Review of BOFURI: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense.
It is an undeniable fact that the anime industry is already oversaturated with a lot of these fantasy tropes anime to the point that the genre had become stale. Most of them are adapted from light novels that have these ridiculously long names. However, not all of them are significantly bad or downright horrible because everything will always have exceptions and in this case, with an intermingle chemistry of the Cute Girls Doing Cute Things or CGDCT in short, Itai no wa Iya nano de Bougyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu (BOFURI: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense)is an anime to behold in its own right.
After watching a couple of episodes, I had realized that it has that Sword Art Online coupled with your standard fantasy DNA within its genes but without an intricate storyline as almost everything from characters diving into a VRMMORPG called New World Online (again, sounds familiar to you? ) to the settings has its own unique touch and feel.
The storyline is nothing much to be seen here considering the fact that it is still a slice of life fantasy anime with 95% of the setting in the anime takes place in the virtual online game. Some people argued that the story is a tad too simple and all rainbows and sunshine for their tastes but for me it's just nice even though there is no major breakthrough in the plot as it can be summarized as the MC who never played a virtual MMO before tried playing the game for the first time as recommended by her best friend and as they continue to level up and recruit new members for their newly built guild, they joined events and raid dungeons at it is as simple as that.
What made me flabbergasted is the animations. These are probably some of the most fluid I have ever seen in any anime ever. The highlight would be the battle scenes. Everything from how the characters used their respective skills with striking visuals to the way they engage in battles is just spectacular indeed. I would dare to say that they are on par with the likes of anime made by Ufotable. Props to the animators who managed to create such wonderful animations within this department. Moreover, the opening and the ending songs are substandard in my opinion, nothing groundbreaking that would make me listen to them a few times but they still did get the job done.
When it comes to the characters and their personalities, as simplistic as they are, all of them have their own charm. Obviously, as the title of the anime implies, we have our cute main protagonist, Mapple (which is her in-game name) who is too afraid to die in the video game although the game didn’t have any consequences like what we had seen in the events of SAO, she still insisted to add the entire vitality stats and maximize her defense when she was making her avatar which resulted in such outrageous outcomes. With her closest friend, Sally, she received all the guidance she needs in order to get used to playing the game. As they continue to level up, they met with more new characters which I am not going to spoil along the way. The interactions between the characters made me laugh sometimes especially when Mapple tried to do something unpredictable as she was so overpowered.
For my overall enjoyment, I did notice some minor issues that would not hinder my amusement when watching the anime. But if I want to nit-pick though, that would be this one particular song that is so overused in almost every episode. The song is great and all but it would be better if they tried not to play the same song all over again. Apart from that, this is a rather fantastic anime that features a calm but competitive atmosphere when people are playing an MMORPG which differs from what you would expect in real-life situations.
If you like fantasy and of course CGDCT based anime and don’t mind the rudimentary plot, then you might like it.
A 9/10 from me