Overlord III

Episode 3

While it would be nice to see Ains personally get back to the business of clobbering foes, it's hard to complain much about his minimal appearances in the last couple of episodes when the new story is so engaging. Is that the secret to making one of these power fantasies work? Place a strong cast around the main character and only use him for punctuations rather than the ongoing focus? Or does Overlord just have some indefinable magic going on that elevates it above the crowd?

Whereas episode 2 focused on what was happening in Carne Village in general, episode 3 focuses specifically on Enri. This episode makes clearer than any before how remarkable her character progression has been. She started out as a random victim that Ains took pity on, and almost looked to slide into the role of Nphirea's love interest, but between these two episodes, we can see clearly her becoming a strong woman. That definitely applies in the physical sense after seeing her tote Nphirea around last episode, but this episode also proves how her spiritual strength has grown. She's become a leader through her mix of compassion, practicality, and effective use of the resources at hand, to the point that the goblins adore her and even ogres captured by the goblins bow to her will. Never mind that she's nervous about being so commanding; she pulls it off so impressively that both Nphirea and the village leader endorse her to become the new village leader. The parallels drawn between her situation and Ains's are rather amusing.

Her scene in E-Rantel just adds to her appeal. From finding out that the goblin-summoning horn is so valuable and yet deciding that she can't sell off a gift, to the way Momonga intercedes on her behalf and sends Narbarel to question her, it all plays out just right, especially the part where Narbarel actually finds common ground with Enri in their respect for Ains. He clearly interceded on her behalf with the Guild too, given the almost comical change in attitude over her request for adventurers to deal with the Giant of the East and Serpent of the West. (On that note, I like that consequences for removing the Wise Lord of the Forest from his position are finally starting to appear.) I am a little worried that Lupisregina's sadistic comments at the end of the episode might be leading somewhere, but that could also just be foreshadowing the depths of her sadism. You can never tell how far some of Nazarick's minions will go with their mania.

While the series isn't currently doing anything terribly exciting with its visuals, I do want to compliment the art on the goblins. These goblins are more distinct and have more individual character than in any other recent fantasy anime I can remember. The ogres, on the other hand, didn't impress, but they don't seem like they're going to be regular parts of the cast, either. Beyond that, I'm still adoring the new opener. And while I have enjoyed this Carne Village interlude, I do hope that we're going to see other players brought into the mix soon. There are just so many possibilities for the story opening up right now.

Rating: B+

Overlord III is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.