10 September 2015: Overlord is about peace through strength
Here, try this. All the cool kids are doing it.
I was a bit surprised to learn the Overlord anime is apparently quite popular. I had assumed everyone else would have dropped the show after a somewhat slow first couple of episodes. And when I say "slow," I mean the first episode literally only covered the material found in the one-sentence synopsis found in pre-season write-ups for the show. Pretty much the only reason I kept on watching it is because the director, Itou Naoyuki, also directed Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu (although admittedly he was not responsible for episode three, the one I really liked). There isn't anything in the show that's bad necessarily, although I do think Hara Yumi is overacting Albedo's Turbo Dere comic relief moments. The episodes on a whole, though, are generally consistent, so I'm guessing most viewers will enjoy it about as much towards the end as they did at the start.
Narberal is pretty good at killing people but sort of shit at keeping her trap shut.
With regard to what Overlord is actually about, it's technically another player-trapped-in-an-RPG story, but it doesn't play out quite the same way as other anime with this setup. For one thing, Momonga doesn't even make token attempts to escape back into the real world. Granted, being a super powerful skeleton dude in charge a bunch of also super powerful steadfastly loyal undead folks is probably a lot better than whatever it was he had going on back home. Technically, all of these characters are supposed to be fearsome and evil, but ol' Momo (or Ein's Own Goal, depending on what he's calling himself on whatever particular day) goes about taking care of business in a fairly pragmatic sort of way, basically only killing people who need killing. (Naturally, Momo doesn't seem to have much trouble finding people who need killing.)
You can tell Momo is going easy on them because he's using swords instead of his bare hands.
In a way, Overlord is not unlike Gate in that both shows take place in fantasy worlds where the "good guys" crush the living dog shit out a bunch of scrubs who thought they were badass until some Japanese folks came along and redefined what it actually takes to be badass in that world thereafter. With 10 episodes already complete, I'm not expecting Momonga or his minions to face any serious challenges, but watching Momo and his maids demolish random jackasses isn't actually as boring as it might sound. Considering how much people bitched about the JSDF exercising overwhelming force against armies of chumps with swords, and how many viewers argued Kirito was overpowered in Sword Art Online, I wouldn't have expected Momonga to get a pass. He's constantly overestimating the abilities of his enemies and dismantling them with embarrassing ease despite handicapping himself time and again, yet nobody seems to have any qualms about that. My theory is that it's because he's really tall and speaks (externally, anyway) with an authoritative voice. That and being a big skeleton guy. I'm pretty sure Tony Robbins had a chapter on that.
