If the isekai genre feels like it’s been rampant in the anime industry for decades, it’s because it has. First gained international popularity in the mid to late 1990s with classic series such as Digimon Adventure and Fushigi Yugiisekai anime has become very iconic for the anime industry.
In the current anime era, viewers have seen some pretty bizarre isekai entries, including: overlord. What earns overlord a seat at the isekai table is how the main character adapts completely to his new environment and becomes a new person in the process. Sometimes viewers wonder how bad this guy is getting.
Who is Ainz Ooal Gown, The Undead Sorcerer King?
The answer depends on when you ask this question. From the start of the series, viewers follow Ainz Ooal Gown as he pursues his goal of strengthening his former guild’s clan base and finding former guild members who may have been brought to this new fantastic world as he did. When the story begins, the main character is a salary man known as Momonga and he is one of the many guild masters of the Ainz Ooal Gown guild in a massive online multiplayer role-playing game called Yggdrasil.
After all his clan members have left, he is the only player left playing the game once all the game’s servers shut down. To his surprise, he opens his eyes to find himself in a new world with his old guild’s clan house and all the guild’s NPCs that have now come to life, so to speak. Since he is the only remaining guild member, they all see him as their all-powerful ruler. Before long, Momonga takes the name Ainz Ooal Gown for himself and sets out to spread his influence across this new world.
Your average Isekai protagonist
In overlordIn the first season of Ainz Ooal Gown, he is still a real payroll clerk who is just getting used to the new world and his new position as ruler. He sometimes feels uncomfortable around his followers and he looks to them to make decisions for him. Although Ainz is not the most virtuous person, he still acts to protect others and only kills those who have done wrong, except for his legitimate duel with Gazeff Stronoff. He is like an undead isekai batman, not the hero the new world needs now, but the hero he deserves.
War: what is it good for?
Season 2 introduces a few new factions, including lizard clans and the Blue Roses adventurer group. This is where things start to get a little murky. Ainz Ooal Gown makes some selfish decisions and sees some races as nothing more than toys that he can use however he pleases. Viewers see him lose his compassion for factions not yet aligned with Nazarick and his motivations become less noble.
Although the idea originally belonged to Albedo and not Ainz, he decides to go to war with the lizard men for no other reason than to build an undead army. He sends an undead announcer to inform all lizardmen that they will be attacked and decimated in eight days, just because.
When Nazarick’s grave loses the first battle of the war, Ainz tells his commander, Cocytus, to kill them all indiscriminately. He only accepts to resurrect them and allow Cocytus to command them as their own army after Cocytus begs Ainz to show mercy to them.
The deaths suffered by some of the Blue Roses members at the hands of Demiurge is less directly Ainz’s responsibility, as he was not fully aware of Demiurge’s plan. Still, Ainz allowed Demiurge complete freedom to carry out his plan, no matter who it might hurt or the trouble it might cause.
Well, that got out of hand quickly
If season 2 wasn’t, then season 3 is really the beginning of the end for the remaining humanity of Ainz to shrivel. This season, Ainz continues the trend of the previous season of using living beings and entire nations as playthings to get his way, but it goes from zero to a hundred very quickly. Slaughter is the word of the day for Ainz this season.
The grave of Ainz Ooal Gown of Nazarick has flown by quite peacefully without being attacked or explored for the most part by unprovoked nations or individuals. That just wasn’t fun for Ainz, so he secretly decides to meet up with Fluder Paradyne, the Imperial court wizard of the Baharuth Empire, for a few manipulation games. He persuades Fluder to persuade the Emperor of the Baharuth Empire, Jircniv Rune Farlord El-Nix, to hire adventurers to explore Nazarick’s tomb.
Ainz and his minions slaughter every adventurer on their way to the grave. It turns out that Ainz did all this to play the victim as the ruler of Nazarick and powerfully arm the Baharuth Empire to support them in their threat of war with the Re-Estize Kingdom. Ainz wants to establish a new kingdom called the Wizarding Realm and expand his land.
The slaughter doesn’t stop here. Ainz goes one step further when he aids the Baharuth Empire in their annual war with the Re-Estize Kingdom. Ainz unleashes a spell more powerful than anyone on that battlefield has ever known, destroying nearly 100,000 enemy soldiers.
From wizard king to dragon lord
So far, Ainz has been relatively low-key in the fourth season. He mainly sabotaged Jircniv’s encounter with cardinals from a nearby country, the Slane Theocracy, and defeated the Baharuth Empire’s strongest warrior in a duel to show his might to would-be adventurers. He also killed a few dragons by crushing their hearts, but he only spared most of them because one of his new allies asked him to. So he’s not far off the deep end yet. After Ainz completely overpowered the dragons with another show of incredible strength, they swore their allegiance to him.
Under Dungeons and Dragons rules, Ainz Ooal Gown’s current status is essentially chaotically neutral, bordering on lawful evil with some of his more reckless actions. He still maintains the utmost loyalty to Nazarick’s grave and all his guards, but he will not hesitate to kill any other creature, humanoid or otherwise, if he sees fit to accomplish his goals. Ainz has also become much more of a ruler than he was when the overlord anime series started. He commands his followers with complete confidence. His current goal is to fortify the Sorcerer Kingdom and the Tomb of Nazarick, which will no doubt develop into a higher goal as he exercises more of his control over the new world.
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