What is more befitting to an Overlord than world supremacy? You are right, nothing! And that is why Ains Ooal Gown really sets out to rule the world in this third season of Overlord.
Maid-chan has already reviewed the earlier seasons here, so you may want to read that first for some background if you don’t know the Overlord anime.
Compared to the earlier episodes, this season is more concentrated on the Great Tomb of Nazarik, where at the start Ains servants gather once again to show their eternal subordination under the “Higher Being”.
If they would knew that Ains is just your average dumb human...
One half of the third season is concentrated on Carne Village, the one Ains set foot in first after the big world change. The village is developing thanks to the goblins Enri summoned, but the village is still lacking villagers after all those fights. Also there seem to be several great creatures in the forest that may threaten the village where Enri and Nfirea are getting closer to each other.
Those rumors in turn make Ains go investigating himself. He thinks his taking of Humsuke may be the reason that the balance in the forest is upset. Of course him being responsible is the smallest part of why he is going. He instead intends to make the other “kings” of the forest his servants, as he did with Hamsuke.
After this Ains plans (or maybe better Demiurge’s plans) for world domination go into the hot phase. First he lures a big group of adventurers to Nazarik, where they serve as a test of the defenses.
Plot wise the merciless slaughter of the adventurers also serves as a reminder to the watcher that Ains Ooal Gown does not feel anything towards the humans, even though he dislikes needless brutality. If brutality serves a goal, than it is totally okay for him, and of course also to the floor guardians. Especially for a certain vampire who likes to play with her food.
The attack of the adventurers than serves as an excuse for a power demonstration towards the Baharuth Empire. Totally shaken by the brute force that Ains commands, the Emperor proposes an alliance with Nazarik, while secretly working on an alliance between the human races against the powerful skeleton.
Ains does not care. He knows he is superior and demonstrates that when he goes together with the Empire against the Re-Estize Kingdom. His magic ends the battle before it starts by killing tens of thousands of enemy soldiers.
The war ends with the death of… no, Maid-chan will not spoiler this. She will also not spoiler why and what happens when Enri in Carne Village uses her second goblin summoning horn. Even Ains is mightily surprised, which shows again that he is only a dumb human that ended up being at the top of the ladder in this new word.
Having lost that big, the Kingdom surrenders E-Rantel to Ainz, where it comes to a showdown of Ains and… his other half of Momon.
Of course this is too a part of his plan. The season ends with Ains officially declaring his new kingdom.
Conclusion
The third season is darker than the ones before. While especially the first season felt like the “position your pawns” phase, it is now undoubtedly clear that Ains has decided to stop lurking in the shadows. His disregard for others, especially the ones at Carne Village he does not have a special use for, can be terrifying, even for Ains himself.
What has not changed at all is the quality of the CGI animations, which still look vomitingly bad when put in the generally good backgrounds. Maid-chan would take over this job from the creators, if her master had not forbidden her to do work for others!
The increased pacing in the second half of the season is a good thing. All in all Maid-chan gives this third season of Overlord a 9/10 on the totally objective Maid-chan scale!
