Overlord S02E01 Review: Table Setting

Overlord, Season 2, Episode 1: The Dawn of Despair

And now we enter the second season of Overlord. Or Overlord II, as it's technically called. I'm not actually the biggest fan of how this episode starts off, with like seventeen different foreshadowings towards what might go on in the season. I realize Overlord is adapted from a series of novels, and you definitely can get away with that in page format, but honestly, couldn't they have spaced out some of these foreshadowings a bit?

Anyway, the first scene shows what appears to be two Slane Theocracy generals, who remain unnamed at this point, talking about a Rubik's Cube and probably coming from the human world/Yggdrasil as well, as they talk about some ominous stuff like subjugating dragons, or the appearance of a powerful wizard called Ainz Ooal Gown, or the recent defeat that the Slane Theocracy felt thanks to Shalltear. The dude (who was there during the battle) notes that the lady with a scythe is stronger than Shalltear. And scythe-lady is apparently a maniac who wants to make a baby with a strong man? Yeah, Overlord doesn't really have its harem plot really as its focus, but it's kinda there, isn't it?

Another ominous foreshadowing as we get to see a dragon, a metallic one at that, talking to an old adventurer lady, Rigrit, who is retired, and talk about a bunch of ominous, vague things. More importantly, they seem to know what Yggdrasil is, and apparently encountered someone from Yggdrasil, but this time it's "a force of evil". Rigrit also gave a particularly powerful ring to a young brat that's her successor. I really do like the world-building, but it's honestly too vague that it's not really going to matter until these characters themselves matter, really.

Another bit of foreshadowing that at least means something to me instead of just vague "hey, remember these guys, they'll be important soon maybe" scenes where the court of Re-Estize is basically a hotbed of argument and politics where the various political factions of the kingdom are vying for power, and the king is exasperated -- especially after last season's assassination attempt on his greatest knight. We're also introduced to the king's happy little princess, Renner, and, of course, the king is also interested in Ainz.

Meanwhile, in his Momon guise, Ainz and Narberal are hunting a giant basilisk, who gets chased around by Hamsuke. Apparently Hamsuke's higher-leveled than the basilisk? Good on you, hamster buddy! It's a pretty badass scene as Ainz slices the basilisk's head in one shot, to build up his reputation even more.

Ainz returns to Nazarick, where we are re-introduced to Albedo and her extremely high lust-drive, and we get the first real explanation to why Ainz doesn't really act on the hot demon lady... in addition to being a skeleton, that is -- Ainz/Momonga actually views Albedo and the other guardians more like children of sorts, which is definitely an... interesting dynamic. We get to see a huge little talk about the map of the world, which is a re-iteration of the previous season's three kingdoms, but also a fourth country far to the north, Argland, which is apparently filled with demi-humans and ruled by five or seven drgaons.

Afterwards we get a bit of a montage of what the other Nazarick dudes are doing. Sebas is collecting data in a mansion, Demiurge went to Argland to gather parchments so they can mass-produce magical scrolls, while Aura leads a group of golems and skeletons to building a fake Tomb of Nazarick. We actually spend a fair bit of time with Aura and a dog-maid lady, and I do like that she really, really loves the Bukubuku watch that Ainz apparently gave her after season one.

In addition to Aura's dog-maid buddy (which genuinely didn't leave much of an impression on me), we get to see Shalltear being absolutely drunk and morose after her fuck-uppery in season one. Which, honestly, wasn't entirely her fault. Interestingly, in a separate scene, Albedo tells Ainz that he really should give Shalltear a proper punishment to appease her own sense of guilt.

Most interesting to me, though, is that the bartender is clearly a Myconid or the equivalent thereof. That's mushroom-people to non D&D players. And I really, really appreciate that it's based on the Bleeding Tooth Fungus (Hydnellum peckii), one of the most unsettling-looking fungi in the world. I am a proud, proud geek.

Speaking of new characters, we get to see the assistant butler, Eclair Eclair, who is... who's just a penguin with some pretty fabulous hair. He's fun! I like him.

The final couple of scenes finally sets up what appears to be the opening arc for this season... war! Cocytus is sent to war, and then we cut to a pair of lizardmen brothers -- one a chieftain of the tribe, and the other someone running a fish farm and labeled an outsider for travelling outside the swamp. They also have names I'm not even going to try to pronounce. But then the peace in the village is broken when the sky darkens, and this amazingly well-animated blob of screaming, pulsating faces arrives and pronounces the lizardmen's doom. The way this episode is framed, I kind of want to think that Mr. Legionface over here is a minion of Ainz, but I'm not 100% sure. It does seem to lead to what I think is going to be a bunch of lizardmen that are portrayed as heroic fighting against Ainz's forces, and I'm really curious just how the anime is going to handle Ainz's being a villain -- so far in season one, Ainz's goals are clearly villainous (world domination), but other than not resurrecting the dead, being pragmatic and killing a couple of asshole adventurers, most of his actions tended to be to the benefit of humankind, so it's interesting to see how we're going to deal with Ainz possibly bringing the war to a peaceful people.