Kaede Honjou

Kaede Honjou (本条楓, lit. Honjō Kaede), known as Maple (メイプル, Meipuru) in NewWorld Online, is the main protagonist of BOFURI: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense.

Kaede was invited by Risa Shiramine, her real-life best friend, to play the game NewWorld Online, in which she accepts to do so. She has no prior professional experience from gaming before entering the said game.

She is a curious albeit air-headed individual who unwittingly gains overpowered skills as a result of bizarre actions, such as when she ate a dungeon boss.

She takes the great shield as her primary armament, and focuses solely on defense, leaving her avatar almost impregnable to all damage while being incredibly sluggish due to her nonexistent AGI stat.

After the addition of guilds in the game, Kaede becomes the guild master of Maple Tree as per the request of Sally. She ranked third in the first event of NewWorld Online.

Appearance
Maple has fair skin and short black hair that extends beneath her chin, with a short ahoge.

Her eyes are a shade of cool grey. In the real world, she is commonly seen wearing a white and pink-striped hoodie sweater with matching shorts that reach only until her upper thighs.

She wears a white clip as an accessory in the real world, which is something that is carried on to the game world. The clip is made up of four rhombuses, each facing the cardinal directions, connected to a presumed diamond-like piece. The clip's shape is similar to a compass.

Her in-game character is completely identical to her real world appearance.

After she defeats the Hydra, her beginner outfit is replaced by a black suit of armor with red accents. It has a crest of a flower, an image of a rose, on the armor's chest piece. The armor's focus points of durability are the gauntlets, shin guards, boots and breastplate. Her forearms are predominantly bare, as well as her upper thighs.

Red mesh fabric covers the least protected parts of her body, but some skin remains exposed. Her armor descends into a cloak-like drape with a dark exterior and red underside. Her avatar usually carries her armament, a heavy-looking shield that is the Replica of the Dark Night. The shield is mainly black with red patterns carved geometrically unto its surface. At the center of the shield, there is a large red gem that is plated by the same black material.

Aside from her shield, she carries a another weapon, an ornate shortsword which is used to cast paralysis abilities on enemies, usually kept hidden inside the sheath strapped to her waist.

Personality
Kaede is a simple individual. However, her defining traits are her air-headedness, innocence and love for fun. She isn't that much of a competitive person, and often plays just for her and others' fun. Also, she particularly does not hold grudges against anyone, viewing virtually everyone as a potential friend. Her open mind has lead to becoming friends with most of the other top players, such as Kasumi, Payne, Mii, and much more.

Aside from her striking absent-mindedness, she also tends to be clumsy most of the time, once biting her tongue in a live broadcast and instantly getting embarassed. This also applies to the real world, as when she got addicted to NewWorld Online, she would unwittingly show habits she would normally do in-game.

That in mind, she also has a tendency to be reckless, especially as a beginner. Kaede allotting all her status points into VIT is not because she's absent-minded, but because she does not like to feel pain, as evidenced by her titular statement, "I don't like to get hurt, so I'll put all of my status points into defense."

She is also a quick-thinker and does practical decisions in most situations, which at times it makes her seem abnormal or odd, such as when she tried to single-handedly clear the Hydra dungeon all by herself.

While not fit for fighting in general, Maple has a hard time attacking other in-game entities, particularly other players, even if it's for her own benefit. She doesn't like pain, and dislikes hurting other people even more. When the situation calls for it, however, she is willing to inflict harm, such as when against the boss Silverwing, and in the battle against the Congregation of the Holy Swords.

She likes anything cute and is a sucker for special promotions. She has been known to collect obscure and rarely-used items that seem interesting or useful to her.

Plot
Maple's unorthodox play-style led her to gain skills before the game developers intended

Description

 * Out of the fear of getting damaged, and laziness to evade, she instinctively set all allowable skill points on (VIT) Defense, to minimize or completely negate any damage she is to receive from any attack. Inadvertently, finding and exploiting a game quirk yet to be discovered.
 * She also chose her Job Class to match her chosen attributes and skills, taking a large shield and short sword as primary equipment.

History
Kaede is a regular girl with a gamer friend name Risa. Risa had been forcing games on Kaede but nothing really stood out to her, until she tried NewWorld Online (NWO).

NWO would later provide Kaede an experience that she could not forget became addicted to. Her real life dreams and knowledge would dictate how she acted in game. These actions would be far off from the common sense of gamers, and would lead to much work for the administrators would built the game around it.

Maple's VIT summary:
 * During the Silverwing fight: 1104 + 110 (cover) (251 + 25 Inhumane, resets daily) x4
 * and Armor/Shield breaks 1st: 1224 + 122 (cover) (281 + 25 Inhumane) x4
 * and Armor/Shield breaks 2nd: 1344 + 134 (cover) (311 + 25 Inhumane) x4
 * After acquiring Fortress: 2040 + 204 (cover) (180 + 135 + 25 Inhumane) x6
 * and with angel armor: 1230 + 123 (cover) (180 + 25 Inhumane) x6
 * and with angel armor HP: 1300 (40 + 30 (skill) + 130 (two rings) + 1100 angel set)
 * WN ch. 191 : 12180 + 1218 (Cover) (250 + 1755 + 25 Inhumane) x6

Abilities
Maple's skills In depth

Active Skills

 * Machine God: Skill with sub-skills. Sacrifice armor for armaments (quality matters).
 * Deploy Armaments, Deploy-(section; ie:barrels), Commence Attack, Break Core
 * Loving Sacrifice: Skill with sub-skills. Protect and heal your allies. Skills cost HP.
 * Loving Sacrifice, Aegis, Self-Offering Love
 * Invitation to the Ocean Floor: The user's left arm becomes tentacles and their left eye changes.


 * Pandemonium I: Summon “Red Oni” and “Blue Oni” for 1 minute. Seals your skills for duration.


 * Cover Move I: Move to a nearby party member.


 * Cover: Protect a nearby party member. VIT +10% while active.
 * Meditation: User recovers 1% HP every 10 seconds for 10-minutes or until they attack.
 * Provocation: Gather the attention of nearby monsters. Cooldown: 3 minutes.
 * Psychokinesis: Float a monster. Resistance affects success and MP cost.
 * Shield Attack: A [STR] based attack with the user's shield. Knockback (small).
 * Counter: Add damage suffered from a previous attack to your next attack.
 * Encouragement: Nearby party members have [STR][AGI] +20% for 1 minute.
 * Sheep Eater: Skill with sub-skills.
 * Wooly or Hair Growth: User produces sheep wool in a ball around themselves. Once per day.
 * Pierce Guard: The user's shield nullifies the effects of piercing attacks.
 * Quick Change: Change to preset equipment. Use it again to change back.
 * Frozen Earth: Freeze enemies within 5-meters for 3 seconds. Cooldown: 3 minutes.
 * Throne of the Heavenly King: Create a chair that reduces damage and heals you, and blocks the use of skills with 'evil' origins within 30-meters. Use it again to dismiss the throne.
 * Heavy Body: Immunity to knockback for 1 minute. MP cost:10. Cooldown: 3 minutes. Maple can't move.
 * Great Eruption: A delayed lava spout with a lava field afterwards. MP: Cost 50. Cooldown: 3 minutes.
 * Crystallize: Immunity to bad status and [AGI] -50% for 1 minute. Cooldown: 3 minutes.
 * Unbreakable Shield: Halves damage for 30 seconds. Cooldown: 3 minutes.

Passive Skills

 * Hydra Eater: Poison and Paralysis Immunity.


 * Absolute Defense: Boosts VIT by x2. Increasing [STR][AGI][INT] costs x3 points.
 * Fortress: Boosts VIT by x1.5
 * Giant Killing: If four of your stats (not HP/MP) are lower than opponent's, double stats (not HP/MP).
 * Inhumane or Savage: Intentionally received attacks give VIT+1 (max +25). Resets daily.
 * Knowledge of the Large Shield IV: Reduces Damage by 4% when using a shield.
 * Attack Deflection or Parry: Reduces Damage by 1%.
 * Body Manipulation or Evasion: Reduces Damage by 1%.
 * Bomb Eater: Reduces Explosion damage by 50%
 * HP Strengthening (Small): HP +30.
 * MP Strengthening (Small): MP +10.
 * Stout guardian: Great Shielder exclusive skill. Once per day, survive any lethal attack with 1 HP.
 * Venom Incantation: Poison attacks have a 20% chance of instant death, disregarding immunity to poison.
 * Connection to the Underworld: Doubles the effects of items.

Equipment Skills

 * Hydra: Skill with sub-skills. Skills that deal poison damage. Access to Poison Magic.
 * Hydra, Paralyzing Shout, Deadly Breath, Venom Capsule, Acid Rain, Venom Cutter, Poison Lance


 * Seeping Chaos: Skill with 3 sub-skills. Demon guards, their boost, and a hydra-like attack.
 * Predator, Seeping Chaos
 * Atrocity: Transform into a demon. You get improve stats and lose armor benefits. Usable once per day. Gain HP+1000. When HP drops to zero she is returned to her original form and completely heal.
 * Devour: Passive skill that consumes things and stores them as MP. Usable 10 times per day.
 * Crystal Wall: Creates a wall nearby with HP equal to the users. Cooldown: 5 minutes.
 * Poltergeist: A magical skill that allows the user to manipulate objects at will. Allows for control over up to 10 large objects simultaneously. MP Cost: 10. The effect lasts 5 minutes. The objects must be owned by the caster.

Unique combinations

 * Wooly + poison magic: The ball of wool spreads your the poison status.
 * Wooly + Crystallize: Allies and enemies become trapped in the ball of crystallized wool.
 * Syrup's (pet) Megamorph + Psychokinesis: Flying transportation.
 * Spirit Canon: A beam of light emanates from companions mouth.
 * Mother Nature: Vines from underground emerge and binds a target from movement.
 * Syrup's (pet) Rampart + Deploy Barrels: A way to rocket into the sky. Other Machine God skills can be used to fly in one direction. Requires high VIT to survive.
 * Venom Capsule transport Uses the Venom Capsule as a giant hamster ball to move quickly or like a drop pod from great heights and takes no falling damage, however it tends to make the passengers very dizzy afterwards.  However unless you have poison resist or immunity it will eat away at your HP, so be careful if you want to use it.
 * Deploy Barrels + Poltergiest: Lasers that Maple can control the trajectory of.

Equipment
Maple acquired a unique set of armor early on in all media. The set debuted in the web novel's ninth chapter and it appeared in the anime's first episode.

The boss is a Poison Dragon that uses lethal poison. Her high VIT significantly reduced the poison damage she should have taken and worked alongside her poison resistance to make it an easy fight.

Maple defeats the giant bee in episode 1 and receives Forest Queen Bee's Ring. Its wearer receives [VIT +6] and recovers 10% of their max HP every 10 minutes. It was later given away during the Benevolent Knight chain-quest. ¹Destruction Growth after sacrificing armor for Machine God to defeat "King of Junk".
 * Note: Maples Unique Series equipment has the auto skill 'Destruction Growth' which significantly increases its durability and automatically repairs itself the more and each time it is destroyed. Unlike other armour that may have the auto skill 'Indestructible', Destruction Growth allows the armour the advantage to increase level as it breaks, and gains more skill slots to utilize as it evolves.
 * As of web novel chapter 191, Maple's unique series has a combined total of 1755 VIT. This means the pieces have broken a combined total of 104 times after the King of Junk battle.

Relationships

 * Sally: Best friends in real life. In-game, Maple's mount before Syrup came.
 * Syrup: Monster Companion.
 * Oboro: Took care of it once when Sally has to do a mission alone.
 * Kuromu: A friend. Maple sees him as a great shield-using senior.
 * Iz: A friend. Maple likes most of her creations.
 * Kanade: A friend. There is a unique attraction between them.
 * Kasumi: A friend.

Trivia

 * Her in-game nickname came from the english translation of her name, Kaede, which means Maple or Maple tree.
 * She has the same given name with her Japanese voice actress, Kaede (楓).
 * Her last name also is similar.
 * When Maple inherits The First 's power, she becomes The Third (Machine God).
 * Apparently, NewWorld Online considers the act of eating an enemy as draining its life or HP Drain, which would entail that performing said act will also restore HP. (So Maple is already a Vampire...)
 * "They knew that something would happen the moment they took their eyes off her."
 * What the admins thought Maple was doing after the fourth event rankings were mostly decided:
 * “She's playing a board game with the other guild members.”
 * “She's practicing flying in the sky with the machine god.”
 * “The twins are juggling her.”
 * “She's testing to see if she can gain skills by biting weapons made with 'Smithing.'”
 * “Eh? Don't you think those are a little too normal?”
 * “Maybe you're right...”
 * “She's inside the mouth of a giant turtle.”
 * “She's fighting Sally for some reason.”
 * “She's biting the turtle.”
 * Maples actions have led others to believe she's a poster child of sorts. She draws them to her and they even support the sales of the game. And so, without maple knowing it, her abilities had been authorized by management.
 * Maples Machine God form bares a resemblance to the "Great Sacred Treasure" from Kid Icarus Uprising.
 * Maple's Machine God form also bears a resemblance to the "Dendrobium" mobile armor from Mobile Suit Gundam 0083 Stardust Memory.