Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom

I am a huge Overlord fan, and The Sacred Kingdom is a movie that I very much enjoyed watching. The movie's pacing of the story is quick and leaves out much of the Light Novels original source material, but is still effective in telling the story involving the Sacred Kingdom. The new characters introduced, Neia and Remedios, are both well written characters directly adapted from the Light Novel, and each have their own unique charm and characterization. Ainz himself is also great in the movie, as he always is, and continues to dominate as being the strongest. The visuals and animation used in the movie are also incredible while being accompanied by an amazing soundtrack, effectively capturing the grandeur and spectacle of the fights and setting. One critique I have for the movie is that the fights are way too short, and that I would've loved to have seen more action up close instead of the panned-out camera shots used during the fight scenes. Overall, the movie was very good and was well worth watching twice.

I watched Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom (2024) on theaters last night. The storyline follows the Sacred Kingdom which is attacked by an almighty demon. The kingdom and world quickly comes under the demons rule until undead Sorcerer King Ains Ooal Gown arrives and offers to help the kingdom, but only if they follow his rules...

This picture is directed by Naoyuki Itô, who also directed 45 episodes of the original series, and contains the voices of Kristian Eros (Chainsaw Man), Nasim Benelkour (My Hero Academia: You're Next), Douglas Gill (One Piece) and Sean Letourneau (One Piece).

I'm one of the few people who went into this without watching the series first...but I will definitely watch the series now. The animation and universe is magnificent and really captures the imagination with a nice blend of super natural and fantasy genres. The battle and fight scenes are tremendous and make the movie, and I'm sure the series, and absolutely must watch. There's gore, a wide variety of weapons and cool dismemberment scenes. The storyline has an air of mystery over the picture but comes together well and keeps the audience intrigued. My only complaint would be the anticipated cheesy dialogue at times.

In conclusion, Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom is an elite addition to the anime movie genre that I would strongly recommend. No would score this a 9/10.

I love the overlord series. It is fun and the plot is intriguing. The DND references and the overall characters in the series are just quite amazing for a fan of RPG games like myself. I watched the anime series and did some revisit from time to time. That might be the reason because for me, compared to the anime series, the movies have to leave out a lot of scenes just to make it to the runtime and it kind of ruins the overall vibe you would get from it and the sequences of the plot. I know it would be quite demanding for the editors to put all of the scenes and even though they did have to leave out a lot, the movie is still fun to watch with a lot of action going on. It is just that for me, I did not get the vibe I usually get whenever I watched the series and I kind of hoped that they could have done it somehow. Overall, it is an appetizer before the main dish of season 5 comes out.

While this is a good addition to the Overlord series, I'm afraid it falls a bit short of the series. The lack of the guardians and the interplay between them and Ains is completely lacking in the movie, as Ains is going in alone. So many of our favorite characters are either missing or minimized. The battle sequences with Ains are also a bit lack luster, more of a firework's display rather than the epic thought out battles of the past. Also, the running joke of the Hard Sell is funny but may get somewhat annoying as it goes on and on. This film does contain several truly gruesome moments far beyond what the series contains, so expect some splatter. All in all, it is a decent film and Overlord fans should enjoy seeing Ains back in action.

What is quite clear from this fantasy adventure is that being behind thick stone walls is scant protection from the menacing "Jaldaboath" who is bent on destroying the Sacred Kingdom. Fairly easily, it has to be said, he manages to capture it's Sacred Princess and it falls to the young page "Neia Baraja" to work with what's left of their army to elicit the help of the undead Sorcerer King - the only creature who might be able to counter the powerful magic they face. Luckily, he agrees to help out and with the enthusiastic young "Neia" as his attendant, he must strive to rally the kingdom and face their nemesis and his maids. Yep, it's all a bit procedural, this, but it's still pretty much end-to-end action with loads going on and with the possible exception of the annoying "Remedios Custodio" - the Grand Master of the army, the characters are well suited for a slowly bubbling tale of good versus evil. The animation is very linear, the backgrounds have no movement at all and the characterisations rely very heavily on the facial features, but the episodic nature of their escapades marries the mysticism of ancient culture with the action scenarios quite entertainingly. It does dip a little towards the end - and some of the editing isn't the best, but I found it flew by for two hours and quite enjoyed the stand-alone nature of a narrative that has it's basis in a game but that doesn't impact at all on the plot.