Matt Schley
May 29, 2019 
If you’ve ever wondered how Japanese creators feel about fan-translated material that’s distributed over the internet, well, here’s one example.
Kugane Maruyama, who writes the Overlord series of light novels on which the anime is based, was informed by a fan last week that a fan translation of his Overlord novel Bōkoku no Kyūketsu-hime had been posted online.
Maruyama was not pleased. He responded:
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! (ANN translation)
Maruyama had previously stated he was planning to finish Overlord at volume 18. ANN’s Kim Morrissy suspects Maruyama was simply venting, and was not serious about actually cutting a volume of material. But it’s obvious the news shook him, especially considering a follow-up tweet that read, in part, “bad money drives out good,” perhaps implying that free fan translations could hurt the official product.
The Overlord light novels are being officially released in English by Yen Press, who have brought out 10 volumes so far. Here’s how they describe the first volume:
For twelve years, the virtual world of Yggdrasil has served as the playground and battlefield for the skeletal lord Momonga and his guild of fellow monsters, Ainz Ooal Gown. But the guild’s glory days are over, and the game is shutting down permanently. When Momonga logs in one last time just to be there when the servers go dark, something happens–and suddenly, fantasy is reality. A rogues’ gallery of fanatically devoted NPCs is ready to obey his every order, but the world Momonga now inhabits is not the one he remembers. The game may be over, but the epic tale of Ainz Ooal Gown is only beginning…
Source: ANN
