SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES: OVERLORD AHEAD!
“I am the leader of the supreme beings of the Tomb of Nazarick. Feel the power of the man you all respect and call your master!”
-Ainz Ooal Gown
Outstanding, Original, ….OVERLORD. This series as a whole has continually shown me that the time and effort you put into a creation of your own (or with your close guildmates), should be cherished and cared for.
Undeniable Power
DMMO-RPG, Dive Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (try and have your bard say that five times fast). This is the format of the game known as “Yggdrasil“, (released in 2126), where we first begin. The popularity of the game comes from the large, expansive map with a very high level of player freedom.
The series begins with a reminder to those who dare invade the Tomb of Nazarick. A party of adventurers faces an army of undead, which suddenly springs from the ground from some unknown source of magic. The group of high-level players quickly turn the undead army into bones strewn across the field, before facing their true foes.
The leaders and creators of The Tomb of Nazarick
A mighty flash of lightning rains from above the tomb surrounded by dark skies, and then suddenly, the dead bodies of the adventuring party (TPK, GG).
Clinging to Power
12 years have now passed since the first launch of the game, and it is already coming to an end. Satoru Suzuki is a salaryman living in Japan, who in available moments is a very avid VR-Game player in the fantastical world that is Yggdrasil. The alternate persona of Satoru Suzuki was/is Ainz Ooal Gown (Or his former guildmembers would know him as Momonga)
Being the guildleader and one of the most prominent/active members in the guild they had created, the collections were vast and their base of actions (Tomb of Nazarick) had not fallen to any who invaded it. But all that was shown after 12 years was the herds of inventory at their disposal (but who to use it on?). On top of that, there seemed to only be a few remaining guildmates who even decided to show up in the last hours before the server would officially be shut down forever. Ainz even notes that 37 out of the original 41 members had quit.
So what do you do in these final moments? He had said his goodbyes to any of those who had been there, but now he was alone.
Well, Besides the guardians of the layers that were held inside the residence. All of the guardians that live and defend The Tomb of Nazarick are NPCs from the game. These beings were made by the actual guildmembers, which is all that remains of most of their legacies within that universe.
So as Ainz is counting down the last minutes, he sits on his throne and takes in the past and memories that he built with his companions. The crests of the guildmembers hang proudly in the throneroom (known as “Throne of Kings”), along with some of the common NPCs from their times. There are so many hints of, not quite anger, but resentment that no one else was there to watch the end with him. Nevertheless, he acknowledges that it was all very fun.
During this moment we meet the most powerful being in the tower, a succubus named Albedo. Being the Overseer of ALL the guardians in the tower, Albedo is not someone you want to get on her bad side (or honestly not too far on her good side either, Ainz can attest!). With this in mind he takes a look at the settings of this NPC, and with a few minutes to spare, took it into his initiative and made it so that she was in love with him. He had changed one of his guildmember’s NPCs without permission. But all he had thought of in those last moments were basically, “Screw it, it’s all about to disappear along with any embarrassing secrets that I had”.
Did I forget to mention that while he was doing all of this, he was walking around as his avatar, an undead lich?
So now, the time has come. He sits upon the throne of kings, basking in the final moments of the legacy built up by him and his dear companions. The timer appears before him counting down the last seconds until midnight, when the servers would officially be shut down forever. Midnight strikes and the clock reads 00:00:00.
Then 00:00:01
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“Death by sword. Death by broken bones. Death by crushing. There’s not much difference, right? You die at the end.”
– Ainz Ooal Gown
All game displays that existed before the timer had now disappeared from Ainz vision. Trying to access the “console” or any other form of game mechanic he was so used to works to no avail.
A voice comes from his side, a voice he has never heard before. Albedo, lovingly, is at her master’s side wondering what possibly could be wrong? The NPCs in this game do not usually have voices, on top of that the emotions they are now showing seem way too realistic. The “game” now even has features not there before, all normal senses that we experience daily are now integrated into the system.
This is where we first experience the emotional suppression that the system puts on him. The shock and panic of everything is overwhelming, which is not in character at all for a lich of his status. So the system corrects it for him (visually being basked in a green light) and Ainz is now more clear-minded and logically thinking.
We now realize, as Ainz realizes throughout the rest of the episode and episodes following, that this world is real.
Through a small miscommunication, his followers mistake what he is saying as a sign that Ainz wants to rule the world. As we follow the legacy of Ainz Ooal Gown, the New World (as Ainz refers to it) offers itself to be ruled by his ultimate power. This is when the series truly begins and we enter and find out all about the new surroundings as Ainz learns.
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My Bardic Verse
With its latest season’s release and its ending in late 2022, there are still many more mysteries to be unraveled. We have seen countless times Ainz’s grand displays of power. What I am hoping more from in the future seasons (I have not read the source material), is the more gleaming hope of the possibility of a guild member or someone else from the wide expansion of the game from before it entered the new world.
The lands described make it seem vast, I did not even begin to go into the diversity of characters, the political systems, power struggles, and so on. The magic Ainz weilds backs up his words every time, being levels above anything else in the New World.
With that being said, Overlord has reached the top of so many people’s rankings for a reason. It’s good.
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Sources:
-Wiki, C. T. O. (n.d.). Ainz ooal gown. Overlord Wiki. https://overlordmaruyama.fandom.com/wiki/Ainz_Ooal_Gown?file=Ainz+Anime+Updated.png
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