Anime in general has this weird obession with the Nazis. Look at JoJo's part 2 or Hellsing Ultimate for example.
Yep this also.
Yep this also.
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Does the Overlord anime/light novel creator like nazis?
- Thread starter Rackham
- Start date
Protagonist does not mean hero and antagonist does not mean villain. Ainz lost his humanity to become an undead skeleton creature who views humans as insects or cattle and he's currently taking over the world and brutally wiping out anyone who stands in his way. He and Nazarick are the villain protagonists of the story. Many of the NPCs in Nazarick where literally created to be as evil as possible in their settings, several of them go out of there way to brutally torture any humans or demihumans they can get their hands on.
At its core it's a black comedy though.
OP
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Are you gonna ignore the posts in the thread where I said he was embarrassed more for Pandora's mannerisms and not what he was wearing?
I'm well aware of what a protagonist is and isn't. The point is that Ainz, being the protagonist, is supposed to be seen in a sympathetic light. He's not merely there to be the villain of the story.
Again villain protagonist. The word is in the name. How sympathetic was Light in death note to you exactly? You can understand a character without actually agreeing with then. The audience is not supposed to agree with them.
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We understand Light's motivation, where he came from, why he was doing what he was doing and what he wants. And at the end of Death Note
Light's death is sympathetic because you're supposed to think of what he could have done against what actually happened.
And as far as sympathy for Ainz goes, he has no family, his guild is gone, he was transported to a new world as a different species and is the most powerful being in existence with no one there to balance him or his thoughts/actions out. There is sympathy to be had there.
in season 2 Ains decimated a enemy army by summoning some strange giant goat demons because he knows it's a videogames and they're all npcs for him.
i'm not sure he even needs sympathy. he's there and he's playing with what avaible to him
Yes and plenty of stories are symapthetic to the antagonists. Star Wars being a notable example with nazi imagery. It's a major theme in that story. It's not at all different.
Understanding a characters motivations is not the same as agreeing with them. The key thing all those stories have in common is your not supposed to agree with them the story is not framed that way in the slightest. Your not supposed to come out of the The Last jedi and say "you know what Kylo was right".
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An army we don't know much about is hard to feel anything for. One of the first things we see is a group of soldiers slaughtering a village. that's why knights/warriors/stormtroopers are always fodder.
When were we supposed to feel anything for The First Order, Stormtroopers as a group?
You ever heard of the one called "Parallel Paradise"? Just in case you REALLY wanna hate something. It's the worst.
Reading this makes me think you don't want to have sympathy for the character because of his fetishization of Nazi imagery, so you're upset they've given him sympathetic characteristics at all.
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Well you're not very wrong but it's more about not wanting to support the author if they have some weird love for nazis.
The Nazis really had great fashion sense, that can't be denied.
I'm always reminded of this Hipster Hitler comic:
The Nazi aesthetic has long been fetishized without anyone knowing enough about the atrocities they committed. That's what happens when you don't teach history properly.
As have been pointed out several times, it's actually not super uncommon that people find Nazi clothing "cool" or visually appealing. That in no way automatically translates into someone also agreeing with Nazi ideology or being a Nazi supporter.
I'd also point out that in Japan they generally have a shit poor understanding of WW2 history. Anecdotally I remember seeing a video where someone stopped people in the street to ask them if they knew what the swastika was. None of them did.
If all this thread is based on is that a throwaway character in the show wears a Nazi style outfit. Then that kinda seems like you're jumping the gun quite a bit.
Actually, if you wanna jump down that rabbit hole of wild speculation about author intent. I would argue that a show like Dragon Ball (assuming you're a fan based on your avatar) is much more overt in it's nazi references. You literally have the Red Ribbon army that's basically a nazi group. And you have the Super Saiyan form basically being someone turning into the spitting image of someone from the aryan master race and becoming much stronger when doing so
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OP
OP
Dragon Ball author has plenty of problems, especially concerning black characters, but I wouldn't say the Red Ribbon army (being villainous) is an issue. As for going super sayian, I agree that it's suspect that a black haired dude (probably an insert for Japanese) turns blue/green eyed with blonde haired and becomes the stronkest in the universe. Truthfully, I'm not a huge fan of DB. I like Caulifla and the rage she brings to fans.
Ainz Ooal Gowl is a take on "nine's own goal" which was the name of the original guild.
Ainz Ooal Gown was derived from recombining the words of Nine's Own Goal albeit with an extra "o" attached. What is it you think of?
Edit: Oh you could make Nazi out of it. Well my post is the explaination they give.
Also Ainz is the villain protagonist in this story. They've cut a bit too much dialogue and thoughts which is why people think he is a great guy in the first season, but he was always an asshole that didn't give a fuck about anyone in this game.
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Someone thinking that an outfit or costume looks cool doesn't mean that they support or love that faction.
Even more so considering that the entire Tomb of Nazarick are villains. They're the bad guys. Always were.
Even more so considering that the entire Tomb of Nazarick are villains. They're the bad guys. Always were.
There isn't the same level of stigma about nazis in east Asia as the western world, possibly because they really didn't have to deal with them and their atrocities directly the same way the allies in Europe did (despite the whole alliance thing with Japan). People know they're bad guys and that they have snazzy outfits.
I've never met a nazi sympathizer in Japan and I've only heard of one or two via the internet. They're still seen as The Bad Guys, but they aren't really considered offensive.
I've never met a nazi sympathizer in Japan and I've only heard of one or two via the internet. They're still seen as The Bad Guys, but they aren't really considered offensive.
Oh wow, I though he was talking about it being "Eins" phonetically.
Yeah, it being an intended anagram for nazi is a huge reach (though probably not a serious suggestion), since the pronunciations of the Z's don't match up I believe
This is hard to say, nazis are usually depicted with a darker color tone. The yellow tone, peaked cap, and large belt actually reminds me Alec Guinness in The Bridge on The River Kwai. But that star looking medal reminds me the WW1 iron cross that Hitler was always wearing (The only military decoration that he accepted).
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Hitler in his Sturmabteilung uniform, wearing his iron cross. This is almost an 1-on-1 copy with op picture (pockets, belt, cap, ...)
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Hitler in his Sturmabteilung uniform, wearing his iron cross. This is almost an 1-on-1 copy with op picture (pockets, belt, cap, ...)
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yeah it's really weird
actively hampered my enjoyment of part 2 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
One of his servants was torturing a guy that invaded their base, and the method of torture she chose was using a spiky metal q-tip to simulate having a kidney stone by force.
at least that was a parody series though
Yeah the US Army was designing a new uniform back in the early 2000's that was black and silvers, looked really sharp but when they did the "trials" many felt it was "Nazi colored" and they ended up going with the ugly current uniforms.
I diont think having a chara design necessarily means a creator likes or doesnt like something. I mean, many artists draw and create characters they dont like/people arent supposed to like to serve some plot relevant goal. To the extreme, taking the idea, does a creator creating goblins that pillage villages and kill woman and children mean that creators like thieves, and woman and children killers???
The people that write detective dramas about serial killers, breaking up child sex trafficking schemes, and extranational actors hellbent on cyberwarefare, biological warfare, and cataclysm hyperdestruction, doesnt mean they like any of these entities.
The people that write detective dramas about serial killers, breaking up child sex trafficking schemes, and extranational actors hellbent on cyberwarefare, biological warfare, and cataclysm hyperdestruction, doesnt mean they like any of these entities.
One of Ainz servants, Demiurge, is even worse. The anime glosses over it so most people don't know all about his "Happy Farm" that he describes in detail in the LN.
In order to keep a steady supply of spell scrolls for Nazarick he captures scores of humans/demihumans,(from infants to the elderly) skins them alive, and then heals them back up with magic. He does this over and over again. He grinds up children in front of their family and force feeds them to their parents and vice versa to keep them fed. He forces humans and demihumans to mate with each to see if they can create viable offspring. He mostly does all that simply because he loves torturing people and can justify it as helping Nazarick.
These people are absolutely not to be sympathized with.
Also some people said Ainz think it's only a game so that why he doesn't care. No, he's fully aware that he's not in a game anymore. The anime doesn't spend too much time on it but the LN goes to great lengths to show Ainz reasoning out that he's literally in a New World and not in a game world anymore.
It's supposed to be modelled from a uniform from the "Great European War" sometime in the 2000's, but yeah, it's explicitly based on a Nazi uniform.
True, but Nazi fetishism is especially prevalent in anime, manga, and adjacent industries. In this case, Overlord only has a very minor case of it so it's not particularly noteworthy. There are a ton of works where either it, or its slightly more respectable cousin, Prussian fetishism is way more blatant. For super extreme examples, you can look to works like the Barbarossa card game.
Glad I wasn't the only one who felt like that was weird. I kept thinking "Is he really befriending a Nazi?". Almost made a thread about it.
This. Bad guys always look cool. Like in everything that ever existed.
A good Nazi is a dead Nazi but I personally love the design aesthetics and colour combination of their uniform, especially in black, white and red (not the later grey green Waffen-SS ones). Hugo Boss knew their craft. Shame who wore them were such repulsive degenerates.
Anime definitely has a thing for that design to portray characters with power.
Anime definitely has a thing for that design to portray characters with power.
Toku has a history
at least that was a parody series though
Yeah the US Army was designing a new uniform back in the early 2000's that was black and silvers, looked really sharp but when they did the "trials" many felt it was "Nazi colored" and they ended up going with the ugly current uniforms.
Yeah, I thought the set up was that Ainz's guild had a requirement that all members were employed adults. That being said, if he made pandora's actor during an edgelord phase in his past he must've been playing that game since he was a teen? I dunno.
Would you say despite how horrible they were that the OG Nazi's choice in style was boss?
I enjoy Overlord, cause it is one of the few animes that deal with issues somewhat realistically. Invading army? No problem use your most powerful spell at the start. But then again Ainz and his group are like maxed out characters in raid gear sent to the middle of the Barrens to PVP.