Review of BOFURI: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense.
What you get in this anime is a cute shield girl that becomes so OP, she basically commits war crimes when going into PvP tournaments and events. There is also tons of boss fights, close to every episode has one and in my opinion the animation is well done to the point of stunning in them all. A few times there is CGI, but even around these times some of them are hard to tell the difference. The show is funny in not only the OPness of Maple, but it does well to make jabs at video game mechanics and also references of other videogames(such as couple of Pokemon references) that if you know them it will make you smile.
The great thing about how OP Maple gets is not because she is some god or has some hidden form of talent or was reincarnated with past knowledge. It's that she just figures out how to play the game differently and it show that the video game mechanics favor how she does thing ultimately, and it ends up being pretty comedic every time. The game devs are shown to know and do actually take action, but they really just give up because of how she plays is unpredictable. Maple is equivalent to someone that was not told the rules of a game and they end up doing things you would never expect while just trying to have a good time.
Its main appeal for many will be those that have nostalgic views from previously playing video games and finally having an anime that actually does revolve around a video game setting which is done well. A lot of other video game animes which often are isekais, go away from the video game enjoyment to be ultra hardcore if you die in the video game, you die in real life. Which i'm sure most people that have played video games don't remember that kind of feeling. Often you would just play them for fun or enjoyment or to pass some time and that is exactly what Bofuri does, and why in my opinion it stands out as excellent. Because it is low stakes and really reminds you of the enjoyment of playing around in a game with friends and making new friends along the way.
Visually it was great, but did lack in world building as it progressed to new adventures there isn't much explained beyond stats and skills which actually make it all that more funny when ridiculous things happened. Music was really good too especially the montage song which is surprisingly fully in English.
Overall, this anime is wild ride from start to ending of cute, wholesome, fun, feats of action, an OP MC, and pretty amazing animations. The world more or less revolves around Maple and the side characters which while great were not touched much upon except their VRMMO characters a bit. It is very lighthearted with no drama, and in this world all the characters were similar to how you would run into random players in a game most were nice and just trying to have a fun time too. The whole world is just basically about having a fun time with other players while an OP cute shield girl curb stomps everyone in her path and commits several war crimes. I heavily look forward to Season 2 after experiencing this and hope other will too.