Bocchi the Rock: A little show about cute girls doing cute things enters the ring in a season full of heavy hitters, spectacular conclusions, big sequels, anticipated blockbuster adaptations, and more, to blow the competition out of the water with a thematically rich, hilarious, heartfelt, and visually splendid first season. This is Bocchi the Rock, and if she can avoid collapsing and turning into dust while doing it, Bocchi will, well, rock your world.
Bocchi the Rock Season 1 Review
Hitori Gotoh, a depressed and reclusive high school student with debilitating social anxiety, is the protagonist of our story. Her only goal is to work up the courage to approach her classmates and either become popular or at the very least make a few acquaintances. Gotoh, commonly known as Bocchi (which means “always alone”), learns that many big bands began as a bunch of high schoolers hanging together, so she takes her father’s guitar to try to form a band with some of her classmates.
The issue is that Bocchi is still unable to talk to anyone at school, much less ask them to join her band, despite getting pretty excellent at playing the guitar and gaining an internet following for her guitar-playing videos. That is until a student from a different school approaches her and invites Bocchi to join her band.
Spiritual Successor
It closely resembles the music anime K-On!, which is really more about a group of females becoming friends. Bocchi the Rock! does, however, have a few tricks up its anxious sleeve. One reason is that it is moving in its examination of anxiety without being obviously depressing or nasty to Bocchi. In a way that doesn’t make fun of the girl but recognizes that her troubles are relatable, it depicts the never-ending fight she goes through and the embarrassing things she does to try and conquer her fear.
They know how to mine Bocchi for cringe comedy without making fun of its main character, in the same manner, Komi-san Can’t Communicate does, so it’s obvious that it was developed by people who are experienced with or at least sympathetic towards social anxiety. Many of the gags are conveyed through animation.
By providing us with one of the most experimental seasons of anime, a program full of genre and even medium parodies without feeling like pastiche a la Pop Team Epic, Studio CloverWorks almost makes up for the failure that was The Promised Neverland Season 2.
Bocchi the Rock! is one of the funniest and most creative comedies of the season. It features claymation, paper cutouts, zoetrope, and even live-action video, as well as comical references to a variety of anime, including Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ashita no Joe, Dragon Ball Z, and many more. One of the show’s greatest thrills is seeing Bocchi’s countless, countless, countless hilarious facial expressions when her dissociative anxiety episodes are triggered. There are also many wonderful visual jokes when Bocchi transforms into kaiju, slugs, radioactive dust, and other things.
Granted, it’s still a musical, but thankfully Bocchi the Rock! not only has fantastic songs but also has a strong grasp of how to play them. The first time the entire Kessoku Band performs live, it’s a complete disaster, and the animation in the show conveys the off-timing, the lack of rhythm, and the lack of confidence by even using the frame rate to reflect the characters’ emotions and how they gradually gain confidence in their abilities.
Showcase Of An Artist’s Life
At the same time, the show is reminiscent of Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! in the way that it investigates the nitty-gritty of the industry and the economical pains that go into making art. In other words, the show explores the nitty-gritty of the industry and the economic pains that go into making art.
The process of booking gigs, the auditioning phase, dealing with crowds that are apathetic and uninterested, experiencing writer’s block, and even the simple financial challenge of having to fund your own ticket quota are all obstacles that must be overcome. In spite of the fact that the majority of Bocchi the Rock! is focused on the main character’s process of gradually confronting her fears, the show also looks forward to the future in which she realizes her dream of becoming a rock star, and it does so while deftly illustrating that the life of an artist isn’t always a bed of roses.
Bocchi the Rock! may not have exciting combat sequences or very popular source material, but the show’s charm, innovative animation, and appealing and likable characters are enough to put it on equal footing with the year’s best anime.
Final Verdict
Bocchi the Rock! is a hilarious animated film about a young girl who must overcome her social anxiety in order to achieve her dream of being a rock star. The film contains inventive animation, electrifying musical performances, and a hell of an ensemble cast.
Read More:
