English Dub Review: BOFURI: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, so I’ll Max Out My Defense “Defense and Mighty Foe”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Mii and Maple face off against each other with Mii firing as many piercing attacks as she can and Maple tanking it all. The twins try to help but get injured and on Maple’s orders, the twins escape on Syrup while Maple is continuously attacked by Misery and Markus as Mii prepares a spell. Then Mii entraps her in her ultimate skill, Prison Flame. Unable to get out of the trap, Maple reveals her machine form and attacks them. Mii attempts to escape with her members when Maple flies up and fires all her weapons at the trio. Mii survives thanks to Misery’s spell and with no other option Mii latches onto Maple and self-destructs. Unfortunately for her, Maple climbs out of the rubble seemingly unharmed, but the Flame Emperors successfully escape with their orb.

Maple and the twins return to the guild after collecting other guilds orbs in the area. After that Maple Tree guild decides to group up and try to get as many orbs as they can. The Order of the Holy Sword and Maple Tree guilds start making a plan against the other guild. However, Payne and a small team of his top players decide to storm Maple’s base. After exchanging a few pleasantries the fight breaks out and Maple struggles to keep up her Loving Embrace with the onslaught of attacks. After canceling her skill, Maple is forced to contend with Payne. He uses the opportunity to strike and lands a devastating blow to Maple’s defense.

Our Take:

Maple and Mii’s fight was pretty good with the animation of Mii’s flames and Maple’s machine lasers. The twins and Mii’s guild members played a role in making the fight less of an endless struggle between the two strongest people in their guilds. I got a good laugh at the trio’s dumbfounded reaction to the destructiveness of machine mode Maple. At the end of the fight, both guilds ended in a draw. Maple won the fight, but lost the orb and used up her Devour while Mii lost the fight and her ultimate skills, but got her guild’s orb out safely. However, by exposing her monstrous machine mode, Maple gets a slight disadvantage with the Flame Emperors for next time.

Now to the fight against the Order of the Holy Sword and Maple Tree. Sally makes a good point on how the other guild could use their larger size to overwhelm their guild, but Payne decides to move much quicker with his small team. The scene before when Payne comments on how they’re all itching for a fight against Maple Tree is good at portraying the competitive nature of gamers. Similarly, the small scene with the random dead members of minor guilds rooting for Maple while not liking that the major guilds hog the spotlight is another common thing that some gamers can relate to.

At any rate with Payne being so hyped up as the top player of the game and having seen him taken on a number of guilds with using skills, the fight with Maple is pretty one-sided for now with Payne not giving Maple any time to use her other skills. Meanwhile, everyone else in Maple Tree struggles with other members of the Order of the Holy Sword. In the end, Payne strikes Maple with a skill, Sword of Judgement, and just by the name itself the damage of the skill has to be fatal with Maple’s defense being broken by his previous skill. However Maple has survived a self destruct skill before, so while the damage might be enough to bring Maple’s health down a lot it looks like she could survive. If there’s anything I’ve learned from watching the show it would be to expect Maple to do the unbelievable. Now that cliffhanger of Payne cutting Maple down is enough for me to tune in next time and see if Maple really survives that blow.