After finishing Overlord II, I was left with a single question in my head. What did I just watch? My mind refused to comprehend what just happened. Unfortunately, this wasn't in the standard anime fashion where robots the size of universes throw galaxies at each other and you're left in sheer awe of what you're looking at. This was the same 'What did I just watch?' that you ask yourself when you see your dog take a turd, sniff it, give it a little lick and walk off. Why did the dog do that? I have no clue. Why did the Overlord do anything? I also have no clue.
First of all. What is Overlord? It's a show about a man who gets trapped in a MMO as a max level character. After being the concept has been tried by everyone's parapelgic grandmother and her litter of fifty cats, it's far from interesting. Overlord's one saving grace is that it is about THE Overlord, he's a spooky skeleton with unlimited power and a thirst to conquer the world. This is actually quite fresh compared to the legions of just-post-puberty angry manlets with black hair that is usually seen in anime. Issue is, Overlord is that. Don't be fooled into thinking this is about an anti-hero like Hellsing, what you are watching is asset-flipped Kirito.
Every issue with Overlord stems from the main character, who is literally a skeleton and figuratively an empty husk of a character. He is also stupid. By this, I don't mean he's unable to do maths, his decisions make almost zero sense even though his monologue tries to assure you he's playing 6-Quintillion Dimensional Chess. Don't forget every character around him tell him he's extremely intelligent and the fact he chooses to get out of bed in the morning is actually a masterstroke of genius. The joke may be funny the first time, I fail to see the humour at the end of the second season. I want to tear my eardrums out whenever I have to listen to his highpitched inner thoughts, the show would actually be better if we did not know he was thinking. Then he would simply be all-knowing, now we know that he accidently stumbles and lies his way through every conversation he's ever had. Still, that should not be a surprise, the entire show is a lie.
The Overlord is NOT an Overlord. The entire second half of the season is spent not Overlord-ing. There is only ONE skeletal horde summoned. He can effortlessly create 5000 undead soldiers and a lich to lead them, (as in, actually effortlessly, he says the equivalent of "who cares lol" when they get wiped). Why do we not see mass assualts on cities? Huge armies fighting each other? Heroes battling it out in the field of battle? This would actually make the story more interesting because even if The Overlord is omnipotent, he is not all-present. He would have to delegate forces and constantly summon skeletals to fight a war of attrition against the living world. There is one part of show that actually has a skelly horde, it's the lizardmen arc. Basically The Overlord decides he wants to kill some lizardmen and sends Beetleman and the aforementioned skelly horde of 5K skellies.
The issue with the lizardman arc is that it's about the lizardmen. No one cares about these character, the story forgets about them after episode 6 and they are never mentioned again. They also some of the worst looking CGI in anime ever but that's a comparatively minor issue. We see hardcore lizardman on lizardgirl action but there's nothing else to take out of this arc. What do I care if the lizardman tribe became cannibals? The show is called Overlord, not Lizardman. I want to see the spooky skeleton murder these beasts, not the plight of some random tribe. We get 4 episodes of nothing, 1 episode of a battle and 1 episode of a fight. The battle is pretty interesting actually, even though there aren't any special tactics used or anything like that. The spectacle itself is simply engaging.
The fight on the other hand is one of the worst, most uninteresting fights in all of anime. It's Beetleman versus some lizzie-bois. Unfortunately for the lizzie-bois, Beetleman is literally immune to anything they can do. Not even in the sense of "My armour is impenetrable", it's more like "Yeah but no". A lizard stabs him with an ice sword and Beetleman says "Yeah but I'm immune to magic though" and a forcefield deflects the blow. A lizard shoots him and Beetleman says "Yeah but I'm immune to range".
The second half is completely disconnected from the first half. There is zero continuum. Zilch. Nada. I call it the City Arc because it takes place in a city. Its' divided into two smaller arcs that only correlate with each other because they take place in the same city. The Bulter GF arc and the last two episodes. The Butler GF arc follows the butler, he looks cool but he's level 80 or somehting and the city is level 30. There's a lot of talking about nothing. A princess is set up to be a yandere about some manlet. There's a drug operation led by a crime gang. If those previous sentences where random and had no flow to them, I was just giving a realistic representation of Overlord's storytelling. The final fight is laughably bad, it's between a guy with a million tattoos and the Butler. The guy names each of his tattoos, activates their power, does a cool pose and falcon punches the butler. The butler says "Yeah but no" and kicks the guy in the head to kill him in one shot. This antagonist was set up for entire episodes worth, he was the leader of the crime gang's defense division and gets killed via heel to the forehead.
The last two episodes are just what. I will simply say what happens because I don't understand anyone's logic in anything. The Overlord wants to be a hero because reasons (it's the standard hero guild with ranks and stuff you've seen before) so he makes a fake attack on the city to fight his subordinate and gain everyone's respect, I guess. The issues are: Firstly, the fight isn't a fight, it's a play and the audience knows it. Secondly, why? He's the Overlord. Why is he still doing this hero crap that should have ended in season 1. It's boring. Every fight is decided before it's started. The Overlord is so powerful that even though he's a mage, he can outfight swordsmen.
The art is terrible. It's absolutely horrendous. The 3D animation is worse here than it's in the new Berserk anime and the hydra. Oh God. Simply search in google images "Overlord RORORO" to see the level of 3D animation you will experience. The music is meh. The theme is quite catchy but I dare you to remember the tune of any of the background tracks. All in all, the show is terrible.
It's easy to complain though. Everyone can do it. The real question is "How can Overlord be fixed?". Can it even? Yes it can, although I severely doubt it. Firstly, cut the chaff. We're here for the spooky skeleton. No one cares for lizardmen. No one cares for the yandere princess and her shota. No one cares for the struggle that one wannabe-samurai feels after getting buttblasted by the Vampire gf. No one cares about the drugs. Most importantly, no one cares for the stupid alt-identity the Overlord has in the heroe's guild. We're here to be spooky and to see hordes of skeletons. The fact there's one horde of skeletons and then a tiny horde-let of demons at the end is a crime. We should be seeing huge battles every episode. You can't tell me "muh budget constraits" because the show already looks like hot garbage. The skeletons are all the same model copy/pasted with the same looping animation.
Once the chaff is removed, make the show about the Overlord. The easy method would be to say "make him less powerful" to make him interesting. That could work, or the show would follow my previous suggestion. The guy who is stook in the Overlord is some worthless NEET. He doesn't understand strategy and planning and just decides to summon a million skeletons and declare war upon the whole world. Suddenly, there is an actual power struggle in the world. Could the United Nations defeat him? They would certainly be able to beat back his armies since 1.3K lizardmen demolish 5K skellies. Now, there could be actual choices the Overlord has to make, which nation he pushes against most, which battles he participates in. The other members of his team, like the Vampire gf, the Succubus gf, Beetleman, maid brigade and whatever else I've missed would actuall have a use now too. They would have to fight the battles the Overlord does not participate in and they actually have a chance at being defeated. It raises the stakes, you know, unlike now where the job of anyone who is currently at the Overlord's side is to remind him of his own grand intelligence.
By the story aiming for an audience of worthless NEETs, it makes the main character a worthless NEET who overthinks issues for no reason. His raw power is simply a league above everyone else and the story stops being a push and pull of the protagonist vs the antagonist, it becomes that scenario you get into when you play video games, where you've all but won but there's still twenty enemy units remaining and you just have to chase them down. That's what you watch when you watch Overlord. He's simply chasing down whoever he wants because even though he's the most powerful creature in existence, his lack of confidence creates a lack of initiative and all he does is roleplay as a hero.
The show refuses to accept we are watching a villain. There's constant HILARIOUS AND DEFINITELY NOT OVERUSED, STALE AND UNFUNNY hijinks that occur with the worthless NEET Overlord getting flustered because he sees boobs. I was actually quite impressed when he sentenced several hundred people to die, but the show is sure to remind you how even though he's heartless and was planning to wipe out the entire nation of lizardmen off the map, he's actually a much better choice than everyone else. Every nation is corrupt and rampant with drugs and slavery. The show fixing this issue would make it bearable at least because it's schizophrenic identity crisis would finally be put to rest.
Alright, that's it. I've decided to end this review jarringly to remind you of how smoothly Overlord itself en-
