「防御特化と新戦力.」 (Bougyo Tokka to Shin Senryoku.)
“Defense Specialization and New Forces”

In this episode of Bofuri, Maple’s leadership skills are put to the test when she’s asked to build her own guild for the next event. But while she’s able to gather some of her older partners and allies to join her guild, the true challenge for Maple will be shaping her newest recruits, May and Yui, into the same fighting machine she is with the two of them making out their Attack Points.

It’s been a while since I’ve gotten excited about seeing a car in an anime. Although it was only the first few minutes of the episode, we’re finally back in the real world as we see how Maple’s gaming affects her in reality. She does suffer from being one of those protags who disassociate from reality and start trying to apply video games logic at school. It’s played for laughs, but there is little to no time to let any of her interactions at school sink in, nor are there any neat opportunities for her to network with anyone other than Sally outside of the game.

On the other hand, these networking skills come in handy through the relationships she’s cultivated in the game as her guild grew very quickly. Most of the folks that she’s talked to cordially throughout the past six episodes accepted invitations to her Maple Tree guild. Needless to say that the users impressed and/or friendly with Maple are also overpowered so there shouldn’t be too much conflict or struggle amongst the team.

Where Maple is bound to have trouble, however is through her latest recruits, May and Yui. We saw them a bit earlier in the series, but these two friends are newbies who took a similar path to Maple, except they maxed out their attack stats. Their beginner status allows the show to slack on showing us how they would be able to coast by or face adversity by having nothing but attack maxed out. We just get another Maple/Sally fight while they wait it out in the back and shadow the pair. It is a bit disappointing since the only general impression we have of their abilities is them accidentally smashing a table upon bumping their heads on the surface. It would’ve been funnier to see them accidentally pull a Saitama and one-shot a boss with their combined attack-only abilities. Something a little more hands-on than coasting back or not getting practice at all with smaller monsters. It might’ve been to do some EXP Share kinda transfer to help boost their vitality, but they didn’t receive a level up screen. The next episode should have some scenes where they get more combat experience, but it was a letdown that we didn’t get any kind of mentorship from either of the two protagonists this time around.

18 Comments

  1. So now we got one with maxed vit and 2 with maxed str eh?
    So, when will we get a character that maxed out on their INT or their AGI? 😛 As far as i remember, Sally never maxed out a single stat as she was spreading her points.

    Damrod
    1. Max Int would be more a Merlin or Wizard nearly God eternity. But well, perhaps there is someone out there

      Glasskanone/Glasscanon on two legs. Like some “Explosion” well known Girl

      worldwidedepp
      1. Seeing how max vit already worked, or that simple feat of max strength ( accidental headbumb already breaking the table ) with the twins, even our explosion girl might be weak in comparison to a max INT build there…
        Maple with her max VIT already managed to get 3rd rank without having a clue in her first event for example. And if that accidental headbumb ( no strength put in at all ) is already that nice, i’d estimate they can probably become a saitama in raw strength.
        So if INT is for the magical strength, i’d fear for that world if my guesses are correct in how broken that mage would be 😛

        Damrod
    2. I have a feeling Kanade‘s the one being set up to be the INT-type character.

      Despite its Rubik’s Cube-like appearance, the Akashic Records item is considered a staff–a weapon traditionally associated with spellcasters. It’s also reminiscent of a Wizard Source/Orb from Diablo III with how it floats in Kanade’s hand. (Despite not playing D3 due to its BS always-online DRM–even in single-player mode–I’m going off of gameplay/let’s play videos and wiki sources.)

      Incognito
    3. AGI affects movement speed, so maxing AGI would have you zooming around like a Flash. But I’m not sure that would be so great without proper control. As we’ve had confirmed with Sally, dodging isn’t automated and depends on player actions – and she don’t need max AGI to graze attacks like lunatic Touhou player. So max AGI players could still be hit with area attacks, bullet spamming or good old predicting their movements and putting your fist in the place where their face is gonna be.

      puppugod
      1. Going with how broken STR and VIT turned out to be ( Especially VIT with how they had to change and add stuff in order to deal with Maple her VIT build ) that max AGI build might be the closest one can get to an actual The flash i think if they can properly control it, i think?

        Damrod
  2. She does suffer from being one of those protags who disassociate from reality and start trying to apply video games logic at school.

    Yes, a Avatar that do not need Sleep, Eat, Drink. Never run out of Stamina, only need little rest to fill the gauge.
    Run distance without exhaustion

    That would be fun

    worldwidedepp
  3. – Gotta love Kaede’s chuunibyou-ish “Damn you, muscle memory” moments. Good enough reason for a three-day sabbatical from gaming, LOL.
    – Maple and Sally are like a newly married couple (Sally as the “breadwinner” and Maple as the “mother”) trying to find a new home to raise their “childen” (read: the Maple Tree Guild).
    – Kanade’s “Akashic Records” granting one random skill a day… Good grief. I can no longer look at that scene without being reminded of the Battlefront II (2017) loot box controversy. Or Scientific “Turning Players into Payers” Revenue. Or how a lot of “Triple-AYYY” sports games work nowadays (*cough*NBA2K20*cough*). Not helped by Iz comparing it to a slot machine.
    – So these twins went all-in on STR? If the opening credits are any indication (after looking at it again), they remind me of Diablo II Barbarian builds focused on physical fighting/physical damage–specifically, the “Immortal King” build. (Damn, had the urge to find MrLlamaSC’s YouTube channel again.) Or closer to other anime, Arifureta‘s resident hammer-wielding rabbit-girl, Shea. But back to the twins…
    – Nothing like leaked experience from Sally and Maple to help the twins level up (and perhaps get a bit of AGI).
    – Finally, had a little chuckle finding out that May and Yui were voiced by Ai Kakuma (Azur Lane‘s Unicorn and Takao) and Nanaka Suwa (Love Live! Sunshine‘s Kanan).

    Incognito
  4. Recruiting new guild members was too easy. The game has been around for a while and it didn’t look like her new recruits were in guilds. Impossible! Why would anyone join a newbie guild with no achievements so easily?!?!?!

    Bakapooru
    1. A newbie guild led by 2 of the most (in)famous players in the game that is.
      Couple that with how all the members are acquaintances/friends of eachother, or didn’t get invited to any guild at all (the 2 rookie girls), and I don’t find it at all surprising they got so many members so fast.

      NinjaSyao
      1. And I mean… there’s like, what, 8 of them?

        That’s not a guild, that’s a party with two level 1s on the bench.

        Not that I expect anyone to even scratch Maple Tree, but I kind of hope Mii rolls up with hundreds of guys, the sort who proudly join the Zerg faction.

        Guile
    2. I thought that the game was brand new. Didn’t it just have its second floor opened up an episode or two ago?

      Given that Maple is probably the most notable player in the game and most of the recruits are familiar with her — and not apparently attached to other groups — it doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch that they’d be able to attract at least a few people to their banner. Of course, it may be more of a challenge going forward since they don’t know anybody else.

      Mockman
  5. They weren’t brought to the boss to powerlevel them. It’s just that you have to beat the boss to go to the next floor, and since the guild house is on the second floor, they decided to just carry the two girls through that boss fight so they can access the guild house immediately.

    Hanabira.Kage
  6. Would be funny if maxing STR means more armor-piercing.

    I could imagine the devs trying to balance PVE by buffing the monster’s VIT with the hope that Sally and Maple won’t just duo clear dungeons anymore, only to run into the twin’s borked pure STR build.

    Beedle

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