Note: This review covers only the second season of Overlord.

Oh gods. Do you remember Overlord? It was an anime released three years ago, riding on the trend of “japanese people sucked into MMORPG world” and it managed to be enjoyable because it tackled things slightly differently, putting the protagonist on the shoes of an undead evil lord with an army of over-powerful demons at his disposal. It was supposed to be a tale about discovery, about Ains Ooal Gown spreading his name as he conquered kingdoms, sending heroes to their demise, and delivering death with his supreme power.

Sadly though, the first season lacked ambition. Instead of seeing the rise of Ains Ooal Gown, we just had a set of episodes about him disguising as an adventurer and easily defeating minor human villains. There were no conquered kingdoms, no warfare, and the politics remained quite basic. So yeah, after three years, here we are hoping to see the demon horde of the Tomb of Nazarick wreck havoc as Ains tries to understand more about the threat we could glimpse at the end of the first season. Or so we though…

Those fucking lizards

What if we had a show about a lizardman hero trying to convince other lizardmen tribe to join forces against a mysterious evil force that proclaimed war on them? What if this lizardman fell in love with a pinky-scaleless lizard girl called fucking Crusch Lulu. What if their love inspired an otaku romance with blushing and shameful remarks about getting married whilst fighting other brute lizardmen in an attempt to gather help? You want that? Really? Damn you. That’s Overlord first set of episodes, a massive disaster, one of the worst things I’ve seen in decades. Pinky lizard-girls blushing and even fucking (yeah, literally). That was NOT what I was hoping as I started the second season of a show called Overlord.

A disastrous filler

It’s fucking disgusting, really. These lizardmen episodes are boring, repetitive, and make three to four episodes look like an eternity. It becomes even worse when you understand this is just a damn side-quest, a filler about Cocytus (the blue-mantis minion of Momonga) trying his hand at an experimental war that doesn’t make any damn sense. Yeah, it doesn’t even matter at all in the big picture. They even try to establish that “this can be a ruling experiment” yet it doesn’t even get remembered in later episodes. God damn.

It does get back on track

Fortunately, Overlord forgets that and gets back to its original purpose, focusing the reminder of the episodes on Sebas and his meddling with the secret human organization that commands much of the kingdom close to the Tomb of Nazarick. It deals with politics with a lot of decent action and a good deal of combats demonstrating the sheer difference of power between Momonga’s minions and the most powerful heroes around.

It teases a lot of other things too

Weirdly, amidst rapists, drug dealers, and demonic experiments of ruling, Overlord teases a lot of big things for the shortest amounts of time. For a single episode it shows a fucking dragon, it makes connections with the past season, and even let us think that perhaps there is a challenge hovering the demons and undead armies of Ains Ooal Gown. Sadly though, these teases never ever grow to be anything in this season, which makes it frustrating that we had another dozen of episodes once again and yet we know nothing about the people that we want to truly know about (those with items and power capable of fighting against Momonga).

Everything else is the same

The politics involved in the late part are enjoyable, we get to see some better characters and the shounen show-off of powers works. Yeah, a lot of Overlord maintains the same quality and objective as in the previous season, except for the poorly made and shameful lizardmen arc. These lizards, might I add, contribute into making such a show about undead and demon villains seem far too much colorful, with sparkling eyes, cutie monster-girls, and much of the pathetic fetishes of the default otaku community.

Considering how rare it is to see a show with some focus on politics, conquest, and warfare, Overlord can be praised for not being an utter disgrace. This time, however, it came close to that with a first set of episodes that destroyed every hope of grandeur the show had at its start. We still lack the vision of the world we want and there’s no conclusion whatsoever except teasing more enemies and intriguing characters, but there’s a solid work when things are not brought down with pinky horny lizards and their marriage desires.