It’s rather refreshing watching a show and not knowing what to expect.  From experience, at least; I assume my knowledge of tropes and low-level morphic resonance will allow me to make up for that.

We begin with an introduction to DMMORPGs, which are basically MMOs, only much more immersive.  Oh, and it’s set 100 years into the future.

The DMMORPG Yggdrasil is shutting down, and our hero, who we only know by his character name “Momonga,” plans to spend his night staying in Yggdrasil until the very end.  He sits in his guild hall alone, as none of his guildies seem as attached to all they’ve accomplished as Momonga.

I’m going to take a step back and talk about the opening and some of the graphics in it.

First, the opening song is… just okay.  Kinda catchy, but I’m skipping it 80% of the time.

Next… graphics:

Okay, it’s probably really hard to tell from static images, but: I fucking swear, I’ve seen this exact style used in an obscure (plus low-budget and overall crappy) hentai title called Norowareta Heya.

We also learn a little about his guild, like how everyone in it has to use a non-human and be working.  Together, the crafted a legendary item and built a guild hall that could never be conquered.  And one of the members designed most of the guild hall’s defender NPCs, including the throne guardian, Albedo.  Since no one’s around to stop him, Momonga changes Albedo’s final character trait (that she’s a total bitch inside) to “deeply in love with Momonga.”

As the clock ticks down to the game’s final seconds, Momonga closes his eyes… then opens them to see the game’s still alive and kicking.  Also, his guild’s NPCs all seem to be acting on their own.  Also, he can’t see his UI or contact GMs or players.  Yep, this is a player-trapped-in-an-MMO series.  Sorta.

While Momonga tries to figure out what happened, he does a few obvious tests.

So yeah… this is the real life, apparently.

Predictably, Momonga doesn’t go all the way because… this isn’t an ecchi enough series, apparently…

He also sends his butler-like NPC, Sebas, to investigate the outside of the hall and calls all the guardians to gather at the arena in an hour.

Most of our time is spent on Momonga trying to figure out the rules of the world he now finds himself in.  He no longer has a UI to interact with, but he can cast magic and use items naturally, and it seems he’s to some degree still limited to the mechanics of the game.

Any time not spent on Momonga trying to figure out what’s going on is spent on learning more about the guild hall’s NPC guardians.  Though often, we’re doing both at the same time.  Two of the guardians are siblings: Aura, the girl that dresses like a boy, and Mare, the boy that dresses like a girl.

Momonga tests out his magic and we witness Aura and Mare’s combat prowess.

We finish the first episode off with all the guardians (except Gargantua and Victim, which I presume is because they’re too big, but that’s just a guess) gathering in one spot and performing the “ritual of fidelity,” which is basically just bowing and swearing loyalty to Momonga.

Moving on to the second episode… we start off by re-introducing all of the guardians with an EXTENDED version of the ritual of fidelity.  It literally retcons the last minute of the previous episode to further flesh out the guardians.  Thank you for wasting my fucking time.

So, new info: We learn that Shalltear stuffs her bra and is a pure vampire, Aura seems to have some kind of teasing rivalry whatever going on, Cocytus is your stereotypical hardened veteran, and Demiurge is the de facto leader when defending the hall.

Also, Shalltear seems to be in love with Momonga, this time without any editing hax involved.

Naturally, this means Shalltear is on Albedo’s bad side.  And thank gawd she actually does have a bad side, because I was worried all we would be getting is this boring fawning-over-Momonga personality.  I like seeing glimpses of her intended character shining through.

I mean, she’s still boring as fuck, but less so like this.

Sebas gives a report that the area outside of the hall has changed from swamp to grassy flatlands.  Momonga orders that the hall be hidden by covering it in dirt and creating fake hills surrounding it so it doesn’t stand out as much.

It can be fleeting at times, but we learn that the NPCs see Momonga and the other guild members as the “supreme beings” who created them, and they look up to Momonga partially because he’s the being who stayed with them “to the very end.”  That’s VERY interesting wording, because one would expect that the NPCs would treat this world as basically their natural reality.  They all seem to have shared history and memories, yet this reference to “the end” means that the shutting down of the game has some kind of meaning to them.  You just have to wonder exactly how much the NPCs know.

As for me, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the MMO version of Toy Story.

We learn more about the game restricting Momonga’s actions when he can’t wield a sword (unless it’s been created by magic… so Conjures, basically), and apparently the reason he won’t just jump on the girls is because some mysterious force has some effect on his personality.  This… is very worrying.  In the first episode, we got the feeling Momonga is okay living in this world because he has no attachment to his real life of going to work and coming back home to do fuck all.  But now it seems like his personality is being eroded by the game (or whatever).  Especially creepy is when Demiurge makes mention of it being for the best of Momonga sires an heir for the NPCs to worship.

So… they live for worshipping someone?  This IS Toy Story, isn’t it?

Anyway, when Demiurge explains the heir thing to Cocytus, the big guy gets excited about being an uncle.  And that’s the point when Cocytus became my favorite character.

So yeah, more setup, some scenes of Momonga beholding the wonders of this world, him offhandedly mentioning to Demiurge it might be fun to take over the world…

We end the episode with an army somewhere outside planning something.

So, that’s the first two episodes of Overlord.  It’s an interesting premise with fun designs… but I’m not entirely sold on it yet.  There’s definitely potential there, but I was hoping to be hooked after two episodes.  I’m going to give it two more episodes to wow me, but I have this nagging feeling I might drop it after six.  And to be honest, most of that comes from watching the ED.  It’s just well-drawn pictures of Albedo, and it’s obvious they want Albedo to be the popular breakout character that sells all the merchandise.  The problem?  ALBEDO. IS. BORING.  I haven’t been given a single reason to be interested in her, either as a character or as a sex object.  She brings nothing to the table.  Now, maybe if somewhere down the line she has an identity crisis of some sort and she realizes Momonga manipulated her into being how she is now, that would be… pretty fucking amazing.  But as she is now?  BORING.  John Oliver, do you have anything to add regarding the way she makes me feel?

That’s about right.