BOFURI Is an Adorable, Innovative Fantasy Romp

More and more, when times get tough I find that I want three main things from my fiction: an uplifting plot, familiar and beloved tropes, and a heartwarming cast of characters. That has never been truer than it is right now, so lately, when I haven’t been rewatching The Lord of the Rings or rereading beloved childhood favorites for the nth time, I’ve been cautiously checking out new series that seem like they’ll fit that bill. One of my recent finds within that realm has been the new anime series BOFURI: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, So I’ll Max Out My Defense. The first (subtitled) episode became available for streaming on Funimation, Crunchyroll, and Hulu in January 2020, and the 12th and final episode of season 1 aired on March 25. The dubbed episodes are, naturally, a little behind the subbed ones, but they’re available up through episode 8 as of this writing.

Funimation

In addition to having possibly the longest name of any anime I’ve watched, this series has some of the most creative takes on some familiar themes I’ve seen in a very long time. The story is overall pretty simple, primarily following a young girl by the name of Kaede Honjō, who’s a little bit shy and a little bit nerdy and is also easygoing and up for anything that looks like a fun time. At the enthusiastic encouragement of her good friend Risa Shiramine, Kaede starts playing the hot new full-immersion virtual reality game NewWorld Online, set in a world filled with elements that D&D fans, MMORPG aficionados, and high-fantasy readers alike will find familiar. Kaede hasn’t really done much gaming before this, though, so she’s a little nervous going into it. As the title so blatantly explains, Kaede opts for maxing out her defensive stats when creating her character, named Maple, so she’s less likely to get immediately killed off by monsters or other players when she’s just trying to learn the game and enjoy the world it’s set in.

However, this has an interesting side effect that those of you who are familiar with the real-life equivalent of a game like this can probably predict: since Kaede/Maple dumps all her stat points into her defense, she’s left with pretty much nothing to put toward anything else, meaning her speed and agility are almost nonexistent. She may be nigh untouchable, but Maple can only move at an extremely plodding pace, lugging her massive shield along with her wherever she goes. As a result, she has to come up with some pretty clever—and truly bizarre—workarounds just to move around the world of the game and to fight back against her enemies. Before long, this scenario adds up to Maple gaining strength and resilience impossibly quickly, soon becoming so overpowered that her fellow players and even the AI that runs the are game scratching their pixelated heads over how she manages to do it—and practically breaks the game several times over. Maple and Risa’s in-game character, Sally, create their own small guild, called Maple Tree, with a few friends they meet early on in their gaming exploits. Almost before anyone realizes, they’re holding their own against established guilds that are four times their size.

This anime was a big hit for me. I knew before I even started watching it that there was pretty much no way it wouldn’t be—it’s a combination of so many things I love about fantasy, anime, and TV series in general. The main character is so sweet and so nonchalant about how awesome she is that you just can’t help loving her and wanting her to keep discovering wackier and more creative skills as she levels up in the game. At one point she doesn’t know how to defeat an enemy with the extremely limited offensive tactics she’s left with after strengthening her defense to such a degree, so at a loss for what to do, she just starts eating it. I mean, she literally just starts taking bites out of the monster she’s fighting. Not only is this hilarious the first time it happens, but it becomes a theme for the rest of the season as Maple continues to level up in the most outside-of-the-box ways possible. It’s so much fun to watch her test the absolute limits of the game she’s exploring, and the game itself is gorgeous to look at. I keep finding myself wishing I could jump inside it too—I haven’t felt this much longing for immersive virtual-reality gaming to become a real thing since I watched Sword Art Online.

One critique I would offer is that this series is a little thin on plot and somewhat repetitive at times; there are only so many directions you can go with a story as straightforward as this one. But the writers do a good job of exploring the limits of thies scenario without making things feel overwrought, and since the season is a brief 12 episodes, there’s just no time for any aspect of the story to run the risk of getting played out. (Rumor has it that a second season is forthcoming, but I expect it’ll be the same easily bingeable length.)

On that note, though, another aspect of BOFURI that some viewers may not enjoy so much is that it does hit on a lot of tropes and themes that are starting to feel done to death in the anime world: “tower” games or stories in which the characters make their way through a series of levels that are sort of stacked on top of each other; gamers exploring a totally immersive virtual-reality world (though thankfully the characters of BOFURI can log off anytime they choose, unlike in some others of this genre); a player who’s never touched the game before but is a total prodigy at it. But the shortness of the series keeps this aspect from feeling too tiresome, and the story and focus of BOFURI are so stripped down and remixed in comparison to some similar anime that it still manages to feel like it’s treading new (or at least rarely trodden) ground.

If you’re into fantasy and/or video gaming of pretty much any type, you’ll most likely get a kick out of BOFURI. The way it combines the familiar with the new is irresistible, at least in this fantasy buff’s opinion. You’ll quickly fall in love with the clever, adorable, and happy-go-lucky characters of the series and find yourself wishing for more time in Maple’s absurd, amazing world.