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.

The Bofuri series does have a pretty good supporting cast, and I enjoy reading about them. That said, most people who picked this up are here for one reason and one reason alone, and that’s Maple breaking the game by doing awesome unpredictable shit. Good news, the 6th volume is here to help you. It definitely doesn’t hurt that this 6th book involves the 6th level of the game, which is entirely related to ghosts and the supernatural. As such, except for one disastrous attempt to get over her terror, Sally is pretty much absent, grinding on other floors so she can avoid being Shaggy in an episode of Scooby-Doo. This allows Maple to solo several events, or team up with Mii, or experiment with rewards in strange and brilliant ways. It’s the sort of thing that will look great animated if Season 2 ever happens, but that’s still sadly far in the future at this point.

We start by Maple getting her new favorite toy, which is a literal throne that she can sit on while attacks do nothing to her. (The downside being that she can’t use “evil” attacks while on it – i.e. most of her repertoire). She uses it a lot in the next stratum, which as noted above is one based around ghosts. Sally, who sees there are lots of cool things she could get if only she got over her fear, tries… and fails miserably. So Maple tries to get some nice rewards that she can give Sally, as well as some rewards that will specifically benefit her build. Finally, we get the Seventh Event, which fortunately does NOT involve ghosts, and so Maple wants to go old-school on it: only her and Sally vs. the toughest opponents.

A lot of the humor in this volume comes from the occasional times we cut back to the developers, who have either designed things to be anti-Maple that she proceeds to win out over by doing something bonkers, or else they’ve designed things that would be lethal difficulty for anyone else that Maple strolls through even though it wasn’t designed to get her interest at all. The rest of Maple Tree, of course, have simply given up on being surprised, with Chrome just sighing and helping Maple to control her ghostly hands that can wield other shields, etc. It helps that Maple’s not doing this for any reason other than “it’s fun”. She’s gotten better at thinking things through… just… but most of her gaming still seems to be “do whatever the hell I like”. This includes lunching with Mii, who can drop her roleplay facade around her, or fending off Frederica, who’s trying to duel Sally and wondering why she’s not on the 6th floor. Maple is simply too nice to get angry with.

This isn’t essential reading, and fans of the anime can probably wait for whenever it continues, but I still quite enjoy Bofuri. It’s a relaxing, quick read.

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.

This is the fist volume to take place post-anime (while a 2nd season was immediately announced, there has been no word about it ever since), and as such I imagine it has a few folks reading the series for the first time to try to see what happens next. That said… does Bofuri have an ongoing plot? We’re still entirely inside the game, with the most important real-life event in this volume being Kaede getting the flu. The plot of the books is basically “watch everyone slowly move to new levels and see what they do”. This volume has a weather-based level, with lots of clouds, lightning, and the like. If there is an ongoing plot that might affect future volumes, it’s Sally’s. She’s always taken the lead in gaming with Maple,. and has now found a game that Maple is not only intuitively better at but a LOT better at. Sally doesn’t want to play like Maple does… but she wants to be cool for Maple.

While this is not a “short story” volume per se, the book feels more scattered than usual, mostly as we’re having various groups team up with each other. Having faced off against Mii and Pain’s groups in the last event, there’s no similar guild war this time around. So Maple can team up with Mii for one day, getting to see more of her “real” self when she’s not putting up a front. She can also team up with Pain, who discovers, as he knew, that Maple can be a terrifying monstrosity, but also (as he didn’t know) that she can also be amazingly dense in equal measure. However, she *is* learning slowly how to game the “normal” way as well, and how to use new skills to bet suit her playset. Which is good, as the GMs are not making things any easier for her.

For those who go to Bofuri for the humor, there are definitely fun examples. Kasumi, the straight man samurai of the group for the most part, turns out to have a weakness for antiques, and on this level that mostly consists of getting quests by buying things at shops, she ends up spending FAR too much money. As for Maple, her defense – or more accurately her lack of everything other than defense – means that she’;s advancing far slower than anyone else in Maple Tree, and when she recovers from her flu she finds they all fought a boss without her. They’re pretty sure she can solo it, so she goes to do so… only to accidentally fight the LAST boss. Which she does of course beat, but it’s easily the most difficult fight we’ve seen her have since the first book, and it’s fun watching her throw everything at the enemy and seeing it not work.

Bofuri is fun and relaxing, and while it may not appeal to fans of the anime’s quicker comedic style, it’s a good read in and of itself. And good luck trying to show off for your girlfriend, Sally. At least there’s still Frederica if you can’t keep up.

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 mentioned this in the review of Book 3, but want to go into greater depth here: the differences between this series and its anime counterpart are fascinating, and for once it’s not a case of “one is so much better than the other”. They’re doing very different things. If you were to ask me what genre the Bofuri anime falls under, I would likely say “comedy” very quickly. It’s filled with gags. The light novel does have funny moments, particularly when it’s describing Maple’s… Maple-ness, but for the most part it is an action series that just happens to be using a game as its setting. This volume has the Battle Royale between guilds that wrapped up the first anime season, and there’s quite a bit that’s changed or removed to make the anime pace snappy and funny. And yet… this volume is also quite a lot of fun. And… dare I say it (I’m always wary of saying this)… sometimes I appreciated the narrator explaining the gaming stuff to me.

There’s a new team event for this book. Each guild has an orb to defend, and has to steal orbs from other guilds. It’s an event that obviously favors the larger guilds with lots of players, and not small ones like Maple Tree. But that reckons without the fact that everyone in Maple Tree is a broken monster, and so much of the book is our heroes running rampant all over the map destroying everyone. That said, the top two guilds are made of stronger stuff, and when they end up fighting Flame Empire, with its hotheaded (and slightly embarrassed) leader and The Order of the Holy Sword, with self-proclaimed “rival” to Sally Frederica and the strongest player Pain, they actually have to expend a lot more effort. Indeed, is this where we finally see Maple’s defense not be enough?

I do enjoy the fact that we’re seeing a lot of folks playing and enjoying the game in a normal, sensible fashion, and it doesn’t really criticize them for it. Yes, a lot of folks now want to “think outside the box” the way Maple’s gang does, but they also seem to see Maple as an outlier that should not be counted. The main players that we see from both Order of the Sword and Flame Empire are overpowered as heck, but they’re overpowered in the normal, grinding for skills sort of way you’re supposed to do to get good in this game. That said, while Maple doesn’t get to do everything in this book (which tries to give everyone in the guild a chance to show off), she’s the reason people are reading, and in a volume where she doesn’t have an opportunity to gain new skills it’s nice to see her put her broken OLD skills to good use. She really is an excellent gamer, she’s just… a flake.

So now that we’ve caught up with the anime what new adventures await Maple and company? Should be fun to read. Though I also look forward to seeing what comedic antics will be enhanced in the anime whenever Season 2 rolls around.