Review of BOFURI: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense.

I am going to review this as if it were one of either isekai, fantasy, or gaming, because to me, these three genres kind of mix together. I'm going to do that because of all of the anime in this genre, this might be my favorite. Kaede joins a new VR game, and immediately decides she's going to only focus on defense, because she doesn't want to get hurt. However, in doing so, she finds her niche in the game and becomes, well, absurd. And absurdly OP. And I loved the chaos. Let's start with what I love about this anime. I usually donot really like fantasy, isekai, or gaming anime, because they tend to be cliched, overdone, a little too action packed, or unrealistic. While this anime contains some tropes that would fit all three, it's unique in my experience amongst anime, because:

1) The game that they're joining is actually a game. A rather unrealistically portrayed one, but we'll get to that later. Let's just say for now that it is, actually, a game. There's no reincarnation into a game world, there's no finding oneself in a game you wrote, nothing like that. The MC can join and leave the game as she desires.
2) The game mechanics are somewhat realistic (not entirely, but again, we'll get to that later). Instead of just getting random skills for no reason, the MC has to actually defeat monsters to do so, and the monsters are, very clearly, designed to be either beaten or to have the illusion of being beaten. NPCs are NPCs - they have scripts that they follow, even if it may not make sense. If you are even a very little bit familiar with games like this (and I definitely fit into the mold of being a "very little bit familiar"), this will all make perfect sense.
3) The MC is not OP just because someone (a God or some such) decided to make them OP. The MC is OP because she was smart (or crazy) enough to intuitively understand the mechanics of the game she's joined, and then, well, exploit them to her own advantage. This is *entirely* the dev/GM's fault (they are depicted as little animate blobs with smiley faced masks, I wonder if this is a comment on actual GMs). It's implied that anyone could have been that OP if they'd just approached the game as she does.

This leads to a great deal of chaos as the MC uses these well-earned OP skills to pretty much run roughshod over the game, to the point where the GMs try (and mostly fail) to nerf her (every time they try she just finds some other absurd thing to do and it ends up not mattering). That is the aspect of this game I loved - the chaos was so amusing, as I wondered (along with everyone else in the game) what kind of chaos she was going to unleash. Many games like this just have an OP character for the sake of being OP, but this one actually is chaotic, and that makes it fun. Even the action scenes are clearly for fun, when a character dies they just deres and disappear, and maybe come back later. So the stakes aren't any higher than in a real game, that is to say, not high at all unless you're somewhat unbalanced.

So, this anime isn't really to be taken seriously, it's just fun, and frankly, that's what I found so refreshing about it. Many other anime of this (these) genre(s) pretend like they don't take it seriously, but they, well, end up taking it seriously anyway. This one never, ever falls into that trap.

Now. Let's go into what I didn't like about it.

The game was, frankly, unrealistic. I understand that it's supposed to be VR, so a certain amount of immersion is necessary, and actually, realistic. But this was not realistic technology. This wasn't anywhere *near* realistic technology. You can't taste or feel (for the most part) or smell or anything like that in a VR game like this, and it was heavily implied (but never outright stated) that you can't log out of the game without, well, logging out. These characteristics are why I lump this in with isekai or fantasy genres, even though it fits more in with the gaming genre. It's as if the writer wanted to have their cake and eat it to, and only mostly succeeded. Also, the "time speed up" aspects used in several parts of the game simply do not, and frankly can not at this point, exist.

If you are willing and/or able to overlook these rather obvious plot holes, you can suspend your disbelief enough to enjoy this anime, but these things are entirely true, and troublesome. It's almost as if the author wanted to write an isekai, and couldn't quite bring themselves to take that final step into fantasy immersion.

Secondly, the MCs home and school life aren't explored at *all*. What about her parents - why aren't they involved in her game playing? She just goes online, and that's where it all is. I guess that makes sense considering, but it's as if they only show her logged out every now and then just to reinforce that it's just a game. Which is fine, I guess, but again, why not just make it an isekai then?

Technically, the art was pretty good. Some of the backgrounds are spectacular, and the action scenes are fairly well animated, if sometimes so quick as to be difficult to interpret. The music was completely and utterly unremarkable, but I guess that's better than being bad. Writing is decent but not excellent... technically, this is just a slightly better than average anime. But, if you consider how many anime are worse than average, that still makes it pretty good. Very little to no actual fanservice, as you might otherwise find in anime of this or adjacent genres, most of the characters had realistic bodies that are reasonably well covered. A couple of characters are more scantily clad and well endowed than others, but, well, you'll find that in real games too, so no big deal. At least it wasn't all of them.. no gore either, that's expressed with perfectly pretty purple pixelated patterned sparklies.

My Crunchyroll and MAL accounts are *littered* with isekai/fantasy anime I could not or didn't want to finish. I'm going to watch season 2, or at least start it. And from me, that's a pretty high compliment, considering I dropped Konosuba, which I would consider a kindred anime in some ways. A recommend from me, but if you like anime of this genre that takes itself or the concept seriously... move on. This is just for fun.