When creating a new guild, you’re going to want to have some unique characters who think out of the box. That’s how despite having two established guilds being part of the guild war event and being heavy favorites, Maple Tree can be considered a threat because essentially all of their members have bizarre or extreme skills. That said, they’re still a small guild, which means they still have to come up with a good plan in order to win the event.
Plan A: Hide Maple (???)
Plan B: Unleash the Maple (!!!)
And would you look at that??! Everyone is now totally on their guard this time!
Ok ok, Maple Tree’s strategy of hiding Maple is legit. With their guild being small and not full of members even compared to mid-size guilds, they can’t afford to actually unleash Maple until they can understand where every other guild is at and after taking some smart risks in getting the orbs. The good news for them is from Maple to Sally to Iz (etc, etc), their understanding of how to maximize what they do best makes them a cut above their competition. It does get them into trouble — see Sally going all day terrorizing guilds but getting caught in a trap by one of the top guilds, getting rescued by Maple, thus only leaving Mai and Yui to defend their guild’s orb — but by having members that want to get better and help anyway they can, they can overcome the odds better than most. That’s why seeing the Twins hold off a high-level enemy long enough for Maple to return despite their builds was great to see.
Naturally though, the series is generally what Maple has been cooking in the weird skills pot, so with Sally’s recon of the event complete on Day 1 and Maple Tree attracting the attention of some of the top guilds already, the Maple has been unleashed, and all mid-sized guilds will perish. That’s basically what does happen, just that she happens to do this with a smile (and with the Twins by her side!). Why do I continue to enjoy Bofuri? Because it’s great seeing what everyone manages to do, but Maple just doing unconventional things continues to be fun to read.
She’ll have her work cut out for her this time though: the cover of Volume 6 of Bofuri features Mii, and when she’s not actually hiding her true personality (mostly nervous), she’s a confident and fiery empress that leads her guild to success. The volume ends with the confrontation between Maple and Mii, and no other member should get in the way or else they’ll just slow the two down. Of course if you’ve seen the anime (or read the light novel) you know how this goes, but it’ll be interesting to see how this is depicted in manga form whenever volume 7 comes out in the future.
