Overlord - Anime

After days of nothing but studying it’s always good to get loose and enjoy some free time with something you love and had I been a gamer I probably would have been 48 hours into some hectic gaming session, or better yet the next best thing is some anime about gaming seems to be the cure for a quick fix for my little nerdy heart. Enter Overlord, the anime that brings another gaming world to life.

Aside from being another anime that makes me question why I am not a hardcore gamer, Overlord proves to be yet another intriguing story based on a character that gets pulled into a world of gaming and left to his own devices. The premise reminds me of anime like Sword Art Online and Log Horizon and thus has me anticipating quite a lot from it while still keeping me slightly wary as to the fact that yet another anime took this route. Still I won’t complain as long as it delivers and to some extent I have to say it sort of does.

The story revolves around our lonely hero who is logged into a seemingly outdated game that has had most of its players now moved on to other commitments while he roams alone as a dark lord in his castle built by him and his friends. In the final hours that he spends in saying farewell to the game and all the memories made there something happens that has him waking up unable to leave the game.

Along with his inability to log out he discovers that all the NPCs (Non-Player Characters) have somehow come alive beyond their usual selves. Curious to the extent of the change our hero explores the world further and discovers that the game he once knew has changed into a more real world than it was before and that he was now more than just a character in a game.

Intrigued by these changes our hero then takes on the name of his previous clan as he decides to embrace his new world and maybe even conquer it.

Though the introduction to world is a bit flimsy and the story basically jumps right into the plot of being stuck in a game, the overall idea is familiar. Still that kind of laziness grates a bit, however, the story does make up for it in character development of our hero as he slowly realizes he has now become this ‘overlord’ of sorts and we see his personality change to that of his new persona.

Another treat is the NPCs who have now become their own individuals as they serve their master. The varying personalities are fun to watch and their extreme devotion to their overlord is a source of great enjoyment.

So I’ll admit it’s a shaky start to liking the anime at first, but it draws you in as you continue to watch and enjoy the antics of the group who wants to take over the world they’ve been thrown in.

The Gamer - Manga

I was recently made aware of a Korean webtoon that, once I looked into, effectively consumed my life for three days as I endeavoured to completely read it. Thanks to minimal productivity and a slight reduction in my other viewing activities, I was able to finish the first season of the webtoon and am in need of some series catch up with all my dramas and anime that have somehow managed to become more backlogged than normal.

The webtoon, The Gamer, was a very interesting read. It had elements of Sword Art Online and Log Horizon, along with a mix from various other anime in terms of characters and certain magical aspects. To be honest there were some parts of the webtoon I feel were ‘borrowed’ from well-known manga in order to move the general story along.

The story follows a game addict who discovers one day that he has been given the strange ability known as ‘The Gamer’ that basically enables his life to follow the rules of a game. Because of this ability he is thrown into a world of magic and supernatural beings that he never thought existed before. In this world, known as the ‘Abyss’ he learns there are other people with abilities.

Our protagonist quickly discovers that those people with abilities are either born with them naturally, as he is, or they have acquired them through harsh training, like his best friend has done.

I have to say this webtoon caught me very much by surprise, at first for its story line but then for its in-depth explanation of the gaming world. And wow, does this story go deep into explaining the workings of games along with the various terminologies. After every few chapters or so I had to take a break as my mind became overloaded with all the information and other stuff… This story clearly made me realise how much I didn’t know about the gaming world.

Needless to say, it was still supposed to be a manga/manwha, so I expected more story driven points, a lot of which falls short in some places as the gaming aspect of the protagonist is focused on primarily and the rest of the world just sort of falls into place. So it’s a good story, but there are some plot holes as the story races to ignore some things while adapting to the protagonist’s world view.

So, overall it’s not a bad story to read plus it’s in full colour which is amazing and that helps to consume this webtoon in all its okayness, but I have to be honest and say I won’t hold my breath for an anime of this any time soon. I reckon it stays were the real gamers can find it, because they might actually enjoy it, or not I don’t know for sure.