Originally published on The Fandom Post

What They Say:
“Giant of the East, Demon Snake of the West”

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The Carne Village arc speeds toward its conclusion as the story shifts its focus back to Ainz. After ordering Lupusregina to protect Enri, Nphiria, and Nphiria’s grandmother, Ainz takes Aura with him to confront the Giant of the East and the Demon Snake of the West. Unsurprisingly, Ainz and Aura subdue both without any trouble, killing the former and forcing the latter to pledge himself to Ainz. After Ainz heads back to Nazarick, Carne Village is attacked by an unknown force as Lupus prepares to join the battle.

With Enri’s story set up, this week’s episode is free to do what Overlord does best: show off its overpowered leads. While we don’t get to see much of Aura’s abilities, Ainz gets plenty of time to show off.  The buildup is a bit slow-there’s a fair amount of time devoted to the Giant mocking Ainz for having a long name-but the action itself lives up to Overlord’s standards of entertainment. Ainz is so absurdly powerful compared to his opponent that it’s actually kind of hilarious. Watching Ainz just stand there while the Giant’s blows bounce off his armor packs just the right level of silly/cool to stay entertaining in spite of the complete lack of tension in the fight. Ainz doesn’t even need magic this time, instead spending most of the fight bludgeoning his opponent with what looks like a staff for casting magic. We’ve already seen that Ainz can hold his own in melee, but it’s still plenty fun watching a mage beat someone half to death in melee. The excitement is dampened slightly by Overlord’s reliance on mediocre CGI for most of its monsters, but that’s a relatively minor issue and the animation is mostly solid enough to carry the scene. Of course, this is only the second half of the episode.

The first half is largely devoted to Ainz interacting with his subordinates, similar to episode one. Ainz explaining his plans for Carne Village to Lupus goes on for a bit longer than it needs to, but is punctuated by some pretty good humor. Ainz is constantly confronted with the fact that all of the subordinates who see him as an infallible genius are actually far cleverer than him. It’s pretty funny to watch him give convoluted explanations for his plans, much to everyone’s amazement, while he internally admits that he’s making it all up on the spot to retroactively explain his actions. Even though none of them (with the exception of Sebas) are particularly complex characters, Ainz and his minions have developed a solid rapport that can keep the anime entertaining during its slower moments.

We’re also given a fairly long scene between Ainz and Aura as they ride to confront the Giant and the Snake. Aura’s embarrassed reactions to Ainz discussing her future and stating his (platonic) love for her are honestly kind of cute. The scene could’ve easily come off as creepy since Aura looks like a young child and mistakes Ainz’s comments for romantic declarations, but the camera never frames her in a sexual light and Ainz clearly views her in a more paternal light than anything else. It’s largely fluff in the grand scheme of things, but Aura’s cute reactions make it amusing fluff none the less.

In Summary:
With Ainz back in the spotlight, Overlord finally has a chance to indulge in its trademark showboating. Ainz’s battle against the Giant (if it can even be called a battle) doesn’t quite reach the series’ heights, but is a lot of fun regardless. Since the episode ended with Carne Village being attacked, it looks like we have plenty of action in store for next week as well.

Grade: B+