In a world now full of products made in a hurry, with little creativity, passion or commitment beyond the sufficiency, there is still something like Bocchi The Rock!
To be honest, I was expecting Bocchi with enough hype, as a fan of SoL and of the musical genre, yet it still managed to exceed my expectations in every aspect.

The premise and general presentation of the characters does not differ much from many other works, but the way in which the plot, relationship between the characters and artistic creativity are handled elevates this show to one of the best of its genre.

Story

Bocchi The Rock! protagonist Hitori Gotou (subsequently nicknamed Bocchi), an apparently very introverted girl with severe social anxiety problems who, despite being very famous for her guitar covers on the Internet under the name of 'guitarhero', feels the desire to play in a band, but can't even make a friend. Once she started high school, through the knowledge of Nijika Ijichi, and later Ryou Yamada and Kita Ikuyo she formed the Kessoku Band.

Characters

As I said earlier, Bocchi may appear to be a very introverted girl but in reality she is probably the most extroverted character in the series, held back simply by low self-esteem and social anxiety. Bocchi's growth under this aspect is always very veiled and can be seen in the small details and it is one of the things I appreciated the most together with her being a very human character due to the problems and feelings experienced.

Nijika is the most serious girl of the group and she is the one who keeps everyone together, managing to understand what is going on in the minds of the others most of the time and helping them. For these characteristics she is a character that I really appreciate, and then I owe her the title of this review, with the best title drop ever.

Ryou, on the other hand, is the perfect character to contrast Bocchi to make it clear that introversion ≠ social anxiety, two things that lately are always confused and united but must be kept at a separate distance. She is the bassist of the band and probably the most talented of the 4, yet she doesn't necessarily want success (like Hitori, for herself and the band, or Nijika for her sister) but just play her own music in a group where she can feel good.

Kita is the most energetic of the 4 and she’s the light and lead singer of the group. In the past she had left the band after signing up only to get closer to Ryou as she didn't know how to play the guitar, while during the series Bocchi teaches her. Unlike the others, she’s not deepened too much but remains a fundamental part of the show and of the band due to her personality that always creates various gags.

There are also other characters like Nijika's sister or Hiroi,a guitarist of another band who helps a lot Bocchi that contributes significantly to the show.

Relationships & Artistic creativity

These are the two points where more than anything Bocchi the Rock! shines.How many times have we seen characters with social anxiety passed off as victims to pity and empathize with? I have countless examples, but this is absolutely not the case. The relationship between Hitori and the rest of the Kessoku Band is wonderful precisely because it's damn real and her problems are exposed in a much more mature way than usual.And now let's talk about the strong point of the series, the artistic creativity. The original work is a 4-koma as can probably be guessed from the mass of comic moments that follow each other in rapid succession but what makes the difference in this adaptation and makes it the masterpiece we have seen is the staff in the its entirety and the love and passion of the people who worked on this product. The episode 5 performance was my breakthrough moment of the series, one of the things that led me to have Bocchi The Rock! among my favorite anime, and it's just going to see the same scene in the manga that you notice the abyss of difference. Not to mention the innumerable scenes taken from the real world in moments where Bocchi goes crazy, or the continuous quality of always adding that pinch of inventiveness in every comic moment to make it unique.

The experience I had in these 12 weeks was among the best ever, this show managed to make me feel every possible feeling, from happiness to sadness and also genuinely laughing, which I always find very difficult to do while watching anime.

In conclusion, do yourself a favor and watch Bocchi The Rock! if you haven't already