Itai no wa Iya nano de Bougyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu.

Finally, a VRMMO series written by an author that actually played MMOs before. Even more shockingly, it’s written by an author that can actually write.

You see, because the author actually played MMOs before, he understands that in reality all of them suck major balls, so instead of portraying his fictional game as “realistic,” he portrays it as fun. In a sense, the game is portrayed the way an unspoiled newcomer sees MMOs: as a new world of adventure and endless possibility, one you explore with genuine curiosity and sense of wonder. Not a repetitive grind-fest, fantasy accountant simulator regarding stats and gear, and disappointing technological limitations.
Not that this fictional game being fun actually matters. Because this series isn’t a VRMMO. It is an anime show about people playing VRMMO (a concerningly high number of people seems to be unable to comprehend the distinction). And because the author can write, this ends up being a fun anime show. What it does right:

The VRMMO premise done right. I’ll repeat it again, this is a show about people playing a VRMMO - exploring a fictional world, socializing with their friends, making new friends, having fun. There is an online community of people talking about the game they play - sharing news, bitching about the OP things, bitching about the developers nerfing the OP things, etc. There are, of course, the developers, monitoring the state of the game, rolling out new content and thinking hard about what else to nerf. No one is trapped in an MMO. There are no contrived idiotic stakes like “if you die here, you die in real life.” Instead, there are real stakes in that the characters’ behaviour in the game affects their relationships with other people. There is real meaningful progress of meeting people and building friendships.

The MMO fanservice done right. There is a certain famous VRMMO series with a reputation of catering to the core MMO audience. That show spends half an episode explaining the idea that different classes can party up together to be more effective in combat, and does that with a comically pompous attitude of revealing some grand 4D chess strategy. That series is low-IQ garbage. In contrast, the MMO fanservice in Bofuri is clever, subtle, doesn’t waste your time, and happens when it makes sense in context. There are things like using combat moves for mobility (like a vertically-propelling attack for double-jumping), accidentally stumbling on hidden content by doing random stupid shit, wasting hours just fishing, sequence-breaking a quest line, and, the core foundation of the story, breaking the game by combining various mechanics in a way that was not forseen by the devs.

Narrative depth. As mentioned above, this is a story about people socializing, and the way this happens is organic and believable. Sally is the protagonist Maple's close friend who went to a great length of getting her into this MMO in the first place, which is why it makes sense how much effort she pours into keeping Maple entertained. Hell, the show could’ve been a good romance story if it wanted to, this is how well the aspect of their “dating” is executed. Meanwhile, Maple herself is a cheerful outgoing extrovert who effortlessly makes new friends, so she ends up with a guild. Sally isn’t an extrovert, so she isn’t friends with their guild. She tolerates them because they’re Maple’s friends. The guild members all have their own circumstances which boil down to that being in the Maple’s guild is just a good time in one way or another. Chrome is the most notable case - he is the generic audience surrogate dude who would be perfectly fine just reading about Maple (who’s a mascot of the game for all intents) on the forum, but somehow ended up as her companion, so now he’s self-conscious about being worthy of the main character position, especially considering he plays the same class as Maple but isn’t as good at it. Even the aforementioned forum messages look like real conversations that could be held by real people.
I could easily write paragraphs upon paragraphs breaking down such stuff - simply because there IS stuff to break down. There is depth. Best of all, it’s subtle and unobtrusive, the audience isn’t being beaten over the head with who thinks what about whom, it’s just there between the lines, not taking away the screen-time from the show’s main substance, but present to be seen by anyone who has the eyes and the brain to see it. Maybe not everyone does, which is why this aspect of the show goes underappreciated.

High production values. The series is supposedly a comedy/SoL, and yet its action scenes blow 90% of action anime out of the water with the level of their choreography, animation and hype. I, for once, particularly enjoyed the scene where a caster doing a long-ass chant was actually a thing happening in real time, with interference from their opponents and covering fire from their allies. The art, the music, the character design, etc. are all on point.

It’s fun. This is what MMOs are supposed to be about. Finishing your day, logging in, getting away from the real life problems for a moment, and having fun. Bofuri manages to capture that sense of having fun.

9/10 for “what every VRMMO series should aspire to be.”

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I must be pretty far from the target audience because many people seem to be enjoying this show a lot while it isn't working for me at all, sometimes for the exact same reasons. I had my suspicions when reading the synopsis, but they are not always reliable and people were spreading hype about this. Here is the main problem:

If everything is perfect, then nothing is interesting.

Everyone loves the protagonist for being cute and overpowered.

Everyone is perfect friends with everyone else. No conflict to be seen here. Never have I seen an MMO community that is so perfectly friendly. Even in terms of light-hearted anime series, the friendliness is strangely perfect.

Every character agrees on everything. There are no arguments, not even relatively friendly ones.

Every character is pretty much only playing the game for the sake of playing itself. Their goals beyond that are not explored.

Every line of dialogue is limited to what is immediately happening. Nobody tries to think hard about anything. Nobody tries to be witty or play around with words in any interesting way.

Every joke is carefully formulaic and predictable. People falling over at random. People scared of spooky ghosts. The protagonist being really overpowered, which is repeated in a similar way multiple times in every episode.

If you are trying to argue that this show is a parody because of the excessive focus on cuteness and overpoweredness, it would be an incredibly tedious method of parody because every episode ends up doing the same routine. Parodies should play with the tropes in more creative ways.

Normally, this is where I would deliver a long rant, but there is actually very little to say about this show. It is so simple that I have very little to go on about, aside from the simplicity itself. There is nothing to work with. I get it; there are many people who actually like this and don't want to analyze it beyond what it immediately delivers. No hard feelings about the show, but I won't lie about being entertained when I'm not. This show made me neither happy nor sad, neither angry nor amused. I simply got bored. I will just hope for better luck next time.

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There once was a shield hero who entered a parallel universe but after being betray- . Oh wait, wrong show. But granted, Bofuri does have a character with a big shield so what gets people watching this anime with a VRMMO setting? Virtual reality is no stranger to the isekai creative realm. Sword Art Online became one of the biggest franchise of the past decade. Bofuri has nowhere near that level of popularity in horsepower and for most people, they’re turning to heads and asking themselves, “what the hell is Bofuri?”

A good question. For the sake of this review, I’m addressing it just the anime as “Bofuri” because who really wants to read out loud the full title. At its sweet spot, Bofuri essentially drops our main character into a virtual reality world, based on a new game known as “New World Online”. As the character avatar “Maple”, she carries a vast amount of vitality but very low amount of offensive power. Hence, you can easily guess where the English version of the title came from. Maple, as her character suggests, maxed out her defense and doesn’t want to get hurt.

If we’re talking about realism here, putting all your skill points into one skill isn’t a clever idea. In a party, everyone has a role and sometimes, desperate times calls for desperate measures where you have to take on a role that you’re not prepared for. Now, you may be getting the idea that Maple made a critical mistake but fear not for she managed to obtain two important skills to aid her in combat. That’s the beauty about some MMOs. There’s choices that can be made and Maple’s choice managed to become a character of near unrivalled talent.

Maple herself is a young girl with enthusiasm, curiosity, and full of life. She and her partner Sally are our charming adventure duo who undertakes quests and completing tasks. Adapting an MMO 101 formula, a series like this heavily depends on our main cast to carry the storytelling. The author wanted us to understand our main characters and relate to them. And for that purpose, she made Maple into as ordinary as possible, both in-game and in real life. Chances are, you’ve probably encountered someone of similar personality to Maple in a MMO game before. The main difference is that she has max defense and essentially that tank you want in a party. And when watching Bofuri, it sometimes feels like playing a game. I’m not just talking about fighting a boss monster together or taking on some escort mission. I’m talking about social connection, a perk that every MMO game offers to its players. Maple is there to not just build her character, guild, or skills. She’s also in this world to make friends, companions, and even rivals to prove herself. In the early episodes, she builds an important relationship with Sally, who becomes one of her most trustworthy allies. Later in the series, she forms a guild together with Kasumi, May, and her friend Yui. They called it, the “Maple Tree”.

As the guild master, Maple has a lot of responsibility on her shoulders to carry as she has to unite together in this complex game. Under the virtual reality umbrella, anything can happen anytime in this series so their members must all be prepared. While most of the characters in the guild are friendly with each other, Kasumi does initially display a cold shoulder with her serious personality. It isn’t until she became more familiarized with Maple and her friends that she began to warm up and trust them. Blending between the line of fiction and reality, we also do see some of her real life scenarios when the opportunity arises. However, I would argue and say that her virtual life is far more ambitious than her real life counterpart. When it comes down to it, she’s too ordinary in real life and is portrayed as a generic teenager you’ve seen a million times before. In game, she has a more presence with not just her skills but ability to bring people closer together. I won’t be the grand judge on whether you prefer her in-game avatar or real life character. But if you ask me, Maple’s potential lies in her virtual adventures.

Up to this point, you may also be asking the glaring question about how far the anime focuses on the story. As an anime original viewer, I can only say that the story embraces its premise and promises a lighthearted fantasy adventure experience. The light novels contains a well-rounded amount of chapters that I have no doubt expands far more into what this anime adapted. But for references, I do appreciate that the author were able to capture the main concepts of the show at its core. From Maple’s sociable personality and selling the main concepts of a VRMMO game, it shows that Bofuri can make an identity of its own. Even in a floodgate of these isekai-esque game world settings, Bofuri is what I classify as a sparkling gem.

For Silver Link to take on this anime adaptation means you should probably lower some expectations. As much as I enjoy the world setting and fictional fantasy gags, there’s only so much this anime can pull you in on the artistic front. Character designs looks simple despite Maple wearing that heavy armor and wielding a shield almost twice her size. Other characters in the series has little to impress as most them look like premade characters from a video game. The bestiary is also more or less to get excited about as the majority lacks unique traits. On the hand, I do appreciate how the anime embraces idea of character classes and mostly stick to their guns. Mostly during combat scenes, we see the characters use their actual skills rather than pulling tricks out of their ass. And sometimes, these battles raises the stakes in later episodes with guild rivalries that can be worth anticipating for.

Bofuri ended up being one of the better fantasy shows this year from what’s shown us. It may be a bit early to call for now but from the endless lineup of generic isekai and game world fantasies, Bofuri managed to celebrate the essentials of adventuring. And with just 12 episodes, it’s easy for anyone to jump into. Prepare to be assimilated.

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It was quite sad to see this show get hate for it being a 'Not a realistic mmo' who really cares about that? This show is not only just beyond cute, but it's a great laugh also. Here is why!

Maple is just a treasure honestly. Both in and out of the game, I'd love to be her friend myself. It's also real cute how everyone in the game wants to protect her in the message forms. It really is sweet. But Maple isn't the only treasure, her friend is too. Both of them make a wonderful and amusing team together.

With the story following these two characters progressing together through this game, and even seeing them outside of the game, it really is cute and sweet. A wonderful friendship. Which is great to see.

The art of the show is really great to look at, along with the sound being great to listen to. Which are even further pluses for the show. Having these two done right go along way.

This honestly reminds me of caution hero from last season, but a more cute and sweet version. I honestly cannot wait to see how further Maple and her friend, or possible new friends go. You should join me! It's going to be one fun ride!

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“Scrub Lord: How I Learned to Stop Trying to Git Gud and Embrace the Cheese”. That is what they should have named this anime. Bofuri is an anime that is set up just like any other Isekai. A boring protagonist becomes obsessed with some shitty RPG that works through some incredibly advanced virtual reality. We know that soon she will get stuck in the RPG world and be told that she’ll die in the real world if she dies in the game. We’ve seen this 10 million times before. But WAIT! She doesn’t actually get stuck in the game! In fact, there are absolutely no stakes at all! This anime was recommended by a friend as one of the most pointless anime ever made. After watching it, I have to agree.

This anime is literally just watching a Let’s Play in which a no talent, filthy scrub uses OP spells to cheese her way through a poorly balanced game with an unearned reputation for difficulty! Would you like to spend 6 hours watching a Twitch stream of a ditzy girl abusing Dark Souls 3’s questionable balance system? That is what this show is! The ditzy girl chooses pyromancer, pours everything into faith and intelligence, and just roflstomps every boss in the game with OP spells like Crystal Soul Spear, Grand Chaos Fire Orb, and Black Fire Orb. Doesn't that sound like something that warrants a 12 episode anime adaptation with a budget?

Despite Bofuri's simple and admittedly kind of stupid premise, anime can have a simple premise and still work. One Punch is about a normal guy who becomes the world's strongest superhero, but he's so OP that every fight is a bore to him and all his fellow superheroes are rendered completely worthless. When I first watched Bofuri, I thought it was going to be an isekai version of One Punch Man with the whole joke being how OP Kaede is. However, this really isn't a comedy series. Bofuri is a "cute girls doing cute things" anime that on rare occasion has a comedic moment. So now that we realize it's not a comedy, we have to ask ourselves why this was made and who was it made for? My immediate guess is that Bofuri was made for thirsty male gamers who want to imagine having a hardcore gamer girlfriend. However, it doesn't actually feature any fanservice whatsoever. The main girls are drawn very flat and aren't ever sexualized. There is no romance in the series. It doesn't cater to any weird fetishes or anything like that. So maybe this is actually meant to be a relaxing anime for gamer girls? Nope! Bofuri is classified as a seinen, which means it is in fact intended for older men. As someone in the seinen demographic, I honestly can't imagine why people think this anime is good.

I think my favorite running gag in the series is Maple killing difficult bosses by poisoning them from a distance and getting praised for it by hardcore gamers. If you want to troll gamer forums, go tell a bunch of Souls fans that you were clever enough to poison False King Allant, the last boss of Demon Souls to death and fish for compliments. They will get MAD because the way Kaede plays is always the exact opposite of how a respectable gamer is supposed to tackle these types of games.

So if Bofuri isn't a comedy or a fanservice show or an action show, it must have great character development right? Kaede must start out with some character flaw she has to overcome or she has to learn how to make friends and get along with others right? Well...no. Bofuri is a show about level grinding montages, moe garbage where nothing happens, and then tournaments that Maple/Kaede wins by being OP. There are no real character journeys in Bofuri. There is no overarching plot. When I said this series was just a bad "Let's Play" I wasn't exaggerating. Bofuri is a monumental waste of time. Sword Art Online gets a lot of shit, and we can all see it's a flawed adaptation of an imperfect light novel. However, it wanted to create a protagonist that would inspire lonely young men. It wanted to create a wholesome romance and when the author was called out for writing shitty female characters, he actually took feedback and tried hard to get better! SAO was a pioneering LN that hundreds of others ripped off and even today is still beloved in Japan. Bofuri is none of those things. It wasn't a daring series. It never tried in any category. It's like the anime equivalent of a shovel ware game that gets thrown on to Steam in order to trick a few suckers into buying it. Bofuri makes SAO look like The Godfather. The only reason I didn't give it a lower rating is due to the animation from Silver Fox, which is honestly pretty decent. This series looks far better than it deserves.

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I don’t like talking about other anime when doing a review, since I just want to focus on just the show. However it is obvious that a superficial comparison can be made on this show and a previously aired title “Rise of The Shield Hero”. Since I remembered when Shield Hero was airing a few seasons ago, I made an off hand comment that the Protagonist was basically an example of a min-max build(even though it was against his will). Lo and behold that this season introduces another min-max build but this time is properly acknowledged, and also happens to be another defense build with a shield! It’s a funny coincidence more than anything, and where most of the comparison ends.

BOFURI as it is called due to it’s absurdly long title is a rather delightful show to watch. Yes, the fact that it’s another virtual reality Isekai may be a bit eye rolling, but it does help that the show doesn’t take itself too seriously. It has a very light tone to the point that it can be considered slice-of-life, since it very much is. It basically looks into the life of a teenage girl as she has fun with her friends in the virtual space. The only thing making her stand-out from the crowd is that she naively Min-maxed a defense build that in turn led to her getting favorable results. Essentially she found a way to break the game and make herself drastically overpowered in a short amount of time. It amounts to very little aside from making boss fights and pvp tournaments very easy for her because in the end, it’s just a game.

That’s really the crux of it all that makes it stand, the show acknowledges that everything is just a game and nothing more. The characters all get along and there’s rarely(if any) deep seated rivalries or drama because it would be petty because it is just a game. All the NPCS are obviously scripted and quests that can be easily circumvented or easily accomplished. And while the main protagonist may be an overpowered tank, she does get nerfed from time to time. Although she usually bounces back from it with some other new thing the story hands out to her. Yes, things really do come very conveniently to our main protagonist, Maple. So much so that combined with her happy-go-lucky attitude she comes off as a Mary sue with her only fault being clumsy. Of course this power fantasy is only in the game, because out of it she’s just a clumsy girl and nothing more.

If it isn’t telling from the last paragraph, a lot of the characters in this show don’t have a lot of depth to them. Which is all fine for the most part, since their simplicity is part of their charm. It’s that casual carelessness and easy to understand personalities that makes them easy to attach to. such as Maple’s best friend Sally who is very supportive of her and who purposely created her own min-max build that compliments her friends. Even the “antagonistic” characters such as the leaders of the flame emperors who comes off as a very serious try hard person. Only for it to reveal that it;s more of a front for her to impress her friends and is also really a bit of a crybaby. Although it’s not uncommon that some of the characters can be forgettable even in Maple’s own group.

While the production value for the show is as decent as it comes these days. The soundtrack is worth taking note of. Not because there is something remarkable about it, but it does end up having a place within the show. Mostly when it comes during the fight sequences and the montages in the show. Especially the montages which the show has many more than it should have. It has a very distinct musical and vocal track that gets played again and again for each montage. It’s a decent song, but it would be nice to have something different. The same goes for the fight sequence song as well.

This is a show that isn’t planning to aim high and I guess i can respect that. All it wants to be is a carefree enjoyable show, and it succeeded in doing so.

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Fun and dumb, cute girls playing a vrmmo while being rewarded for doubling down on their dumb builds. Devs actually try to balance cute girl's dumb build because she's too powerful. Nice.
Not a lot going on here, just cute girls doing fantasy vrmmo stuff at their own pace without worrying about anything.
Her friend is actually good at video games and makes a regular sane build, and relies on her skills to kick ass. Maple just does her own thing.
Might not be your thing, but it's just fun to watch maple do dumb shit creative shit no one's thought of and be rewarded for it.

*The following review may containg few minor spoilers*

This show is a parody, isn't? No??? What a shame...

Really, after watching the 4th episode I was wondering about that, because Maple is literally the infamous Mary Sue.
A complete noob doing what nobody else tries to do in a game, collecting rare skills as it was leaves falling in the autumm, obtaining the skills that luckly are the one that she needs most in the moment. Her "luck" is so uncanny that even the developers are surprised.

Another point that is affected by this is the plot. Until now there is only exploring, but with no real steaks. We can see little effort coming from her, no loses, she can defeat any monster, levels up battling few of them, so there is no griding, winning pvp just by keep her shild standing, obtaing any needed item. Why should i root for her if I already know that she will win in the last minute with a convinient plot device?

But i have to be honest, maybe she is not the only one with the "luck", her best friend, Sally, is the other one player with it. Well, talking about her would be repeating what i said about Maple, so for short, both have the "luck", but Maple shows it in more episodes.

If you are seeking for the "Cute girls doing cute things" aspect, well, there is few of them. To be honest the only moe aspect of the show is their design, what they do are not cute things at all.

To finish this quick review, if you enjoy rpg and want to see the anime, don't do it. This anime is a slap in the face of every rpg gamer. If you are seeking for CGDCT, you should what other shows, as i said earlier, the show is not about doing cute things. And if you have literally nothing better to see, what i doubt it, watch and want to see absurd things, this anime is ok for you.

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Minor Spoilers below:

This anime is about a poorly executed OP MC who "because she doesn't want to get hurt in a Freaking VR GAME!", decides to put all her points in defence to not get hurt. Why not just turn down the pain settings in the menu like every other VRMMO in anime? I don't know.

The main problem I have is that in Isekai/fantasy, there's always a special power or plot device that allows the character to be OP or at least they turn it into a fun gag like One Punch Man.

This is a video game so none of that should be happening. The show tries to go for the cute girls doing cute things but this fails because they do everyday RPG tasks like hunting, looting, exploring and even BOSS fights. If this is the case, they should at least explain her strength or make her BEATABLE (yes, she's unbeatable because of "reasons") but instead she gets more OP by the day. It's basically cheating.

The devs nerf her SLIGHTLY but still leave her with a one-hit KO attack (even with 0 points in any other category including attack power) TEN TIMES a day, and she still doesn't take damage which makes no sense. On top of that. she's immune to poison after 3 minutes against a poison dragon which again is idiotic because then everyone would be immune to poison. Oh, and I forgot to mention that she eats the dragon because she has no weapons. Cringy but whatever. Also, she manages to die against a boss that was designed to be unbeatable, but she manages to gain a skill that revives her at full equipment with 1 health and beats the dragon. Do the devs change that? NO!

To top it all off, the devs (who by the way can change her at any time because, you know, they're Devs) decide not to nerf her any further and "give up" but at the same time prevent anybody from ever getting her skills by doing what she did. Unfair as heck

The sad thing is that the other characters are interesting and not too overpowered and don't do stupid/broken attacks. If the MC was removed, the show would be a lot more interesting.

TL;DR. Don't watch it if you're annoyed when those hackers in video games have cheating abilities and the admins do nothing

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At first, this show looked like standard cute girls doing cute things show that come dime a dozen these days. However, after two episodes I realized this show struck a powerful chord.. as New World Online reminded me of the fun days I played in the real game Ragnarok Online. Reminded me all of the item gatherings, meeting friends, forming a guild. It's all here.

NONE = Also none of the excess baggage that other shows try to shove into my face. Trying to save the world from evil? trapped in another world? trapped in a game? people dying if they lose? generic harem plot? None of those shits!! This is just pure fun, we are playing a friendly game. More easy to relate to for people like me who played and enjoyed RO years ago.

Art - colorful backgrounds, lush grasslands, forests. Makes you want to explore and do adventure. Rest in the town when you get tired. The enemies, the non-playable characters (npc's), the buildings in the town, and even players chatting in the distance are decently animated, adding a sweet feel to the world of NWO.

Characters - Maple and her friend Sally are the most developed being main the pair. However, the others feel "real enough" in the sense that they feel like the friendly people I've met in Ragnarok Online years ago.

Sound - from the pleasant singing by Rico Sasaki in the background, to the action music during boss fights. It's helps flesh out the world of Bofuri into a wonderland that is both immersive and fun.

Enjoyment - I don't want to over hype. My review is very biased since I enjoyed this show, because I was a Ragnarok Online addict for years. However, one thing this show did is it is consistent on doing things it was meant to do, which is give me the feeling of playing game, explore, adventure, meet friends. It did not pretend to be something deep. Come on people, we're playing game here for fun, not because our lives depended on it or world peace is in danger!! XD Another reason I liked this is no overpowered male main cast gathering a harem either, which is a mercy, as I'm sick of shows like that Smartphone shit.

Overall - I recommend this show for people who want to remove stress and just have some clean fun watching people play a friendly game in a virtual world. If you're looking for something deeper, then look somewhere else.

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[Minor spoilers]

There are some things in the world that man was not meant to understand. This nugget of wisdom is one I cherish, as it was bestowed upon/yelled at me by a homeless woman outside of my local subway station. It reminded me that there are lessons to be learned from the most unlikely of places. The same can be said of this show. The lesson here is that you can come up with the most painfully, soul-drainingly generic pile of isekai/vrmmo garbage and still have hordes of mouthbreathers climbing over each other to suckle from the tit of mediocrity that you have dangled in front of them.

I’ll start with the most controversial and brave observation I have: none of the characters are any good. Maple is, as her namesake would suggest, a sickeningly sweet pile of diabeetus and stunted mental development. She doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing, but manages to sweetly stumble into the position of one of DA BEST PLAYAS IN DUH GAEM. Because she literally put all her points into one stat and fell asleep at her keyboard. Now she’s functionally invincible. Her friend Sally is a blue 2fast4u 1337 G4M3R who put basically all her points into AGI and is functionally untouchable. There are like four other characters who I remember basically nothing about besides a Deus Ex Machina rubix cube and a katana. Finally, their newest braindead recruits, whose names I have forgotten despite them being introduced to me not 10 minutes ago, have maxed out STR and will undoubtedly end up almost as busted as our dynamic duo because the devs are morons.

This leads me to my second observation: the devs are morons. I’ve seen some very poorly designed anime RPGs that fall apart the moment you really think about them *cough* SAO *cough*, but this one takes the cake. It’s fine to not have a super fleshed-out setting for a VRMMO anime, nobody is expecting much anyways. But when your setting has more holes in it than a Dutch dam made of Swiss cheese, then it becomes a jarring distraction. BOFURI tries desperately to convince you that the same developers who can apparently pump out massive batches of content on a weekly basis are also incapable of the most rudimentary playtesting and game balance design. Then when a total noob breaks their game they just sit around in cyberspace dressed as stuffed dolls and remind us of how great Maple is. It’s like it was designed by somebody whose only knowledge of game design comes from speedreading poorly translated copies of SAO and other assorted anime MMOs.

And another thing about the setting: it’s not only horrendously uninspired, but also a blatant ripoff of a host of other properties. I nearly choked laughing when their totally-not-pokemon popped out with the exact same sound as an actual pokeball. There’s not a single skill in this show (besides maybe Hydra) that I haven’t seen before. From Isekai Slime’s Devour to I Can’t Believe It’s Not Naruto’s kage bunshin no jutsu. The devs/admins being depicted as mascot characters is basically the same as another VRMMO airing this season: Infinite Dendrogram.

The art is meh, nothing to write home about. The same can be said of the story so far. The humor is about as bland and formulaic as you would expect from this shriveled teat of a genre. In short, there is absolutely nothing redeeming about this show. If you want to turn off your brain and spend 20 minutes a week slumped in your chair watching generic anime girl #472050583 be dumbcute while drool drips out of the corner of your mouth as you slowly slip into the abyss, then go ahead. For everybody else, rub some braincells together and spend your time watching literally anything else.

I don't understand why a show this bad was not only greenlit, but actually aired. Maybe this too is something man was not meant to understand.

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If you think SAO is awful, mediocre or overrated, you should think the exact same about this, or else you might just be a hypocrite. This anime is SAO meets TNY meets Moe Trash, with even more insane plot armor / contrivances than SAO could ever hope to have. Also, spoilers.

Bofuri has absolutely nothing going for it beyond the ever present CGDCT, which wouldn't be a problem or worthy of such a negative rating if not for the game aspect which has lead to an insane amount of the aforementioned plot convenience, awful characters and a litany of other issues.

Bofuri's lack of a (complex) story is not too great an issue, what is however an issue is how every single challenge is raised and defeated in a single episode, in particularly contrived manners, usually bordering on, if not shooting straight past the Deus Ex Machina label. Every single challenge the protagonist(s) encounter is immediately resolved by some quirky (RE: Stupid / unreasonable) action from the protagonist. Actions that'd never work in any decently written series, let alone a real game, or are so convenient we'd call it a miracle.

For example, being unable to do damage to the monster due to low stats, so instead eating the monsters in a game, power of friendship, obtaining / using insanely broken skills that'd have been immediately patched out the ass, let alone ever reached deployment (Like a fucking Mecha and Kaijuu skill, on the same character, in a fantasy game? Really?), etc. As someone who's played games, and made them, one of the most irritating things to me is the game balance in this anime, rather, the complete lack of it. No such game would ever exist. Let alone a high profile VRMMO, with a collection of devs. The game this series is set in is just an absolute mess.

Honestly, I don't think explaining it could do justice, I'd just recommend watching each (or a given) episode, because this does happen literally every episode, with two core questions in mind. One, what is the challenge of this episode the characters will face? Two, how is it being resolved? From there you branch off and ask yourself other things such as "Is this resolution reasonable / realistic?", "Would this work in real life?", "Would this happen in real life?", "Do such challenges happen in other anime and how are they resolved?". The answer will be negative 100% of them time. Absolutely nothing in this anime earned, not the skills, not the victories, nothing. And while yes, that is sometimes the joke, there is a line and that joke cannot be used as an excuse for every single challenge that appears to be immediately dismissed and resolved, regardless of the magnitude of it. And since it is used as such, and never with an acceptable / believable justification, you know that the protagonists are never, ever going to lose a fight or encounter any genuine challenge. And that is a problem. Everything is handed to them.

The characters are paper thin, even for anime, even for CGDCT. Not a single person ever deviates beyond the rigid outline set for them, none of them do anything unique, there's no conflict, no surprises, no distinguishing features. They're just archetypes, not characters. Maple is the quirky cute Mary Sue protagonist who never runs into a problem that cannot be immediately Deus Ex Machina'd out of. Sally is cool, smart supportive best friend. Yui & Mai are extremely lazy carbon copy mirror images of each other that have effectively no character beyond "cute" and "strong" which is probably meant to be an interesting contrast / gap moe. Kuromu is the token male character protagonist who is a helpful manly big brother, but constantly kept at arms length to avoid angering certain fanbases. Kanade is a clever androgynous character who isn't very physical, that's it. Kasumi is the cool older sister type. And Iz is the helpful big sister. None of them have any depth beyond that, and I think those descriptions are enough to predict every action they take through-out the series. The characters are hollow archetypes with insanely predictable behaviours.

The voice acting and music are both very average, nothing worth complaining about or particularly praising. The only thing that I'd particularly note on is the sound effects when announcing a skill. Other than that, it was entirely forgettable, no high impact / memorable music, no exceptional voice acting, especially not from the main, main cast. The best VAs are probably Kuromu's VA and Mii's, both of whom have a backseat 95% of the story.

Art is another average not worth mentioning too much. It's very colorful which is nice, but has a somewhat boring and cliche style that you'll find in a dozen given anime each season. The character designs are a mixed bag. On many occasions they are insanely overdone, even for anime. On some occasions, they're pretty interesting. Yui and Mai are a fantastic example of lazy and overdone, especially once they get their armor. I don't even know where to begin with them, the obvious color dichtomy with the somewhat distasteful color streaks, the ridiculous armor design, the comically sized hammers. Mii, Iz, Kuromu (Original), on the otherhand are fairly good. Kuromu 2.0 however is justy plain edgy. As are the monster and mecha skills, which are insanely ridiculous and out of place.
Animation is something I never really talk about unless it's exception or exceptionally bad (looking at you 7 Deadly Sins), so I've essentially ignored here, since it's neither worth complaining about or praising.

I get that I'm criticizing the joke this show was going for, but it's because I don't think it did a very good job. If you want to or are capable of turning your brain off and watching something flashy, this is a good enough watch. If you pay any modicum of attention and take the show seriously however, the irritations will pile up real fast. Bofuri succeeds in appealing to a specific niche, but more broadly as an anime and as a story, it's pretty astounding failure.

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Do you remember what it was like playing your first video game? Itai no wa Iya nano de Bougyoryoku ni Kyokyfyri Shitat to Omoimasu (I Accidentally Made A DEF Build) does! They perfectly capture that simple joy of experimenting to find your niche, while giving you an experience that will appeal to both hardcore gamers and non-gamers alike.

The setting and some characters are ripped straight out of SAO. (The character 'Iz' for example is a blacksmith one letter away from a lawsuit =P) but the story (at least, so far) cannot be anything farther from the inconsistent mess of its predecessor.

We start off meeting Maple, a newbie gamer who just started her first ever video game: New World Online. SAO only not quite as broken. And yes, I say that even though the plot of this anime is how one novice completely breaks this game BY ACCIDENT. Because of the game's relative newness and a player base consisting of mostly experienced players, (who would know better than to dump EVERY stat except one,) I completely buy that Maple could accidentally create an absolute monster of a character. I've played a few games where shenanigans like these actually happened. And if you're like me, then this anime will bring back some fond memories of nostalgia.

There's a simple joy in watching this anime. The girl characters all suffer from the same "Idol Complex" every other cute girl in anime suffers from, but since this anime is only about as dark gritty as cotton candy, the plot doesn't suffer from this. In fact, because this is a comedy, the girls are allowed to be silly. There's a lot of power in a show like this. The characters are allowed to be more dynamic and complicated than you'd normally expect from an anime like this.

Much of the humor depends on the MC being totally clueless about just how game-breaking her build is. This gets immediately rectified by the second episode when her friend joins the story. Her friend "sally" is a pro gamer who (unlike Kirito) actually has skills to pay the bills. I mean, everything about her demeanor comes across as a character who loves playing video games and will thoroughly enjoy exploiting the game in any way she can.

Overall this is a fluff anime. Watch it if you like it, avoid if you can't handle an ungodly amount of sweets being launched at you with a magic missile.

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It should be fairly easy to gauge your potential enjoyment of Bofuri based on your reaction towards it's synopsis. If you were reading about the MC becoming the most overpowered player in the game and thought to yourself:"Hell yeah, I want to see a cute show about a shield loli wrecking everyones shit up!", then I can recommend this one without much hesitation. Maple is very cute, beloved by all and definitely ends up dominating everyone and everything in every way possible and with strength to spare.

Now if that last part has you worried, you'll want to stay away. If you were hoping for a setting with a cute MC who learns about game mechanics, plans strategies, trains hard to overcome all obstacles and gets rewarded for her passion, well then this show isn't for you. Simply put: She doesn't learn, she doesn't plan, she doesn't train. Maple just plays the game like any new player would, yet for no explicable reason her rewards are always more plentiful and several magnitudes more powerful than anyone else's.

Giving your MC high class rewards for mundane activities would be bad writing in any setting. It's even worse in the context of a game, as you'd expect other more skilled and determined players to copy what's working for her and quickly getting ahead. This never happens. The Anime says people are doing exactly that, but we never see it, and they clearly aren't successful with it. This is something annoying Bofuri does throughout it's run. It tries to wave any potential plot holes around Maple away with cheap explanations, which end up insulting the viewers intelligens more than they actually close said holes. And that's if they get addressed at all.
She constantly stumbles into greatness for seemingly no reason and I really cannot stress enough how tedious this becomes. Our cute shield heroine really doesn't do anything out of the ordinary, ever. She says so herself on multiple occasions and the people around her always react incredulous, as if it's clear that you couldn't possibly get to were she's at by playing normally... well yeah, exactly, so why is she?

Sadly the show bends over backwards at every turn to make Maple as successful as possible. In the first PvP event were players need to kill each other to gain enough points, for example. Despite seeing that Maple isn't taking damage and her shield killing anyone who comes too close, people are still just mindlessly throwing themselves at her. Defeating her clearly looks impossible, very dangerous and wouldn't give any more points than eliminating anyone else. Instead of fighting the impossible tank with zero mobility and an instant kill shield, any player would just ignore her and look for easier targets. They are trying to win themself, not making her look good.
But unfortunately this is the Maple show! She needs to get kills to earn the reward so let's all just fling ourselves at her! Realistic characters don't matter.
Maple needs to be stronger!
Maple needs to look awesome!
It's all about Maple!
IT'S ALL ABOUT MAPLE!!!

And this is another big problem I have with Bofuri. Up until now I only focused on the MC. Unfortunately that's exactly what the Anime does, too. Basically all other characters might as well be empty NPC's. They look and act like it. The vast majority of enemies are shown as nameless, faceless mooks who are running around in the most unimaginative gear I have ever seen in a fantasy setting, let alone a game. They obviously just exist as cannon fodder to illustrate how devastatingly strong Maple is or to cheer her on from the sidelines.
The only thing we learn about the few named enemy players is their relative power. That's it. No character arcs, no backstories, no motivations, no nothing! They exist as a more concrete longterm obstacle for Maple to overcome, but could just as easily be generic ingame bosses.
Lastly her friends/guild members. Even they only exist for the glory of Maple. The only thing they ever do without her direct involvement is confined to super short clip montages. Their main reason to exist is so that we can have a guild for Maple and to show just how much stronger she is and how much they need her. She in turn doesn't really need them for much of anything. Maple is more powerful than the rest of her guild combined, has more utility, more defense and any gear they could help her obtain she can clearly find on her own and faster. On atleast one occasion two of her teammates even end up holding her back and Maple still comes out on top without much effort.

The sole exception to this is her friend Sally and even she gets pushed into irrelevance fast. One could be forgiven for believing her to be a vital part of the team, after all she takes up the important role of chief strategist.
Then Maple unleashes her ultimate transformation, becoming an unstoppable monster berserking unopposed through hordes of top players and killing several of them with single attacks, proving she never needed any of that strategy nonsense to begin with, or her teammates for that matter.

Glory to Maple!...

Outside of this there isn't much to Bofuri. In terms of production quality it's ok. Art, animation and choreography are good at the start and fizzle out into mediocrity the longer the show progresses. Fairly standard for the average TV anime. Some fights towards the end are poor, some have a bit of sakuga, but it's nothing extraordinary for better or for worse. Sound design and music are ok, save for the montage song which got overused towards the end as were the clip montages themselves. The dialogue is the only aspect of Bofuri I'd call consistently bad. Painfully generic at the very least. The story doesn't go beyond the synopsis and I doubt anyone would expect something deep from this show anyway. I certainly didn't and I was ok with that, but the execution of the core concept was awfully poor.

Overall I leave Bofuri feeling frustrated. I wanted to see a cute shield loli beating the odds, but there is a limit to any good thing and this Anime has shot over that tenfold. The first few episodes when Maple hadn't yet ascended into quasi-godhood were decently entertaining. After she starts randomly becoming the very best in every aspect however, the show quickly drops proportionally to how much stronger she gets. By the end Maple indisputably belongs on this games equivalent of Mount Olympus. Bofuri at that point belongs in the trash bin.

4- /10

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Bofuri isn't very unique when it comes to isekai but it's fun to watch. A anime that is almost like a slice of life. It doesn't have over the top drama which is a good relief as they're just playing a video game.

Really good characters with their own traits but would like more development on the side characters.The animation is surprisingly well done compared to shows like Arifureta. The music is also very chill compared to other isekai which is very refreshing.

Though i feel like Bofuri did rush the end a bit. Would also like to see more real world interaction in maple's life and how the game affected her.

Enjoyed it very much 9/10 would recommend if you like moe

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This will be my first review so if my points aren't well expained I'll blame it on that.

Now at first I really liked it, I wasn't going to watch it at first because I had just finished The Overly Cautious Hero (OCH) and didn't want to something like it, but in the end there wasn't much else that peaked my interest and the idea behind a character building only defence seemed interesting.

I'll start with what I liked, the art was great, whever a spell or ability was cast you could see how much effort had gone into it, everything looked so clean and crisp. As well as that the first few episodes were really great to define Maple's character and her style to me made sense and reflected in her goal of taking no damage, up to post first event I thought she was a good character.

On to why I felt it fell part after that, outside of Maple we didn't really see much of any other character outside of maybe Sally, nobody else really changed or was overly important or got a chance to shine, they maybe get a small moment of dialogue here and there but most of the time they are sideliners. I have not read the manga so it maybe does it different there, but for the anime nobody outside of Maple seems to be developed as a character which I am personally not a fan of.

The next thing I am sure is controversial but I'll say it anyway because it was the most offputting thing for me, and if you have already watched the show you will know why I specifically said just post event 1 that I started having issues. It's what happens to Maple's character, she starts off being a pretty interesting, playing a unique playstyle while suffering the drawbacks, that's what I want from a character, it makes them memorable for being unique. Then after a while, it seems like everything gets forgotten about other than the fact he has high Vitality, every single fight from then on it's almost like the lack of Strength, Agility etc don't matter. I even did a bit of the maths based on the wiki info, what's happening there and what's happening on screen should be two completely different things.

I won't go into too much more detail but she essentially becomes just a generic OP protagonist after a certain point with numbers that shouldn't make sense with what's happening. While that may be nitpicky it's was a similar issue with OCH but in that case I thought his quirk became boring and used poorly after a while, this time the thing that made her different became a redundancy. It is already trying to compete in a genre that is desperate for something new, making her the way she is tied in with the way the story flows doesn't do anything to make her stand out.

But what I will say is that if you can look past that I imagine you will like the show, and I probably am taking it too seriously. Put it this way, if you are new to the Isekai genre I think you will like it, but if you've seen too many to count then I'd advise looking somewhere else, it's very generic for being new.

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I really love this kind of anime specially in terms about the online games in the old days.. Because it was very fun and more exciting and lastly you can related in terms of battle style and guild wars experience... Even though I can't really read in the light novel but I know what will be happened next scene and there are lots of speculation that will be happened in the next scene so that it will be more exciting and more spectacular moment in this anime...

About the characters: it was a good, even most of them are broken character, but in terms of battle Style, knowledge and most of the all is the quickly decision specially in terms of battle strategy against the boss or even the guild wars that easily to trick and easily to defeated without sweet against their opponents...

In terms about the sound and art style.. That was a awesome and I want give the score of 10/10 in overall rating that's all..

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8.5/10 for me.

It reminds me of the series "Avatar: The last airbender" in the sense that it's not only about fighting; they also go out of their way to have fun experiences. It's really sad that the anime isn't adding more of those adventures.

When there are fights, the fight scenes well animated, and the characters come up with creative ways to overcome challenges. It's not just "I yell really loudly for a long time, so I can become stronger"


*My favorite thing about the MC, is that Maple doesn't take herself overly seriously. In fact, she doesn't do anything expecting to become OP, she's just trying to have fun, while focusing on making herself hard to kill. They come up with cool & creative ways to overcome challenges.

**I'm a huge fan of the latest Dragonball movie, and i'm a sucker for shounen/action anime. However I definitely appreciate creativity & fun, more than outright brute force.

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Ever since SAO became a thing every other isekai/game anime has tried to recreate that lightning in a bottle. This caused an oversaturation of isekai and game anime to the point some mmo anime are indistinguishable of normal isekai. Bofuri seems like another anime just jumping on this trend. Heck, this main thing is that the mc is all about her defense and shield, just like the isekai Rising of The Shield Hero. But unlike Rising of The Shield Hero, this anime is actually good.

The anime follows Maple, you usual moe bait mc. She joins a new VRMMO game called New World Online. When she begins playing it she realises she does not like to get hurt at all, so she puts all skill points in defence. As is tradition with isekai/VRMMO, she becomes overpowered because of that. She is later joined by her friend Sally and together they explore the wonderous world that is Totally Not SOA

The characters are just likable. Even if I called the mc moe bait a paragraph ago, she is actually pretty nice. She is an experienced gamer, but still is a noob at certain parts. She also doesn't know anything about this game cause of plot convenience. The other characters are fun too. I really like Iz so far, the shopowner, but she hasn't showed up a lot in the 4 episodes I watched so I hope that changes in the future.

The animation is mixed bag for me. The artstyle is nice and when it slows down the animation is quite alright, but in action scenes the animation is all over the place. Sometimes it is all animated, sometimes the monster is completely CGI, sometimes the monster is sometimes CGI, sometimes the characters themselves are CGI, this constantly mixing actual animation and CGI felt a bit jarring at time. Also, the music is just okay.

Despite all my complaints and nitpicks, I still enjoy this anime a lot. The constant feeling of progression is at play here and I love when an anime gives me the feeling it is actually progressing. The humor is fun too, with the suprising punchline here and there that gave me a giggle. The world is also so big that I just want the characters to explore it more.

So yeah, this anime is fun. It is the perfect "Shut your brain of" MMO anime. If you aren't here to critique everything like a depressed twat (like me) then you will finds loads of stuff to like in this anime.

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In a world where VRMMO began taking over in the anime community, one series rises to the top through it’s unique charm and an idea so insane that it actually worked. No one would have thought that a main character with so much power could still lead an anime to such great lengths; however, BOFURI broke that idea this time around. Take realism out of the equation because there’s nothing realistic about this anime. Instead, you can have a cute, yet broken main character who gets through her life in the game through her clumsiness and extreme luck.

Unique story & concept:
With a fast-paced story to help drive the energetic and quirky nature of the main character, there’s not much time for the audience to actually breathe. Episode after episode, the main cast is either training or competing in some sort of event showing off the new skills and abilities of everyone, especially the powerhouse herself: Maple. To top it all off, none of this happened to Maple by sheer skill or intellect but rather her insane luck aiding her in each of her encounters.

“The best offense is a good defense.” This statement proved to be true for Maple as the story progressed and her power grew along with it. Despite fighting against strongest foes in combat power, her skills and defense was enough to crush her competition along with their hopes of ever beating her. Normally, a main character that has unmatchable power would look like a poorly written character; though, Maple’s charm is how oblivious she is to the luck around her and her fun personality. She’s not some boring OP character with little to no character development. Maple actually learns from her mistakes and grows as fighter despite her appearing to be an airhead.

Fantastic art:
The animators of this show have shown us time and time again how great they are with a simple animation software. Each new environment always looks clean and well-drawn, and the fights are no different. There wasn’t a single fight where the audience would be left wondering “Are they saving their animation for later?”. Actually, it was easy to tell that each fight had a lot of effort poured into it from just living the experience by simply watching the anime. Finally, the use of CG really put the animation over the top compared to any other anime. It was fairly difficult to piece together which parts were CG and which parts weren’t making transitions between the two animation techniques smooth and crisp.

Great soundtrack:
The entire soundtrack for this anime was done well. Each OST fit well with the given scenes and overall sounded great. I could pick out a couple that I’d listen to on repeat because of how great they sounded. Not only the OSTs, the OP and ED were both equally as amazing to listen to. If anything, the OP has become one of my favorite songs.

Fun & lovable characters:
Along with everything else, the characters in BOFURI were done incredibly well. All of the characters had moments in the spotlight and showed off a bit of what made them different from the rest. I found it especially impressive that the leader of the Flame Emperors had a very vulnerable side shown on screen. It broke the standard mold that any opposing ‘boss’ or ‘leader’ didn’t have a glaring quirk about themselves that made them particularly unique.

Never-ending entertainment:
There are plenty of comedic moments in BOFURI that have really hit hard when they come up in the show. Watching Maple’s guild come together is pretty entertaining to watch because their personalities really gel with one another. Additionally, watching how the other major guilds worked with one-another was fun to watch. Each main group of characters played off each other amazingly well and provided a lot of enjoyment throughout the show.

Final thoughts:
BOFURI was an anime I wasn’t expecting to get this season, especially since it was announced as an VRMMO related anime; however, the journey these characters went through was fast-paced and entertaining to watch. The episodes went by in a flash and left me wanting more. This anime crushed my expectations and will probably sit high in my rankings for quite a while. [9/10]

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