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(PREFACE)
I have to wash the bad taste out of my mouth after writing a review for another anime that I was absolutely disappointed by... By writing this review.

Now bear in mind, the era when Isekai shows and mmorpgs shows were booming is basically when I was coming of age and starting to work and have lots of freedom with myself, my time and hobbies, so I ate that stuff up like candy.

Some of it came up like acid reflux some washed down, and stayed down with a little bit of booze to help. But basically any of your og SAO, Log Horizon, Accel ... World to say the ones on top of my tongue were my bread and butter, in fact my life is now a failure and I hate myself, well no, Accel World was good but back on the task at hand.

I played a Lot of MMOs most likely more than most people considering my teenager life was console-less for some reason and the only games I had access to were MMOs for some reason, probably because my parents thought that consoles ate your brain no matter what, but at the least being at a computer required more effort therefore, not so bad. I know, if only they knew.

AS SUCH, I can also tell, some people, not specifically me per se, tend to choose the easiest classes or most friendly, most accessible one to players.

Sometimes your focus will be to play alone or you don't have many friends to form big parties or a guild so you'll have one or two friends to grind the game out with you, that's perfectly fine I've been there. You'll think "ok, I'm gonna be on my own most of the time, I need to last longer cause nobody will aggro the enemies for me" and you'd be right, in a good number of MMOs questing or grinding can be made a lot easier by just picking a tank and aggro lots of mobs and AoE them, also HP regen would probably be faster with more VIT or constitution or whatever, yep, right on the money.

For this, and many other reasons, is why Bofuri hits the nail in the head and builds a freaking guild house out of it.
(PREFACE END)

If you get into this anime with a vague preconception of Isekai genre, game based anime, or straight up MMORPGs anime you'll have a good time.

If you get into this anime with all of the above and almost 15-years experience in MMOs as a tank you'll have a BLAST.

As this is a positive review (that's right, I'll tell you that already), I won't wax poetics about it and go straight to the point, 'cause I really want you to watch it for yourself.

--- SPOILER FREE ---

Story:
The story is what you'd expect from an anime of this genre, nothing mind-blowing but is presented to you in a straight-forward, clear way that won't confuse you and lets you know all the premises for everything, even if not stated out loud you can notice some elements for yourself and when you do you are rewarded by feeling good about it when the anime eventually acknowledges it going forward.

Simple story with average characters for anime? Sure, but the writing is good and you'll still feel drawn into the world.
The series starts at the launch for a new MMO and boy haven't we all been there already. And from there it just gives you more of the (good) things that you can expect right after launch and starting a new game alongside thousands of others, as an MMO player it's something you can't experience anywhere else.
That's already a sold product for me, take my money.

Art:
Here, for me, is where the show lacks. Now, don't get me wrong. I'll explain:
The ambience and visuals, locations and setting, are what you'd expected out of an MMO or anime MMO if you want. They won't blow you away, but, you know, they're alright, and they'd be reminiscent of something for you for sure.
Enemies, bosses, monsters and NPCs seem to me being made by someone who has a general, if not above average, understanding of MMOs, therefore they're quite likeable and they feel like something you could find, aside from the acquatic boss, every acquatic boss is BS in any game.

Now the best part for any true player out there, the GEAR.

I can't say every piece of gear in Bofuri looks fresh and awesome but it certainly fits its purpose. Especially the shields (you'll mostly see one) of the protagonist are very cool and strong looking, that's being a tank 101, your gear has to be not only high-tier but look fly as ****.

As for the characters visuals...

Don't be discouraged, they don't look bad or messy or out of place or whatever, they're alright, it's just that the drawings (for the anime, I haven't seen any other representation yet, unfortunately), are very tropy and don't feel unique to this show in any way, they can kinda look generic, but again, in this case you can go past that and still enjoy the whole experience.

Sound:
Mmh... The shows that make a lasting impression upon me are very few and far between as sound department goes, but I do recall this show to have an average one. I'd put in a higher score for the montage-like scenes there are here and there during the show where the characters either hang out, progress their... characters and have generally a good time while a song with lyrics plays in the background and that is really wholesome and makes for a good experience but... there's only one. Sure when it comes on it's a party but I wish they'd put in at least three. Good stuff still.

Character:
I gave this a seven because really, you won't get your socks blown off by any of them but they make you feel right at home if you've ever played MMOs.

You've got your whole guild there with you, with crafters, braindead dps, smug big brain sub-dps, hot jk dps, osananajimi dps and grown-up man that plays with children in a virtual environment off-tank, did they had a healer? I don't think they needed one.

And last but not least your "how does this game work? I'm not sure but since I don't want to die I'll pump full stats in VIT only" main-tank Guild Leader. As a Ragnarok Online former player I'm ultra touched.
It's silly, doesn't seem like a big deal, but it works, well. It caters to a very specific demographic but those people will spend thrice as much on your product than casual one timers.
If the art was a bit better it'd probably would have been a much bigger hit but there are still small details that you can enjoy, very much so. Not a small 6, not a forced 8, but a solid 7.

Enjoyment:
OOOOH BOI. HERE WE GO:
As I said before, you can get into this anime with some expectations, but trust and believe that hype is what kills life, not just anime or games or any form of media, but going in blind and maybe with just a pinch, a little bit of experience from previous works you'll have a great time.

In my case having above average experience in both fields, anime and MMOS both my tastes and standards are absolutely ridicolous and shouldn't be held into consideration in any and all situations, that said.

This show satisfied even me. From start to finish I was always having a good time.

There are shows that lose their sense of direction, after a few episodes (SAO), show where everything only goes well and exactly how the MC wants and get VERY boring VERY fast (Log Horizon) and I'll stop here, because it wouldn't be a review of this specific anime anymore, but this show...

Without any big premise, without anything extreme at stake, it makes something as simple as starting a new MMO into an adventure where you wanna see how much the MC and the cast progresses but most of all a wholesome, heart-warming experience, something that's being forgotten in the last few years MMO genre.

Overall:
In Bofuri there's this and plenty more for all, tho as developers, we hope you won't be too curious and explore around too much because we put some really crazy broken **** in game that only gets awarded to the first one getting to it so hopefully you won't become the (wholesome) meme of the community and bring in thousands of new players cause we'll have to code patch after patch just to nerf you. Or maybe not...?

Only real complaint? The art could've been better and the characters explored more, 'cause the show kind of makes you curious about them , especially in a virtual enviroment where you might be curious as to how much different a person is between the two worlds (like maybe the hack series but yeah)

All in all:
SEE FOR YOURSELVES AND HAVE A GOOD TIME LADS.

(PREFACE) I will say, first and foremost:
I'm a person who gets bored Very easily of anything that isn't to his taste, and also of anything that from the get-go is known for being more than 3 hours long all in one go.
I've watched most big movies from when I was a kid (before 2010), for comparison and maybe it's a bad one, movies like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings around that time and even those at times bored me if it wasn't for some action packed scenes.

Although I always loved anime, again, as a kid, I only watched big shounen shows or ... niche products but always those with very tight animations and back to back bloodrushing sequences or edgy setting (aside from the big 3 at the time Darker than Black comes to mind immediately for me).

I'd say I was a pretty average user up till that point, an average kid with average tastes and attention span. With that said...

I've been in a very dark period of my life 2 years ago, and while searching and scuttling about looking for something to entertain me and to make me feel better I stumbled upon Seven Samurai.

Not the anime but the Original movie by Akira Kurosawa, the one from 1954.
Why a completely average young adult found solace in a 3 and a half hours long jidaigeki is because of two things, I'll be honest: the "despair" I felt at the time, and "pride" in having watched something that in all likeness all my peers wouldn't dream of watching.

BUT

Maybe because of the situation I was in, maybe because I was very "tense" and "susceptible" to certain themes, I hella loved it. I stayed till the end and watched every second of it almost without blinking. The movie conveys many things you'd find in a sengoku-era jidaigeki: honor, trust, camaraderie and most of all to make a Stand, a selfless sacrifice for something or someone that is helpless or beyond hope without Any reward in return. A beautiful and forgotten concept portrayed flawlessly in a 1954, post world war 2, black and white, japanese movie with smelly farmers.

Since then, I revamped my appetite for curiosity, and watched a multitude of movies and anime (altho I haven't wrote a review for all of them ofc), not randomly, but always picking up whatever could really light the fire in my soul so to speak, and eventually I gave Samurai 7 a try, going in knowingly that it could never possibly surpass the original Of Course. Even so... Even knowing that... My disappointment was abysmal. It's been a while since I saw it, and I remember most of it, but now that I made an account (for completely different reasons tho) and while thinking of reviews to write as a practice I thought to myself that I could be doing good by saving some souls.

---I WON'T GO IN-DEPTH NOR GIVE ANY SPOILER---

(END OF PREFACE)

Samurai 7 takes you into a steam-punk sengoku era Japan... I guess, don't care. The anime itself aside from the first episode makes you stop caring about that, because when you take the same exact premise of the Movie but add crazy technologies into it... It'll boggle your mind with a myriad of questions and that's already a bad start.

If a sensible somebody, an average anybody, who comes in with any knowledge of the original movie and looks at the first, heck maybe even the second episode they'd leave. Immediately, they'd leave. Those who stay... They do probably because of the same reasons I stayed to watch Seven Samurai, pride.

That or you're really just really, really, new to the genre.

For fans of the original, it is... I was gonna say insulting but that's not exactly it, I guess they tried to take the original and add more flavor to the characters failing tremendously. Now I don't say that the characters are badly done I liked some of them and for a "re-imagining" I guess it can be ok, but my main problem is that you're taking an original property and changing things around, TOO many things around. I hate when they do that, it feels like a netflix western adaptation animated by a japanese studio instead of something that they came up with, hell if you're into that they already did a great job with Magnificent Seven just six years after.

Besides, the whole point of that would be to draw in people interested based on the original and to keep them interested, but so many, so many things are OUT OF PLACE or feel too forced. If you ever felt that 3 and half hours would be too much for a movie (even tho they weren't and you'd be glued to the screen every second in the OG) 26-episodes is way too much.

Many times I really, truly, felt like I was listening to an unfunny joke that was lasting way too long for it to be funny anymore. I'd say the anime should've ended halfway through after they've dealt with what the original movie was about but NO.
They just HAD to drag you and to force on you plot that... Adds nothing but misery.

------ TL;DR ------

Story:
If you come from the Movie, don't bother, you'll suffer. If you're new to... anime in general, your time is much better spent with Demon Slayer or Bleach if you're into samurai and katanas, or anything else really.

Art:
Maybe this is the only one I'll concede, the steam-punk elements are really nice, and the locations and settings feel very fresh and makes for good ambience, almost Kill la Kill-esque or Trigger-esque really, don't know if they worked together and really don't care but if this concept was taken and upon it they wrote an original story it would've been a hit, or it least it would've had a good following I guarantee it, because the quality art is there, 'tho nothing mind-blowing if you're a veteran but still.

Sound:
I don't remember it. I guess it was decent. When you don't remember something it means it really didn't made any impression on you. Not good, not terrible, just bland enough to be forgotten. Surely you've started humming something out of the blue or in a particular situation, that's when something is very good or apt in a given a case, that's what makes the sound department memorable, but here it just isn't.

Characters:
Ok -> if you've never heard of the original or you're very, very new to anime in general.
Unnecessary, forced, tropy -> anyone else.
That's the gist of it, If I were to go in-depth I'd commit verbal murder, third degree.

Enjoyment:
Again, if you're into samurais and fights, you already know there is better, if you're here is most likely because you've seen or heard of the original, in which case, there is Only misery here, not just for you but even the characters. There is no happiness, nor enjoyment here, I'm not sure they even know where they were going with this because even for a lesser mind (such as mine) you'd find or feel something at the end of a show. But here, there is either. Mu - nothingness. And it's not solace since you weren't actually trying to escape from anything but came here to enjoy something. Either that, or your disappointment would be so great, so deep that you'll try to forget it asap, or like me try to warn everybody before they waste, literally WASTE more than 9 hours of their lives.
Most of all, if you're a hot-head firebrand like myself and will watch it for pride in having it watched for yourself my first advice is "don't" there are no victors here, second DON'T do it in one go like binge watching because the misery you'll feel will be even greater.

Overall:
Why studios and anyone really would take and original property and f... Mess with it, therefore making absolutely nobody happy besides maybe those who are none the wiser, which aren't at fault, yet, is beyond me. If you wanted to make an anime out of this I'd say take the original, make a short season of heck a dozen episodes, or an animated movie sure, whatever, but don't go around putting unnecessary stuff in, focus on the animations, the sound, the art but don't change everything for the sake of inclusion or putting your personal view into it, if you wanted to do that, that's fine but create your own.

Fans of the original, stay as far as you can from this.
Fans of anime, go watch the original, don't let me catch any of you going around thinking this was the original thing (even tho it's written at the beginning that it isn't)
Fans of samurai and katanas and duels, you already know. What you're looking for is not here, look at the guy with the green-checkered haori.

Samurai 7 is a waste of your time.
And time is the only thing that we humans are given by nature to spend freely.
Don't do this to yourself. Stop at the original as nothing will top that.