Overlord III Episode 12 Review: Massacre

Did you expect an epic battle in this week’s episode of Overlord? Well, don’t get your hopes up because it is probably the most lame episode we have seen so far.

Japanese Original Episode Title: 大虐殺

Plot

The Emperor is talking with his men back in the Empire about Ainz’s power and potential. He believes that he has tremendous magic skills that can kill thousands of soldiers and that he is even more powerful that the Thirteen Heroes. Back in the battlefield, the war begins with E-Rantel assuming that they have the upper hand due to their biggest number of soldiers but as soon as Ainz comes out and casts his magic, they soon understand that this battle is lost and decide to retreat. Ainz easily kills around seventy thousand soldiers which he sacrificed in order to spawn some monstrous abominations that sound like goats. The goats are obviously overpowered compared to E-Rantel’s army and start annihilating them but Ainz commands them not to kill the four important people. As everyone is trying to flee and save the King, Ainz removes his mask and armor and shows his undead face to everyone and orders the Empire’s army to applaud his greatness, which they do. Ainz then goes on one of the goat monsters and finds Gazeff Stronoff where he asks him to become his subordinate but Stronoff refuses and challenges him into a duel.

Episode Highlights

What the hell were those things? I mean we have seen them briefly in the opening of the series but honestly these monsters were a bloody mess. They didn’t look threatening at all, just ugly and by playing the same goat sound over and over again every time they appeared was just ridiculous.

Applaud my supreme powers! I think Ainz is finally starting to look and act like a true Overlord. He wants people to witness his greatness and fear him. He even says in this episode that thousands of people are going to die but he doesn’t really care or feel anything about it. He is becoming more ruthless and seems to care more about protecting Nazarick than actually finding any other players that might have been stuck in that world.

Gazef stays true to his values: Did Ainz expected him to become his subordinate so easily? This man is the King’s Knight, and he is probably the most honorable man in the series (maybe after Sebas). Ainz should have known that even if he kills the entire Kingdom Stronoff will still stay by the side of the King.

Themes & Trivia

The goats of darkness: In the light novel they are called Dark Young and are actually based on H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos’ Outer God Shub-Niggurath’s children. The Dark Young act as proxies for Shub-Niggurath in the accepting of sacrifices and spreading of their mother’s faith across the world. In the anime they look very resilient and just seem to have really high defense but in the light novel the Dark Young are considered being extremely powerful and highly intelligent monsters. They are able to cause fear and insanity in humans around them, making the Kingdom’s soldiers experience unimaginable anxiety, notably even making Gazef Stronoff feel the urge to turn around and run. They are also capable of moving at great speeds and outrunning warhorses. Also, the Dark Young were supposed to look something like this and not this…

Fun Fact: There were actually loads of people that died because of the Dark Young screaming in terror. In the light novel there was three pages of description and like half a page dedicated to just repeating the word ‘Splat‘ over and over again.

Comments

Those CGI effects hurt my heart. Honestly, what the hell is this? Don’t copy-paste the same soldier over and over and then make him move fast-forward, this is just shameful for the studio. I would rather have no CGI at all than have these goofy and horrible scenes.

But that wasn’t the only problem. For the first time while watching Overlord, I felt like even if it had a better budget the episode would still be lacking because of the really bad pacing and directing. There was no buildup and no epic-ness whatsoever. The monsters looked ridiculous and overall I was left very disappointed. I didn’t have high expectations, but this was just really frustrating to watch.

Let the despair… begin!

Yes, we really did get to experience the despair but not in the way Ainz wanted us to. It’s such a shame to see this episode so badly executed, but let’s see what the last episode of this season will have to offer.

Episode 12 Preview