English Dub Review: Bofuri: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, So I’ll Max Out My Defense “Maxing Defense and the Seventh Event”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

New World Online’s seventh event begins, and it’s a battle tower event with multiple difficulty levels. Maple and Sally team up to take on the highest difficulty level, giving the game’s admins more than they bargained for…

Our Take:  

After the horrors of Level 6, the game has now reached its seventh event. Fortunately, it doesn’t have any ghouls and ghosts running around, so Sally can feel relieved for the time being. Instead, it involves fighting different monsters in several battle towers over five days.  

Before that, however, the episode’s first half focuses on Maple clearing Level 6 again on multiple occasions. The first is retrieving the items for Sally, who refuses to return to the haunted house. One of those items is a new set of clothes equipped with telekinetic skills. The other occasion is helping Mii defeat the ghostly creatures. Afterward, we see Mii and Maple at the cafe with Kasumi and Frederica, showcasing more light-hearted stuff from the lovable characters through their humor and dialogue.  

The rest of the episode follows Maple and Sally teaming up to tackle the most challenging battle tower in the event. Considering how much they worked exceptionally well together in the previous episodes, it’s unsurprising that the two pals would partner up for this event. Although, the monsters in Maple’s tower were chosen specifically by the game’s administrators to keep her from succeeding. The first three monsters Maple and Sally face consists of a high-defensive dragon, a skill-stealing book, and an elemental-changing golem.

As usual, these sequences benefited from the teamwork of the two pals and the show’s animation for its thrilling action. While the dragon and golem battles consist of 2D animation, the second floor with the book takes a different approach in its style by incorporating CGI animation, similar to the designs for the admins. Considering my mixed feelings on 3D anime so far, this sequence took me by surprise. Even though the CGI works in displaying the library arena, it also makes the characters’ movements look too weighty compared to the swift and flashy 2D style for the other floors. It doesn’t dampen my amusement in seeing the characters’ chemistry, but it looks like the animators have a long way to go in perfecting that style in the anime department. At least from my perspective. 

Like the previous season, season two of Bofuri provides more fun stakes for the Maple Tree Guild via an important event that’ll last for more than one episode. Season one had a guild competition where each guild was tasked with stealing orbs from other guilds. Now, season two has a battle tower event that sees Maple unknowingly encounter a battle tower made by the admins to keep her from growing more powerful. Aside from my mixed feelings toward the 3D animation for the second floor, “Maxing Defense and the Seventh Event” is unsurprisingly a highly entertaining start to the game’s battle tower event that could only get more exciting as we get closer to the top.

I won’t be surprised if the admins grow to be the show’s main threat later on since they’re adjusting the game to compensate for Maple’s strength. Regardless, I still find myself amused by their reactions toward Maple’s sheer luck and powerful offensive skills. We also learn from the golem fight that Maple is weak to terrain damage, so it would be interesting to see how it’ll affect Maple’s chances of winning in the tower and the game itself.