The Overlord Season 5 TV show will have Ainz going on vacation with the twins Aura and Mare to the nation of the elves! But will their fun be ruined by a conspiracy by the Slane Theocracy targeting the Elf King…?
The story of Overlord V anime will be a direct sequel to the end of the fourth season and the Overlord: Holy Kingdom (Overlord: Sei Oukoku-hen) movie, which is confirmed to be in production.
But with Overlord Volume 18 ending the light novel series, where does that leave the Overlord V anime? And when will Overlord Season 5 come out?
The studio and main staff making Overlord S5 haven’t been announced yet.
Presumably, the fifth season will be animated by Japanese animation Studio Madhouse, which is best known in recent years for No Game No Life, One Punch Man, No Guns Life, Takt Op. Destiny, and The Irregular at Magic High School (the 2020 Mahouka Season 2 anime was produced solely by Studio 8bit, and The Irregular at Magic High School Season 3 anime TV series was confirmed to be in production in early 2022.).
In 2022, Studio Madhouse also released the Bibliophile Princess anime TV show. They also created the Kin no Kuni Mizu no Kuni movie based on the manga series.
What’s notable is that Madhouse is still making Overlord sequels. In the past, the anime studio was not exactly known for making sequels for any other series adaptation, so for them to produce five seasons is quite the treat.
The fourth season was helmed by returning director Naoyuki Itou (No Guns Life). He’s been an episode director for many productions and has worked in various roles on popular franchises like Dragon Ball, Hunter x Hunter, and One Piece.
Writer Yukie Sugawara also returned. Sugawara wrote the first three seasons of the script and series composition and he was the first official source to confirm that S4 was “extremely likely”. The writer has worked on popular anime like Hina Logic, Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Kino’s Journey, No Guns Life, Radiant, and Sword Art Online.
Character designer Satoshi Tasaki (Hunter x Hunter movie, Ace of Diamond) returned. Composer Shuji Katayama (Knights of Sidonia: Love Woven in the Stars movie, The Saga of Tanya the Evil, So I’m a Spider, So What?) created the music.
The Overlord Season 5 OP (opening) and ED (ending) theme song music hasn’t been announced yet.
The Overlord Season 4 OP “HOLLOW HUNGER” was performed by OxT, which was mysterious and passionate! The ED “No Man’s Dawn” was performed by Mayu Maeshima, who sang with passion for grief and despair!
(Yes, that did mean that MYTH&ROID itself did not return for the fourth season. But Maeshima was the lead singer of MYTH&ROID from 2015 to 2017.)
The fourth season was streaming in Summer 2022 on Crunchyroll (not Netflix, Hulu, VRV, Funimation, or Amazon Prime Video) starting on July 5, 2022.
The fourth season’s finale, Overlord Season 4 Episode 13, was released on September 27, 2022.
This article provides everything that is known about Overlord Season 5 (Overlord V) and all related news. As such, this article will be updated over time with news, rumors, and analysis. Meanwhile, let’s delve down into what is known for certain.
Overlord V release date predictions: Is 2026 likely?
As of the last update, Studio Madhouse, Kadokawa, or any company related to the production of the anime has not officially confirmed the Overlord Season 5 release date. Nor has the production of an Overlord V sequel been announced.
Once the news is officially confirmed this article will be updated with the relevant information.
In the meantime, it’s possible to speculate about when, or if, the Overlord S5 release date will occur in the future.
The anime production committee has always had good reasons to keep renewing the Overlord anime TV series. The Overlord BD Volume 1 sold 8,427 copies in its first week. The third season’s Blu-Ray/DVD sales (7,222 copies) actually topped the second season (6,078 copies), and the international streaming revenue was high, so the fourth season was inevitable despite the long four-year wait.
But, wait, isn’t declining BD sales a bad thing? In years past it was considered conventional wisdom that an anime needed to sell over 3,000 disc copies in order to be seen as viable for a second season. Crunchyroll, Funimation Now, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu have changed all that.
The anime industry has shifted in the direction of revenue from international streaming and merchandise sales (figurines, etc.) becoming the overriding factor in determining whether to produce an anime sequel. Thus, the overall decline of disc sales in the anime industry has changed how producers decide to greenlight sequels.
“Overseas streaming services such as Crunchyroll have a larger effect each year on the financial success of anime,” Kadokawa producer Junichiro Tamura explained in a 2019 Reddit AMA session. “I do think international demand has a huge impact on production decisions and will have even more as we move forward.”
The only reason the fourth season didn’t come out sooner was due to the relative lack of source material back in 2019 (Volume 11 was released in October 2019). Unfortunately, that’s still a problem in regards to Overlord Season 5 since the fourth season adapted more source material than expected.
When the fourth season ended in September 2022 there were only two light novels, Volumes 15 and 16, available as source material, so Studio Madhouse can’t return to its normal schedule of adapting 3 books per anime season after the Overlord movie is released.
Speaking of which, the Overlord: Holy Kingdom movie release date is still not confirmed yet. November-December and May-July are typically considered the best timing for a tentpole film to have a chance at being a blockbuster premiere whereas January and February are considered the “dump months” for bad movies. As such, it’s predicted that the Overlord movie will come out in May-July 2023.
Considering that the anime studio must wait until the book series is completed, it’s predicted that the Overlord Season 5 release date will be scheduled for 2026 at the earliest… and that’s assuming that the final two books come out in late 2024 or 2025 if not later!
Overlord Volume 18 ending the light novel series (maybe)
The anime’s story is based on the Overlord light novel series by Japanese author Kugane Maruyama. The story first started life as a web novel back in 2010, but starting in 2012 Kugane teamed up with illustrator so-bin to adapt the story into the light novel format.
Japanese publisher Enterbrain released Overlord Volume 16: The Half Wood Elf God-kin Part 2 on July 29, 2022. The newer light novels followed the web novel pretty closely but then began to diverge significantly starting with Volume 10 (the starting point for Overlord Season 4).
The story also spawned an Overlord manga series by writer Satoshi Oshio and illustrator Hugin Miyama. Serialized in the monthly magazine Comp Ace, the Overlord manga is up to Volume 17 as of June 24, 2022.
The official English translation for the Overlord manga and light novel series is handled by Yen Press. The English Overlord Volume 14 release date was on June 21, 2022.
The English manga was up to Volume 14 as of November 16, 2021, with Volume 15 scheduled for August 23, 2022, and Volume 16 for November 22, 2022.
Years ago, unofficial fan translator Skythewood announced that they have discontinued the English-based fan translation project due to the Yen Press acquisition. However, the English translation of the web novel continues unabated.
In the past, Maruyama had been consistently releasing at least one Overlord book per year. However, in recent years Maruyama had trouble keeping to his planned schedule. Volume 12 was delayed by a month and Overlord Volume 13 was supposed to come out in December 2017, but it was not published until April 2018. Overlord Volume 14 was similarly delayed by a year.
Volume 15 was originally planned for Spring 2021. However, on January 4, 2022, Maruyama tweeted that the first draft for the Volume 15 manuscript had exceeded 700 pages. As such, the book was split into Volumes 15 and 16 and then released back-to-back in June and July 2022.
Maruyama and publisher Enterbrain never offered an explanation for the delays. To be fair, Volume 13 was also a longer book, numbering 574 pages compared to the 410 pages of Volume 12. Similarly, Overlord Volume 14 is 584 pages long. Since Volume 15 (352 pages) and Volume 16 (360 pages) were once a single book they are shorter.
In the Overlord Volume 16 afterword, Maruyama confirmed that the Overlord light novel series is ending in two more volumes in Overlord Volume 18. He also wants to release Overlord Volume 17 and Volume 18 at closer intervals, similar to the release schedules of Volumes 15 and 16.
“Overlord will end in two volumes. Thank you so very much for sticking with me up ‘till now. Maybe, there is a possibility the final Afterword will close with, ‘Thank you for everything,’ so this may seriously be the last one. This is because I think this will be what’s left of the story, so as much as possible I want to release both at exactly the same time,” Maruyama explained on July 29, 2022.
Unfortunately, the author didn’t reveal the Overlord Volume 17 release date or even the title. Instead, he teased that the wait could be long.
“I think the wait for the next volume will be quite long again, so I would be happy if you could take it easy and wait for it in a carefree manner. So long, then,” Maruyama wrote. (So cheeky!)
This is why it’s difficult to predict the Overlord Season 5 release date. If the creator takes multiple years to complete the story (or decides to extend it again) the anime producers can’t do anything but wait.
In recent years, the Overlord creator stated that he had intended on finishing the story with Overlord 17, but the change of plans in 2022 caused the author to revert back to his original goal of ending with Overlord Volume 18.
At one point many years ago, he was shooting for ending the novel series somewhere around Volume 20, but in May 2016 he tweeted out that he was planning on ending Overlord with Volume 18. In May 2019, Maruyama said that his motivation to write Overlord had been going down the drain due to pirate websites. By August 2019, the Overlord creator said that he was losing the energy to write and was feeling very tired.
Thus, Maruyama had planned on cutting down the amount of Overlord story content in order to finish the light novel series. He claimed it would be difficult to conclude with Volume 16, so he decided to take things at a moderate pace and target Overlord Volume 17 for the ending.
As previously mentioned, this plan changed once again in January 2022 when he realized that The Half Wood Elf God-kin light novel needed to be split into two separate volumes. Even though ending with Overlord Volume 18 is now the current plan, this ending is still years off in the future since Maruyama has two more novels to complete so the author’s plans could change again in the meantime.
Overlord Season 5 anime ending the TV show?
Studio Madhouse seems to be sticking to a formula of adapting three books for every Overlord anime season. The second season covered the events of volumes 4 through 6. Overlord Season 3 maintained this pacing, but there was some major reordering of events.
In the books, events were often portrayed out of chronological order. Some scenes were written from the perspective of one character only to replay these scenes from another perspective in order to reveal new information.
But for the anime adaptation, scriptwriter Sugawara condensed all of these perspective chapters down into one chronological timeline. For example, Overlord Volume 8 technically took place in the timeline before and during the events of Volumes 5 and 6, the Men in the Kingdom story arc, whereas volumes 7 and 9 continued the story in the current time. This meant that the third season had to connect the dots to the Carne Village story arc.
For the fourth season, Madhouse faced a new challenge based on the way the story was written. Overlord Volume: The Rule of Conspiracy 10 and Overlord Volume 11: The Craftsman of Dwarf both had self-contained story arcs. The problem was that Volumes 12 and 13 both comprised The Paladin of the Holy Kingdom story arc, which meant the fourth season needed to adapt 4 lengthy books.
Arguably, Madhouse could have rushed the fourth season’s adaptation pacing, skipped a lot of book content related to side characters, and tried to cram the four books of volumes 10 through 13 into a single season composed of 13 episodes. But light novel readers have already been unhappy about how much light novel content has been cut so no one would have been happy with that outcome.
The solution created by the anime production committee for Overlord Season 4 was actually quite odd. The fourth season didn’t simply adapt Volumes 10, 11, and 12 only to have the Overlord movie adapt Volume 13, finishing off the Paladin of the Holy Kingdom story arc.
Instead, the fourth season completely rearranged the chronological timeline starting with Overlord Season 4 Episode 8. The first 7 episodes adapted Volumes 10 and 11 as expected, but then Episode 8 simply used dialogue to casually announce that Ainz took the Sorcerer Kingdom into total war with the Re-Estize Kingdom and won… and it was never shown!
Yes, sidelining an entire war via dialogue really was how the TV show scriptwriters chose to handle the skipping of the Holy Kingdom movie story arc. This meant the end of the fourth season had to be careful not to mention any major movie spoilers related to what happens to Ainz, never mind hints about what Princess Renner did before becoming a Yandere demon.
On the plus side, this adaptation approach meant that the fourth season didn’t end on a horrible cliffhanger that promoted the movie. The negative aspect is that the Overlord movie will need to condense two whole books into a movie runtime.
All in all, the fourth season’s finale, Overlord Season 4 Episode 13, corresponded to Overlord Volume 14: The Witch of the Falling Kingdom.
That means the Overlord Season 5 anime should pick up the story again by adapting the story arcs for Overlord Volumes 15 and 16: The Half Elf God-kin.
The benefit to this plan is that Overlord Season 5 will have four books to adapt assuming the light novel series finishes with Volume 18 as currently planned. On the other hand, if the Overlord: The Holy Kingdom box office sales are good, the best option to finish off adapting the ending of the entire story would be Overlord Season 5 combined with an Overlord final movie.
Overlord manga compared to the anime
When an anime adapts a book series it’s inevitable that dialogue, worldbuilding, and plot points are condensed and rearranged in order to fit into the constraints of the TV episodic format. Even the Overlord manga is still worth reading for fans of the anime since the manga contains dialogue and jokes that were not present in the anime version.
The light novel series especially contains more insight into the character’s motivations and provides many more details about Nazarick and the fantasy world that it inhabits.
Unfortunately, the Overlord manga is far behind the anime adaptation. Overlord Chapter 14 is when the vampire Shalltear Bloodfallen was resurrected after being mind-washed and that event corresponds to the ending of the first anime season. By manga Chapter 52, the manga caught up with the ending of both Volume 6 and anime Season 2.
Similar to the anime’s third season, the manga first adapted the Carne Village arc of light novel Volume 8 before going back to adapt The Invaders of the Large Tomb arc from Volume 7. By August 2022, the manga was up to Overlord Chapter 73, which meant the manga still hadn’t caught up with the ending of Overlord S3, never mind Overlord S4.
Overlord S5 anime TV spoilers (plot summary/synopsis)
Note: These spoilers begin with a recap of the ending of the fourth season as a reminder.
When the Overlord: Holy Kingdom movie ended, the events of Season 4 Episode 8 began. Sorcer King Ainz was not looking forward to the work that awaits him back in E-rantel. It was also revealed that Holy Kingdom Prince Caspond has long been dead since he was replaced by the Doppelganger.
Ainz is still pondering how to reach his actual goal of creating a utopia where all races can live together in peace under his rule in the Sorcerer Kingdom. He knows he must maintain his facade of the stern and powerful ruler in order to appease the grandiose expectations of the Floor Guardians of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, but in his inner self what he truly wants is simply “happiness”.
Unfortunately, the ending of Overlord Season 4 is not a happy tale, especially for humans in the Re-Estize Kingdom. The trouble all starts when the greed of the nobleman Philip puts the Sorcerer Kingdom on the path to war with the Re-Estize Kingdom.
The troubling part is that Baron Philip was supposed to be under the control of the Eight Fingers. The intention was that the noble would sow discord within the Re-Estize Kingdom in order to cause a civil war and eventually give justification for the Sorcer Kingdom to invade and annex the neighboring nation through a secession plan. Instead, the stupidity of Philip leads to an unprovoked attack against the Sorcer Kingdom!
Ainz and the Floor Guardians are initially confused by these turns of events but they realize they can’t let this affront simply stand. After the Sorcerer Kingdom formally declares war upon the Re-Estize Kingdom, the reaction by the human nobility is so bad that the situation escalates to the point that the new plan is to invade every city of Re-Estize Kingdom and massacre every citizen… In other words, total annihilation!
Needless to say, Ainz isn’t exactly thrilled but it’s impossible for him to walk back the order he gave the Floor Guardians. Regardless, Pestonya and other human sympathizers give Ainz the excuse he needs to modify the command so that 10 percent of the Kingdom’s human population is saved. But as the situation progressed the way the humans responded with conspiracies and betrayal caused Ainz to become enraged and relinquish any reservations he had about committing the war to its grim end: extermination.
Needless to say, the following events do not go well for human characters such as Brain Unglaus, Climb, and Princess Renner. After the capital city was razed to the ground save for the royal palace, any surviving nobility who were spared death were forced to swear fealty to the Sorcerer Kingdom.
Note: This is where the Overlord Season 5 spoilers begin.
As for the Sorcerer King, war and total annihilation were quite vexing even for an undead skeleton… so Ainz decided to take Aura and Mare on a vacation to the Elven nation! Ainz intends the trip to be a learning experience where the twins learn how to make new friends.
But even during this supposed friendship tour, Ainz isn’t able to escape the throes of war. The Slane Theocracy has decided they must defeat the Elf King in the Great Sea of Trees in order to prepare for the eventual onslaught by the Sorcerer Kingdom.
The Elf King may command fierce warriors but even they are in awe when they see Nazarick in action. When the Slane Theocracy begins its attack Ainz puts his plan into action.
Unfortunately, anime fans will have to wait until the Overlord Season 5 release date to watch what happens next. Stay tuned!