Overlord S01E11 Review: Main Story

Overlord, Season 1, Episode 11: Confusion & Understanding

As the final arc of Overlord's first season, this episode definitely feels like it's trying to tie in the various different plotlines that has been running through the different arcs. We get to see Ainz,  the undead overlord, looking through a scrying mirror to search for Shalltear, and then he's quickly summoned by Narberal (with bunny ears!) because "Lord Momon" and other renowned adventurers of E-Rantel are summoned because of the whole vampire threat. "Momon" meets up with E-Rantel's guild master, Ainzach (no relation to Ainz... maybe?) and a bunch of other high-ranking guild members and leaders of adventuring crew members. It's clear that Ainz wants to minmize the exposure to outsiders, and while some of the high-level adventurers agree to humour Momon, especially when he claims that this mysterious vampire is actually someone he's faced off against (giving the hilariously dumb name of "Honyopnyoko" or whatever when put on the spot), and that he plans to use one of the Yggdrasil magic-sealing crystals to deal with her as another bullshit bluff.

One of the adventurers, Igvarge, is all uppity and demands to come along, which Ainz humours with the stipulation that "this might mean certain death"... and then cut to Igvarge dying, because apparently a short way outside of town, Igvarge and his minions are attacked by Albedo and Mare, with Igvarge calmly killed by Ainz. Apparently these bodies are taken to Nazarick to make even more undead, which shows that, yes, while Ainz does have a soft spot with the civilians of Carne village and he avenged the four adventurers... he is still an undead overlord. So it's definitely a badass, if slightly disturbing, moment that Ainz just calmly orders these clearly not-evil adventurers killed just because they insisted on coming along.


Back to the Shalltear storyline, though, and Ainz comes across Shalltear, who's standing still in a battlefield, standing still, and Ainz quickly figures out that Shalltear has been definitely put under mind control, but was given no orders, or given orders with a specific trigger. Ainz then uses one of his rings, the Shooting Star, and tells Albedo all about his rings -- the rings use XP instead of mana to cast (definitely one of the more D&D inspired things in this story), while Ainz himself also has a ring that offset casting times... and as Ainz unleashes the Shooting Star's spell, it proves completely ineffective at curing Shalltear, causing Ainz to uncharacteristically panic, and teleport all of his allies out of the place.

He goes "dammit, dammit!" and starts throwing a tantrum, with the mysterious emotion-calming green aura working overtime to calm him down, and Ainz tells Albedo that the only thing stronger than the 11th-level magic he just used is a World Item, and that's the thing that had put Shalltear under mind-control. So, if it's not already clear enough, the Slane Theocracy has someone from Yggdrasil working for them... and if so, did Shalltear already kill the Yggdrasil player? Or is the random Slane commander she fought just a subordinate?

Whatever the case, though, Ainz resolves to fight fire with fire, and goes to the treasury/mausoleum wing of the Tomb of Nazarick to get some world items of his own. And the complex is guarded by Pandora's Actor, a shape-shifting doppelganger wearing German Nazi military clothes, and is hammy as fuck. Ainz acts like someone whose embarrassing fanfiction came out in the open, because he was the one who programmed Pandora's Actor. And it's definitely a huge,  huge hilarious scene as Pandora's Actor continues to be utterly embarrassing, with Ainz telling him to tone it down and stop it with the gratuitous German. The insane gesticulations, Yuri and Albedo's completely deadpan expressions throughout the whole scene and Ainz's increasing embarrassment and his very ineffective attempt to intimidate his reaction...

The fact that Pandora's Actor is voiced by Miyano Mamoru (otherwise known as Light Yagami, Chrollo Lulcifer, Tsukiyama Shu and Ling Yao, among many others) is just the icing on the cake.

And after that hilarious bit, we cut away to Albedo and Ainz going into the mausoleum, where the armours and item of the other 40 guild members are placed. It's actually quite melancholic, really, where Ainz is someone who had refused to let go of this life and always kept up hope that his friends would return to the game even after they clearly told Momonga to sell their equipment. (It also raises a whole lot of question as to just how utterly imbalanced and too-free Yggdrasil's game system functions, but let's not get into that).

Ainz offhandedly noting that he's saved a spot for when he eventually passes, which causes Albedo to go absolutely crazy and in tears, because the Nazarick NPC's need a purpose and leader, which is why they've grown even more devoted to Ainz, being the only Supreme Being to not have left them. Ainz then notes that he's going to go off and deal with Shalltear on his own, which makes Albedo freak out again because that'd put him in possible reasons, and Ainz notes that he has several reasons to do this alone: he has to prove to himself that he is a leader, there's a possibility of a trap, and there's the possibility that Shalltear can't be saved and he's going to have to kill her.

Ainz ends it with the pretty badass line of "You will see just why I am called the Overlord", which is... okay,  that's pretty damn badass.

Overall, this episode feels a bit oddly paced. We jump around from the guild meeting to an information dump about world items and magic to the comedic bit with Pandora, to the surprisingly melancholic and heartfelt moment between Ainz and Albedo. Pacing-wise this is definitely all over the place, but I definitely do like this and it's a neat little buildup to what's presumably going to be two episodes of the confrontation between Ainz and the mind-controlled Shalltear. If nothing else, though, Ainz's self-confidence and announcement to see just what he's going to do is definitely pretty damn badass, and seeing Ainz actually cut loose with all his power is definitely going to be pretty damn cool.