Overlord IV

Overlord is an award winning work. It is now recognised as a classic in the animation and light novel worlds winning many writing awards . The number of animes Overlord not only inspired in every genre but became popular due to the inspiration is enormous.

It has to be in the hundred thousand. This season alone, there are at least two animes inspired by it.

Let me make this clear, noboby watches Overlord for action or fights.What is great about Overlord is that It gets better every season which is rare. It's not the only show like this but usually the majority of shows gets worse over time.

Overlord does not become stale because of two reasons. First, the characters. The characters make a show. You can have the most beautiful animation in the world but with trash characters, the show is still trash. Overlord has a lot of characters which means the variety of interactions keep it from getting boring. Also, the characters are independent from the main character.

A thing I hate about a show is how everything revolves around the main character. Thankfully , Overlord doesn't have this problem. Each character in Overlord continues to exist without Ainz. There are a lot of characters doing things without Ainz 's knowledge.

There was a world and people before Ainz came. Even his guardians which are created to be slaves show signs of disloyalty from time to time and goes against his orders.

Each season, new characters appear and they are perfectly implemented in the story. Another thing is the recuring characters grow and get character development. Ainz from season 4 is completely different from season 1.

Second, The unpredictability due to the worldbuilding. Overlord is top three animes with the most named characters and each character is important to the plot so the worldbuilding is insane. Overlord is so deep that the author introduces new things constantly.

PDL got introduced two seasons ago and it's right now we are getting to the meat of his character. Antilene got introduced in season 2 but it's in season 5 that she will appear again. A powersuit got introduced this season which seems out of nowhere but got foreshadowed seasons ago. Maruyama does this a lot. He introduces things in chapter 1 that he is going to reuse in chapter 1000.

Overlord's world is so big that the ending will not be a true ending. It's impossible for Maruyama to finish all the plot points unless he continues to write for another decade. The ending will be an open ending because he can not end Overlord. It's too complex with too many characters and too many plot points.

Also, The author uses Ainz in the story as an unreliable narrator. This kind of writing is tricky because it can be confusing if not done well. Not many authors can use an unreliable narrator well.

Ainz is lying to us throughout the story. Ainz is so well written some people still believe Ainz is a villain because of the system or because of Nazarick, lmao.

Poor Ainz, he is so pitiful because he is influenced by the system. He lost his humanity. He has to do evil because of the guardians, lmao. If Ainz wants to do good, Nazarick will do good. The guardians love him and are very loyal. Ainz is aware of this. This shows the genius of Maruyama. He made some people sympathize with Ainz.

Another thing I love about Overlord is how unpredictable it is. Finally, a show with thoughts put into It. There are plot twists on top of another plot twists. If you seriously tell me you predicted all things that happened in season 4 and all other seasons, I will call absolutely bullshit.

Overlord is one of the most unpredictable shows of all time. There are characters acting behind the scenes and characters nobody knew existed. How can you even guess their moves ? Ainz himself has plans he doesn't reveal till he starts them. You never know what he is going to do

One of Ainz's struggles is he can not let go of the past. He still searching for friendship, for a fairytale. The guardians on the contrary can move forward but they are still bound by the past. They can not forget that their creators abandoned them. This creates this toxic or wholesome relationship, it depends on how you see it, between Ainz and the guardians. They are heavily dependent on each other.