Overlord Creator Threatens to Quit Over Fan-Translations

Kugane Maruyama's Overlord has become increasingly popular in the last few years as the series' [...]

By Nick Valdez

Kugane Maruyama's Overlord has become increasingly popular in the last few years as the series' anime adaptation has helped spread it to a whole new wave of fans. The series' late in life popularity means that many of the light novels are being translated at a rate that not all fans are patient enough to wait for. This has caused the rise of fan translations of the original light novels as they release in Japan, and Maruyama recently responded to a recent fan-translation online.

Expressing frustration on Twitter, Maruyama mentioned how he's losing motivation for the series and may even end the series even earlier than originally planned.

A special side story book in the Overlord series titled "The Vampire Princess of the Lost Country" was distributed as a reward to fans who purchased every Blu-ray and DVD release of Overlord's third season. One fan shared a link to an English fan-translation of this text posted on Reddit with Maruyama, and asked the creator whether or not there was a way to take action against it. Though the initial Reddit post is deleted now, this was enough to take the wind out of Maruyama's sails.

Responding to the fan on Twitter, it was clear Maruyama was frustrated by this, "Oh man, really? My motivation to write has been going down the drain. Maybe I should finish Overlord and go back to being a company employee... Well, for now, I'll cut down on the planned story content and aim to finish the series at volume 17!"

Maruyama previously estimated that Overlord would come to an end around Volume 18 or so, but as of this writing it's not quite clear as to whether or not he's serious about ending the series early. The tone of the tweet can be read either way, but it's clear that the fan-translation has definitely thrown Maruyama for a loop.

The English releases of the Overlord light novels are a few volumes behind its release in Japan, and this is a result of the massive undertaking translating a light novel takes. But joking about the end of the series or not, fans might want to think twice about perusing through fan-translations of this work as Maruyama has expressed a clear frustration with this practice.

Overlord was first created as a light novel series written by Kugane Maruyama and illustrated by so-bin in 2010. Later acquired by Enterbrain and licensed for a manga by Kadokawa, the series follows Momonga, a player in the midst of the world's biggest MMORPG on the day it shuts down. But when he gets transported into the world of the game as his player character, he decides to take over the world as the new overlord, Ains Ooal Gown. The series has been adapted into three seasons, and two compilation films.

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