As a fan of the Overlord series I went into this thing pretty excited, and don’t get me wrong, there are some good things here. However, even as a fan, I found that there were a lot of creative or editing decisions made that were a little disappointing. Since this movie is effectively Season 5 of the anime, I’ll refrain from spoiling things as best I can. Let us proceed.
OVERLORD: The Sacred Kingdom - Official Trailer (English Subtitles)
Directed by Naoyuki Itô and written by Naoyuki Itô and Kugane Maruyama, Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom takes place after the events of season 4 of the anime. The central plot of the movie is that The Sacred Kingdom has been at war with the various beastman races in their region, but the tide of battle drastically turns against them when the demon lord Jaldabaoth takes charge. Using his terrifying power, Jaldabaoth begins a brutal campaign against the humans. After a horrifying battle and loss of their capitol, the survival of their sacred princess and leadership in question, the Paladin-led forces of the Roble Sacred Kingdom are pushed into a desperate choice: to seek the aid of the undead ruler of the Sorcerer Kingdom.
Their plea: to grant them the aid of the hero dark warrior Momonga, the one who defeated Jaldabaoth in a prior crisis. To their dismay Momonga is unavailable, and their kingdom seems doomed. However, when hope seems lost and to their shock, Ainz himself volunteers to help them personally, much to the chagrin of the proud and undead-loathing leader of the Paladin Order. Thus begins the campaign to defeat the demon-led beastmen and restore the Sacred Kingdom.
The Sacred Kingdom story arc of the series has some excellent character drama and heart breaking moments. There are characters you want to root for and those you want to get their dues. I’m not saying that the story is so complicated that the movie is totally unwatchable. I think any attentive person can pick up what’s going on, but it would just flow and hit better if you’ve seen the anime or read the light novels. If you choose to go into this thing cold, the only courtesy this movie gives is just a short crawl to catch you up where the plot is. And even then, what they give you is just the bare bones. Heh. Bare bones. A lot of Ainz’s personality quirks will be lost on the uninitiated.
Many characters identities and their importance can be lost to the new viewer, especially their motivations. One of the strong points of Overlord, in my opinion, is that the audience would be in-the-know of certain things established in prior events and certain moments in the movie that should have been funnier or had more weight would just come off as flat or confusing. These points alone make the movie a weak stand alone film.
Another issue I had with this format decision was the loss of key moments and battles. For example, at the start of the movie during the moment the paladins were on their way to meet Ainz, they did a great job establishing drama and stakes. They even had the audacity to put you on the edge of your seat leading up to the paladins entering the throne room and gazing up at Ainz. Then cut to their reactions after the meeting as the paladins enter their guest rooms. Excuse me? I thought to myself, oh, they’ll show what happened in a flashback. But no. We didn’t even get that. Another example, this time a battle. Ainz is getting ready to do his thing of just destroying a braggadocios foe.
They literally exchange brief dialogue then cut to the aftermath. I was hoping for much better treatment than that, since the show followed the books fairly closely. Oh well, what can you do? This is the price of cutting a 2 book story arc or 12 episode or so show down to 2 hours and 15 minutes I guess.
As far as positives go, they did capture the overall essence of the show in the movie. I just wish they would have taken it further and found better ways to allow for the uninitiated. I’ll give credit where it’s due, they did condense a lot of the story fairly well to make it a passable faux season 5. The animation itself felt like a step up from the series. You could tell the budget was larger as the CG/2D animation hybrid characters had a little more care given to them. The battles we did get to see were great, which is another positive. There was a lot more dynamic camera work. The Japanese voice acting is always top notch and I did see this in the theatres subtitled.
Satoshi Hino’s guttural voice for Ainz is always nice. Yoshino Aoyama’s youthful, yet determined portrayal of Squire Neia Baraja made her one of the characters to root for. Other than that, I suppose just having this movie is a positive, since fans probably won’t get that season 5. Maybe this will incentivize a season 6? Honestly, I feel they should have just made a stand alone adventure for the movie with a brand new story. This would have given them the ability to re-introduce the characters and their motivations fresh to a brand new audience as well as take established fans to a new place.
I’m not under the illusion that Overlord is on the same level of popularity as, let’s say, Demon Slayer. I doubt it will bring in the numbers the 2020 movie Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train brought in. I just hope it does well enough that fans can get to the end of this fine series.
At the end of the day Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom was a movie for the fans of the show and merciless to the newbies. As much as I enjoyed it, it should have been 12 episodes.
English (US) · 