Overlord

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The manga adaptation of Overlord adapts the light novel directly.

So, if one came to the manga after anime series, which has multiple seasons of it, one would discover subtle differences. But the main complaint would be is that the manga is too slow, with anime lapped the manga as of the end of the fourth season.

This manga ended around just the start of the season four of the anime. The final chapter had a hopeful tone, with a positive view of the future, with Momonga doubling down on the establishing and strengthening his rule of the Sorcerer Kingdom of Nazarick.

This is a good adaptation, ... given the art, since the likeness is spot on and connects the light novel and anime visual approach on the characters.

However, pacing was a torture, especially when it was serializing since it was at minimum a monthly update.

I recommend reading the entire manga, instead of re-watching the first three seasons, and then re-watch the fourth season, when preparing for the Overlord cinematic movie in 2024. Now that we are almost halfway the year (2024), the release is imminent, unless an unexpected delay derails it.

Where to start with this little beauty of a gem without revealing any spoilers.

So our hero gets trapped in an mmorpg as his player character, yet his player character is some skeleton lich character and he belonged to a guild of people who are no longer in the world he get's trapped in, yet he has access to the servants and artifcats they've gathered and crafted.

The main character is entertaingly over powered compared to mostly everyone he meets, and shows a interesting level of cunning and deception that the goddess Lloth herself would be pleased with as he tries to find out more about his ... new world. There is also exploration into how his mind is slowly changing from human form to undead form, and I am looking forwards to how this may change with the whole 'keeping hold of his humanity' aspect.

The humour is interesting, mainly of all the girls fawning over their undead lord (like, seriously, how on earth is he meant to bone them, pun intended), though their reasons for loving him seem rather flimsy currently aside from 'they were programmed to do that before and it's just carried over', though I am looking forwards to seeing him earn their trust a bit more.

I see massive amounts of potential here for a truly unique take on this genre.

In a branding standpoint, this title seems to be highly appreciated by its readers and viewers alike. I haven't personally watched this series but I can sense how up to par this series is with other known Isekai/Fantasy works marketing-wise. Given its popularity I decided to give this one a read and leave my thoughts.

I can tell how vast they're making it seem the worldbuilding is with the whole MMORPG aspect is being implemented to give the protagonist Momonga some leeway to explore the unknown world he and his domain was transported in while also educating us how the original game's system works as a ... normal game. Visuals-wise, it had that late 2000's or early 2010's cramped artstyle I observed in other works during the same era that I personally am not fond of. It became cleaner as the chapters moved along and it was very obvious the artstyle changed given how arduous and slow the chapters' release are I imagine, based on its serialization date and its chapters only being around 78. Despite this complaint, it is very satisfying to see how jam-packed each chapter is with the number of pages averaging around 40. Just goes to show how much information had to be expressed from its original source, the Light Novel. Also seeing how memorable each character is makes it more fun to read.

Now despite saying earlier how much information was presented into the manga. I have to say I can very much tell how much was left off without reading the LN. The writing was all over the place and the pacing always had laps in-between each arc where it felt so disconnected as to how or why each arc preceded the previous one. Characters were also being introduced left and right only for them to never show up ever again despite being vital for the underlying sidestories. Now compared to its similar counterpart "Eminence In The Shadow" with both of them being Isekai, Fantasy, overpowered protagonist, team of villainous or anti-hero Greek alphabet simps, and a non-intense + comedic take on the genre, the difference between them is that Eminence manages to make each arc seamless by not throwing out the previous arc's results and managing to make each arc's catalyst natural and sensible for its protagonist to deal with.

The arcs in Overlord meanwhile are riddled with loopholes or "Why not just do this?" rhetoricals mostly being caused by the protagonist's ever-changing motive. To top it all off, each arc manages to invest tons of chapters per random character introduced, only for them to die a gruesome and "merciful" death by the protagonist's entourage who are blinded by their master's conflicted nature of him being an apathetic undead and him being a longing daydreamer of his clan's golden days. He claims to be self-aware of him losing his humanity while he keeps on doubling down on creating meaningless deaths around his vicinity. He claims to be anxious in this new world he was transported in yet his "experiments" are just him drawing attention towards him while creating unnecessary bloodshed with his plot armor levels of power. What I'm saying is his character is poorly written based on what I've seen in the manga and this flaw managed to make this read incohesive while not highlighting the whole overpowered Isekai dictator gimmick it wanted to express in its 70 or so chapters.

I am solely rating this individually not as a brand, not as merchandise, nor as a series that crossed multiple mediums leaving you to find information like an easter egg hunt, but I am only rating this as a standalone manga. And the elements found in this Isekai manga just leaves you more questions to deal with rather than developing an actual plot that answers what the worldbuild actually is compared to how it was initially perceived. It's just lazy writing that doesn't scream "I'm not like other Isekai" and it just didn't work for me in manga format. The conclusion was solid though with the goal of world domination being one step closer, the only problem like I said earlier is how prominent the gaps of information are.