Overlord S01E10 Review: Bloodborne

Overlord, Season 1, Episode 10: True Vampire

After the bombshell of last episode's post-credits scene, we seem to start off a new arc that I presume will last all the way to the end of the season. I really kind of wished the anime opening didn't spoil me on this particular plot twist, mind you -- it's so much less of a shock that this happens when I've already seen Shalltear fighting Ainz in the opening. Definitely a bit unfortunate.

But in a departure from the past couple of episode that focuses almost entirely on Ainz trying to explore the adventurer way of life, this one starts off with the rest of his minions, showing that as much as Ainz is trying to kill as little humans as possible (or when he has to, to not make them suffer grotesquely) the rest of his non-human minions are pretty horrifying monsters. We get to see that Sebas Tian (hee hee, the name) and one of the Pleiades, Solution, are masquerading as a snotty rich lady from a different part of land, and they cause a ruckus to get the attention of a group of local bandits, because Ainz wants someone with martial arts to 'experiment'  on.

The massacre as the bandits attack the carriage is pretty brutal, with Shalltear walking out with a couple of her vampire thralls (called 'brides', apparently), while Solution singles out the pervert that had wanted to use her, allows him to touch her boobs, before giving a nightmare face and... eating the man through her boobs? Okay, clearly not a human, then! From her name, I assume Solution is some sort of ooze or slime monster, then? It really makes me curious if all the other Pleaides maids like Narberal and Sebas are also this sort of slime monster as well.

We also get a brief bit of conversation between Shalltear and Sebas in the carriage, where we get to see the unique perspective of these player-generated NPC's, where Shalltear notes that despite her constant antagonism of Aura, she doesn't have any bad blood with the other Guardian, and noting that the rivalry something inserted into them by their creators. We also get a flashback to a time when Yggdrasil was still active, where apparently the creators of Aura and Mare, Bukubuku Chagama, is the real-life sibling to Shalltear's creator, Peroroncino. And apparently Bukubuku works as a voice actor in video games (including a hentai game that her brother ends up not playing for obvious reasons), which Shalltear has decided to interpret as a job where one 'gives life to the lifeless'.

Also, god, the account names of these real-life guild members are dumb as shit, and I commend the voice actors for being able to deliver their lines in all seriousness.

Anyway, Shalltear goes off on her own to investigate the death brigade or whatever, led by Brain Unglaus, one of the mighty warriors that Clementine mentioned a while back and he's insanely weak compared to Shalltear -- and unlike Ainz, Albedo and Narberal, Shalltear has no interest in holding back. She straight-up blocks all of Brain's sword strikes with nothing but her pinky fingernail, and when Brain unleashes this long monologue of combining skills into the God Flash Strike, a skill he's prepared for years to defeat Gazef, Shalltear catches it with ease. Brain just runs away, crying and screaming. Silly humans!


Also, Shalltear's whole vampirism thing is pretty badass, too, as she unleashes her banshee-like minions, creates a sphere of blood floating above her head, makes shadow cats, and she clearly is enjoying all of this. At one point she ends up going truly berserk and goes into what appears to be her 'true' form, which is this utterly badass looking decrepit beast with a lamprey mouth. That's pretty badass, and as Shalltear continues to massacre the mercenaries, she comes in contact with a group of adventurers that includes Britta, that one random adventurer that Ainz gives a red potion to in the bar. Using her mind control powers, Shalltear realizes that one of the adventurers managed to escape, and she just goes even more berserk, unleashing her minions to hunt down everyone in the forest...

And her minions are killed by a group of high-level adventurers that seem to have arrived from the Slane Theocracy. Shalltear is clearly powerful, but turning into this "true vampire" form has apparently caused her to get a wee bit too consumed in her anger and she just charges in towards the group of Slane Theocracy people, and while it isn't 100% clear what happens, Shalltear apparently was hit by one of the commander's powerful magics while she's in the midst of killing them.... and then fade to black.

And we return with Ainz and Albedo, resuming the stinger from the previous episode. It's interesting that Shalltear apparently didn't betray Nazarick in the normal sense, and mind control seems to be used instead. Ainz is definitely very troubled, seeing that his status monitor (which he can use again, apparently?) shows Shalltear's name as highlighted in red instead of it disappearing at all, which would be the case if she was killed. More troubling is that Shalltear is a vampire, which, in D&D Yggdrasil would be immune to forms of mind-control. Ainz then delivers a brief speech about how he's not just going to assume Shalltear has betrayed Nazarick out of her own free will, noting that the other Supreme Beings made the Nazarick NPC's and poured all their soul (and fetishes, it seems) into making them, and it's inevitable that some negative qualities have seeped in.

It's a pretty interesting setup, and I'm not sure if Ainz will have to deal with the Slane Theocracy or just with the mind-controlled Shalltear, but this episode is certainly a fun one that had a lot of great, horrifying power demonstrations from Shalltear. Definitely interested and am looking forwards to see what's to come.