Review of Overlord II
STORY: 1 I'd like to begin by asking the following: What story? What exactly is this show about? Season 1 of Overlord couldn't really make up its mind either, but at least it was an enjoyable time enough for me to not mind. In fact, I marathoned all of Season 1 faster than I have ever watched an anime before in my life. Season 2 of Overlord got lost in a rabbithole. After Momonga becomes a part of his MMORPG, but is simultaneously transported to a different setting (starting to get a little convoluted, but it's workable), he decides to do... Well, it's not really clear. Heeventually decides to spread the name of his guild across the lands with the hope that someone else from his MMORPG is there also, which is a rather weak goal for an entire series to hinge on. BUT! Earlier he considers taking over the world as an evil overlord since he and his crew of NPCs have all the powers they acquired in the game while the people of the world they find themselves in are comparably weak. It would be the same as waking up in DragonAge Origins as your max-level character from World of WarCraft.
The problems start right out the gate because Momonga doesn't want to start a conflict he can't win, so is very slow and deliberate, scouting the world to see what powers he might be up against and if other players like himself are there. This grinds the pacing down to less than a crawl. The fact that Momonga can't be sure if he's 100% invincible in this world is an artificial barrier that prevents the story from pumping along at a nice even pace. More importantly though, while much is cut out from the original light novels, I believe much more should have been cut. For example, most events (in both seasons) take several episodes to complete when they could be done in just one, (mostly by removing extraneous dialogue that accomplishes nothing), making that event more impactful and freeing up time for more character development and story progression. It would bother those who have read the light novels since they would know just how much was excluded, but it would be necessary for the sake of making the adaptation into an anime even slightly functional.
The pacing problems carry on in Season 2 but are far worse. We never really know what the story is about because we don't see Momonga or his crew enough to stay saddled onto the overarching story. We divert to new characters as they rally to defend their homes from an invasion by Momonga's forces. That may sound interesting, but it's not. Seeing the conflict from the lizards' perspective (they're lizardmen, by the way) could be good, but it's jarring to focus on them so completely when this isn't their story to tell. This is Momonga's story of how he slowly learns more about the setting and, we assume despite him never really confirming it's actually his ambition, take over the world. This season doesn't allow us to follow along with that premise because we get bogged down in the immediate plot and endless and awkwardly written info dumps about history that really doesn't matter going forward, and could be safely left out, freeing up time for more interesting and relevant world building.
As we continue in Season 2, we shift focus to another series of new characters that aren't all that interesting as they go about their generic lives. They all have goals and pasts to tell, but none of it is relevant to the story of Momonga (presumably) taking over the world.
Just as an aside, I must mention the indecisiveness of the character of Momonga. He never really decides to be a villain protagonist. Even until the end of Season 2 he is only acting in small ways to gain resources and information and otherwise just react to events rather than causing them. He doesn't clearly act towards a greater goal, and many times appears to go out of his way to not be a villain. It's hard to describe, but it's like the writer couldn't make up his mind what kind of character he wanted Momonga to be. Does he want to be an evil overlord? Does he want to be a compassionate ruler who all the people love? We really need to stick to one or the other so we can have a unified point to the story.
I could ramble at length about the utter atrocity Overlord Season 2 is in the story and plot department, but I'll leave it here for now.
ART: 8
I've seen talk of the art quality going down and up and being overall bad through the middle of Season 2, but I didn't notice it. It looks quite nice to me, but doesn't have the flair for a higher score.
SOUND: 5
The sound is there. The music works, but it's very generic. Some of the pieces are overdramatic and it makes me roll my eyes. Sometimes less is more.
CHARACTERS: 1
What characters? We rarely see the protagonist, Momonga. The scenes with his crew of other main characters (that we didn't really get established in Season 1 but we loved all the same just because we appreciated them being there and the promise of new and interesting interactions when they got to make their debut in the story) are similarly shafted in favour of bland, generic characters that, in some cases, are simply frustrating to watch. Characters like Stronof or Climb (what a name...) are the embodiment of NPC. No one has ever wanted to know the entire life story of an NPC. A little background is nice, little humanizing moments are great, but giving so much focus on characters that can't drive the story forward (think Yamcha) and are boring anyway, is an awful decision for the writer and doubly bad for the team who adapted the source material. It's a season of anime that you weren't sure you were even going to make, and without any certainty that there would be a Season 3. You can cut these characters or at least give them less screentime without having to worry about needing them later. Just look at the lizardmen for example. We got all that development for them, but does it pay off with them doing something later in the season? Nope.
It's been said side-characters are what's interesting and important about Overlord. This is absolutely mind-baffling. Side-characters are great! Do you remember Jeremiah Gottwald from Code Geass? I DO! But he was also interesting from his first appearance, which is something Overlord can't do with its side-characters to save its life. The show is trying to reassure us with each episode that these characters will be important later, which I doubt, but regardless, they're worthless now. And even if they do become important later, they're still only side-characters and should never overshadow the main cast when it's not their time to steal the scene completely, otherwise what's the point of having a main cast or protagonist at all?
I'm not saying the main characters have to be in every scene, but if they are quite literally absent from the show, not even being in some way related to the events that are being portrayed onscreen, then you're doing it wrong. They aren't really main characters if that's the case. If the show is about the setting and showing it off, then don't have main characters. Make it an anthology series.
ENJOYMENT: 1
The pacing is a sin. Most the characters aside from the main cast (which you can largely rename Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Anime) are cringe. The dialogue is trite and redundant and forced. Every episode is a 'build-up' episode but without there ever being an equal payoff. Characters are dumb sometimes which strains our ability to stay invested. For example, Sebastian and Solution are going to leave their recon assignment but first they have to go on an errand - "Better leave the human girl who's completely defenseless and also wanted by the mob completely alone for a long period of time so she can get kidnapped, otherwise the rest of the season's plot wouldn't happen!" It's contrived.
And the action! Oh, the action... One isn't automatically an action junkie for demanding SOMETHING happen that we can all be invested in at constant intervals. All we get is extended dialogue scenes between two or more characters who we don't really care about on a subject that we don't really care about because it doesn't relate to the main cast.
When we do get fight scenes they're abysmal. The characters just shout names of attacks and stuff happens, usually after a transmutation circle appears. Then they stop to talk. Then someone else comes and they all stop to talk. Then the new guy fights the other guy calling out names of attacks, usually accompanied by transmutation circles, then they stop to talk again, then the fight's over. It's not the definition of heart-pounding, I'm telling you now.
One reason I keep seeing why there's so much dialogue and time spent without the main characters is because the show is trying to do world building. While I'll agree that's what it's trying and succeeding to do, it's doing it wrong. Completely disengaging from the overarching story is bad. Completely disengaging from the overarching story for characters we don't know or care about or are actively annoyed by just to have a meaningless conversation or practice swordfight is very bad.
Even if the world building wasn't shoved in your face like a child showing off how much spaghetti they got on their hands, it would still be bad because the world itself isn't interesting. For all intents and purposes, the world that Overlord takes place in is a reskinned Middle Earth or generic D&D setting, just like a lot of fantasy stories, whether high fantasy, dark fantasy, or whathaveyou. As a result, we don't need to spend an exceptional amount of time exploring the world because looking at a map is enough for us to begin guessing the state of the world and who exists in it. Simply looking at the side-characters is enough for us to more or less understand what they're like going forward. And if that isn't enough, a few lines of dialogue makes it clear.
Compare this to Swort Art Online. How that show does world building is by having the protagonist go on many unrelated adventures to various, interesting locations, meeting new friends and enemies along the way. We see the world, we hear the world, Kirito interacts with the world. We get enough of the world to feel like we know it without being inundating with information, while also implying that there's much more to the world than what we've seen. This is not the only way of doing world building, but it's vastly more effective than whatever Overlord is doing. I imagine it's trying to go for the Lord of the Rings approach, but you never read in the books or saw in the movies that one time when Jim and Pillock were standing on the walls of Minas Tirith before the armies of Minas Morgul showed up, talking about their pasts or explaining the hierarchy of their government to each other. To sum this up, what I'm saying is Sword Art Online does better world building than Overlord. To say that Sword Art Online does anything better than anything else is not a compliment.
Just as a side-note, I don't know if it's just Japan or what, because I've seen this in other anime too: Nobody ever mentions the fact that a kingdom is a kingdom in real life unless it's because they're being formal. If a guy was a messenger in Medieval France and was going to travel across the border to Aragon, he wouldn't say that he's going to the Aragon Kingdom. He'd just say he's going to Aragon. The Re-Estize Kingdom, the Slane Theocracy, the token evil empire that I've already forgotten its name (Bahamut? Or is that Final Fantasy?) really should not have their form of government mentioned aside from when it's revealed what kind of government it is. Imagine if we went around saying that we took a vacation in the France Presidency, or the United States Representative Republic. It's just silly.
OVERALL: 2
This season of Overlord misses the mark in every single major way, undermining what was good and making the whole thing an absolute slog to get through. To top this review off, I'll paraphrase something I once read on the subject of the main cast and action: I would rather watch Ainz (Momonga) sit at his desk and do his taxes for an entire episode than see characters we don't care about fighting in an epic battle. Because I don't care about those characters or that battle.