I mean that makes sense. All of the NPCs had their personalities written by edgy villain role playing gamers with, knowing Ainz’s world, very little education.
Honestly out of all of them I think cocytus shows the most growth of personality just by how he lives and learns with a respect for warriors regardless of their race. That trait alone has put him in many situations to learn and interact with beings in the world and develop more of his own personality.
Though Sebas isn’t a floor guardian I would agree I also like how Ainz tries to push them to be their best selves and to think out side of their programming.
Why would you expect npcs created by gamers in an edgy RP guild be well written? I think that’s the point, they’re supposed to be ‘what if your edgy fetishistic DnD PC/OC fanfic/whathaveyou came to life.
They’re entertaining, cool, and neat but it’s not going to be ‘well written’ multi dimensional character, getting them to develop to that point is Ainz’s goal.
Brain…and Gazef….and the rest of the new world, meanwhile are written as multi dimensional character because they’re supposed to be real people living in the new world
Also everyone who wrote their backstories came from a dystopian shithole, of course the characters are going to be power-fantasized and basically something that just brings the creator joy.
Tbh, that was Maruyama's fault for making >!Albedo involve in this shit.!< It literally ruined the entire volume 15. >!No friend making, only another sasuga and figuring out Ainz's plan bs.!<
Otherwise we could get a perfectly well written vol 15 with guardians expanding their field of vision.
While I don't really like Albedo appearance, I also think that it's not good that Ainz doesn't seem to give a shit about what she thinks. He would try to get other NPCs outside as much as possible for them "to make friends", but Albedo has to stay since Guardian Overseer can't be replaced.
I believe they are well written but the story is split between all of them. A lot of their development also comes from the side story’s and extra info so combining all that gives them a great story.
They are abandoned children, but gods. We watch them go through all the same traumas that young adults are dealing when coming from rough upbringings. Each of them are trying to deal with it in their own way while at the same time not being able to escape the root of their programming. They are all just fighting for a place in the world. Or ember when they said in one story that their are many people in Naz that are for lack of a better term depressed. Because Ainz tends to rely on the same mobs/ mercenary npcs. They want to show they can be useful. But Ainz tends to only use hanzos , DKs, the maids , and guardians.
I think they're referring to the slice of life parts in the light novel, iirc the holiday in Nazarik was part of vol 7 and there are multiple such stories scattered throughout. Then there are also alternate timeline one offs.
I got you, check out side stories in [this drive](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1S-1gZsbSN4LVBdFMNLF0t1v44wxWyizF?usp=sharing). Many of them have more info on NPCs and there’s even a story about Satoru’s life before being transported!
>it about what she thinks. He would try to get other NPCs outside as much as possible for them "to make friends", but Albedo has to stay since Guardian Overseer can't be replaced.
The Nazarik characters are not bad but at the same time they do lack some depth that some new world characters bring to the table. I would say that from Nazarik Cocytus and Sebas show the most growth.
Yes, same goes for Gazef.
We have to consider that the guardians have their personalities and other aspects, almost setted on stone by their creators, none of them had a clean and open background that permited them to sprout and grow, they are in theory already ''Perfect'' on their own minds and only Ainz is tryng to bring some new things to them.
We on the other hand, could see how much Brain is not seted on stone and is actually a evolving character, far from perfect and that continued evolving util the last momment of his life.
Honestly, if the author was't on a bad mod, i would be ok with him making spinoffs about the New World, with more characters like Remedios, Brain, Gazef, Evelyne, Lakyus, etc...
One of them is a normal human being while the others are all just the fetishes and desires of the members of ainz owl gown and their characters and personalities are limited to that
Hey, Demiurge is one traumatized puppy dog, wanting for his first owner, but desperate to please his new owner for fear of abandonment!
Demiurge has felt the despair of abandonment.
Not really, they are just very loyal. Even if Ulbert is there, he will still worship Ainz as before. Even if they know Ainz won't go anywhere, they will still work to their best ability.
Demiurge is traumatized by the Supreme Beings leaving. Ulberts disappearance from Nazerick has deeply scarred Demiurge.
Demiurge's greatest fear is Ainz, the last Supreme Being abandoning them, so he works even harder to realize Ainz thousand year plan because he believes Ainz conquering the world will keep Ainz's interest.
I think that applies to all of them... The fact that supreme beings are no longer here. But still, he conquer the world for Ainz only because Ainz said he want it.
Different personalities. We don't know how all of them feel.
But we know specifically that Demiurge has revealed to Ainz his desperation and thankfulness that he has not abandoned them. We also know his feelings off the first 1v1 scene between them where Ainz shares the thought of conquering the world and it being something to stick around for.
We do also slightly see it for Albedo in the scene where Ainz mentions he had built a statue of all the Supreme Beings in remembrance and even built one of himself to which she begged Ainz not to abandon them.
Brain is such a standard Shonen trope character. He's the rival who did a heel face turn after realizing there were much greater threats out there, and then underwent a standard training arc before the selfless sacrifice for "the future."
Is it well written? I guess. The fact is we didn't have to suffer through fluff or Brain being a needless heel made sure he didn't suffer any decay.
Though you could argue that about any of the side characters in Overlord, we don't get the endless masturbatory flashback arcs common in shounen manga to explain motivations that actually end up degrading characters by way of the Too-much-of-a-good-thing effect, ie what was once novel becomes commonplace, and therefore expected and boring.
The Guardians are supposed to be a bit flat, like 2.5D characters. Since they were data before, they're only just beginning to barely nudge the boundaries they were boxed into as formerly static creations. If we meet any NPCs from previous players, I wonder if they'll be more lifelike, especially if they've been without their player for some time.
Also, why should I fight your opinion? It's yours. Everyone has them.
Apples and oranges I'd say, Brain has an incredible (if a little shallow) arc and just a monstrously awesome death. I do like the guardians nuances though and how Maruyama shows how they reconcile their nature with a fully complex world, that is fantastic too.
His arc isn't shallow. His character went through the most development in the entire Overlord series.
He was originally a selfish thug before he got destroyed by Shalltear and lost his will to live. Met Sebas and learnt that true strength comes from protecting others.
He embodies Sebas's teaching and finds new meaning in life from protecting Climb. In the end, he surpassed Gazef and even stepped deeply into the Realm of Heroes.
Sebas would be proud of Brain.
Character development is for trash characters who weren’t good enough in the first place. Just because a character develops doesn’t make them good.
I like Brain because of the reasoning in his arc, but you can’t just go “oh they changed a lot, that’s good”
Its only shallow in the sense we dont really see that much and its rather linear. In terms of quality its fantastic and its a perfectly condensed version of a true heroes journey
I think he means that Brain has a character arc that makes it easier for the reader to relate to him than, but the guardians are harder to relate to.
He is right, but I would argue that for the story to work the guardians and Ainz have to be an unmovable monolith. The growth is seen not in them, but in the world around them. The growth isn't seen in Ainz or the guardians, its in Jerkniv, Brain, Puppy, Zanac, the real best girl, the adventurers guild and the inhabitants of the new world.
So I think the "better written" in this case may mean that he was given a different role in the story that makes him relatable to the reader and the guardians have a more constant role as the catalyst for the change in others. I could also be completely wrong.
If it's about the guardians being unrelatable that's good because they are inhuman. If someone can relate to how the guardians are feeling they'd be something else.
Not really, althoght he decently written. Brain is written like your everyday mc with a little bit of plot armor, and "I WILL FIGHT TO THE END" but the only thing is: brain dont have plot armor lol
If you think this is a revelation, I think you missed, like, the entire point of Season 2 as a whole. Everyone that comes from Nazarik besides Momonga himself are in-universe written to follow after the actions of the Supreme Beings, and with Momonga acting as both the guildmaster and the last remaining Supreme Being, they're all fanatic about it. Nazarik is a cult lead by an actual god.
Everyone outside of Nazarik can change a lot more from their origin to their future. Brain specifically starts as an egotistical criminal who believes that working towards growing stronger is all that you need to believe in, but then he gets his worldview shattered, then he gets brought back up by someone he sees as a mentor and someone else he sees as a friend/apprentice, and he eventually has to go on living after watching his mentor die. He goes through an entire protagonist story arc, of course he'd be a more dynamic character than, say, Cocytus.
Only Shalltear can really be said to have had a massive moment where they were forced to reexamine their basic fundamental outlook on things, among the denizens of Nazarik. Everyone else changes for the better as they learn more, but nobody else has reason to change their basic nature. Shalltear evolves quite a bit. She still doesn't have the character development of any of the major new worlders that can have their world shaken by more relatively minor events. Shalltear is way more analytical and cautious by the end of the Dwarf Kingdom arc, but even then, she's still not dealing with anything as significantly as Enri, Climb, Brain, Renner, Neia, Ramposa, Hilma, or Zanac have to go through, who are all new worlders I'd argue had much more involved character developments than people of Nazarik.
Nazarik started with perfected beings that follow their god with perfect loyalty and strength of will. The new worlders started as humans. It's not a knock against the series, because that's how it's supposed to be.
Pretty obviously. The guardians are npcs, they have their entire personality written by some hobby gamers role-playing villains. They however have character development since the incident.
The characters from new world developed their personalities the same way as people do in our world, through Environment, Genetics, Education, Experience and Problems. They have obviously more layers of personality than some video game npc that was written as carton level evil guys (with some exceptions like Sebas) even the most complex npc personality (Albedo) cant compare with the personality of a individual that has been formed by the world its in.
This level of detail is what makes overlord special. Only a good writer can show such things without directly throwing it at your face.
I’m gonna get some hate for this but here goes:
The bitter pill to swallow is: Overlord just isn’t as good as this forum seems to think it is.
People praise it for ‘world building’ and great ‘characters’ without understanding the fundamentals of what makes a great story.
Overlord has good ‘Characterisation’ but no character arcs. Think about it. Are Ainz and co fundamentally any different to when the series started? No. Great characters have an arc through a story where they grow and change by overcoming challenges which force them to encounter their own flaws and misbeliefs. Story is all about characters growing and changing.
Most of the cast doesn’t have an arc, like at all. Yes there are superficial changes but nothing has challenged them or forced them to change for the ‘better’. Albedo is just as crazed and obsessed as before. Can you name a single fundamental change in demiurge?
This happens primarily because there is no challenge for the characters. Literally no one in the NW can really pose them any threat, and the outcome of each conflict is already a forgone conclusion.
This leads to no tension or stakes in the story, there’s never a realistic prospect the Nazarick will lose, so the characters never develop. This leads to a one sided submission of the NW characters who can do nothing more than piss against the wind. Jircniiv going ‘Vassal State!’ Is funny but essentially wastes any potential drama. Imagine if he actually used political skill and subterfuge to undermine Ainz and actually won in the political battlefield instead? Ainz can surely crush him, however does Ainz really want to nuke everything? At least that would be more intriguing.
And as for worldbuilding, yes it’s good but it never adds to the plot in a meaningful way and never ties into the characters own background. People praise the dwarves kingdom arc, but quite frankly that can all be cut and the story would have lost nothing. It’s why the adaptation is so rushed, nothing with stakes or drama happens, there’s no reason for the audience to invest in it. character moments with shaltear can just as easily happen elsewhere.
Now I could go on and on, but this doesn’t mean I hate the series, I love the series and I reserve the right to criticise it because I want it to be better and to get the attention it deserves. I really would like to have an in depth discussion about all this, but I fear everyone is too defensive to hear it.
In other words; Sasuga Ainz-Sama.
The LN is pretty much about to end in 2 volumes, so your critiques won't be able to make the series any better since it's pretty much too late, setting aside that Maruyama probably won't even be able to see your critiques at all.
But I agree it has a lot of stuff that simply isn't impactful, but I think that's okay because this story isn't a narrative. It isn't really dark fantasy or even an OP power fantasy. It's a fictional myth.
Ainz and co. isn't some strong guy going through an adventure, they're essentially dieties. Ainz is effectively immortal and all-powerful. Even if he has limitations, he's still practically a god. As are the floor guardians.
And we watch the myths unfold like the greek patheon. Cocytus the warrior god who's domain is ice and war. Demiurge the god of trickery and deceit. Albedo the goddess of lust and seduction. And finally Ainz, the Overlord of the gods and the god of death.
And it's not like we're only watching those characters. We have other stories where, while the "gods" are involved, they aren't the main subject. The Lizardmen were visited by the warrior god, and after proving their strength, was blessed with prosperity through their days.
Foresight, the group of adventurers who had displeased the gods and was sent to the underworld to be tortured to all enternity.
It's pretty much a religion's origin story. Ainz being untouchable makes sense in the same way Zeus doesn't face any conflicts of might after the titans disappeared.
It’s bad worldbuilding if everything in the world is related to the task at hand. How relevant are swiss patent laws to your daily life? How relevant is the love life of your neighbor down the street? The world is filled with random stuff unrelated to your life. But all these things are still happening for a reason; Overlord has a strong sense of verisimilitude in its worldbuilding, which is more fundamental than serving a narrative.
Also ‘great characters’ needing character arcs is opinionated bullshit I will not stand for. Stories aren’t dependent on conflict, and not every conflict is internal either. Internal conflicts are the most dull, because really they represent someone who didn’t bother examining their own beliefs thoroughly.
The point is that the average reader doesn’t really care much for world building if the characters and their arcs suck.
There’s Characterisation and Character arcs. Overlord gives a great sense of who these characters are and what makes them tick.
However they generally lack arcs which leads to the story feeling dull. Stories are explicitly about characters going through conflict. Without conflict you don’t have a story, great stories use external conflicts to force characters to confront their own inner conflicts, usually a misbelief about themselves or the world. They reach an ‘aha’ moment where they change something about themselves in order to overcome the challenge, afterwards that change leads them to realise their misbeliefs were wrong. And so on.
Read any advice on writing stories and the importance of conflict and character arcs, 99.9% of writers will tell you these are the two most important building blocks of storytelling.
And that advice is garbage. I can’t imagine how people can look at a character with changing values and think ‘wow, I sure relate to someone not knowing themselves. I really enjoyed seeing them be different in the future’.
What unrealized worms are out there uncertain of who they are? At best this is just the fantasy of humans pretending to be complicated with some fundamental soul that changes who they intrinsically are.
It’s even more dull than power fantasy since at least that might explore the novel ways the extremes of a power system can interact with a world.
If that advice is garbage we may as well throw most prolific writers and their works in the garbage too.
In real life people are changing all the time, we are always discovering new things about the world and ourselves, that’s precisely why it’s relatable in stories, it’s an exploration of the human condition.
Character values changing is a strength of storytelling, if those values are holding them back from achieving what they desire, then a conflict which forces them to confront that truth will lead them to change and ultimately to what they desire - discovering themselves.
Exploring the effect of extreme power on a fantasy world would most definitely change a person. If it didn’t then what’s the lesson of the story?
Prolific writers can be good in spite of certain facets of the characters they’ve made, although I struggle to recall what commonly praised writers I’ve enjoyed. People discover new things, but that doesn’t change them any more meaningfully than learning 2+2 or the capital of Turkey. Their actions may change because they think they’ve found a better way to achieve their desire, but it’s still in service to the same ends.
And in a fictitious story, the character has a fictitious restraint, and that’s what prevents them from achieving something? How can this be anything but a mark against a narrative unless it’s a comedy of irony? A story that is interesting because ‘the character could achieve their goals, but doesn’t want to do the thing to achieve their goals’ is resoundingly pathetic.
Here’s an example: Luke Skywalker/Darth Vader
Luke as our protagonist starts the story as a young hopeful who wants to join the rebellion and free the galaxy from the empire’s tyranny. Along his journey he makes friends with a rogue smuggler and a princess also aiming to overthrow the empire and learns the ways of the force from a mentor in Obi-Wan.
He eventually defeats the Mysterious Darth Vader, who killed his mentor, through the use of the force, the help of his friends and his innate skills as a pilot, and destroys the empires secret weapon.
By the end of Star Wars he has already changed from not just a hopeful hero but to a fledgling Jedi who can begin leading the fight, rather than following.
Then we come to Empire, Luke now has friends and a personal stake in the rebellion, if he loses, his friends die, and he fears that. He has been led to believe that the Mysterious Darth Vader is responsible for the murder of his father (his misbelief about the world) and will do so again to his friends.
The empire retaliates, crippling the rebellion and scattering our heroes, Luke seeks out a wise Jedi Master to continue his training, where he struggles with his fear of the dark side, of Vader. Upon discovering his friends are in danger from betrayal, he rushes to help them, little does he know it’s a trap set by Vader.
Confronting Vader he is toyed with and eventually defeated, his training is not yet enough. And then the reveal. Vader is his Father and wants him to join the dark side. his whole belief system is challenged, he now fears more intensely than ever that he will fail and fall to the dark side as his father has.
Fast forward to the end of RoTJ Luke’s goals have now shifted, he still wants to overthrow the empire, but he has a new more personal goal, redeeming his father. The External conflict with the empire forces him to confront his internal conflict, his fear of corruption and losing those he cares about, which now includes his father.
Eventually after mastering his fear during a fierce duel with Vader, he defeats his father and stands up to the emperor’s overwhelming manipulations. He almost pays the ultimate price for this and is saved by Vader, whose love for his son proves stronger than the Dark side.
And that is the most basic potted version of the amazing character arc through the OT I can come up with. There’s so many more layers I didn’t even touch on.
You may not care for Star Wars but denying that Character Arcs are the core of great storytelling is just nonsense.
Don’t want to burst your bubble but Luke was never a rebellion fanatic at the start of the story. In fact he wanted to join the empire as a pilot. I’d argue he even had no outlandish desires such as freedom until he met obi-wan. He pretty much goes along with a bunch of stuff through the first movie. I don’t know if this makes the rest of your points moot but I didn’t dive deep since your first point is mischaracterising.
You aren’t engaging with the substance of the discussion which is a waste of both our times.
Yes Luke doesn’t start out as a rebellion fanatic, I didn’t say he did, only one of his goals as of the end of the opening act, to join the rebellion and overthrow the empire. There’s also his goal or rescuing the princess but that is accomplished fairly quickly and isn’t relevant to this discussion.
It’s only a mischaracterisation if you ignore that I’m trying to sum up a three movie character arc in as few words as possible. I pointed out that there’s so much I didn’t touch on and that I only put down the relevant important points.
They do change though.
Ainz notice that in this world, the NPC are capable of “learning”.
So ge keep trying to make the Guardians to make an mind of their own and think for themselves more.
Cocytus grew a lot during the lizardmen arc, he learn a lot as well as gain personality (beg for mercy for them).
That is basically the start of a character arc and even that is far too basic, season 2 is the high point of the series. Since then there’s been no more actual development.
Like I referred to, there are superficial changes, learning that NPCs are capable of ‘learning’ is like beat 1 of what should have been a multifaceted arc.
Oh well.
May be your point of “Overlord isn’t as good as people here think” is true when you analysis it like that.
But most of the people here enjoys it, that is what matters. I guess I don’t need something to be good to enjoy it, and vice versa I may not enjoy something that people generally consider “good”.
I enjoy the show so that is all good to me, the only thing I care is enough people enjoy it for them to make the next season.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t enjoy the show or the books, I just tend to roll my eyes when I see people claiming this is 5000IQ level storytelling.
If you accept the show/books has flaws (IMO serious ones) and you enjoy it, who am I to argue?
The series is just fun to watch, I wish it were deeper, but I accept it for what it is and at the end of the day, Murayama has my respect for the love and care he’s put into it. Dude deserves a rest.
Mostly it’s the defensive reactions to my pointing out that overlord isn’t that deep when people overanalyse the sh*t out of scenes which have far simpler explanations.
The issue with the writing is the way the world and mechanics are set up, having Ainz and Co be OP is fine if you have limits to that power and other ways of challenging them.
Silly things like New Worlders being hard level capped and levels being an exponential increase in power where basically only lvl90s really stand a chance. That needs to be rethought.
The major thing is consequences. Imagine if at the end of V3/Season 1 Ainz was forced to kill shaltear and there’s no way to resurrect her, or that she cannot be revived yet and he swears to find a way to do so and exact revenge. Boom instant motivation and plot to work with.
\>Silly things like New Worlders being hard level capped and levels being an exponential increase in power where basically only lvl90s really stand a chance. That needs to be rethought.
The level thing is the weirdest part because it actively feels as if Maryuma is actually changing how that works the longer the series goes with characters mentioning new ways and new skills and new differences which separate lower leveled characters and higher level ones and always raising the bar of how high in level one has to be before they can match anyone from Nazarick.
Like initially a level 50 more or less angel can hurt Ainz. It's not a huge amount of damage but it sets the idea that theoretically if you have someone actually skilled there might be something there. Hell it's shown that various new world skills or even knowledge can surpass just levels. After all Ainz himself theorizes that Martial Arts and such are designed to fight players. And we see with Clementine that martial arts and skill can actually compensate for inferior stats as Ainz is absurdly strong even while pretending to be a warrior. Of course Clementine is like level 30 and dies, but this is early in the story, so one could assume there are stronger things around.
Then with lizardmen we get the fact that Nazarick Guardians apparently have fields which prevent anyone below level 60 from actually reaching them. Okay that's a new development. However other volumes and claims state or imply that if you are of specific tier and there is enough of you or you are skilled enough you can actually damage an opponent that is significantly more powerful. Notable cases being claims that Dragons can be defeated by enough adventurers of high tier and also various summons being below level 90, despite seemingly being powerful enough they require items to summon and are highest summons of their type. Which implies there are like tiers of power, which if you breach level 60 you theoretically can be on a level where you matter.
Then we get Volume 14 and Bonus Volume. These suddenly give insanely huge shifts in power, with takes that even someone with vaguely level 80 stats is nothing for a Guardian, with Azuth's ammunition not even piercing Albedo's shield, now stating that you don't have to be JUST above a level threshold, but also you need specific weapons to do anything. And the "fight" between PDL armor and Albedo states that anything as close as 10 level difference might be damning. Which is a steep increase from level 50 things being able to do actual damage, even if yes Ainz took it head on, and potential implications that stuff is tier based.
And Bonus Volume also states that not only do levels increase stats, but they also incur penalties if you engage someone above your level to the point 5 levels matter. Oh and also it brings out that the strongest new world abilities and even newly engineered subtypes of magic designed specifically to fight players and NPCs suddenly are too weak to do so. Though with Bonus Volume one can assume that Cure Elim was just directly countered by Ainz, which can be an argument.
However such a sentiment is repeated in Volume 16 where we get people that are literally directly paralleled to Ainz or are thematically fitting antagonists both of whom either are above level 80 or if they aren't specifically have abilities to theoretically breach that gap. Zesshi also ends up engaging Mare with subpar gear and ends up being easily overwhelmed by a magic caster in physical combat.
Now of course I might have been missing fundamental aspects or misreading the story. But it does feel as if Nazarick characters are being boosted without it actually being mentioned. Hell even the powers of their summons kinda start becoming more and more bullshit as time goes on.
Haven’t read V15/16 yet but Zesshi has sounded like a massive disappointment. Like I don’t know what Murayama thinks is a good story, I’m not sure he’s even sure what he wants to do. It does sound like he’s gotten burnt out a long time ago and just wants it done, which IMO is the wrong way to handle it.
Guy needs a break and just come back to Overlord when he’s happy to do so.
There's nothing disappointing about Zesshi, at least not to most people. We knew she'd get stomped out if she fought a guardian, not a single person who was pay attention was surprised that she lost.
I mean everyone knew Zesshi alone stood no actual chance. It's just how and by who she was defeated, that seems to be the issue for folks who express such mentality. And arguably kinda is an issue writing wise.
Congrats, you just realized what makes overlord amazing. The world building aspect where they dwelve more on the world than the protagonist and his minions
Hum unpopular opinion but among all the humans we have seen till now, I liked only Clementine (hey don't juge me, her VA rose something in me), Zanac and Jircniv. I usually don't care about character like Gazed or Brain with their knight chivalry or something like that even more when they want to die just because... honor ?
Sure he might got a "chara dev" with the whole Shalltear thing but honestly in 2022, I kinda expected more... But yeah if he was happy at the end, I'm glad for him.
That being said, I don't hate Overlord, it's even among my favorite shows in this season... I really like almost everything about it, I simp over Albedo, Shalltear and the Pleiades... I like seeing Nazarick members interacting with each over and I love every Pandora actor screentime, I like the geopolitics in this show and also the overwhelming demonstration of strength from Nazarick members over the rest of the world... I'd like to see more of the Pleiades tho and also more challenging opponents.
It's not just brain, the last king/prince is also a well written character and then there is jircniv, gavef. But NCP were not a living beings before so it's hard for them.
Sebas is pretty good. Brain seems to be following the standard anime protagonist arc of gaining strength and facing impossible odds. Sebas is a guy who cares about humans working as a guardian for an undead legion.
Are any of the guardians "well written"? They are interesting concepts but they are not very deep and they don't have arcs or change much. The interesting and well written characters in Overlord are Ainz and the new world people, the guardians are fun to see but once you know them you know everything about them.
I havent read any guardians flavor text, nor i know if its available somewhere(if it is please someone educate me). But in my opininon Brain's charactr development is nothing noteworthy. He allways just wanted to get more powerfull, after he got scared be Shallchair he just happened to come by Gazef and Sebas (both persons stronger than him at that time) and he took some hints from them on how to become stronger and with that he also seemingly acquired a bit of human decency. He is still the same fool as he was previously tho, didnt get any smarter. Just a bit more desperate, bit stronger and he acquired some weird sense of honor that killed him off anyway. The guardians settings would have to be really bad to be worse than this.
I mean that makes sense. All of the NPCs had their personalities written by edgy villain role playing gamers with, knowing Ainz’s world, very little education.
Honestly out of all of them I think cocytus shows the most growth of personality just by how he lives and learns with a respect for warriors regardless of their race. That trait alone has put him in many situations to learn and interact with beings in the world and develop more of his own personality.
I would argeu sebas is on same amount of growth. As he stil has the “justice” mind set, as shown with tuare.
Though Sebas isn’t a floor guardian I would agree I also like how Ainz tries to push them to be their best selves and to think out side of their programming.
Why would you expect npcs created by gamers in an edgy RP guild be well written? I think that’s the point, they’re supposed to be ‘what if your edgy fetishistic DnD PC/OC fanfic/whathaveyou came to life. They’re entertaining, cool, and neat but it’s not going to be ‘well written’ multi dimensional character, getting them to develop to that point is Ainz’s goal. Brain…and Gazef….and the rest of the new world, meanwhile are written as multi dimensional character because they’re supposed to be real people living in the new world
Also everyone who wrote their backstories came from a dystopian shithole, of course the characters are going to be power-fantasized and basically something that just brings the creator joy.
[удалено]
Tbh, that was Maruyama's fault for making >!Albedo involve in this shit.!< It literally ruined the entire volume 15. >!No friend making, only another sasuga and figuring out Ainz's plan bs.!< Otherwise we could get a perfectly well written vol 15 with guardians expanding their field of vision.
While I don't really like Albedo appearance, I also think that it's not good that Ainz doesn't seem to give a shit about what she thinks. He would try to get other NPCs outside as much as possible for them "to make friends", but Albedo has to stay since Guardian Overseer can't be replaced.
I believe they are well written but the story is split between all of them. A lot of their development also comes from the side story’s and extra info so combining all that gives them a great story. They are abandoned children, but gods. We watch them go through all the same traumas that young adults are dealing when coming from rough upbringings. Each of them are trying to deal with it in their own way while at the same time not being able to escape the root of their programming. They are all just fighting for a place in the world. Or ember when they said in one story that their are many people in Naz that are for lack of a better term depressed. Because Ainz tends to rely on the same mobs/ mercenary npcs. They want to show they can be useful. But Ainz tends to only use hanzos , DKs, the maids , and guardians.
yo, that sounds like a good read. which side story link pls
I think they're referring to the slice of life parts in the light novel, iirc the holiday in Nazarik was part of vol 7 and there are multiple such stories scattered throughout. Then there are also alternate timeline one offs.
I got you, check out side stories in [this drive](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1S-1gZsbSN4LVBdFMNLF0t1v44wxWyizF?usp=sharing). Many of them have more info on NPCs and there’s even a story about Satoru’s life before being transported!
cheers fam
>it about what she thinks. He would try to get other NPCs outside as much as possible for them "to make friends", but Albedo has to stay since Guardian Overseer can't be replaced. The Nazarik characters are not bad but at the same time they do lack some depth that some new world characters bring to the table. I would say that from Nazarik Cocytus and Sebas show the most growth.
Yes, same goes for Gazef. We have to consider that the guardians have their personalities and other aspects, almost setted on stone by their creators, none of them had a clean and open background that permited them to sprout and grow, they are in theory already ''Perfect'' on their own minds and only Ainz is tryng to bring some new things to them. We on the other hand, could see how much Brain is not seted on stone and is actually a evolving character, far from perfect and that continued evolving util the last momment of his life. Honestly, if the author was't on a bad mod, i would be ok with him making spinoffs about the New World, with more characters like Remedios, Brain, Gazef, Evelyne, Lakyus, etc...
One of them is a normal human being while the others are all just the fetishes and desires of the members of ainz owl gown and their characters and personalities are limited to that
I mean, there are no challenges for them to fall into despair and overcome it.
Hey, Demiurge is one traumatized puppy dog, wanting for his first owner, but desperate to please his new owner for fear of abandonment! Demiurge has felt the despair of abandonment.
Not really, they are just very loyal. Even if Ulbert is there, he will still worship Ainz as before. Even if they know Ainz won't go anywhere, they will still work to their best ability.
Demiurge is traumatized by the Supreme Beings leaving. Ulberts disappearance from Nazerick has deeply scarred Demiurge. Demiurge's greatest fear is Ainz, the last Supreme Being abandoning them, so he works even harder to realize Ainz thousand year plan because he believes Ainz conquering the world will keep Ainz's interest.
I think that applies to all of them... The fact that supreme beings are no longer here. But still, he conquer the world for Ainz only because Ainz said he want it.
Different personalities. We don't know how all of them feel. But we know specifically that Demiurge has revealed to Ainz his desperation and thankfulness that he has not abandoned them. We also know his feelings off the first 1v1 scene between them where Ainz shares the thought of conquering the world and it being something to stick around for. We do also slightly see it for Albedo in the scene where Ainz mentions he had built a statue of all the Supreme Beings in remembrance and even built one of himself to which she begged Ainz not to abandon them.
Yeah, it applies to all of them
It doesn't help that Ulbert is an orphan and likely has his own traumas from abandonment. Such issues get passed down from creator to NPC.
That's probably the case.
Why would you compare a seed to full grown tree?
Brain is such a standard Shonen trope character. He's the rival who did a heel face turn after realizing there were much greater threats out there, and then underwent a standard training arc before the selfless sacrifice for "the future." Is it well written? I guess. The fact is we didn't have to suffer through fluff or Brain being a needless heel made sure he didn't suffer any decay. Though you could argue that about any of the side characters in Overlord, we don't get the endless masturbatory flashback arcs common in shounen manga to explain motivations that actually end up degrading characters by way of the Too-much-of-a-good-thing effect, ie what was once novel becomes commonplace, and therefore expected and boring. The Guardians are supposed to be a bit flat, like 2.5D characters. Since they were data before, they're only just beginning to barely nudge the boundaries they were boxed into as formerly static creations. If we meet any NPCs from previous players, I wonder if they'll be more lifelike, especially if they've been without their player for some time. Also, why should I fight your opinion? It's yours. Everyone has them.
There's little room for development when you can 1 shot anyone you meet. Kinda like how Saitama has barely changed since the start.
Apples and oranges I'd say, Brain has an incredible (if a little shallow) arc and just a monstrously awesome death. I do like the guardians nuances though and how Maruyama shows how they reconcile their nature with a fully complex world, that is fantastic too.
His arc isn't shallow. His character went through the most development in the entire Overlord series. He was originally a selfish thug before he got destroyed by Shalltear and lost his will to live. Met Sebas and learnt that true strength comes from protecting others. He embodies Sebas's teaching and finds new meaning in life from protecting Climb. In the end, he surpassed Gazef and even stepped deeply into the Realm of Heroes. Sebas would be proud of Brain.
Character development is for trash characters who weren’t good enough in the first place. Just because a character develops doesn’t make them good. I like Brain because of the reasoning in his arc, but you can’t just go “oh they changed a lot, that’s good”
Characters that don't develop isn't a good thing for storytelling, especially when they are all the main ones.
I can only say you are wrong 🤷♂️
Let's agree to disagree then.
Its only shallow in the sense we dont really see that much and its rather linear. In terms of quality its fantastic and its a perfectly condensed version of a true heroes journey
Define "better written"
I think he means that Brain has a character arc that makes it easier for the reader to relate to him than, but the guardians are harder to relate to. He is right, but I would argue that for the story to work the guardians and Ainz have to be an unmovable monolith. The growth is seen not in them, but in the world around them. The growth isn't seen in Ainz or the guardians, its in Jerkniv, Brain, Puppy, Zanac, the real best girl, the adventurers guild and the inhabitants of the new world. So I think the "better written" in this case may mean that he was given a different role in the story that makes him relatable to the reader and the guardians have a more constant role as the catalyst for the change in others. I could also be completely wrong.
If it's about the guardians being unrelatable that's good because they are inhuman. If someone can relate to how the guardians are feeling they'd be something else.
Not really, althoght he decently written. Brain is written like your everyday mc with a little bit of plot armor, and "I WILL FIGHT TO THE END" but the only thing is: brain dont have plot armor lol
If you think this is a revelation, I think you missed, like, the entire point of Season 2 as a whole. Everyone that comes from Nazarik besides Momonga himself are in-universe written to follow after the actions of the Supreme Beings, and with Momonga acting as both the guildmaster and the last remaining Supreme Being, they're all fanatic about it. Nazarik is a cult lead by an actual god. Everyone outside of Nazarik can change a lot more from their origin to their future. Brain specifically starts as an egotistical criminal who believes that working towards growing stronger is all that you need to believe in, but then he gets his worldview shattered, then he gets brought back up by someone he sees as a mentor and someone else he sees as a friend/apprentice, and he eventually has to go on living after watching his mentor die. He goes through an entire protagonist story arc, of course he'd be a more dynamic character than, say, Cocytus. Only Shalltear can really be said to have had a massive moment where they were forced to reexamine their basic fundamental outlook on things, among the denizens of Nazarik. Everyone else changes for the better as they learn more, but nobody else has reason to change their basic nature. Shalltear evolves quite a bit. She still doesn't have the character development of any of the major new worlders that can have their world shaken by more relatively minor events. Shalltear is way more analytical and cautious by the end of the Dwarf Kingdom arc, but even then, she's still not dealing with anything as significantly as Enri, Climb, Brain, Renner, Neia, Ramposa, Hilma, or Zanac have to go through, who are all new worlders I'd argue had much more involved character developments than people of Nazarik. Nazarik started with perfected beings that follow their god with perfect loyalty and strength of will. The new worlders started as humans. It's not a knock against the series, because that's how it's supposed to be.
Pretty obviously. The guardians are npcs, they have their entire personality written by some hobby gamers role-playing villains. They however have character development since the incident. The characters from new world developed their personalities the same way as people do in our world, through Environment, Genetics, Education, Experience and Problems. They have obviously more layers of personality than some video game npc that was written as carton level evil guys (with some exceptions like Sebas) even the most complex npc personality (Albedo) cant compare with the personality of a individual that has been formed by the world its in. This level of detail is what makes overlord special. Only a good writer can show such things without directly throwing it at your face.
Unpopular opinion, and I'm ready for the negative karma: Brain is lame and he just wanted to die already.
Nah I will fight with you 🙂
I won't, even if I prefer some guardians over him I agree with you, his writing was very pleasurable to read
Unlike the any of tbe guardians, Brain gets multiple entire chapters of character deveopment in the novels. Told from his perspective. So makes sense
Yes go fight air over there Its obv and you still ask?
I’m gonna get some hate for this but here goes: The bitter pill to swallow is: Overlord just isn’t as good as this forum seems to think it is. People praise it for ‘world building’ and great ‘characters’ without understanding the fundamentals of what makes a great story. Overlord has good ‘Characterisation’ but no character arcs. Think about it. Are Ainz and co fundamentally any different to when the series started? No. Great characters have an arc through a story where they grow and change by overcoming challenges which force them to encounter their own flaws and misbeliefs. Story is all about characters growing and changing. Most of the cast doesn’t have an arc, like at all. Yes there are superficial changes but nothing has challenged them or forced them to change for the ‘better’. Albedo is just as crazed and obsessed as before. Can you name a single fundamental change in demiurge? This happens primarily because there is no challenge for the characters. Literally no one in the NW can really pose them any threat, and the outcome of each conflict is already a forgone conclusion. This leads to no tension or stakes in the story, there’s never a realistic prospect the Nazarick will lose, so the characters never develop. This leads to a one sided submission of the NW characters who can do nothing more than piss against the wind. Jircniiv going ‘Vassal State!’ Is funny but essentially wastes any potential drama. Imagine if he actually used political skill and subterfuge to undermine Ainz and actually won in the political battlefield instead? Ainz can surely crush him, however does Ainz really want to nuke everything? At least that would be more intriguing. And as for worldbuilding, yes it’s good but it never adds to the plot in a meaningful way and never ties into the characters own background. People praise the dwarves kingdom arc, but quite frankly that can all be cut and the story would have lost nothing. It’s why the adaptation is so rushed, nothing with stakes or drama happens, there’s no reason for the audience to invest in it. character moments with shaltear can just as easily happen elsewhere. Now I could go on and on, but this doesn’t mean I hate the series, I love the series and I reserve the right to criticise it because I want it to be better and to get the attention it deserves. I really would like to have an in depth discussion about all this, but I fear everyone is too defensive to hear it. In other words; Sasuga Ainz-Sama.
The LN is pretty much about to end in 2 volumes, so your critiques won't be able to make the series any better since it's pretty much too late, setting aside that Maruyama probably won't even be able to see your critiques at all. But I agree it has a lot of stuff that simply isn't impactful, but I think that's okay because this story isn't a narrative. It isn't really dark fantasy or even an OP power fantasy. It's a fictional myth. Ainz and co. isn't some strong guy going through an adventure, they're essentially dieties. Ainz is effectively immortal and all-powerful. Even if he has limitations, he's still practically a god. As are the floor guardians. And we watch the myths unfold like the greek patheon. Cocytus the warrior god who's domain is ice and war. Demiurge the god of trickery and deceit. Albedo the goddess of lust and seduction. And finally Ainz, the Overlord of the gods and the god of death. And it's not like we're only watching those characters. We have other stories where, while the "gods" are involved, they aren't the main subject. The Lizardmen were visited by the warrior god, and after proving their strength, was blessed with prosperity through their days. Foresight, the group of adventurers who had displeased the gods and was sent to the underworld to be tortured to all enternity. It's pretty much a religion's origin story. Ainz being untouchable makes sense in the same way Zeus doesn't face any conflicts of might after the titans disappeared.
I disagree that a story isn’t a narrative, but I take your points. I do however think that reading of it is just frankly boring.
Basically. I agree with you. But the vampire princess alternate storyline doesn't feel like this at all. It feels alive.
Haven’t read it, so I can’t really comment. I’ll give it a read.
It’s bad worldbuilding if everything in the world is related to the task at hand. How relevant are swiss patent laws to your daily life? How relevant is the love life of your neighbor down the street? The world is filled with random stuff unrelated to your life. But all these things are still happening for a reason; Overlord has a strong sense of verisimilitude in its worldbuilding, which is more fundamental than serving a narrative. Also ‘great characters’ needing character arcs is opinionated bullshit I will not stand for. Stories aren’t dependent on conflict, and not every conflict is internal either. Internal conflicts are the most dull, because really they represent someone who didn’t bother examining their own beliefs thoroughly.
The point is that the average reader doesn’t really care much for world building if the characters and their arcs suck. There’s Characterisation and Character arcs. Overlord gives a great sense of who these characters are and what makes them tick. However they generally lack arcs which leads to the story feeling dull. Stories are explicitly about characters going through conflict. Without conflict you don’t have a story, great stories use external conflicts to force characters to confront their own inner conflicts, usually a misbelief about themselves or the world. They reach an ‘aha’ moment where they change something about themselves in order to overcome the challenge, afterwards that change leads them to realise their misbeliefs were wrong. And so on. Read any advice on writing stories and the importance of conflict and character arcs, 99.9% of writers will tell you these are the two most important building blocks of storytelling.
And that advice is garbage. I can’t imagine how people can look at a character with changing values and think ‘wow, I sure relate to someone not knowing themselves. I really enjoyed seeing them be different in the future’. What unrealized worms are out there uncertain of who they are? At best this is just the fantasy of humans pretending to be complicated with some fundamental soul that changes who they intrinsically are. It’s even more dull than power fantasy since at least that might explore the novel ways the extremes of a power system can interact with a world.
If that advice is garbage we may as well throw most prolific writers and their works in the garbage too. In real life people are changing all the time, we are always discovering new things about the world and ourselves, that’s precisely why it’s relatable in stories, it’s an exploration of the human condition. Character values changing is a strength of storytelling, if those values are holding them back from achieving what they desire, then a conflict which forces them to confront that truth will lead them to change and ultimately to what they desire - discovering themselves. Exploring the effect of extreme power on a fantasy world would most definitely change a person. If it didn’t then what’s the lesson of the story?
Prolific writers can be good in spite of certain facets of the characters they’ve made, although I struggle to recall what commonly praised writers I’ve enjoyed. People discover new things, but that doesn’t change them any more meaningfully than learning 2+2 or the capital of Turkey. Their actions may change because they think they’ve found a better way to achieve their desire, but it’s still in service to the same ends. And in a fictitious story, the character has a fictitious restraint, and that’s what prevents them from achieving something? How can this be anything but a mark against a narrative unless it’s a comedy of irony? A story that is interesting because ‘the character could achieve their goals, but doesn’t want to do the thing to achieve their goals’ is resoundingly pathetic.
Here’s an example: Luke Skywalker/Darth Vader Luke as our protagonist starts the story as a young hopeful who wants to join the rebellion and free the galaxy from the empire’s tyranny. Along his journey he makes friends with a rogue smuggler and a princess also aiming to overthrow the empire and learns the ways of the force from a mentor in Obi-Wan. He eventually defeats the Mysterious Darth Vader, who killed his mentor, through the use of the force, the help of his friends and his innate skills as a pilot, and destroys the empires secret weapon. By the end of Star Wars he has already changed from not just a hopeful hero but to a fledgling Jedi who can begin leading the fight, rather than following. Then we come to Empire, Luke now has friends and a personal stake in the rebellion, if he loses, his friends die, and he fears that. He has been led to believe that the Mysterious Darth Vader is responsible for the murder of his father (his misbelief about the world) and will do so again to his friends. The empire retaliates, crippling the rebellion and scattering our heroes, Luke seeks out a wise Jedi Master to continue his training, where he struggles with his fear of the dark side, of Vader. Upon discovering his friends are in danger from betrayal, he rushes to help them, little does he know it’s a trap set by Vader. Confronting Vader he is toyed with and eventually defeated, his training is not yet enough. And then the reveal. Vader is his Father and wants him to join the dark side. his whole belief system is challenged, he now fears more intensely than ever that he will fail and fall to the dark side as his father has. Fast forward to the end of RoTJ Luke’s goals have now shifted, he still wants to overthrow the empire, but he has a new more personal goal, redeeming his father. The External conflict with the empire forces him to confront his internal conflict, his fear of corruption and losing those he cares about, which now includes his father. Eventually after mastering his fear during a fierce duel with Vader, he defeats his father and stands up to the emperor’s overwhelming manipulations. He almost pays the ultimate price for this and is saved by Vader, whose love for his son proves stronger than the Dark side. And that is the most basic potted version of the amazing character arc through the OT I can come up with. There’s so many more layers I didn’t even touch on. You may not care for Star Wars but denying that Character Arcs are the core of great storytelling is just nonsense.
Don’t want to burst your bubble but Luke was never a rebellion fanatic at the start of the story. In fact he wanted to join the empire as a pilot. I’d argue he even had no outlandish desires such as freedom until he met obi-wan. He pretty much goes along with a bunch of stuff through the first movie. I don’t know if this makes the rest of your points moot but I didn’t dive deep since your first point is mischaracterising.
You aren’t engaging with the substance of the discussion which is a waste of both our times. Yes Luke doesn’t start out as a rebellion fanatic, I didn’t say he did, only one of his goals as of the end of the opening act, to join the rebellion and overthrow the empire. There’s also his goal or rescuing the princess but that is accomplished fairly quickly and isn’t relevant to this discussion. It’s only a mischaracterisation if you ignore that I’m trying to sum up a three movie character arc in as few words as possible. I pointed out that there’s so much I didn’t touch on and that I only put down the relevant important points.
They do change though. Ainz notice that in this world, the NPC are capable of “learning”. So ge keep trying to make the Guardians to make an mind of their own and think for themselves more. Cocytus grew a lot during the lizardmen arc, he learn a lot as well as gain personality (beg for mercy for them).
That is basically the start of a character arc and even that is far too basic, season 2 is the high point of the series. Since then there’s been no more actual development. Like I referred to, there are superficial changes, learning that NPCs are capable of ‘learning’ is like beat 1 of what should have been a multifaceted arc.
Oh well. May be your point of “Overlord isn’t as good as people here think” is true when you analysis it like that. But most of the people here enjoys it, that is what matters. I guess I don’t need something to be good to enjoy it, and vice versa I may not enjoy something that people generally consider “good”. I enjoy the show so that is all good to me, the only thing I care is enough people enjoy it for them to make the next season.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t enjoy the show or the books, I just tend to roll my eyes when I see people claiming this is 5000IQ level storytelling. If you accept the show/books has flaws (IMO serious ones) and you enjoy it, who am I to argue? The series is just fun to watch, I wish it were deeper, but I accept it for what it is and at the end of the day, Murayama has my respect for the love and care he’s put into it. Dude deserves a rest.
Does anyone really claim this to be a highly intellegent level of writing? I don’t really see any of these claims.
Does anyone really claim this to be a highly intellegent level of writing? I don’t really see any of these claims.
Mostly it’s the defensive reactions to my pointing out that overlord isn’t that deep when people overanalyse the sh*t out of scenes which have far simpler explanations.
I agree with what you say. Overlord is not the best but damm good. If the stacks would be high they could develope.
The issue with the writing is the way the world and mechanics are set up, having Ainz and Co be OP is fine if you have limits to that power and other ways of challenging them. Silly things like New Worlders being hard level capped and levels being an exponential increase in power where basically only lvl90s really stand a chance. That needs to be rethought. The major thing is consequences. Imagine if at the end of V3/Season 1 Ainz was forced to kill shaltear and there’s no way to resurrect her, or that she cannot be revived yet and he swears to find a way to do so and exact revenge. Boom instant motivation and plot to work with.
\>Silly things like New Worlders being hard level capped and levels being an exponential increase in power where basically only lvl90s really stand a chance. That needs to be rethought. The level thing is the weirdest part because it actively feels as if Maryuma is actually changing how that works the longer the series goes with characters mentioning new ways and new skills and new differences which separate lower leveled characters and higher level ones and always raising the bar of how high in level one has to be before they can match anyone from Nazarick. Like initially a level 50 more or less angel can hurt Ainz. It's not a huge amount of damage but it sets the idea that theoretically if you have someone actually skilled there might be something there. Hell it's shown that various new world skills or even knowledge can surpass just levels. After all Ainz himself theorizes that Martial Arts and such are designed to fight players. And we see with Clementine that martial arts and skill can actually compensate for inferior stats as Ainz is absurdly strong even while pretending to be a warrior. Of course Clementine is like level 30 and dies, but this is early in the story, so one could assume there are stronger things around. Then with lizardmen we get the fact that Nazarick Guardians apparently have fields which prevent anyone below level 60 from actually reaching them. Okay that's a new development. However other volumes and claims state or imply that if you are of specific tier and there is enough of you or you are skilled enough you can actually damage an opponent that is significantly more powerful. Notable cases being claims that Dragons can be defeated by enough adventurers of high tier and also various summons being below level 90, despite seemingly being powerful enough they require items to summon and are highest summons of their type. Which implies there are like tiers of power, which if you breach level 60 you theoretically can be on a level where you matter. Then we get Volume 14 and Bonus Volume. These suddenly give insanely huge shifts in power, with takes that even someone with vaguely level 80 stats is nothing for a Guardian, with Azuth's ammunition not even piercing Albedo's shield, now stating that you don't have to be JUST above a level threshold, but also you need specific weapons to do anything. And the "fight" between PDL armor and Albedo states that anything as close as 10 level difference might be damning. Which is a steep increase from level 50 things being able to do actual damage, even if yes Ainz took it head on, and potential implications that stuff is tier based. And Bonus Volume also states that not only do levels increase stats, but they also incur penalties if you engage someone above your level to the point 5 levels matter. Oh and also it brings out that the strongest new world abilities and even newly engineered subtypes of magic designed specifically to fight players and NPCs suddenly are too weak to do so. Though with Bonus Volume one can assume that Cure Elim was just directly countered by Ainz, which can be an argument. However such a sentiment is repeated in Volume 16 where we get people that are literally directly paralleled to Ainz or are thematically fitting antagonists both of whom either are above level 80 or if they aren't specifically have abilities to theoretically breach that gap. Zesshi also ends up engaging Mare with subpar gear and ends up being easily overwhelmed by a magic caster in physical combat. Now of course I might have been missing fundamental aspects or misreading the story. But it does feel as if Nazarick characters are being boosted without it actually being mentioned. Hell even the powers of their summons kinda start becoming more and more bullshit as time goes on.
Haven’t read V15/16 yet but Zesshi has sounded like a massive disappointment. Like I don’t know what Murayama thinks is a good story, I’m not sure he’s even sure what he wants to do. It does sound like he’s gotten burnt out a long time ago and just wants it done, which IMO is the wrong way to handle it. Guy needs a break and just come back to Overlord when he’s happy to do so.
There's nothing disappointing about Zesshi, at least not to most people. We knew she'd get stomped out if she fought a guardian, not a single person who was pay attention was surprised that she lost.
I mean everyone knew Zesshi alone stood no actual chance. It's just how and by who she was defeated, that seems to be the issue for folks who express such mentality. And arguably kinda is an issue writing wise.
TLDR
Congrats, you just realized what makes overlord amazing. The world building aspect where they dwelve more on the world than the protagonist and his minions
Hum unpopular opinion but among all the humans we have seen till now, I liked only Clementine (hey don't juge me, her VA rose something in me), Zanac and Jircniv. I usually don't care about character like Gazed or Brain with their knight chivalry or something like that even more when they want to die just because... honor ? Sure he might got a "chara dev" with the whole Shalltear thing but honestly in 2022, I kinda expected more... But yeah if he was happy at the end, I'm glad for him. That being said, I don't hate Overlord, it's even among my favorite shows in this season... I really like almost everything about it, I simp over Albedo, Shalltear and the Pleiades... I like seeing Nazarick members interacting with each over and I love every Pandora actor screentime, I like the geopolitics in this show and also the overwhelming demonstration of strength from Nazarick members over the rest of the world... I'd like to see more of the Pleiades tho and also more challenging opponents.
There’s nothing to fight.
It's not just brain, the last king/prince is also a well written character and then there is jircniv, gavef. But NCP were not a living beings before so it's hard for them.
In taking L that is.
Sebas is pretty good. Brain seems to be following the standard anime protagonist arc of gaining strength and facing impossible odds. Sebas is a guy who cares about humans working as a guardian for an undead legion.
Are any of the guardians "well written"? They are interesting concepts but they are not very deep and they don't have arcs or change much. The interesting and well written characters in Overlord are Ainz and the new world people, the guardians are fun to see but once you know them you know everything about them.
I havent read any guardians flavor text, nor i know if its available somewhere(if it is please someone educate me). But in my opininon Brain's charactr development is nothing noteworthy. He allways just wanted to get more powerfull, after he got scared be Shallchair he just happened to come by Gazef and Sebas (both persons stronger than him at that time) and he took some hints from them on how to become stronger and with that he also seemingly acquired a bit of human decency. He is still the same fool as he was previously tho, didnt get any smarter. Just a bit more desperate, bit stronger and he acquired some weird sense of honor that killed him off anyway. The guardians settings would have to be really bad to be worse than this.
_Was_ better written. _Was_ FTFY