cgi or immature writing will still buy Overlord. So why not sell it without putting much effort into it? |
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KatsutoSaki said: Madhouse probably gave zero fucks about this shit, and so did the author. The anime watchers despite bad cgi or immature writing will still buy Overlord. So why not sell it without putting much effort into it? Thats kind of how I interpreted this series. @Gray-Zone explained in another thread on how web novel isekai series had little to no editorial oversight and so the creators were free to just do whatever. By merit of having internet beta readers the writer would then fine tune along as they went, the most popular of which would become published light novels after some editorial polish. Upon realizing that it makes sense why I like many people dislike the series, or why Madhouse cut corners left and right. I'm of the opinion that the writer tells the audience what they want, not the other way around. If it was the other way around, they'd be the writer. By that logic Overlord was never meant to be a story with some strong narrative or traditional isekai structure. Its literally just Maruyama narrating a what if campaign of a table top RPG that he's a game master for to a audience while they make suggestions, or in other words...its Harmontown the anime. The fact that the publishers that ran the LNs from 2012 were the company who co developed the original RPG Maker and numerous follow up dev engines, one of which that runs the official Overlord free RPG, and publishes numerous RPG game magazines as well as selling a variety of their own (TTRPGs too) makes this even more apparent. Maruyama has openly stated how D&D and Sword World were some of his major influences. But whereas Record of Lodoss War takes place from the perspective of characters native to the fantasy environment, Momonga is the quintessential identifiable isekai character made to please the ever whimsical internet audience. Thats why his personality seems inconsistent, its because he's literally aware that he's being watched by the hundreds of thousands of people constantly bombarding the site to judge whether he's still worth the read from chapter to chapter until it became a hit. Maruyama's love of table top RPGs and world building is deep, and one of his Log Horizon TTRPG characters even makes a cameo in season 2 in a campaign he played with that series creator. I'm sure eventually Overlord will get its own ultimate adaption in the form of its own table top rpg since its setting is so interesting and vast., not to mention their publisher's probably already working onit with Maruyama lol. But Overlord is just a Twitch stream of that game, and not an actual isekai story. |
Somali_StrawhatSep 28, 2018 8:15 PM
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ThatLamp said: Mr. I really want to belive this is not some sort of simple bait, to just provoke the fans. But if I must explain: The key to the famous splat dosent lie in just the onomatopoeia of splat, it recides in the context Here is the extract from the novel that to my opinion represents splat the best: Please keep in mind that it is fairly long The context explains us what is happening in that scene, crushing, we understand what is happening and the spat is just the way the author decided to demonstrate the size of that scene, not by showing again and again the scream like before the splat, just a simple word that combeied that meaning again and again in 110 splats. And that is why the scene was so disapoting, it was suposed to be a brutal scene showing us what one super tier spell can do if Ainz just decided to kill everyone, and the slopy apereances with the movement of the dark young just made such a brutal scene just ridiculous. What Maruyama did with SPLAT GUCHA is basically this.  This is what the animation studio deals with. This is a dickmove in animation industry btw. borrowing your words: The context explains us what is happening in that scene, traversing Then this hack author simply types WOBBLEWOBBLE or PITTERPATTER and say "refer to So-Bin's art for character design" to describe how that scene unfold. Said scene won't magically appears lest one hallucinate on their own. Because SPLAT GUCHA is nothing but "fill in the blanks" You got the goat as described you got the "faceless fodder" as described you got those fodder crushed, as described you got "meat" thrown about, ground into the mud, I didn't read anything about it being mangled though, just crushed. You don't see blood because the author didn't mention any, just crushed, and the ground is mud. if you imagine elephant's footprint the size of a pond, filled with meat paste, entrails, blood, and crushed bones, then you're stealing imagery from Berserk if you imagine grassland with soldiers scattered among giant hooves, maybe LOTR if you imagine bloodied crowd and gored bodies, any zombie movies. the point is, whatever SPLAT GUCHA looked like in your hyperactive imagination, it doesn't exist in the source material. The only thing that can be seen as one, is that one static composition by So-Bin, and that's what madhouse made the scene out of albeit lacking the ambience because Maruyama didn't even bother to write about it. |
Somali_Strawhat said: KatsutoSaki said: Madhouse probably gave zero fucks about this shit, and so did the author. The anime watchers despite bad cgi or immature writing will still buy Overlord. So why not sell it without putting much effort into it? Thats kind of how I interpreted this series. @Gray-Zone explained in another thread on how web novel isekai series had little to no editorial oversight and so the creators were free to just do whatever. By merit of having internet beta readers the writer would then fine tune along as they went, the most popular of which would become published light novels after some editorial polish. Upon realizing that it makes sense why I like many people dislike the series, or why Madhouse cut corners left and right. I'm of the opinion that the writer tells the audience what they want, not the other way around. If it was the other way around, they'd be the writer. I always get the feeling that the author whether intentional or not, panders to a certain demographic that suits his taste, with total disregard to audience in general. Therefore creating an elite group of fanatics, and these fanatics became a vocal minority due to being "extremely satisfied" with how the story goes, while at the same time, generates hype and participate in viral marketing that are a scale bigger than what you'd usually get when the audience were to be simply "entertained". As to what these certain demographic are... Somali_Strawhat said: By that logic Overlord was never meant to be a story with some strong narrative or traditional isekai structure. Its literally just Maruyama narrating a what if campaign of a table top RPG that he's a game master for to a audience while they make suggestions, or in other words...its Harmontown the anime. The fact that the publishers that ran the LNs from 2012 were the company who co developed the original RPG Maker and numerous follow up dev engines, one of which that runs the official Overlord free RPG, and publishes numerous RPG game magazines as well as selling a variety of their own (TTRPGs too) makes this even more apparent. Maruyama has openly stated how D&D and Sword World were some of his major influences. But whereas Record of Lodoss War takes place from the perspective of characters native to the fantasy environment, Momonga is the quintessential identifiable isekai character made to please the ever whimsical internet audience. Thats why his personality seems inconsistent, its because he's literally aware that he's being watched by the hundreds of thousands of people constantly bombarding the site to judge whether he's still worth the read from chapter to chapter until it became a hit. Maruyama's love of table top RPGs and world building is deep, and one of his Log Horizon TTRPG characters even makes a cameo in season 2 in a campaign he played with that series creator. I'm sure eventually Overlord will get its own ultimate adaption in the form of its own table top rpg since its setting is so interesting and vast., not to mention their publisher's probably already working onit with Maruyama lol. But Overlord is just a Twitch stream of that game, and not an actual isekai story. Never occurs to me, thank you! But this is most likely the truth. This is f*cking disappointing and utterly lame though. Maruyama is just a hack DM playing his own PC Maruyama and his fanatics are the same kind of people that plays as murderhobo!  Before someone say anything about how Overlord is about "worldbuilding". That chart came from TRPG, so "worldbuilding" are a given and not the chart is about. The DM is Maruyama, and he plays his own PC called Ainz. Now look again, isn't that what Overlord is all about? Just a make-belief campaign of an amateur DM playing murderhobo |
| ^Funny that you bring this up... there is actually an audio drama that shows Ainz play a table top RPG with some of the guardians as a "way to understand the thinking of weak humans better". And while Ainz tries to make it normal, the guardians keep being super aggressive. If you look for it you should find it. I won't give any links because the mods would definitly kill it - and by extention me - when posting it. |
Grey-ZoneSep 29, 2018 3:17 AM
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00784212 said: https://youtu.be/zTjH-jP42X0Grey-Zone said: ^Funny that you bring this up... there is actually an audio drama that shows Ainz play a table top RPG with some of the guardians as a "way to understand the thinking of weak humans better". And while Ainz tries to make it normal, the guardians keep being super aggressive. If you look for it you should find it. I won't give any links because the mods would definitly kill it - and by extention me - when posting it. First time hearing about it, hmm... Does it mean Maruyama admits or try to secretly inform his audience that he catered to murderhobos? For this to be so cleverly and meticulously hidden whether deliberate or not , don't you think its being unfair to the general audience? We're at S3 anime, and vol.13 LN, I don't see a reason for this work to just be honest from now on and admit its murderhobo pandering fetish. That the intended audience being an edgelord or perverse or whatever, they're still a decent niche market and by having a caveat emptor, people that don't look for such a thing will simply avoid it without making a fuss. |
00784212 said: Grey-Zone said: ^Funny that you bring this up... there is actually an audio drama that shows Ainz play a table top RPG with some of the guardians as a "way to understand the thinking of weak humans better". And while Ainz tries to make it normal, the guardians keep being super aggressive. If you look for it you should find it. I won't give any links because the mods would definitly kill it - and by extention me - when posting it. First time hearing about it, hmm... Does it mean Maruyama admits or try to secretly inform his audience that he catered to murderhobos? For this to be so cleverly and meticulously hidden whether deliberate or not , don't you think its being unfair to the general audience? We're at S3 anime, and vol.13 LN, I don't see a reason for this work to just be honest from now on and admit its murderhobo pandering fetish. That the intended audience being an edgelord or perverse or whatever, they're still a decent niche market and by having a caveat emptor, people that don't look for such a thing will simply avoid it without making a fuss. Nice try troll; acc made on the daythe splat episode came out. How abt u login with ur real acc, u troll u baiter. This is just low what ur doing, get a f life. 😂 |
| "Even villains have standards" -Accelerator-  |
| Edit: This post is a mess, truly I was ventilating and after thinking about it I regret the way I told it, I will not remove it because while I think it came out wrong, what I said wasnt, if you want to skip it, go ahead, you arent going to miss anithing |
ThatLampSep 29, 2018 8:35 AM
AcceleratorAngel said: Nice try troll; acc made on the daythe splat episode came out. How abt u login with ur real acc, u troll u baiter. This is just low what ur doing, get a f life. 😂 Ok, yes his account is a bait troll account. But it did bring some discussion about the actual series. Would you rather switch the conversation to just bash the OP, or prove that OP was wrong in some way? No lie, I had no idea that the flowchart wasn't something he created out of spite to Overlord until I read on because it applies to the series perfectly. Not that I'm saying Maruyama's a hack because he isn't. But Momonga is the definition of a Murder hobo. I actually enjoyed season 2's worldbuilding of the lizard men arc. But I've seen a lot of the fans say they hate it. I think the reason being is that they're not interested in much else but Momonga just killing stuff out of spite. Like, his entire stats was built from dungeon crawling and PVPs like any other player. But in the 3rd season he invites people (who are essentially players bht with souls) into his dungeon, and has the balls to get angry as shit for being gold chasers. As if Shaltear being brought back to life with a metric shit ton of gold was supposed to be forgotten about. Gold that most likely came from him doing the exact same thing as the people he's condemning. Yes Momonga admits to being a hypocrite from back in the 1st season, but it doesn't make this series a less frustrating watch. |
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| Hmmm. I wont speak for 00784212, but I can offer my pov. I have not read the LN. If assume that the LN is atleast the same quality as the anime, then I'd definately consider Maruyama a good/great writer. However, the problem is that the quality of his work suffered tremendously after the story became a ''murderhobo''. Personally for me the reason I strongly dislike Overlord now, isn't because of poor quality writing, but because of good quality writing going horribly wrong. That makes it hard to respect a work. It's a different case if a story is still well written but goes in a direction one can't appreciate. (I've played a few games with story like this) In Overlord the change in direction caused a massive drop in quality. |
| “Ha ha, the synergy between my left and right hand made them feel scared.” Ye Xiu said. |
Elinchayiel said: Hmmm. I wont speak for 00784212, but I can offer my pov. I have not read the LN. If assume that the LN is atleast the same quality as the anime, then I'd definately consider Maruyama a good/great writer. However, the problem is that the quality of his work suffered tremendously after the story became a ''murderhobo''. Personally for me the reason I strongly dislike Overlord now, isn't because of poor quality writing, but because of good quality writing going horribly wrong. That makes it hard to respect a work. It's a different case if a story is still well written but goes in a direction one can't appreciate. (I've played a few games with story like this) In Overlord the change in direction caused a massive drop in quality. I certainly agree with you that Maruyama isn't a hack or anything. The fact that his web novel was picked up by a LN publisher in just 2 years, and that LN was adapted into an anime judt 3 years later serves to show that Maruyama's greatest skill besides worldbuilding is his ability to hone in on the sensibilities of his fans. But in doing so he completely alienates every newcomer to the IP expecting a traditional isekai structure. The premise evokes it but fails to feliver as we never see who he was before hes teleported away. The anime opens up on him PKing along with his guild members and all it would have took for me to understand Momonga's motivations, was to transition between how shitty his life in the real world, showcasing his desire for power through complete escapism in the MMO. Iwouldn't agree with such a unhealthy approach to making one self happy, but I've ranted on other threads on how unimportant it is for the audience to like the main character in comparison to how fundamentally VITAL it is for them to understand him. Yes, he's a salaryman but have we seen him working? Yes he spends a third of his income on the game but do we see him meagerly scraping by as a result? Yes he has no family but do we see how that has affected him personally? The only thing that the series does show was that one player leaving him, but its never displayed as that big a deal. He slams his fist on the desk out of anger but I as the viewer have no understanding as to why Momonga values the game so much to begin with. What about him or the real world makes Momonga ill suited for it? The complete non existantance of Momonga's IRL persona just makes me question the sincerity of any of his actions which is only further amplified by him roleplaying as the character we've seen him roleplay from the very beginning without context to the man behind the mask. The fact the series completely undermines any real potential agency its protagonist has by giving him the trait of him losing his humanity involuntarily (in a dumb calming save spot graphic for an rpg), and never highlights that as a big deal to the character further goes to demonstrate's the validity in OPs statement. Its not a story of slowly becoming evil, its just a twitch stream of someone playing as a murder hobo character. And its biggest fans are those who don't care about the story and like those aspects. Which isn't a bad thing as Overlord never intended to be the kind of story I would've enjoyed to begin with. Thats why I'm just happy Tanya the Evil is getting a movie instead. |
Somali_StrawhatSep 29, 2018 1:22 PM
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| @Somali_Strawhat That's precisely why I enjoyed up enjoying Isekai Maou a lot more then Overlord, even tho it has a much lighter story and less intricate world building. The MC there does go through the character development you'd expect from someone that's dumped in another world, while for Aintz that never happens. Still, if nothing else watching the anime gave me a few great ending songs (season 2 and 3) to add to my music playlists, and reminded me that I should really watch more anime (I tend to play games more). Going on MAL after watching Overlord made me notice Quanzhi Gaoshou as well, and I dont think I would have realised it existed without that. |
| “Ha ha, the synergy between my left and right hand made them feel scared.” Ye Xiu said. |
| @Somali_Strawhat I love the way how Maruyama is writing the character development for Ainz. Not showing scenes of him in the dimension that he was before gives him an alien feeling, which makes it a lot more mysterious and interesting to read and watch, especially since the story doesn't turn around him(you're coming with the assumption that the whole story is being seen through his eyes to say "its just a twitch stream of someone playing as a murder hobo character", but that's wrong because in the novel he receives the same treatment from the narration as the other characters, and in the anime we listen to his thoughts just like we listen to the thoughts of the other characters too), and what's really important are his actions as an overlord in the dimension that he is now. If the author started to show scenes with him as a human being dealing with situations in our world as a back story to make the readers relate to him, that would throw away a lot of the mystery, and would cheapen the other characters making them look artificial. The way how the story only shows Ainz with the appearance that he is now convinces us that the existence of the other characters in the series have just as much credibility as his. I already hated how the manga and the movie showed a short scene of him as a human in the beginning. This is hardly an isekai series to begin with. That was just a setting that the author used in the beginning, but the relation between the two dimensions is irrelevant to the plot; all what matters is what happens in the dimension that he is right now. |
ColtBuntlineSep 30, 2018 7:03 PM
| “Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.” ― Saint Augustine |
KRKodama said: @Somali_Strawhat I love the way how Maruyama is writing the character development for Ainz. Not showing scenes of him in the dimension that he was before gives him an alien feeling, which makes it a lot more mysterious and interesting to read and watch, especially since the story doesn't turn around him(you're coming with the assumption that the whole story is being seen through his eyes to say "its just a twitch stream of someone playing as a murder hobo character", but that's wrong because in the novel he receives the same treatment from the narration as the other characters), and what's really important are his actions as an overlord in the dimension that he is now. If the author started to show scenes with him as a human being dealing with situations in our world as a back story to make the readers relate to him, that would throw away a lot of the mystery, and would cheapen the other characters making them look artificial. The way how the story only shows Ainz with the appearance that he is now convinces us that the existence of the other characters in the series have just as much credibility as his. I already hated how the manga and the movie showed a short scene of him as a human in the beginning. This is hardly an isekai series to begin with. That was just a setting that the author used in the beginning, but the relation between the two dimensions is irrelevant to the plot; all what matters is what happens in the dimension that he is right now. There is a blu-ray bonus short story (it's in a novel format, not anime or manga) called "Overlord: prologue". |
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KRKodama said: @Somali_Strawhat I love the way how Maruyama is writing the character development for Ainz. Not showing scenes of him in the dimension that he was before gives him an alien feeling, which makes it a lot more mysterious and interesting to read and watch, especially since the story doesn't turn around him(you're coming with the assumption that the whole story is being seen through his eyes to say "its just a twitch stream of someone playing as a murder hobo character", but that's wrong because in the novel he receives the same treatment from the narration as the other characters), and what's really important are his actions as an overlord in the dimension that he is now. If the author started to show scenes with him as a human being dealing with situations in our world as a back story to make the readers relate to him, that would throw away a lot of the mystery, and would cheapen the other characters making them look artificial. The way how the story only shows Ainz with the appearance that he is now convinces us that the existence of the other characters in the series have just as much credibility as his. I already hated how the manga and the movie showed a short scene of him as a human in the beginning. This is hardly an isekai series to begin with. That was just a setting that the author used in the beginning, but the relation between the two dimensions is irrelevant to the plot; all what matters is what happens in the dimension that he is right now. You bring a great point in the allure of a mysterious nature that you think exists in Ainz. I too think mysteriousness works great in a protagonists. But that mysteriousness in my opinion only feels effective when the character's subsequent actions are the result of making the audience desire more knowledge of the nature of the character in question. For example, in One Outs the MC's backstory is about as sparse as Ainz at the beginning of the story proper. He's stranded at a American base town in Japan gambling off his baseball skills amongst amateurs and we have no idea why. The mystery further intensifies when the characters who start the story are famous pro ballers with the most impressive of whom could have been a legend based on his stats if only he hadn't joined the wrong lackluster team, or rather, chose to stay with them for the majority of his career and waste the years in his prime. What makes the MC so mysterious is ghe fact that someone who is a reknowned pro is forced to acknowledge the likes of an amateur and force him to question everything he knows about baseball up until that point. When I watched One Outs for the first time I was filled with questions; Who was the MC before this moment? How did he get such an amazing pitch? Why hasn't anyone heard of him, or rather, why has he chosen seedy gambling over pro ball of all he cares about is money? All of the MC's later actions show that money is just the end result for him and what he really enjoys is the personal thrill of a high stakes gamble. Something that os lost within the mangerial mettling of a for profit team sport. So upon being given a contract where his skills directly reflects his salary for every pitch thrown , he becomes excited. I haven't read the manga but in the anime the MCs backstory is never fleshed out past this and yet his actions are still understood within the framing of the story. I get absolutely none of that with Momonga in Overlord, and that's why I suggested depicting his backstory in the beginning, not so much to necessitate relatibility but to have his actions understood. This could easily be done through other means but its just the one I thought up that most isekai tend to use. Also I don't understand why elaborating on Momonga would make the other characters feel less credible. Could you explain that point further? We only see the most in depth backstories and motivations of these secondary characters living in this new world, where as the audience is forced to just accept the existence of these NPCs and a salaryman being so OP without any hints (other than in season 2 ep 1) as to what actually caused this story to start. Every conflict is overly one sided and the winners are those who we know the least about. If anything, the current lack of backstories in relation to everyone else makes them feel more artifical than anything else. What's so credible about some Lovecraftian campaign for world domination where the only information given becomes widely irrelevant as soon as those it would pertain to are immediately cast aside once defeated? The only exceptions that I've observed are that of Brain, Gazef, Climb and Carne Village but that's out of virtue of them being important to Maruyama at the moment. You can't say the series doesn't revolve around Momonga when he's the literal catalyst and nexus for most of the events in the story, and the only ones who get the most development are those who he's either deemed important, or liked on an individual level for some unknown reason. If anything I'd say that the lack of knowledge on Momonga was done so in order to achieve ultimate relatability. He has a job and plays video games. He constantly breaks into inner monologues in an exasperated tone to highlight how difficult/weird it is for such a normal guy to be in such a situation and most of the series comedy is derived from such a relatable person being in an absurd situation. We're in the 3rd season now and we still have not the slightest inkling as to what exactly started the story. That's fine for some people, I'm just saying its not for me. I think the comment I made that Overlord is just a twitch stream is a exaggeration and a condascending one. So to correct myself I'll just say that Overlord is a 3 season long infomercial with deteriorating production quality with each season. Thats more Madhouse's fault than anything else though. Tanya the Evil offers me exactly the stuff that Overlord promises in its premise but doesn't cop out on any of them. Even the CG when used in that series is minimal and is never the focus of any given shot for very long. |
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Somali_Strawhat said: KRKodama said: @Somali_Strawhat I love the way how Maruyama is writing the character development for Ainz. Not showing scenes of him in the dimension that he was before gives him an alien feeling, which makes it a lot more mysterious and interesting to read and watch, especially since the story doesn't turn around him(you're coming with the assumption that the whole story is being seen through his eyes to say "its just a twitch stream of someone playing as a murder hobo character", but that's wrong because in the novel he receives the same treatment from the narration as the other characters), and what's really important are his actions as an overlord in the dimension that he is now. If the author started to show scenes with him as a human being dealing with situations in our world as a back story to make the readers relate to him, that would throw away a lot of the mystery, and would cheapen the other characters making them look artificial. The way how the story only shows Ainz with the appearance that he is now convinces us that the existence of the other characters in the series have just as much credibility as his. I already hated how the manga and the movie showed a short scene of him as a human in the beginning. This is hardly an isekai series to begin with. That was just a setting that the author used in the beginning, but the relation between the two dimensions is irrelevant to the plot; all what matters is what happens in the dimension that he is right now. You bring a great point in the allure of a mysterious nature that you think exists in Ainz. I too think mysteriousness works great in a protagonists. But that mysteriousness in my opinion only feels effective when the character's subsequent actions are the result of making the audience desire more knowledge of the nature of the character in question. For example, in One Outs the MC's backstory is about as sparse as Ainz at the beginning of the story proper. He's stranded at a American base town in Japan gambling off his baseball skills amongst amateurs and we have no idea why. The mystery further intensifies when the characters who start the story are famous pro ballers with the most impressive of whom could have been a legend based on his stats if only he hadn't joined the wrong lackluster team, or rather, chose to stay with them for the majority of his career and waste the years in his prime. What makes the MC so mysterious is ghe fact that someone who is a reknowned pro is forced to acknowledge the likes of an amateur and force him to question everything he knows about baseball up until that point. When I watched One Outs for the first time I was filled with questions; Who was the MC before this moment? How did he get such an amazing pitch? Why hasn't anyone heard of him, or rather, why has he chosen seedy gambling over pro ball of all he cares about is money? All of the MC's later actions show that money is just the end result for him and what he really enjoys is the personal thrill of a high stakes gamble. Something that os lost within the mangerial mettling of a for profit team sport. So upon being given a contract where his skills directly reflects his salary for every pitch thrown , he becomes excited. I haven't read the manga but in the anime the MCs backstory is never fleshed out past this and yet his actions are still understood within the framing of the story. I get absolutely none of that with Momonga in Overlord, and that's why I suggested depicting his backstory in the beginning, not so much to necessitate relatibility but to have his actions understood. This could easily be done through other means but its just the one I thought up that most isekai tend to use. Also I don't understand why elaborating on Momonga would make the other characters feel less credible. Could you explain that point further? We only see the most in depth backstories and motivations of these secondary characters living in this new world, where as the audience is forced to just accept the existence of these NPCs and a salaryman being so OP without any hints (other than in season 2 ep 1) as to what actually caused this story to start. Every conflict is overly one sided and the winners are those who we know the least about. If anything, the current lack of backstories in relation to everyone else makes them feel more artifical than anything else. What's so credible about some Lovecraftian campaign for world domination where the only information given becomes widely irrelevant as soon as those it would pertain to are immediately cast aside once defeated? The only exceptions that I've observed are that of Brain, Gazef, Climb and Carne Village but that's out of virtue of them being important to Maruyama at the moment. You can't say the series doesn't revolve around Momonga when he's the literal catalyst and nexus for most of the events in the story, and the only ones who get the most development are those who he's either deemed important, or liked on an individual level for some unknown reason. If anything I'd say that the lack of knowledge on Momonga was done so in order to achieve ultimate relatability. He has a job and plays video games. He constantly breaks into inner monologues in an exasperated tone to highlight how difficult/weird it is for such a normal guy to be in such a situation and most of the series comedy is derived from such a relatable person being in an absurd situation. We're in the 3rd season now and we still have not the slightest inkling as to what exactly started the story. That's fine for some people, I'm just saying its not for me. I think the comment I made that Overlord is just a twitch stream is a exaggeration and a condascending one. So to correct myself I'll just say that Overlord is a 3 season long infomercial with deteriorating production quality with each season. Thats more Madhouse's fault than anything else though. Tanya the Evil offers me exactly the stuff that Overlord promises in its premise but doesn't cop out on any of them. Even the CG when used in that series is minimal and is never the focus of any given shot for very long. Momonga is already being masterfully elaborated. The way how he's facing the challenges of being an Overlord coming up(though Demiurge is the real responsible for most things) with absurdly corrupt means to dominate other nations is being really well written. I'm always left with an open mouth by the end of each volume, like "wtf...??? ha ha ha...". The Anime is still in the volume 9, and many would argue that it's still at least trying to stay "politically correct" as a work of fiction up to this point, but things start to get more and more fucked up from volume 11. If you're looking for a character like Tanya in Overlord, then you should focus on observing Demiurge, and not Ainz. I didn't say that "elaborating on Momonga would make the other characters feel less credible". It's okay for him to be elaborated, but as an evil looking skeleton who is on the same plane as the other characters, dealing with the same problems of the world as the other characters, and not as a human being as if his skeleton form was just his avatar. The problem is if the author showed his appearance as a human being in situations like in our world. That would mean that what happened in the other dimension, as well as the connection between the two dimensions, was relevant for the plot. That doesn't seem to be the author's intention. The focus of the story is in the political events, and the complexity of the conspiracies that Ainz is using in his reign as an Overlord. That's the name of the series, and it speaks for itself. The series is about politics and government. The author is making it clear that he IS the evil looking skeleton, and is not just a human in the body of the evil looking skeleton. All the information that we really needed about him has already been told. You mentioned it in your other post: he's a salaryman, and that explains why he can deal with business. We don't need to see scenes of him working in the real world; that's irrelevant. He spent great part of his income, as well as his time, in YGGDRASSIL, and that tells us how much he loved the game and cares for the friendships and memories that he had there. He has no family, and that makes him see the other members of the guild as the most important people for him. That's why he is spreading the name of Ainz Ooal Gown just as a means to find them again. There's no "NPC". They are all real. This is not a virtual world; it's a real one. The characters that you're calling secondary are not really secondary. It gives that illusion because a volume that normally would take about 8-10 hours to be read is being adapted into 4 or 5 episodes. And the database is listing all volumes as one single thing, just like manga is listed too. I understand the decision of the moderators to make only one page containing all the volumes, but that's not really correct, because each volume is written in a way to have a beginning and an ending. Zaryusu, for example, was the actual protagonist in volume 4, and wasn't just a secondary character. You said "Every conflict is overly one sided and the winners are those who we know the least about", but that's not the way how the real conflicts happen in Overlord. The real challenges in the plot are internal, and not external. Up to now, the greatest challenges of Ainz have been Demiurge and Albedo, as he struggles finding a way to deal with them. The conversations of Ainz and Demiurge are always the most exciting moments of each volume, because that's where the real conflict happens and the next course of the story is decided. Also, I really like how Brain is being developed. He's far from being strong like the Nazarick members, but each one of his achievements has a lot of significance for the "justice" side of the story. The way how he managed to cut Shalltear's nail was awesome, and it was one of my favorite moments in the whole series, though it became a lot more boring in the anime. The series really does not revolve around Momonga. Many readers would agree that most of the plot is being moved by Demiurge, and not Momonga. The use of monologue is the way that the producers found to substitute the narration in third person. And that's an aspect of the anime adaptation that I really dislike. It would be much better if it stayed faithful to the source material giving it a narration in third person that would explore the psyches of the characters, like in Hunter x Hunter 2011. Overlord is supposed to be a lot darker than it's shown in the anime, not to mention the quality of the animation itself, that is far from doing justice to the art of So-Bin. It would be another thing if it was animated by Ufotable. So yeah, I agree that Madhouse can be blamed for many things. Though, to be honest, of course, I'm still satisfied with Madhouse's work as long as they keep drawing Shalltear beautifully like they are doing. For whatever reason, unlike they do with the other characters(especially Albedo), in my opinion, Shalltear looks even more beautiful in the anime than in the official illustrations. And since she is 90% of the reason why I keep reading and watching Overlord, I'm fine with the rest. |
ColtBuntlineSep 30, 2018 10:20 PM
| “Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.” ― Saint Augustine |
KRKodama said: Momonga is already being masterfully elaborated. The way how he's facing the challenges of being an Overlord coming up with absurdly corrupt means to dominate other nations is being really well written. I'm always left with an open mouth by the end of each volume, like "wtf...??? ha ha ha...". I didn't say that "elaborating on Momonga would make the other characters feel less credible". It's okay for him to be elaborated, but as an evil looking skeleton who is on the same plane as the other characters, dealing with the same problems of the world as the other characters, and not as a human being as if his skeleton form was just his avatar. The problem is if the author showed his appearance as a human being in situations like in our world. That would mean that what happened in the other dimension, as well as the connection between the two dimensions, was relevant for the plot. That doesn't seem to be the author's intention. The focus of the story is in the political events, and the complexity of the conspiracies that Ainz is using in his reign as an Overlord. That's the name of the series, and it speaks for itself. The series is about politics and government. The author is making it clear that he IS the evil looking skeleton, and is not just a human in the body of the evil looking skeleton. All the information that we really needed about him has already been told. You mentioned it in your other post: he's a salaryman, and that explains why he can deal with business. We don't need to see scenes of him working in the real world; that's irrelevant. He spent great part of his income, as well as his time, in YGGDRASSIL, and that tells us how much he loved the game and cares for the friendships and memories that he had there. He has no family, and that makes him see the other members of the guild as the most important people for him. That's why he is spreading the name of Ainz Ooal Gown just as a means to find them again. There's no "NPC". They are all real. This is not a virtual world; it's a real one. The characters that you're calling secondary are not really secondary. It gives that illusion because a volume that normally would take about 8-10 hours to be read is being adapted into 4 or 5 episodes. And the database is listing all volumes as one single thing, just like manga is listed too. I understand the decision of the moderators to make only one page containing all the volumes, but that's not really correct, because each volume is written in a way to have a beginning and an ending. Zaryusu, for example, was the actual protagonist in volume 4, and wasn't just a secondary character. The series really does not revolve around Momonga. Many readers would agree that most of the plot is being moved by Demiurge, and not Momonga. The use of monologue is the way that the producers found to substitute the narration in third person. And that's an aspect of the anime adaptation that I really dislike. It would be much better if it stayed faithful to the source material giving it a narration in third person that would explore the psyches of the characters, like in Hunter x Hunter 2011. Overlord is supposed to be a lot darker than it's shown in the anime, not to mention the quality of the animation itself, that is far from doing justice to the art of So-Bin. It would be another thing if it was animated by Ufotable. So yeah, I agree that Madhouse can be blamed for many things. Though, to be honest, of course, I'm still satisfied with Madhouse's work as long as they keep drawing Shalltear beautifully like they are doing. For whatever reason, unlike they do with the other characters(especially Albedo), in my opinion, Shalltear looks even more beautiful in the anime than in the official illustrations. And since she is 90% of the reason why I keep reading and watching Overlord, I'm fine with the rest. Since I'm not too familliar with the LN or WN forgive my ignorance regarding those matters you've mentioned earlier about the content that was cut from the anime that shed a better light on Momonga's actions. However, as far as the anime adaptation is concerned Momonga seems to be completely not in control of the situation regarding his plans for world domination. For example, the season 3 premiere made a joke about how Momonga was completely unaware of how his followers misconstrued his intentions into thinking he wanted wodld domination and he had no idea. Not only is that unbelievable to someone wjo's been watching him flaunt his power like a God during all of Season 2, but the fact it was played for laughs was what really didn't sit right with me. Momonga didn't come up with the plan to root out the criminal organization in the Kingdom, it was Sebas who pointed out their existance to him in order to save a girl. This was only brought to his attention because a colleague of Sebas' fear that his actions in saving a girl was could he considered an act of defiance. Momonga didn't come up with the plan to fight Demiurge in disguise in the middle of the kingdom, it was Demiurge's idea. That's why he relayed it to Momonga in that episode. Momonga didn't come up with the plan to invite Worker's into Nazerick, nor was it his idea to go to the Empire to begin with. It was Demiurge's. He even says as much during the fight in the arena floor in season 3. I can do this for most of the show. Momonga isn't depicted as some mastermind since there's usually either some misunderstanding or pressure to act the part that progresses the story forward. The comedy comes from his absolute normality and the fact that his NPCs worship him unknowing of that fact. Again, if this is different in the LNs forgive me. One example of content made more explicit in the LNs that flew right over my head was Demourge's useage of bidepal sheep to make more powerful magic scrolls. This is in reference to humans and Momonga goes into this inner monologue to convince the audience he thought Demiurge was using a chimera species nonexistant in Yggdrasil. If his past is so unimportant then why even make this story an isekai? Its not like they couldn't just make a story called Overlord about an actual Overlord from the world of the story right? And I never said he was good at business because how could he be? Anything innovative he brought to this world was a result of the game's superiror item quality and had nothing to do with Momonga. If it was like any other MMO any items were most likely craftable after intense grinding and that would require time and judging by his use of cash items, money. And most negotiations are concluded in his favor due to his overwhelming strength and not his business sense. Also, I had to look up the fact that he spended a 1/3 of his income on the game as that piece of information wasn't in the anime. He states that he has no family but am I supposed to understand that someone with no family is just inherently going to become socially awkward enough to have no friends and spend all his time in an MMO to the point he would rather live in it? Thats why I wanted to see for myself exactly what about his old life made him want to live in this new one since saying he's a friendless orphan just sounded like a convenient excuse to keep the Momonga completely uninterested in returning home. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance had the MC trapped in a Final Fantasy world and it was all because his new friend Mewt thought that anything was better than reality. Like Momonga, Mewt has a dead mother and is traumatized by loss. His father is a drunk with no concept of sepf respect and makes Mewt feel ashamed to call him his son. We're introduced to his character via a snowball fight where kids torment him by packing their snowballs with rocks until one hits him in the head, causing him to bleed. However, in Mewt's fantasy world, his mother is alive and is the Queen, doting upon Mewt who's now the Prince regent. His father is part of the royal nobility and judges everyone. He even transforms the kids who bullied him into zombies. What I'm getting at is that the reason why I understand Mewt l, and why I don't understand Momonga, despite both being villainous isekai overlords in a faux game world, is that Mewt's situation is told through visuals and made glaringly obvious why Mewt wants to escape into a game world. However, Momonga's circumstances are told entirely through words and the visuals do nothing to convince me. He loves and values his friends from the game as family? Didn't they leave him behind with no way for him to communicate with them IRL? He even states in the first eoisode how he had no idea how that sline player expected him to "see him later" and regarded it as a uselessly polite platitude to be nice given the situation. Am I as the viewer supposed to understand that these relationships were so valuable to him that he's wiling to commit multiple acts of mass murder in their name alone? Does he think that they would be happy that the name of their guild is being attached to those kinds of actions? If his life before coming to this world so unimportant, why are his vague motivations for taking it over directly related to finding his friends from the old world? There's this huge paradox that breaks the story for me from episode 1. Momonga is fully aware that there is no question as to the loyalty of his followers since they're really just NPCs who's backstories are crafted to love the people who created them. Yet we spend most of the series stuck in misunderstandings caused by Momonga's fear of them turning on him should they ever think he's not the Overlord he's pretending to be. If he was weak or poor, I could understand his concern, but thats the exact opposite of his current situation. After witnessing 3 seasons of Momonga's badassery it stands in direct contradiction to the initial misunderstanding that caused him to take on the act from the beginning. The series author wants Momonga to be evil, but not a kind of unlikable evil so he makes situations to garner sympathy out of the audience. Dead parents, no friends. Comes to a new world and loses his humanity, not his fault though since it was involuntary. He only started this misunderstanding to find his friends, its not his fault his followers took his desire from a place of kindness and twisted it out of control. The worst scene of the anime trying to depict him as some sort of victim of circumstance is when he tells his followers to cover their ears since he doesn't want them to hear him complain difectly to the audience how he doesn't want to invite and murder a bunch of dungeon explorers before proceeding to do just that. How can I take that level of shameless ass covering as anything else but attempted sympathy garnering? Its the show trying to have its cake of evil and eat it too since its too afraid to give any threat capable of stopping Momonga from the side of justice, while also never giving Momonga that early characterization to establish him being responsible of his actions. Something that becomes completly absent the second his humanity was stripped. Its a safe play as to not completely alienate the audience while still having all the fun violence. Mewt didn't choose to get sent to a game world, but he did choose to become a gigantic asshole tyrant. Momonga wants to spread the name of Ainz Ooal Gown for the sake of finding his friends, and we watch him conquer the world out of a misunderstanding. If the reasoning and motivations, as well as his change in character was more fleshed out in the LNs, its then the anime's fault for making the most important parts of the series non existant just to shell out to be what I think is a mediocre product. |
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| @Somali_Strawhat What you wrote in your first paragraphs is just agreeing with what I said about the story not revolving around Ainz. Demiurge is indeed the one who seems to be moving most of the plot. Though it's a complicated relation between underestimation and overestimation. But one thing that is confirmed is that Ainz is not just Demiurge's puppet. If his past is so unimportant then why even make this story an isekai? Its not like they couldn't just make a story called Overlord about an actual Overlord from the world of the story right? That's the way the author found to write about an Overlord who is gradually becoming fit for the position of an Overlord. It wouldn't be fun if he was a perfect Overlord from the very beginning. His past is not important for the character development that he is having. He loves and values his friends from the game as family? Didn't they leave him behind with no way for him to communicate with them IRL? He even states in the first eoisode how he had no idea how that sline player expected him to "see him later" and regarded it as a uselessly polite platitude to be nice given the situation. That's his own sense of values. It's pointless to argue with that. Albedo would probably agree with you though. Also, I had to look up the fact that he spended a 1/3 of his income on the game as that piece of information wasn't in the anime. He states that he has no family but am I supposed to understand that someone with no family is just inherently going to become socially awkward enough to have no friends and spend all his time in an MMO to the point he would rather live in it? That's not relevant. You're clearly nitpicking it dude. Again, the focus of the story is on what's happening right now. Trying to explore deeply about his life when he was a human would be completely pointless for the story. And I never said he was good at business because how could he be? Anything innovative he brought to this world was a result of the game's superiror item quality and had nothing to do with Momonga. If it was like any other MMO any items were most likely craftable after intense grinding and that would require time and judging by his use of cash items, money. And most negotiations are concluded in his favor due to his overwhelming strength and not his business sense. He is good at business and politics. Most of the story is spent on it. You're underestimating him. Momonga is fully aware that there is no question as to the loyalty of his followers since they're really just NPCs who's backstories are crafted to love the people who created them. Yet we spend most of the series stuck in misunderstandings caused by Momonga's fear of them turning on him should they ever think he's not the Overlord he's pretending to be. That's just not true. Again, they are not NPCs, and Momonga is not "fully aware" of anything. Even watching only the anime the story has already given many evidences that the floor guardians are independent beings, are loyal to Ainz out of genuine respect and are not tied in a restriction that makes them unable to betray Ainz. What was written in their settings is what defines what they were in the beginning of the series, but not only we don't know what was written there, but it's also a fact that they are all capable of gaining knowledge and of evolving as characters as the story progresses. Ainz has more than enough reason to always be afraid of their betrayal. The series author wants Momonga to be evil, but not a kind of unlikable evil so he makes situations to garner sympathy out of the audience. Dead parents, no friends. Comes to a new world and loses his humanity, not his fault though since it was involuntary. He only started this misunderstanding to find his friends, its not his fault his followers took his desire from a place of kindness and twisted it out of control. The worst scene of the anime trying to depict him as some sort of victim of circumstance is when he tells his followers to cover their ears since he doesn't want them to hear him complain difectly to the audience how he doesn't want to invite and murder a bunch of dungeon explorers before proceeding to do just that. How can I take that level of shameless ass covering as anything else but attempted sympathy garnering? Its the show trying to have its cake of evil and eat it too since its too afraid to give any threat capable of stopping Momonga from the side of justice, while also never giving Momonga that early characterization to establish him being responsible of his actions. Something that becomes completly absent the second his humanity was stripped. Its a safe play as to not completely alienate the audience while still having all the fun violence. No no, not at all. Ainz is just evil to some, and good to others, according to what seems more convenient to him depending on the situation. All the actions of Ainz are for the sake of Nazarick, and no matter how evil some may seen, they all end up contributing to make the world a better place. Am I as the viewer supposed to understand that these relationships were so valuable to him that he's wiling to commit multiple acts of mass murder in their name alone? Does he think that they would be happy that the name of their guild is being attached to those kinds of actions? There's no act of mass murder. All his actions are justifiable. It's normal to kill the army of the enemy in a war. And as a result it will turn the dominated nation into a better place. What Ainz is doing is wonderful. If the reasoning and motivations, as well as his change in character was more fleshed out in the LNs, its then the anime's fault for making the most important parts of the series non existant They are not non existent in the anime, but it's basically just a summary of the novel. So yeah, a lot of information is removed in the anime adaptation. |
| “Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.” ― Saint Augustine |
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