“Overlord” Season 4 will indeed be returning judging by the sales performance of the third installment that opened up the high probabilities for a renewal. The show was quite popular among the anime community as it managed to sell more than 7,000 Blue-Ray box sets, MonsterAndCritics reported.
For comparison, “Attack on Titan” Season 3 and “My Hero Academia” Season 3 sold 4,500 and 2600 copies respectively, and both were still renewed. The problem here is that Madhouse has yet to break their silence about “Overlord” Season 4 leaving fans wondering what the studio is planning for the series’ future.
Most of the issue that the fourth installment is facing is the complications involving the show’s source material. While “Overlord” Season 4 does have enough stories to adapt in the anime, volumes 12 and 13 have been written as a two-part story. So far, Madhouse has been adapting three books per entry, with the next installment potentially covering books 10 to 12.
But since volume 12 doesn’t have a good stopping point, the studio is forced to include volume 13 in “Overlord” Season 4. Unfortunately, 13 episodes will not be enough to cram all those stories in, especially since volume 12 and 13 has a massive storyline to tell. It’s still unclear how Madhouse will approach this problem as they’ve been reticent about the series for a while.
Add the fact that author Kugane Maruyama is also overseeing another unnamed project and “Overlord” Season 4 is looking like it’s a long way off from being completed. The silver lining is that the series is touted to feature heavier and far-reaching conflicts as has been hinted by Maruyama himself.
“I have some vague ideas floating around, for example; there are multiple countries in the middle of the continent, and they will eventually make an alliance and will fight against the floor guardians in a huge war. And the reason for making Gargantua is to make it fight a company of golem cavalry,” Kugane explained. Regarding the release date of “Overlord” Season 4, nothing has been revealed on this front either. The best bet right now is at the tail end of 2021, although that too remains uncertain.
