So yesterday I watched the Overlord: The Holy Kingdom movie. Now, if you’re familiar with the Overlord light novels you’ll know that season 4 of the anime did this really weird thing, where it adapted volumes 10-11 and 14, *skipping* volume 12 and volume 13 entirely. That was actually quite a bit of a bummer because those two volumes, covering Ainz’s adventures in the Roble Holy Kingdom, were arguably the single best part of the Overlord! Thankfully, this arc WOULD end up getting its own anime adaptation, in the form this very movie. With animation far superior to that of the regular seasonal anime and a healthy runtime of 2 hours 15 minutes, would Studio Madhouse do justice to this fan favorite storyline?
The answer is…not really - but based on the mixed fan reception I’d seen prior to watching the film, that was to be expected (and I’m talking feedback from actual fans, not the retards over at IGN giving it a 4/10). The main problem is that volumes 12 and 13 of Overlord really deserved a full 13 episode anime season, and that compressing these two meaty volumes into even a decently long movie inevitably results in a lot of muscle being cut, not just fat (by contrast, volumes 15 and 16 contain so much fat that an anime adaptation would greatly benefit from ruthless editing). And yeah, this Writeup will very much be judging this movie *as an adaptation*, so lots of Spoilers will follow.
Given its obvious limitations, the movie does a fairly good job of presenting us with the core story of the Roble Holy Kingdom being invaded by the overwhelmingly powerful demon emperor Jaldabaoth and his armies of demi-human tribes, how the surviving Paladins manage to secure the aid of the undead Sorcerer King himself, Ainz Ooal Gown, in their quest to liberate their country, and how this odd couple pairing of holy paladins and a skeletal lich eventually manage to achieve their goal. In the process, Ainz gains the undying loyalty of the young Paladin squire Neia Baraja, who unintentionally ends up becoming the leader of a cult worshiping His Majesty and spreading his particular brand of Justice. Of course, the true story is far less straightforward, and Ainz is far less of a benevolent and wise figure than we’re led to believe – though his incredible, game-breaking magical power is certainly the real deal. Ironically it’s the bigoted and bullheaded Remedios Custodio, the Paladin Grandmaster, who ends up hitting the nail on the head when she at one point insists (without cause or evidence) that Ainz must be in cahoots with Jaldabaoth.
It’s a great Isekai storyline, brought to life by memorable characters and moments, as well as superb world building – though the latter predictably is given short shrift in the movie. Most other elements are in place, though abridged and diminished – again, the movie has had to cut A LOT of worthwhile scenes. You barely get introduced to Calca, the beautiful and saintly Holy Queen before she suffers her cruel and undignified death at the hands of Jaldabaoth (the light novel by contrast built her up as a potential main character, which just made the tragedy of what happens and the feeling of helplessness so much more powerful), and we aren’t even shown Ainz’s fight with Buser the Bafolk King, which in the light novel not only makes Neia realize how insanely OP Ainz is, but which also results in Neia procuring her trademark green scale armor (Ainz took it from Buser and gave it to her afterwards, the armor being worthless by Nazarick standards, but legendary in the New World).
That right there is of course a big part of Overlord’s appeal – the story reminds me a fair bit of One Punch Man, in that you have this big, fully realized setting populated by genuinely powerful heroes and villains, and then you plop this crazy fucking busted character down into it who completely invalidates all the existing characters and conflicts – only in the case of Overlord, it’s an entire Guild Base full of powerful NPCs that suddenly appeared in the New World.
The movie does an okay enough job of showing that characters like Remedios and Vijar are actually quite strong in their own right, when not compared to godlike entities who can casually drop summon meteors and detonate nukes – but again, the light novel does it so much better, and the fight between these aforementioned two Hero-level (level 30+) characters, a rare spectacle in the New World, was way shorter than I’d hoped. Indeed, most of the action scenes were shorter than I’d have liked, especially Ainz’s first battle with Jaldabaoth, which is SUCH a shame because that’s like the only fight in the entire series besides the duel with Shalltear where Ainz himself is actually put under serious pressure (due to the overlord handicapping himself significantly ahead of the clash). The best action set piece was Neia’s desperate, doomed defense of the Loyts western gate, which was genuinely tense and exciting – though still not as good as its light novel counterpart (though admittedly, me having the movie’s rocking theme song Wheeler-Dealer playing while reading definitely helped get that adrenaline pumping). Also, while the movie looks lovely and the animation is mostly really nice, there were definitely some moments of iffy fight choreography where various demi-humans clearly just stand around waiting to be cut down.
In terms of characterization, the movie mostly does the main players justice – though poor Remedios probably is done no favors by the fact that despite all the cut content, the movie still seemingly found time to include all her instances of Neia Abuse, and without even mentioning the reason Remedios was such a bitch to Neia. It was a bad reason, (Neia was the one member of the Paladin delegation who was not a part of Remedios’s original team of Paladins who fought Jaldabaoth and witnessed his atrocities, and therefore was the one person Remedios felt comfortable taking out all her frustration out on), but at least it was, you know, a reason.
Still, the movie does get across that Remedios for all her faults is both noble and unflinchingly courageous – and there’s even a really nice piece of subtle character writing, where Remedios in an early conversation with Ainz first shows herself to be only Paladin to truly have taken note of the maid demons that were part of Jaldabaoth’s army, before she without a hint of embarrassment tells Ainz (the Sorcerer King) that she knows absolutely NOTHING about magic (which you absolutely SHOULD be ashamed of in this setting, because even if you’re not a magic caster you never know when you’ll have to fight alongside or against one). In a very effective and economic way this scene gets across that Remedios is very sharp and observant when it comes to battle (she instantly noticed the maids and recognized them as potential threats, despite their outfits), while also being extremely book dumb (and completely unashamed of it).