Overlord (2015)

Not that sure we'll GET a 'Endgame.' I think the series may just kinda end.

But ideally either we'll see a resolution in some form, or we'll get a 'rocks fall, everyone dies' ending.

Tbh Overlord feels like the kind of novel that runs with no plan and eventually peters out into nothing.

sounds like most isekais

I imagine a Distant Finale sort of thing that leaves Ainz's actual fate in question.

Probabaly also a lot of light novels.

Like I heard High School Dx D started an Immediate Sequel after an over 20 volume 1st series.

I’m like “It’s still not done? What’s left after 20 volumes?”

Edited by slimcoder on Dec 8th 2019 at 6:03:25 AM

I think it is kind of an internal issue to most Isekais though. How do you finish? Beat the baddest guy? Improve the world? Kill everyone? Return to your world?

"Probabaly also a lot of light novels. "

Yeah my familiarity with that type of eventual failure comes chiefly from xianxia light novels of which majority are not isekai.

"I think it is kind of an internal issue to most Isekais though. How do you finish? Beat the baddest guy? Improve the world? Kill everyone? Return to your world? "

Yeah, see, some of them do have goals and still fail. Like, in one, a guy mind timewarps back into his teenage body and his goal is to prevent destruction of his home city by a demon invasion... Aaand author lost interest anyway.

In another, an isekai to boot, the goal is mostly just "live a badass life in this cool fantasy world". Obstacles and short-term goals pop up constantly, and eventually a super long-term goal appears, but its pressure is mostly weak until the last quarter of the novel whips up "oh yeah there are these transdimensional assholes that want to kill everybody". But every step of those short-term goals somehow was a nice and engaging read.

Edited by Adannor on Dec 8th 2019 at 7:41:03 PM

The problem with Isekai's is the author tends to "indulge" themselves instead of moving the plot forward

Isekai's crash and burn alot of the times cause the author HAS no end goal in mind or has no idea how to approach that end goal and has burnt up the audience's goodwill the moment they realize the story has been spinning its wheels partaking in the author's fetishes instead of being about anything.

Hence why oh the real threat show ups in the last fourth.

Overlord atleast seems to be aware it needs an overarching subplot, hence the constant reference to other players and Ainz questioning his moral choices and well Albedo's agenda.

The real question is the Author going to commit to his narrative ties or is he just going to indulge in his misanthropic perversions

Misanthropy. Overlord is not the story of Ainz getting his deserved comeuppance. If the author ever gets back to writing he'll be at the top of the food chain. Maybe some real hero will show up in the last chapter with some amazeballs destiny that makes it clear he'll beat Ainz, but I think that's the best you'll get.

It's why Overlord is just so lacking. It only has one wavelength and no flexibility to its evil power fantasy.

The only part of Overlord that I found interesting was Ainz's old guildmates. They sound a lot more interesting than his servants just from a brief skim through the character pages. Though that doesn't mean much.

Everything else is bleh. The world bores me, not mention I find the names for the countries and the people to be some of the worst fake European names I've ever seen in Japanese media.

Edited by RedRob on Dec 9th 2019 at 9:44:22 AM

Overlord could have been more interesting, if it wasn't so high on power fantasy and wish fulfilment aspects. Really don't understand why people say that "Ainz is overpowered character done right" either.

Ainz himself is really unlikable and unimpressive. I don't know why people get attached to him since literally all he has going for him is power levels. I mean, I guess I understand if people like him because he sucks and they feel it punctures a hole in the invincible badass protagonist cliche.

Edited by Arha on Dec 9th 2019 at 11:01:41 AM

Just look upon countless YouTube reviewers, who praise Overlord. Nearly all of them (Mother's Basement included) call Ainz "an amazing character" and judging by their reviews, they root for him.

Edited by VeryVileVillian on Dec 9th 2019 at 8:12:39 PM

Which makes it all the more ironic that Ainz's original goal was to find other Players from his guild.

Is that not still his main objective? The rule the world plit was just an idea his servants assumed was his goal, and he was foing along with it.

He's been getting more and more into the world domination thing as he loses his humanity.

Sorry, taking it back.

Tbh I feel like all the praises on Ainz are rooted in assumptions that like he started with subverting the typical path to power stuff, he's going to subvert other typically bad-written traits.

Edited by Adannor on Dec 9th 2019 at 10:28:35 PM

I think for me? 'Evil' campaigns and PC have been things that DND and fantasy have been around from the start. There's been a lot of interesting usages of that in genuinely subversive ways.

I don't get so much of that from Overlord. It's not really using its premise as a way to explore or deconstruct things. It comes off as Ainz being on a misanthropic power trip as he gets more and more vile.

From what I've seen, most of the people that like Ainz like him because he's not a good person. They enjoy watching him get his way via evil.

The focus Overlord gives to its side characters is what sets it apart from being just another story with an evil MC to me.

I don't care about any of the Nazarick people, but I do love seeing how other characters develop because and in spite of Ainz.

Edited by Chaosjunction on Dec 9th 2019 at 2:42:23 PM

Ainz is only a subversion in that he is in reality a weak willed doofus who was put in charge cause He wasn't assertive and now he is stuck a world domination plan strictly cause he cannot for the life of him TELL HIS MINIONS "NO"

like he'll feel bad about it but he does nothing to change it.

Overlord's main problem is its formula, Every arc with maybe Two exceptions' revolves around Nazerick hatching a plan and that plan... pretty much going off without a hitch essentially everyone else involved is a non issue that can't even throw a wrinkle in

Like I get the power fantasy trip, The problem is variety, You can only go X is OP you pitiful worms SO many times and the author seems to think showing how EACH individual NPC is OP and light years above any of the New worlders and yadda yadda yadda

Its fine in the first fourth of the story when you got to get that all out of the way, you should be trying to change it up by half way but since there are so many NP Cs to show off it feels like spinning the wheels especially once you see the author really doesn't care all that much about a few NP Cs and only keeps them around due to cast bloat.

Essentially Narratively There is NO actually difference in power between the Pleiades or the Floor Guardians so when they slaughter overdesigned cannon fodder it all starts to blur together 'with maybe one exception'

Nabe pwning the hell out an opponent and Sebas pwning the hell out of an opponent are functionally the same damn thing there is no REAL narrative difference in power outside of the token fact of Nabe is only a level 60 NPC and Sebas is a level 100 but those numbers don't have any weight.

I mean the closest you get to tension is Shalltear being mind control... and even then that went exactly as Ainz wanted cause Shalltear is fucking stupid

I like Overlord as a whole well enough, but my favorite parts are when the NP Cs interact with eachother rather than Curb Stomping whatever new worlder tries to roll up on them. Albedo/Aura and Shalltear bickering most of all.

Perhaps if the series downplayed the "Nazarick is evil" bit and focused more on the characters bouncing off of eachother in Nazarick.

Maybe an episode here and there of Lakyus being a chuunibyou or something.