Wakfu and Dofus: An Alex Kogan Post as to Why You Should Watch This French Anime

The last thing you would think about when the topic of anime comes up is France. "France?" you might ask. "What do they have to do anime?" Well it's a good thing you've asked! You see, in my honest opinion, one of France's best areas is in animation!

War on the other hand...

Two semi-popular shows that you might have watched that were animated by French studios were Oban Star Racer, and Code Lyoko. However, in the rough of modern animation there is still a hidden gem that France proceeds to pump out. These are the series known as Wakfu and Dofus!

If either of these two names sound familiar to you then you're most likely not crazy! Both are free to play MMOs made by Ankama Studios. Dofus was the first to come out, which was released in 2005 while Wakfu takes place in the same universe as Dofus only 1,000 years later. The basic things you need to know about the universe is that there are twelve classes/races (which we'll get into later) and in both your ultimate goal is defeat a giant called Ogrest. The MMOs themselves are pretty meh unless you pay for a membership.

THE RACES OF THE WORLD OF TWELVE

Cra

Cra are the equivalency of  the ranger characters in most MMOs. They do not get pets however. They are most known for their pride in their race and for their precision. They do not use traditional arrows however, it's more like Wakfu arrows (Wakfu is the universe's word for a type of energy that exists in all living things)
Cra backwards is also "arc", which is the French word for bow!

Ecaflip

Ecaflip are risk takers and rely on luck! They don't really have a class they're similar too in most MMOs. They draw most of their skills based on the Luck stat in the game. A lot of their spells do random amounts of damage and give random affects to allies and enemies. In a way you can say they're a bandit like character.
Ecaflip backwards is "pilface" and if you add an "E" you get "pile face" which comes from the French phrase "Pile ou face", which is their version of Heads or Tails!

Enirispa

Enirispa are the generic "healer" class. Their spells help heal and just that! Their damaging spells do very poor damage so yeah. Their main goal is to make sure none of their allies are dead!

Enirispa backwards is "Aspirine", which is a obviously like the  word aspirin!

Enutrof

Enutrofs love treasure and anything valuable! There is no specific class archetype that fits them and in a way they can take on multiple physical roles in a jack-of-all trades sense. Some of their skills help increase the amount of loot dropped and can hit multiple enemies at once!

Enutrof backwards is "fortune" which... yeah that's obvious enough

Feca

Feca are very similar to Enirispa, only their spells give defensive buffs to allies. I honestly don't know why they need two separate classes for protecting allies but eh.

Feca is an anagram of "cafe". The story behind this is that Feca, along with two other classes (talked about later) were the first three to be created, and such their names are based on favorite food related things.

Iop

For some reason they didn't have a picture like the others did on the wikipedia

Iop are the generic warrior classes. Their goal is to do as much damage as possible and take a bulk of the hits for the team! Their personality type is that they aren't the brightest, and they rarely think before they act.

Iop is a shortened and edited word of "Yoplait", which goes with the inside joke with Feca. Yoplait->Yop->Iop!

Osamodas

Osamodas are pretty similar to warlocks. They are the masters of beasts and summon them to do the damage for them! They also have a few other spells up their sleaves.

Osamodas backwards is "Sadomaso" which is short for "sadistic masochist". PFFT, and you thought this was a kids game!

Sacrier

If there's any class that deserves the name "sadistic masochist" it's these guys! They're basically a tank and beserker class. When damage is delt to them, these guys only grow stronger!

The word Sacrier comes from the combination of "sacrifice" and "crier". The French name is "Sacrieur", or one who laughs

Sadida

These are best thought of as the shamen class. They summon totems and dolls to aid their allies as well as fire out spells that do damage! They're  mostly associated with plants!

Sadida backwards is "Adidas", because why the fuck not.

Sram

Sram are 2spooky4me. They're the assassin archetype, using stealth and quick attacks to finish their opponents! I don't know why they look like skeletons though, it's kinda dumb. In the show though they're perceived as actual zombies.

Sram backwards is "Mars", which is a famous candy company, thus finalizing the triforce of food inside jokes with Feca and Iop!

Xelor

Xelor are pure mages. Their manipulation of time gives them a power array of spells at their disposal! The main antagonist of season 1 is a powerful Xelor!

Xelor backwards is "Rolex", GET IT? LIKE THE WATCH? D'OHOHOHO

Pandawas

Pandawas are one of the odd ones out. They joined the Dofus MMO relatively late in the life of the game and thus, aren't an official part of the World of Twelve. They love getting drunk off of bamboo milk though and they can be similar to a warrior class, except most of their attacks differ by how drunk they are in game!

Pandawa's don't have a silly name fact. Fuck you Pandawas.

THE SHOW(s)

Currently as of right now there are two seasons of Wakfu. Without giving much away, the first season revolves around kid named Yugo (that kid in the blue hat), who goes on an adventure to find out the origin of who he is as well as defeat the primary antagonist! The episodes are pretty episodic as they can't make a TV show where all they do is walk for the entire episode.

Then again, they made three movies about walking to a friggen' mountain

However, about midway through season 1, it begins getting plot heavy, shit hits the fan, ultimately building up to the final fight!

Season 2 starts off plot heavy already, however it begins to get into a lull around mid season, but then end season is when even more shit hits the fan than the first season. The gist of Season 2 is Yugo finally learns the history of his people while dealing with a threat that could destroy the entire world.

The show mainly stars five main characters, which to me all compliment each other pretty well!

Yugo

This macro roughly sums up his character pretty well

Yugo is a 12 year old kid whom is known as an Eliatrope (which backwards is basically "Portal!"). He was mysteriously abandoned to be taken care of by a cook. His powers give him the ability to create portals that he can jump through as well as others! At first he is naive about the extent of his powers, but as the series progresses, he begins to tap into those powers and becomes a pretty bad ass motherfucker.

Tristepin/Sadlygrove

He's just happy to see you is all

Tristepin is the lovable Iop that everyone makes fun off! Although often the butt of most jokes, he is physically one of the strongest characters in the show. He is the guardian of Rubilax (a deamon sealed inside of a sword, which backwards is similar to "Excalibur") which he can partially fuse with to turn into a sub-human(well sub-Iop) creature that's even stronger, but has no sense of control. The subs for the show tend to call him Sadlygrove for some reason that I forgot (it's been a while!).

Amalia

Prepare your anus

Amalia is the princess of the Sadida kingdom. She ran away from home to go and travel the world! Just because she is a princess does mean she can't fight! Despite being a princess, she is rarely the target of being captured anyway for whatever reason. She is very skilled at fighting and being a huge bitch. When she isn't a huge bitch though, she is actually very caring about her friends.

Evangelyne

No silly caption here folks!

Evangelyne is the more serious of the group. She is Amalia's good friend and guard who ran with her to make sure she does not get hurt. A very skilled Cra, she makes no arrow go unwasted. She can even shoot ice arrows, which are pretty cool too. In a weird role reversal, Eva is mostly the one that gets the "damsel in distress" trope and not Amalia.

Ruel

Cunt Destroyer

Ruel is the old and wise Enutrof of the group. He's also a greedy sunnuva bitch. His trusty weapon of choice is a shovel which can do tons of damage! (Fun fact, one of his attacks "Rolling shovel", is French slang for making out!) He is good friends with Yugo's father and thus is one of the first to join him on his quest! However, he can be quite lazy and a coward.

Dofus

The Dofus series is currently a work in progress, but the trailer for it was just released recently! Which you can watch here:

The trailer will give you a basic view on the style of animation and what you can expect from Wakfu and Dofus! Oh wait, did I mention the show is entirely done in Adobe Flash? Yeah, Flash. It's pretty amazing what can be done in a program like Flash, right?

FINAL THOUGHTS

I strongly suggest you at least give the show a try if any of this caught your interest. I'm not gonna force it upon you, but if you need something new to watch then why not try out Wakfu? I was a bit skeptical about watching it but my friends convinced me enough and I just love the series! Although it may seem like a kids show you've seen that this isn't really the case, as they get crap past the radar quite a few times! I cannot provide you with links to acquire episodes of the episodes, but I can show you a website that can show you how to acquire the episodes! I really hope you do enjoy it if you choose to watch it! The website has all sorts of goodies like comics and specials!