Momonga cannot reacquire Shalltear without killing her, can he do it?
Creative Staff
Original Story: Kugane Maruyama
Art: Hugin Miyama
Character Design: so-bin
Translation: Emily Balistrieri
What They Say
It has come down to this–a fight to the death, mano a mano, Ainz versus Shalltear! With the odds stacked against him, Ainz faces off against the deadly vampire lord. But Shalltear is not the only threat facing our hero–ahem, our overlord! In a far-distant reptilian kingdom, nefarious forces are on the move. Will Ainz need to meddle in the affairs of mortals yet again…?
Content: (please note that content portions of this review contains spoilers):
Shalltear is wearing Momonga down with her power. She is well positioned to battle with an undead like Momonga, and she seems to be turning the battle well in her favor. But Momonga didn’t get to his level by being a dummy. He has come to this fight with not one, but multiple odd battle strategies to throw Shalltear. The first strategy to switch to close quarter combat like a warrior class fighter. After that, he starts busting out one mega-powered weapon after another in hopes of wearing Shalltear down.
Even if Momonga proves successful and defeats Shalltear, it doesn’t solve the second biggest mystery of this series; who caused Shalltear to go berserk? Not only who, but when and how? How did someone in this world, where Momonga seems to be way more powerful than anyone on the horizon, manage to take control of Shalltear?
We may never know what the deal was with Shalltear, and Momonga isn’t going to hide in his fortress until he finds out why. Instead, he decides to take on a battle with the lizardmen of this world. They don’t have anything he needs, but he decides if they kill a bunch of them, he can make their dead corpses into powerful undead warriors. And this is where the series sort of jumps the shark for me. He recognizes that the people in this world might be real and he is against killing humans needlessly. But he decides he wants to kill a ton of lizardmen for sort of entertainment?
Maybe I’m missing something, but this hard turn in the storytelling of both the manga and the anime adaptations just seems odd. I certainly understand the desire of the creators to drag out the Shalltear storyline and keep that mystery going, but why the desire to kill a bunch of lizardmen?
In Summary
This proves to be an interesting volume in the Overlord series. On one hand, the fight between Momonga and Shalltear just pales in comparison to how awesome the anime adaptation battle played out. On the other hand, I think the lizardmen component took far too long in the anime to play out. However, in the manga version, the start of the lizardmen story plays out much more succinctly with better pacing. Thus, this volume proves that digesting both the manga and anime versions of a series you enjoy is a good call. I’m looking forward to reading the next volume and learning how it differs from the anime adaptation.
Content Grade: B-
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: Older Teen
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: January 30, 2017
MSRP: $13.00