Review of BOFURI: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense.
Itai no wa Iya nano de Bougyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu, or also called BOFURI is a new quirky and colorful entry into the “accidentally OP” MC genre of MMO/isekai or alike anime - and I am genuinely in love with it. Any educated viewer might slide their eyes over the poster and premise and immediately shudder in horror or smirk in a condescending disgust to have spotted another shlocky, bland and generic MMO “kinda isekai, but not really” trash that the anime industry has served us. Yes, the character designs look like SAO rip-offs, specifically Maple’s main armor looks like the armor set thedying girl - Konno Yuuki - wears in Mother’s Rosario, or the Great Shielder, who literally looks like Klein from the same show – but do not be deceived because; Bofuri is actually greatness in disguise.
I do not consider Bofuri high art nor a means to an end time passer to ramp up my completed anime count on my anime list. Many other anime serve these purposes, but in Bofuri I see a fun, quirky show that fills me with joy every time I watch it as it fulfills my MMO gamer heart.
There are certain parameters I rate isekai/MMO shows by. One of these are the setting and level designs, character designs, level or skill system, variance in spells and an assessable power scale, entertainment factor in watching fights unfold; and like any other show – how enjoyable it is to watch its production (It is not very enjoyable to me if it looks like ass).
Bofuri excels in creating an awesome setting design, with pretty great background art with different fantasy vegetation and monster designs for each level and fairly memorable bosses that have a overseeable and logical skill set for their species. The noob town spawns you right next to a multiple-branch waterfall tree and the houses have giant green leaves on top. The forest is riddled with apple bunnies (Japanese like to cut their apples in the form of a bunny) and the multi-branched trees and some other plants have a glowy ball that emits light in the middle.
I was immediately invested in the series as a production seeing this in the first episode, because it showed me that there was put specific thought and care into a show that looks disappointingly generic on first sight. The second level’s city is only made out of grey rocks and the third level is a mechanical steam-punk area. The anime focuses mostly on PvP events, forming alliances with other players and creating a guild later so we get to explore a vast collection of different game areas and building structures no matter if caves, green flatland or snow lands.
The series also explores the deep-dive VRMMORPG technology a little bit in Sally and Maple visiting a magical night-sky-restaurant with drinks and food “from the sky” that change your eye color and food you can really taste in episode 3. The whole scene has a beautiful starstruck night sky as a background and was fairly creative as a concept.
Watching Bofuri is like actually going into an MMO as a first timer, winging your skillset and beating a boss with a friend and exploring the different areas and climates the developers created. Bofuri on the other hand doesn’t infodump you on any system mechanics, at best it explains the effect and purpose of a skill by the player reading out the skill for you, but otherwise you are on your own figuring out this world with the characters.
The ways the players, mainly Maple, gain skills is very interesting and mostly funny. In the first few episodes Maple has to fight a poisonous Hydra and ends up eating it, gaining summoning rights for the Hydra, becoming invincible to poison and to that – the scene was hilarious. Who even has the idea to just eat the boss? I’ve seen this mechanic used in MMO isekai manga before but none of the characters who started to eat their enemies were still of the human race, so it was ridiculous and fun to watch a small, teenage-anime girl with a high-pitched voice starting to bite away at a giant not-CG 3-headed snake monster.
There is also really good effect work in this show. The 3D-CG elements are well implemented when there are any, and the Hydra is made out of sparkly purple digital effects that looks great animated, and I tell you this show is fairly well animated - and threatening at the same time.
I wish to not have this 3 headed monster targeted into my direction.
The sounddesign of the show is also really decent. Great explosions don’t bust out your bass like recent Fate incarnations do, no one’s microphone is broken (I am looking at you, Carole & Tuesday) or voice is annoying and the soundtrack has some banger tracks in it too. I really liked when they played the song “Good Night” at every SOL-like activity as it is a very funky but beautiful and chill song. Since I binged a few episodes, it felt like the track was overstaying its welcome, but it is not the only track in the OST and the OST otherwise is noticeable and gets its job done.
The voice cast is pretty stacked with Klein-rip-off (his actual name is Kuromu) being voiced by Shirou Emiya’s seiyuu aka Noriaki Sugiyama, the sword-samurai-princess with an honorable personality Kasumi is voiced by the soft voice of the lovely Saori Hayami, the totally a shut-in traps-specialist nerd of one of the opposing guilds is voiced by Akira Ishida, the Nr. 1 player of the entire game and white knight Pein is voiced by Kensho Ono and our quirky and fearless heroine Maple is voiced by Kaede Hondo, which is funny because Maple’s irl name is Kaeda Honjou. There was a certain intent in this casting.
Speaking of skill-sets, the already mentioned mechanic of eating your enemies to gain their skill-set is funny but isn’t overused, because only Maple knows of it. Everyone else as well as Maple gains skills through quests and events. Other players like her best friend Sally, who acts as Maple’s second-hand and veteran helper also takes the role of the second main character in the show, specializes on speed and melee combat; while they also have a constructor and a summoner on their team, as well as a great shielder Kuromu who has a demon armor that grants him a special passive that I will not spoil, but the moment was cool. We occasionally also see other guild players use classes all cross the board, like the pure fire-user Mii, the trap specialist Marx, the healer priestess Misery etc. None of the actual classes names are audibly mentioned, but anyone who has ever played an MMO for a little bit and watches their skillset and character designs will be able to tell. Being able to figure out all these by simply watching the show and experiencing the fights is very enjoyable and rewarding to me. Unlike other anime that will make the main characters audibly speak out the other character’s class and limitations and therefore unnecessarily info-dump you. The show flat out shows you several spells that I’ve never seen in other anime before. One guy was able to split his sword in 10 parts and telekinetically aim them at his enemy, how cool is that?! Same with the Hydra summon and Maple’s later forms. All of these are probably overpowered but the anime is aware of this.
There is one funny moment where Maple roams a city and encounters a crying mother at her childs bed, the mother starts to notice Maple and a quest begins. Maple is a little overrun and weirded out by the NPC-mother overly dramatic dialogue as her child is dying and watching Maple fairly easily beat this quest while the NPC is so stressed and serious is hilarious, at least to me.
In this game there seems to be no element limitations, so even though Maple gained a dark-element-class spell she can still use other skills from the element light. If there are actual class-elements that one is limited to, it at least isn’t established in the anime by text, but I do not consider this a flaw. It made the anime a little more enjoyable and fun to watch. It is though established that the game is kinda broken and the developers, that are shown in cute avatars from time to time, as well as people in chat rooms or other players occasionally comment on this fact. Especially the developers are voicing their concern about Maple exposing too much of their flawed game design, which makes them slightly despair on-screen. All of this is comedic and shows what kind of series Bofuri wants to be. Definitely not a life-or-death game MMO or something that takes itself all too seriously.
Character designs can look stupid (or unoriginal like prior mentioned designs) like the black-green and white-pink combo of Yui and Mai - but while actually watching the show it didn’t bother me much. In more anime-like MMOs the designs some people can go for do look way too bright, colorful, dumb. So, I will give it a point for realism. Otherwise they are all fairly decent and logical character designs even if generic - and not overly sexual. I don’t feel second-handily sexually harassed by the characters. My favorites have to be Mii, Kuromu with the demon armor and Maple though.
From rating off all my parameters, Bofuri checks off all the boxes. It has an interesting and non-generic setting and level designs, a variance of spells, skillsets and classes and is a fun watch the whole way through.
The only thing “lacking” in this regard is the lack of a coherent power-scale. But since the point of the show is to show a newbie MMO player expose shitty game design in overpowering most veteran players in absurd ways by gaining skills in back-handed ways, I wouldn’t say the show does a bad job in making the other players and guilds look strong or great at the game - they are still noticeable strong and knowledgeable of the game mechanics. The big, strong guilds are still up way higher than Maple’s on the board. I would even say Maple isn’t even as strong as Rimuru from the Slime isekai.
I was always invested in any fight Bofuri had to offer, no matter if it was mobs, bosses or the PvP events. I personally am not big on PvP MMOs myself, but I enjoyed myself watching it nonetheless.
The animation, art and direction of Bofuri is mostly solid with some occasionally great action cuts here and there. The prior mentioned effects work is not only good with the Hydra, it applies to any other magic as well. The only bad thing about it really would be the subpar character art that meanders my enjoyment by just a little bit and that the direction isn’t all to inspired but it does have a few great compositioned shots. If the production had been a tad stronger and the characters a little less simple, I would’ve considered to bump up my score to a strong 7, maybe an 8, even.
With Bofuri I had a great time. It put a smile on my face and with season 2 already announced, I can see it eventually being an 8 in the future.
The only points I will dock it are for the fact that while the characters are enjoyable, the only ones with a one-dimensional personality are Sally and Maple, everyone else has what their skillset and archetype has to offer.
Bofuri isn’t a deep show. The characters just play this game and there is nothing else. There are no real-life problems, they hardly even talk with anyone in real life. The conflicts are reduced to only PvP battles and have no hard feelings involved. Everyone is friendly with each other. That might be a flaw to some people, for me it’s imply what the show is and exactly what I want from it.
Bofuri is simple in what it does, but it does it really damn well. It’s a comfy, considerably well made MMO show with an OP MC and I love the heck out of it.
If you watch isekai or MMO anime for the themes, this is not something for you. If you want some fun time and cool action gameplay, and can get behind the OP gimmick, you may be satisfied with Bofuri.
Overview
Story: 5/10 – Average but serves its purpose.
Art & Animation: 6/10 – Good animation, decent action cuts but subpar character art and mixed character designs.
Sound: 8/10 – Good tracks. Good Sounddesign.
Character: 5/10 – Nothing to write home about, but enjoyable.
Enjoyment: 7/10 – Rise and grind.
MMO: 7/10 – Broken but I love it.
Overall: 7.0 (range: 6.5-7.0, strong 6 to light 7)