This review contains spoilers, you don't want to hurt the spoilers, cause they'll max out their defense.
In a world where a girl enters a virtual MMO game, and realizes she has a special skill, she now has a bunch of defensive attacks to rely on her adventures. This is story of BOFURI, an anime about defense skills in a virtual MMO.
The story begins with Kaede joining a virtual MMO, and deciding to create a character named Maple, but with her defense attacks, she learns how to use them and gains skills along the way. Alongside her adventures, she invites her friend, forms a guild, and recruits more members along the way.
The crew also take part in events, most importantly the orb collecting event that is important to the final 4 episodes of this anime. Watching Maple go from an average player to a leader of Maple Tree can surprise you at how she has come so far.
We got the main protagonists, Kadae and Risa, who in the MMO world are known as Maple and Sally, Maple focuses on her defense skills, getting more and more over time, eventually getting a skill that lets her become a Machine God, while Sally focuses on being a swashbuckler and being Maple's ally,, helping her on her battles when she is in need. There is also bunch of other crew members that join Maple Tree, such as May and Yui, making sure there's a cast of characters with a variety of skills to fill an entire guild.
Also, there's Maple and Sally's companions, Syrup the turtle, and Oboro the fox, who hatch in Ep. 4. They become their companions for the rest of series, with the duo commanding their attacks as well as using Syrup as a mode for transportation thanks to the turtle's size-growth powers, and using Oboro for fire spells too.
The visuals look good for this defensive anime, sure it looks great, even during the battle sequences. But I have an issue with Dorazou's CGI animation, he could go to having smooth 3D animation, to janky 3D animation that's on the level of Kemono Friend's animation. But still, the anime knows how to design all the quirky characters and the monsters we encounter in the world of NewWorld Online.
The show's soundtrack really fits on how the situation looks, whenever it's battling monsters or taking part in NewWorld's events, but the OP gets you really hyped up with it's upbeat tone and hopes you to really see what the crew of Maple Tree are up to, and the ED makes you feel that at the end of the episode, the Maple Tree guild has gone on an adventure and Maple has learned a brand new skill to make you feel happy about what skill Maple learn next.
At a time where I was watching this anime alongside Nekopara, I found this anime to be way, way, better than Nekopara (which I regret watching). It's kind of a great Isekai anime, but a little step away from a great rating, more like a good Isekai anime to me. But if you like Virtual World anime and defensive stats, this anime will max out your defense in watching it.
Even if I think it's just a pretty fine anime, it'll sure give you a lot of surprises to know that Maple will get more skills, and the orb-collecting arc of the anime will make sure you'll bet the crew of Maple Tree will win by getting a bunch of orbs. Even if Maple and her guild know how to live it out in the world of NewWorld Online.
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