Your Anime Looks Bad - "Overlord"

Overlord really looks like shit. I've been watching a fantasy anime from the early 2000s animated by Studio Bones and the outstanding presentation of that compared to a show made a decade later shows the weakness of Overlord's aesthetic. Overlords biggest issue has always been how it looks. The bland, static, sterile backgrounds, the sharp, grotesque character designs, and the over-saturated color scheme that somehow is unable to come across as vibrant really bogs the show down. In the 2000s fantasy anime Scrapped Princess the backgrounds have a great sense of depth and scale and their softness and painted look creates these inviting landscapes. The characters- while very simple from a design standpoint - are very distinguishable and befitting of the world they inhabit. They aren't jarring and goofy looking. While you can argue that Overlords character look that way because they reflect the mindsets of their otaku creators (Momonga's past companions) and their over the top sensibilities that still doesn't doesn't excuse how poorly they are drawn or the characters outside of the Nazarick tomb.

Wonderfully drawn and composed still from Scrapped Princess

Now Overlord is above and beyond Scrapped Princess in the "fun" department and the fantasy world that Overlord does take place in exists for the sole reason of getting the piss taken out of it. However that doesn't mean that the world needs to be so low effort and ugly. Overlord just looks really cheap and honestly that detracts from the appeal and accessibility of the series. Scrapped Princess constantly shows you evocative images of its fantasy world; the wicker like designs of its rice fields, the college art student-esque monolithic figures in its plains, the varied clothing of its inhabitants from the military, church monks and the main cast themselves. Scrapped Princess understands that in order to gain a viewer's investment in a fantasy world they need to provide them with an interesting unique setting worth exploring.

A pretty poor screenshot from Overlord, showing its cheap presentation

As an anime loving idiot I do wish that people cared more about how it looked. This is a largely visual medium and those visuals are a huge part of the appeal. Even in Overlord if it weren't for the hyper-exaggerated expressions its demented characters make the viewer wouldn't get to anywhere close to the effect the show was going for when portraying their outlandish personalities and that why visuals matter: they help with conveyance. This conveyance is absolutely paramount to driving home a show's message, setting, characters, a lot of things okay.

Look at the scale in this frame, the vastness it conveys, and the mood the color palate is bestowing. Scrapped Princess is full of these moments.