By Yuumikan and KOIN. Released in Japan as “Itai no wa Iya nano de Bōgyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

One of the biggest Achilles’ heels of the Bofuri series, which I’m sure the author is aware of, is that it works best when Maple is being completely weird and bonkers. It’s the reason we read this – well, for those not reading it to see if Maple and Sally get married, that is. But you can’t have that happening all the time, especially since the author really loves to essentially write out game logs and turn them into prose. So the series has a constant struggle: how do we keep the audience’s interest when Maple is not being Maple but is instead just being a gamer girl? The best example of that comes at the end of this book, when we get a big, climactic fight against a very tough boss which Maple has to solo… without any of her bag of tricks except her passive skills. The highlight of the book for me was seeing Maple take a deep cut with a sword, and her face twisting in pain. We’ve beaten the title of the series!

The bulk of this book is setup for the battle royale that’s going to happen in Book 14. Maple Tree arrives on the new floor, and are introduced to two areas – one water and human NPC-based, the other fire and monster-NPC based. They have a while to explore both camps, scope out the land, do quests, and finally, they have to choose a side and fight against those who choose the other side. So Sally maps things, Maple explores how to use the cool new powers she hasn’t really used in public yet, and the twins show off the fact that they can not only octo-wield, but also THROW the hammers they wield. Unfortunately, while exploring the library of the fire side, Maple ends up being tricked into opening a grimoire. Now she’s cursed, and has to do an impressive number of tasks… without anything but her defense, her shield, and her passive skills. Will she finally be killed off?

So, sadly, Sally may fight Maple one-on-one one day, but that day is not coming soon, as Maple still wants everyone to fight together, and Sally won’t do it if Maple’s not at least accepting of it. So Maple Tree are all on the same side. They’re joined by Pain’s gang, which should be interesting. We don’t hear where Mii’s group is, but I assume the other side, as otherwise things would be too imbalanced. The cover art also has Lily on it in her “offense” mode, and I think she (and Velvet, who explicitly wants to fight Maple) will also be on the opposite side. If it sounds like I’m talking too much about a fight that hasn’t happened yet, well, that’s this book’s big flaw – it doesn’t get to the fight it promises. That said, the battle between Maple and her cursed grimoire monster is fantastic, one of the best written fights in the series. Makes it worth the slog.

So yeah, Maple can triumph even without being weird. Don’t expect that to last, though.

By Yuumikan and KOIN. Released in Japan as “Itai no wa Iya nano de Bōgyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

I’ve said before that I think the Bofuri series works best when it’s just Maple and Sally taking on a fresh new challenge, and the author agrees. Actually, the author may be starting to agree a bit TOO much. This is the 3rd book in a row that’s been about 75% Maple and Sally, 25% rest of the cast. I joked on social media that the extended scene with Kanade was inserted at the request of the editor, as the author had forgotten who Kanade was. (Actually, Kanade gets more to do here than he has since he got his clone, mostly as a lot of the challenges involve translating ancient runes.) Likewise, Kasumi and Iz get one scene to show off, Mai and Yui get one scene to show off, and Chrome exists. Sorry, Chrome. That said, if you ARE here to read this series for Maple and Sally, you should have a lot of fun with this book, which has them both doing what they do best… for now.

Velvet is on the cover, possibly to draw in Fate fans who think there’s a Saber crossover, but she only really appears near the end, to help set up the next volume. Most of this book deals with the 8th level, which is set mostly underwater. Fortunately for non-swimmers like Maple, Mai and Yui, there are diving suits with oxygen tanks, and the more materials you find the better you can upgrade the suits so you can go deeper. It’s the sort of level that works best in small groups, so naturally Maple and Sally team up, rarely having problems with monsters due to their insane builds, but sometimes having trouble working out exactly what it is the game wants them to do. On the bright side, both Maple *and* Sally get new transformations, sort of. And then there’s the 9th level, which may make Sally’s dream come true.

We see Kaede and Risa for only about three pages, but they’re very important pages. I’m not sure if the author has an end to this series in mind (from what I understand, the webnovel is huge, and Vol. 17 came out in Japan last month), but time *is* passing in the real world, and the 12th book takes place about 18 months after the first book. This means that Kaede and Risa have started their second year of high school… which means soon studying will take precedence over games. Kaede’s grades are good, Risa’s are… okay… but it’s clear that Risa’s mother, at least, is not going to let her game her third year away. That’s why the next couple books may be very important, as they’re a PvP event where players can choose one of two sides. We know that Sally’s big wish is to fight Maple one-on-one, but she’s been putting it off, mostly as fighting a friend is just not Maple’s thing. But this might be a way to achieve it.

And, of course, there’s also the other guilds. Will they stick together? I realize that I just made this volume seem like a brief downtime while we wait for the next really exciting floor, but it was very good. And Maple and Sally held hands a lot.

By Yuumikan and KOIN. Released in Japan as “Itai no wa Iya nano de Bōgyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu” by Kadokawa Books. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

One of the more enjoyable things about the Bofuri series is that it’s NOT ‘we’re trapped in a game’, there are no real consequences, and everyone is free to do whatever. This is important, because it undercuts dramatic character development and potential angsty trauma. In addition to Maple, we’ve also been following the twins Mai and Yui, who are trying to do with Strength what Maple does with Defense. They’ve been pretty good at it, but are starting to hit a bit of a wall. This calls for deep thought. Should they try to experiment with non-strength things? Should they finally break free of the twin thing and actually take different skills, each one becoming their own person? Should they… grow up? Or should they, perhaps, find a way to use eight giant hammers at the same time? The answer is yes, they should octo-wield. This is a dumb game, they don’t seem to have any real life issues associated with it, and octo-wielding is hella cool.

Frederica is on the cover, but barely gets any page time, alas. The bulk of this book is taken up by a new event, which can best be described as “kill as many monsters as you possibly can”. There’s no PvP element to it, so folks are free to team up, and we see a few fun pairings. My favorite is Maple, Mii, and Velvet, aka Two Chuunis and a Dojikko. There’s also plenty of Maple and Sally, as we get to see them tackle a rarely used dungeon that basically thrown the monsters from all the previous floors at once. And eventually everyone has to team up to take down the giant final boss and his orb of power. the orb is far trickier than the boss, as the boss can be flattened by the Hammer Sisters, while the orb is made of sterner stuff. Amidst all this, is there time for… a different game?

The other highlight of the book is seeing Risa try, once again, to get over her fear of horror. It’s clear that the game is going to throw “6th level monsters” at them in the future, and Sally hates that she’ll always be useless when that happens (though she does OK in one fight by simply wrapping a blindfold around her head and firing off magic randomly, which I can’t wait to see animated). Her solution is to buy a really scary horror VR game and play it with Kaede, who has no issues with horror and is always down for a new game. Needless to say, it goes pretty much exactly as you’d expect. Risa being terrified of ghosts is just funny, especially with Kaede’s blase attitude towards them. We also once again get a tiny bit of “Risa REALLY likes Kaede” here, but blink and you’ll miss it. At least, unlike other authors, we don’t get a constant stream of “I’m straight, though”.

This should give Bofuri fans a good time, even though there’s no plot or character development. There won’t be, really. And that’s fine.