This anime is a very clever take on a hypothetical situation: What would happen if you were suddenly transported into the body of your character in an MMO? You're suddenly this super powerful skeletal wizard and you have control over a kingdom. What do you even do?
The resultant storyline of the main character Momonga (Ainz Ooal Gown, or AOG for the rest of this review) seeking to make himself famous in this weird new world is absolutely well done. Below are some notes I took during my viewing of the show.
POSITIVES:
> Manages to make the viewer care about every single character that comes on screen. Almost none of the characters we see are one-dimensional in any way (despite some visual problems I'll get to later).
> Story is realistic, with AOG doing what any ordinary person might do given such an unexpected situation.
> The themes of past glory and friendship echo throughout the season, with AOG mourning the disappearance of his old guildmates in episode 1, and again throughout the story. Teamwork and mateship is something that isn't treated lightly in this series.
> The societies and communities that exist in the world are all quite realistic, but with unique spins on them that clearly echo MMO game mechanics. For example, in the town of E-Rantel there is a building where adventurers can go to receive quests, and are rewarded with money and standing within the local guild as a result. However none of this is treated as a gimmick, and functions very realistically.
> The voice acting in the show is generally good (with some notable exceptions that will be touched on later). A particularly well-done performance is that of Clementine. Her psychosis and disregard for others is conveyed incredibly well. Pandora's Actor is also very well voiced; yes, the character is intentionally lame and cringey, and yes, it's played to perfection, making the startled and furious reaction of AOG believable (as the entire audience is having the same reaction).
> Normally, 3D cel animation is really badly done in anime, but Overlord benefits from it, despite it occasionally being jarring (the battle between Narberal and Khajit being a particularly strange example).
> The opening theme, Clattanoia, is phenomenally good, and ranks as one of my favourite anime openings.
> The balance between comedy and drama is good, managing the audience's emotions in such a way as to ensure they never get too bogged down in negative emotions, or too comfortable with positive ones. By contrast. Hellsing is an anime that suffers because it doesn't have much in the way of levity, and thus bogs down the viewer. When I watched Hellsing Ultimate I couldn't watch it for more than a few episodes, as it was so tedious in its gratuity.
> Some of the themes presented are surprisingly progressive. It's revealed that a supposedly male member of the adventurer's party AOG travels with midway through the series is female, and the reason for her secrecy is because of the group's prejudice against female adventurers.
NEGATIVES:
> Some of the characters in Overlord are clearly representations of classic archetypes. The Wise King of the Forest is clearly just there for comic relief and to embarrass AOG, while Albedo's presence as a character seems little more than to be a (very sexual) love interest to AOG. Her conflict with Shalltear over both character's love for AOG borders on "yandere" levels of insanity. Shalltear very closely follows the trope of "gothic lolita", as she dresses in the clothing, and happens to be a vampire. To her credit though, her brief "lamprey" transformation later on in the series throws this cliche out the window. Narberal is a straight up "tsundere", as well as a "battle maid". Adherence to these archetypes is detrimental to the quality of the show, because it removes opportunities for more nuanced exploration of the characters, and seems to just be for the sake of fanservice.
> While we're talking about fanservice, it's bad. Really bad. Whenever Albedo is on screen, she's either shamelessly professing her love for AOG, defending AOG from attacks, fighting with Shalltear over AOG, or just talking about AOG in general. The worst case of this is when the demon character Demiurge finds Albedo in her bedchamber, apparently masturbating with an AOG body pillow. I suppose the intended comic relief in all this is AOG is a skeleton, and so possesses no sex organs, but the joke falls flat every time, and is therefore very lame.
> It's very clear that the creators of Overlord are angling for a second season, because several of the character's we've seen have not been fleshed out at all. Gazef, Brain, everyone in the Slane Theocracy, Cocytus, Demiurge, and the twin dark elves come to mind immediately. However, just because an anime is angling for a second season doesn't mean these characters can be so conspicuously flat; it's a cheap tactic and mars the quality of what is otherwise a very good show.
