#The Ramblings and Thoughts of a Dude Who Loves Bocchi the Rock
*** Bocchi the Rock is what makes anime and animation as a medium special. Many of the people who will talk about this show, leave reviews, or try and persuade their friends to watch it will focus on the story and characters within the show. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that mind you, I will get to those eventually too within this review as they are some of my personal all-time favorite characters with some of the best chemistry with one another out there, as well as a story with fantastic themes and a wonderful overarching throughline. But that is not what I would like to focus on here today. The key hook that caught my attention and the attention of so many others immediately from episode one, even if it may have been subconscious for many, was that this is truly an anime where everyone behind it loves their work, and they are absolutely having some of the most fun out there by any studio. I think animation is one of the most important art forms that we, as a species, have created. When done well you can do things in animation that are impossible in a live action production. When the imagination of the animators is on full display you can tell any kind of story, limited only by budget, time, sometimes limited only by willpower. It is here that I fully believe Bocchi the Rock fully and truly encapsulates what makes animation special and unique among other art forms. Every single scene throughout the entirety of this 12-episode stretch is just chockfull of creativity, passion, and imagination from the people behind it on the CloverWorks team. The sheer number of different styles of animation demonstrated throughout the show is unlike any other show I have ever seen. You get every style of anime and art form all rolled into one cohesive package. A strange anxiety inspired Claymation scene? Done! The representation of what it feels like to imagine what others think about you through paper cutouts glued to popsicle sticks? You got it! A now infamous cyberpunk-esque glitch out animation due to being asked to make an Instagram account? You know it. Creativity is such a beautiful thing. It allows the animators and directors on this project to convey every emotion that we have all experienced within our lives in both a way that is unique in concept and design, but also captures and expresses the mindsets we ourselves and the characters were in during each of these scenes. None of the heart and love that went into this show is just limited to the varied use of animation styles. You can clearly tell that everyone on this team has a deep love for anime and has seen a wide array of shows across a myriad of genres. There are so many references to other shows and movies that range from obvious ones, like the Evangelion unfamiliar ceiling reference, to more niche ones, like Bocchi running down the hall identically to Haruko from FLCL. There’s a little something there for everyone, and if you have seen enough anime, you’ll get even more out of the all the tiny references made throughout it. One of the strongest points of direction that tends to come with the CloverWorks brand is that they just know the secret recipe for the perfect emotional beats and heavy scenes. The lighting and composition, the pacing, the music, or lack thereof, all of it goes hand in hand to make you feel it when you’re supposed to. This is where the magic of Bocchi the Rock’s team really shines through. We can talk on and on about how wonderfully creative and lovingly crafted all fun scenes are, but when the moment is right, CloverWorks can make you feel something in a single instance that some shows will never make you feel in 200 episodes. It takes a lot of talent to be able to pull off what is essentially purposefully emotional whiplash. Many authors, mangaka, and studios try, and a lot tend to fail to make the emotional moment land when it needs to by just undercutting it with a joke. Look at the complaints a lot of people have about the current MCU. Many people talk about how nothing feels serious anymore and that there really aren’t any stakes because every single character is just constantly cracking jokes no matter what the circumstances are. Inherently, you would think that Bocchi the Rock would fall into this same boat. It’s a show that is almost always silly, cracking jokes, and making fun of the situations going on, but can intertwine that beautifully into the emotional heartbeat of the show. It knows just when to flip the switch and it can really do it in two different methods. CloverWorks’ projects love to use the sudden jump from a more simplistic and cartoony look of a character right into their normal appearance. They will then cut the music entirely, bottlenecking the viewers entire focus onto the next line that is about to said, typically the initial start to what will be a moving or powerful speech or moment, and then slowly bring in the music back and showcase the surrounding characters with stunning background visuals and lightning. It’s a showcase of that studio’s direction and style and works every time for me personally. Another favorite of theirs is to start a new scene and never go into a more cartoony style or mindset. As a viewer you typically wouldn’t notice at first, but the longer the scene continues to go on without being funny or goofy, you can tell it is building up to something. In the case of Bocchi, this style is most evident in all the concert scenes. We’ll get a little monologue by Bocchi of how she is feeling at that moment and acknowledging how far she has come and how far she still must go. It’s a slow and steady buildup with the band’s music as the undertone, and it all culminates when you get to that guitar solo and chorus, and THAT is when the Bocchi magic hits you and get you goosebumps and chills sent down your spine. You get fully engrossed in the sway of the music and heartfelt speech Bocchi gives and then that payoff is just so extremely satisfying. It never missed the mark, and it showed that this show can be more than just a funny little slice of life with cute girls doing cute things. And this brings me to my next point of greatness within this show, the music. I’m going to be completely honest…THE MUSIC IN THIS SHOW KICKS ASS!! It is so good, unbelievably good, I can’t even fathom it. The background music is perfect for setting the tone of any setting, but the real star of the show is Kessoku Band themselves. Personally, even with how much J-rock I tend to listen to as a big fan, a lot of them that come from anime shows, opening, endings, and movies kind of feel and sound like they’re from anime. They don’t really sound like most other music, even within the J-rock genre. They kind of all have the same beats and you can tell when a song is from an anime’s opening. And that’s not a bad thing (I love my openings as much as the next person), but the Kessoku Band songs ALL feel like real studio production songs from a real band. It helps that a lot of the music from the show that the band plays is inspired by big J-rock bands like Asian Kung-fu Generation and The Peggies, including being produced and worked on by some of the members from those bands, but it all just has the feel as if a real band wrote and played these songs. Like a real band, multiple members get “their” song where they get to stand out. That can be the cute Nijika song that was used as an ending to the show, to the very bass heavy Karakara where Ryo gets to stand out, all the way to That Band where we get the incredible Bocchi guitar solo. I have listened to all these songs on Spotify way more times than I would want to admit. They’re just great songs, I don’t really know what else to say. And it’s not just me who thinks that. The music video for Guitar, Loneliness, and the Blue Planet garnered over 3 million views on YouTube in a couple of days after being uploaded. The music in this show is so good, it got me to pick up and learn the bass (also because I just love Ryo) and I’ve seen so many others on the Bocchi subreddit ask about how to start getting into learning an instrument. It’s amazing that a show like this can inspire and spread the joy of music to everyone who watches. Even if you don’t like J-rock or music anime, trust me, you can and will get something out of these songs. They will get your head bopping in no time. Ok, enough gushing over how much I love this show as an anime, let’s get to why I also love this show as a story, starting with the characters. The characters are absolutely the standout point from the story. It’s part of the reason so many people fell in love with this show. Look online and see how many of those “She’s just like me, frfr” memes you can find relating to Bocchi. Each of the band members are incredibly flushed out and well-realized characters, even with the short amount of time we have been with them. Each of the band members can, and have been, someone’s favorite from the show. I’ve seen all of them in at least one person’s favorite list on this site, and sometimes multiple at a time (myself included). The chemistry between all of them is some of the best I have seen in recent media. You can give me any combination of these 4 girls together in some situation and I could tell you exactly how they would all react and behave with one another. In such a short time, we get their motivations, insecurities, and what the band means to them. I want to go quickly through the members of Kessoku Band just give them each their own solo. Firstly, we have our singer of the band…
#KITA
Kita feels like the weakest of the band members when viewed through a solo lens, BUT it is when she bounces off the other band members where she really shines (pun intended). The power of the Kita Aura is in full effect. She is perfect as the lead singer and the face of the band given her personality. She is spunky, full of life, and is always looking on the positive side of life while looking out for her friends. She is honest and sweet down to her core. She knows exactly how to pick up and motivate Bocchi when she needs to hear it the most, and her relationship and idolization of Ryo is not just funny, but very cute and feels genuine, not just done for the sake of laughs. It feels like there is something more to her character that can be revealed or built up to in the future with some tiny hints they drop here and there, and I can’t wait to see how Aki Hamaji flushes her out. She is always able to bring a smile out of her band members and the viewers as well.
#RYO
Oh, Ryo. Where do I even begin? She’s probably my favorite character of the bunch (she’s even my current discord profile picture) despite me thinking that she’s not the best of the band members. Everything she does is just so funny. She made me laugh harder than almost any other character this year. She had me rolling in certain scenes, such as when she spent all her money to buy Kita’s bass and was left to eat weeds. She’s calm, cool, and collected, very much like the bass she plays. Her very dry line delivery makes every joke she says stand out that much more compared to all the over-the-top zany antics of the rest of the show. She’s also able to give very sound advice for someone who has a brain so small you can hear it rattle around in her skull (of course that advice comes with a food fee). She can bring out the best in Bocchi when she is struggling with writing their first song to perform in front of Seika. She’s always willing to help her bandmates musically as well such as filling in to teach guitar to Kita. She just has so many great quirks too for a character with such dry line delivery. I love how she always looking at how to capitalize on anything to make a quick buck, how she likes to pretend she’s a music snob but gets caught up in the moment of it just like everyone else, how she can clap back with a snarky remark when Nijika starts with her. She is just the pure definition of fun, and I can never get enough of her when she’s on screen.
#NIJIKA
Much like the drums she plays, Nijika is the heart of the band. She is an incredible character and by far and away the most well rounded of the group. She can collect this group of wacky and over-the-top characters and somehow get them to all come together in sweet harmony. She has honest intentions on why she wants to start a band, has THE BEST heartfelt moment in the entire show, can be snarky with Ryo, have fun with Kita, uplifting towards Bocchi. There are seriously no flaws in her character. She absolutely feels like the most real out of all of them. This may also be the hottest take in this whole review, but I think she has the most expressive faces and body language throughout the whole show. She, to an even further extent than the others, has the capability to go from funny to so heartwarmingly genuine in the blink of an eye without missing a beat (but I guess that’s to be expected from our drummer). It’s very evident from the Bocchi community that she tends to be one of people’s favorite characters in the show, regardless of if she is your number 1 or not. I have not seen a single person who doesn’t like her. Her relationship with her sister, but through flashback storytelling, as well as through what we see with them working at Starry, is so incredibly wholesome. They have a fantastic sibling dynamic. She also has a little Dorito chip on her head which is unintentionally hilarious. I can keep going, but I will be here even longer than I already am. She is the character I connected to the most, and I am so excited and giddy to see where her story unfolds to.
#BOCCHI
Last, and certainly not least, we have our main character and namesake for the show, the one and only Hitori Gotou, also known as Guitarhero, or better known as Bocchi. I think there’s not much justice or more I can say about this character that you either didn’t know already from the countless memes, clips, and discussions that arose over the internet while this show was airing or from just watching the show yourself. She represents social anxiety better than I may have ever seen. Those “She’s just like me” memes really didn’t appear out of thin air. It may not be completely 1:1 with your experiences, but I 100% believe that anyone can find a little of themselves within Bocchi. We’ve all shared at least one of her experiences internally or out in public. A lot of anime fans like to point to Komi as being the definitive example of what social anxiety and communication disorders genuinely feel like, and I’m not here to insult Komi or its story. I love Komi as well, but I always personally found that story more as a collection of cute and comedic slice of life moments with a sprinkling of social anxiety. Sure, it has its heavier moments, but it really was never trying to make a hearty statement. It’s representation for sure, but it always focused more on the different characters and comedic elements of it. Bocchi on the other hand, takes that comedic element, pairs it with the insane animation choices, and makes it the focal point of the show. The main core of this show is bettering yourself and maturing into the person you are most comfortable with, and it is exemplified perfectly through the embodiment of Bocchi as a main character. Forget about all the memes for one second, and when you just sit down and watch this show, you can’t help yourself but go, “Damn, I can relate this,” or “Wow, that’s exactly how I felt when I went through this.” It is awe inspiring how well she captures the essence of that social anxiety we all at one point have been through at some point during our adolescence and early adulthood. I’m really struggling to put it into words, it really is insane just how well Aki Hamaji was able to capture this part of human psychology. I can go on indefinitely talking about everything I love about this show. I didn’t even get to everything, like how I think Hiroi is one of the best big sister/mentor characters and is the perfect complement to Bocchi, or how the framing of all the concert scenes perfectly captures what it feels like to be at a concert. It’s insane how much I fell in love with it. When this season of anime started, I never even heard of it. I was excited for Mob and Bleach and Chainsaw Man much like everyone else, but I threw on episode 1 on a sheer whim, and I never looked back once. This is without a doubt my favorite anime of the season, it wasn’t even close for me, and it is easily in my short list of all time favorite shows. Is it a perfect show? Absolutely not. No show is. But as you can tell from the ridiculous length of this review, I fell in love with this show, unlike I ever have before with a seasonal. It took one episode to hook me, three to know it’s something special, and by the time we got to that first concert, I knew I had a special connection to this and that this was going to stick with me for the rest of my life. I will never forget the joy of watching this weekly. And those Kessoku Band songs will be listened to on repeat within my playlists for years to come. I apologize for how long this review is, but I just really wanted to put my thoughts out there. This is probably a very messy review, and it’s honestly more of a rambling love letter to the show than an actual review, but I really hope my love of this show comes through clearly. If you haven’t given Bocchi the Rock a chance, please do! Trust me, you will be missing out if you don’t give it a shot. I firmly believe that if you are a fan of anime and animation as a medium, this is must watch material.Thank you CloverWorks and thank you Aki Hamaji for bringing this into my life.