Bocchi the Rock!

Yearning to make friends and perform live with a band, lonely and socially anxious Hitori "Bocchi" Gotou devotes her time to playing the guitar. On a fateful day, Bocchi meets the outgoing drummer Nijika Ijichi, who invites her to join Kessoku Band when their guitarist, Ikuyo Kita, flees before their first show. Soon after, Bocchi meets her final bandmate—the cool bassist Ryou Yamada.

Although their first performance together is subpar, the girls feel empowered by their shared love for music, and they are soon rejoined by Kita. Finding happiness in performing, Bocchi and her bandmates put their hearts into improving as musicians while making the most of their fleeting high school days.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Gotou, Hitori Main

Aoyama, Yoshino Japanese

Yamada, Ryou Main

Mizuno, Saku Japanese

Ijichi, Nijika Main

Suzushiro, Sayumi Japanese

Kita, Ikuyo Main

Hasegawa, Ikumi Japanese

Hiroi, Kikuri Supporting

Senbongi, Sayaka Japanese

PA-san Supporting

Koiwai, Kotori Japanese

Ijichi, Seika Supporting

Uchida, Maaya Japanese

Gotou, Futari Supporting

Watada, Misaki Japanese

Gotou, Naoki Supporting

Majima, Junji Japanese

Gotou, Michiyo Supporting

Suegara, Rie Japanese

Umehara, Shouta Producer

Kobayashi, Hiroyuki Producer

Ishikawa, Tatsuya Producer

Saitou, Keiichirou Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Key Animation

Reviews

Mar 30, 2025

Sunray_

Recommended

Bocchi The Rock tells the story of an introvert finding her own path in life through music. Reminiscent of the legendary Slice of Life (SoL) anime, K-on!, it follows a similar setup but differentiates itself in it's characters, plot and presentation.

Character wise, Bocchi is a someone who needs support, while Yui is mostly portrayed as the X-factor of her band. The latter brings a much needed positive and hopeful vibe, while the former does anything but that. This results in K-on! having less progression in it's main character than Bocchi The Rock, as the namesake's purpose in the story is to drive the plot ... through her journey of learning to interact, appreciate others, and in turn discover her own self-worth. Yui, on the other hand, doesn't need as much help in that regard, because she does pretty fine by herself, and actually needs to be reprimanded at times for how cheerful she is. All in all, Bocchi's story has an upward trajectory, while Yui mostly remains where she is, albeit fluctuating depending on where the episode's plot wants to take her.

Before moving on, I'd like to state why I'm choosing to compare Bocchi and K-on! despite them being very different shows on the whole. Well, that's precisely the reason, their key differences are paramount to understanding why both of them have had such a large impact on the anime community, both past and present. So please understand that I am in no way belittling either title, even if it may appear so. I love both shows, in fact K-on! remains an all-time pick of mine, and Bocchi is a recent example of a show that managed to touch my heart deeply like very few have.

So speaking about the plot, Bocchi takes a much more traditional story-telling approach, while K-on! stays within it's Cute Girl Doing Cute Things (CGDCT) agenda. I love the route K-on! goes with it's reoccurring gags, episode plots and interactions, but I think it's fair to say that Bocchi tries much harder to make it's character stick with you in it's shorter timeframe. I felt a much greater sense of urgency in Bocchi's plot compared to K-on!, which should be obvious considering the nature of their main characters. Not to dwell too long on characters again, but it's certainly clear that Bocchi's obsession with her lonliness is a much easier plot driver than whatever the hell is going on in that Yui's brain. Nevertheless, my point in this paragraph is to simply highlight the difference in priorities for either story. Bocchi wants you to connect with it's characters quickly and deeply, as seen by Nijika's abrupt introduction, nearly rocking Bocchi's world to pieces right from episode 1. On the other side, Yui and co. simply lack the F's to give to actually work towards their "goals", and would rather sit around, eat cake and drink tea (which is precisely the point of the show and why I love it <3)

Now moving on to presentation, I'd like to split this section up into two parts. The first shall be about the visual, and the second about the audio. It should be obvious that music plays a huge part in these two anime, so I believe it's important to address both senses with equal importance.

Starting with visual presentation, I think the element that stands out the most is hair colour. Bocchi's characters have bright, colourful, even primary colours, while K-on! are more realistic. To me, this emphasises how much the characters stand out in each story. Think about it, everyone else in Bocchi's universe has normal coloured hair, yet our main characters are distinctly not the same. Why? Because they are distinctly not the same! Every one of them is weird in their own way, Ryo is a rich loner, Nijika is way too cheerful, Kita is overly cute and of course our dear Bocchi stands out the most in the fact that she has the least friends (Sadge). Point being, their distinct hair colours represent their distance from societies norms, in both "good" and "bad" ways. If you've seen the show, you know what I mean. So what about K-on? Well, it does the same thing, except the result is different because it's characters are different. Or rather, they aren't (XD). Sure, Yui is talented as a guitarist and a bit of an airhead, Mio is pretty and a good bassist, Ritsu is a ditz and Tsumugi has her goggles. However, they are never portrayed as being distinctly "different" from their peers. In short, they are just regular high schoolers, people you could meet in your own school or maybe you have. Not to say that you can't meet anti-social, popular, hyper-cheerful or loner people in real-life, but one show makes it a point to point it out, while the other just lets them be. This leads to the next point about...

Music! If you have been paying attention to what I have been saying about the visual presentation, you should already have realised that the music does the same thing! Bocchi's music is much more introspective, thought-provoking and dramatic while K-on has... Fuwa fuwa time... and My love is a stapler... yeah you see what I mean? Bocchi's music takes itself much more seriously than K-on, and that makes sense for all the reasons I listed before.

So now you might be wondering, how does all of this link to the title of this review. (Bocchi The Rock - The Introvert's Icon.) Well to be completely honest, not much. I thought it was a catchy title, that's pretty much it (LOL). Okay in all seriousness, what made me want to talk about Bocchi in the first place was the inconceivable reach that this anime has had, and I believe SHE plays a large part in that. Something about seeing a introvert try hard at something is just really fun and exciting. The struggles she goes through, the people she meets, I think make for really great lessons for anyone looking to get to know people better and enjoy life as a whole. That's been me, Sunray, signing off!

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jan 11, 2025

Mik0_o

Mixed Feelings

This is my first review. I used to think that writing reviews was pointless or logical only for shows you like, but I’ve come to realize that when you write a review, you truly reflect on what you’ve watched and it helps you process everything, including the emotions the show left behind. I want to try writing a review for everything I watch or read this year, and the first thing I watched was Bochi the Rock.

I'll start by explaining why I decided to watch the anime and what caught my interest. The main reason was probably its rating and the fact that it seemed ... like an easy watch. Lately, I’ve been watching One piece and reading Umineko VN, and I wanted something light and easy to watch. Bochi the Rock ended up in my hands—it's a 12-episode anime that’s in the top 45 on MAL, and I thought it would be simple and easy to follow.

Now, let me go through the pros and cons of various aspects and then I’ll evaluate it in more detail.

First, I’ll say that comedy, in general, doesn’t appeal to me, especially in anime. I don’t like Japanese humor much. I can recall a few comedic anime that I watched, like One Punch Man and Spy x Family. I’ll say that Bochi the Rock had more funny moments than I expected, and there were indeed some moments I genuinely liked. The concept itself was quite humorous—especially with a socially awkward rocker, which felt like a refreshing change from characters like Saitama who defeats everyone with one punch. But I’ll stop with the comparisons.

Despite that, even though the comedic aspect was more enjoyable than in other anime, it didn’t make me laugh much outside of a few moments. The anime also touched lightly on other themes and didn’t stir any emotional reactions in me. It didn’t leave a significant impact, and I didn’t feel any positive moods after watching it. There weren’t many memorable moments either, but one thing that sets this anime apart from other short 12-episode series is that it was easy to watch. The animation was quite good, and while the characters weren’t really standout, they were interesting at some point, and it was enjoyable to watch. The main character, while sometimes funny and relatable in some ways, was stuck in the same place every episode, and no real change occurred.

I forgot to mention that the music (OST) wasn't particularly memorable. I can't really point out any specific moment that stood out or that I particularly liked. As for a potential new season, I’m not sure if I’d be overly excited about it, but I’ll watch it if it comes out.

So, in conclusion:

An ordinary story that doesn’t stand out
A main character who is sometimes funny but doesn’t evolve
Good animation
Ordinary, yet easy-to-watch characters
Standard cliché dialogues
No memorable moments or episodes
Despite the criticism and flaws, I still enjoyed watching the anime, and some moments were genuinely funny and relatable.

My final rating is a mid to high 6/10.

I also realized that writing reviews is a great way to find people who think like you and engage in discussions with them, or, on the other hand, interact with people who disagree and have them prove you wrong, showing you things you might have missed.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jul 20, 2024

Chilicon_valley

Not Recommended

Bocchi the Rock fails at being both a good SoL and a good show about musicians. If you're coming to this show looking for one of those aspects (or both) then leave as I assure you there's plenty better than Bocchi, you can even stop reading here if you want. If you've already watched it or just want to see my reasoning then feel free to read on.

Plot:
Bocchi is a Slice of Life/Coming of age story about a girl who learns to overcome her shyness by playing her guitar. That might seem like a decent idea but that might as well be as deep ... as it gets as that's Bocchi's entire personality. She plays the guitar 6 hours a day because she wants to be famous and that's somehow the easiest way for her to become sociable/earn friends. Not only is that logic asinine but it's an incredibly shallow means of friendship to yearn for. It's also just bizarre how this laid back SoL/Moe tries to give some almost shonen-esque "I want to be the very best" goal for our MC. You can't even try and argue that the show doesn't pigeonhole itself to one genre as it very much does.

Bocchi:
Bocchi's portrayal of social anxiety is a joke and feels like the author just looked at memes on social media about how hard it is being an introvert and took it at face value. She automatically goes into spastic outbursts whenever confronted by anyone to the point to where it's a miracle that her friends keep her around given how uncooperative she is even with them. If Bocchi did exist in real life she wouldn't have any friends, but this show seems to favor Bocchi in a way that many self-insert anime do. Bocchi can never do anything wrong, she's always just a poor misunderstood musical genius and you have to bear with the fact that she shuts down like a damn computer at the mere thought of making eye contact with someone. Realistically Bocchi doesn't face any real trouble.

Characters:
The rest of the cast is as boring as it gets. We've got Ryo who was somewhat enjoyable at times but just a dick to everyone else for the most part. The Redhead who's the foil of Bocchi, and by that I mean while Bocchi's entire personality is being an introvert, her entire personality is being an extrovert and nothing more. The Blonde I don't even remember what her personality was or at least I don't even know if I could describe it. The main four feel so archetypal and boring that I can't really say anything more. A good SoL can take these character archetypes and make them feel very naturally fitting, Houkago Teibou Nisshi for example does a really good job at this. All the other side characters are again just reduced to one trait.
Another thing I find bizarre is how Bocchi's father in particular has his eyes censored out. I see that this trope seems to happen a good deal in a lot of newer Moe shit where they seem almost scared to even show a male character on the screen for some reason. I'm not saying that your primarily female cast show needs many male characters in it or anything but it's frankly weird when they go to lengths such as that.

Art:
I'll Segway from characters to character design for art, as it makes a good enough bridge. I think the character design is unimaginative and ugly. There is no balance as all the bright colored Power Rangers tastelessly leap in front of your face. I'm fine with bright colors after all this is anime we're talking about but please give good balance in relation to the characters they'll be around with throughout the show. Hidamari for example does a good job at this.
One thing I'll give Bocchi is that it's production is great. The weird animation sequences are neat and all but I think they were mostly made as internet bait, made with the intent get clips posted on the internet of how memeable this "Literally me" show is and so you can have at it with your twitter/discord reaction images. Not only that but the wacky animated segments are without fail always used on the same joke where Bocchi is in one of her free-form-freakouts over having to talk to a person or whatever.
The music is alright I guess, none of the songs ever stuck out to me. The one thing that did irk me in particular is that when Bocchi and her friends go to the psychedelic rock concert it didn't sound very psychedelic at all, just typical J-Rock. Maybe that's my own issue for expecting Hendrix or the Flaming Lips but it is what it is.

BOTTOM LINE:
Bocchi fails on all fronts that it tries to venture into and fails at nearly all of the basic fronts that a story/anime should be expected to meet. Funnily enough I went into this series thinking "wow it's going to be like K-On but they actually focus on being in a band" but I ended up appreciating K-On more, not only for having enjoyable characters but also for having better songs despite not nearly as much being about the music. And remember kids, your show is only so highly rated and popular because it meets a denominator so low and innocuous that it's serviceable for almost anyone. McDonalds may make the most dollaroos but it's miles away from being even close to the best food I've ever had.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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