In real life Momonga was a Japanese salaryman, with a somewhat meek and awkward yet kind and loyal personality. Momonga himself is interesting in that he, unlike other VRMMO anime protagonists, takes effort to fulfill his avatar’s role play, which is quite different from his real life personality. Watching Momonga struggle to maintain his ruler persona is quite amusing. It’s a slow but necessary start, if only to set the audience’s expectations of what kind of world Momonga has been transported to and how he’ll adapt. Some things still work like they used to in the game - such as items and magic - but others don’t, like admin tools and NPC settings.

The first two episodes focus on showing how personal the game of Yggdrasil is to Momonga, and contrasting the rules of the original game with the new world’s more unrestricted setting. While it still has its moments, hopefully future seasons can really show off how expansive Overlord‘s fun can be. There’s a lot of untapped potential to be had with its characters and lore, but it feels like it’s still warming up even by the season’s end. Because of this, Ains - and the anime as a result - never really goes all out. He’s so overpowered in fact, that there’s not much of anything to challenge him. Also, Ains is absurdly powerful, as he used to be an extremely high level player from Yggdrasil. However, unlike other shows like Log Horizon and Sword Art Online, the main character Momonga - who calls himself Ains in the new world - actually welcomes his predicament and seeks to further root himself in this new life. Overlord is yet another anime in the growing sub-genre of “trapped in a VRMMO”.

With nothing to go back to in his original world, he uses his immense power to spread the name of his guild, Ains Ooal Gown, in the hopes of finding other players who may also have transported over.

But, with a deep love for the game, he stays logged in until the very end, when he is suddenly transported into a new world that is just like the game. Momonga was just a regular guy who plays the D-MMORPG (Dive-MMO, a VR game) Yggdrasil, until after 12 years the servers are quietly shut down.

Anime like overlord