Review of BOFURI: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense.
What can you expect from watching BOFURI? You can expect a fun time, with a very simple story. If you're someone that needs at least a bit of complexity in your story, then unfortunately, this probably won't be the show for you. This is something you can watch for the sole purpose of enjoying your time, and I would say that it does a good job at that! So what is the this about? As the long title implies, our protagonist, Maple, doesn't like getting hurt, so she maximizes her defense! We're following her quest in this game that her friend (Sally) got her into, asshe becomes more and more overpowered. Of course, because this is just a game, the conflicts in the story, if you can even call them that, are never that deep. Instead, they’re just objectives of what they (our main characters) want to achieve at a given time. The story does not get more complex than that, which could be good, but it does admittedly have drawbacks. On one hand, the tone doesn't really change, so we have continuous fun times. I personally enjoyed this (A LOT), however, it would be understandable for this to become repetitive to the point of boredom to some people, because let's be very clear: this is pretty repetitive. New thing to do in the game -> Maple becomes more overpowered -> succeed in objective. I found this fun, but it would be fair if others wouldn't enjoy this.
On the other hand, the lack of complexity can be a drawback for people that enjoy more fleshed out stories. I talked about the actual plot a bit, but there is a bit more to it than just that. We don't learn anything about the characters, and their real lives. We don't even learn much about Maple (Kaede being her real name) and Sally (Lisa), who are friends that go to school together. We are shown a few conversations between the two in real life, but it mostly revolves around "Remember to study so you don't get grounded so you can keep playing". We genuinely don't learn much more about them beyond that. I believe that this isn't too much of an issue because of the intention of just being a fun and simple show. However, it's still important to point out, since it would be entirely reasonable for people not to enjoy this aspect of the story.
So overall, who should watch this? If you can enjoy a simple show that's just trying to be fun, then this is should be fun to watch! However, if you don't enjoy simple stories with 1-dimensional characters, then this is something to avoid. If you aren't sure where you lie, then I would say to give it a try!