from English website
In a season filled with heavy hitters, spectacular finales, big sequels, anticipated blockbuster adaptations and more, a little show about cute girls doing cute things steps into the ring and blows the competition out of the water with a thematically rich, hilarious, heartfelt and visually brilliant first season. This is Rock Bochi! And Bocchi is here to, well, rock your world—as long as she can avoid passing out and dissolving into dust in the process.
We follow Hitori Gotoh, a gloomy and shy high school student with severe social anxiety and a singular desire: to find the courage to talk to classmates and become popular - or at least get a few friends. Knowing that many big bands started out as a group of high school students, Gotoh - also known as Bocchi (literally meaning "Always Lonely") - borrowed a guitar from her father and tried to form a band with her classmates. The problem was, even after she became very good at playing guitar, and even after her guitar playing videos gathered a following online, Bocchi still couldn't talk to anyone at school, let alone ask them to join her band. Until she meets a girl from another school who asks Bocchi to join her band.
In many ways, it is K-On! The spiritual successor of K-On! It's a musical anime that's actually more about a group of girls becoming friends. But Rock Boki! It has a few aces up its anxious sleeves. First, it's poignant in its exploration of anxiety, but without being overtly bleak or brutal about Boki. It depicts the never-ending struggle she goes through—her cringe-worthy efforts to overcome her anxiety—all while creating tremendous empathy for the character in a way that doesn't make fun of her but understands that her struggle is relatable.
It's clearly made by people familiar with, or at least empathetic to, social anxiety, who know how to dig into Bocchi's creepy comedy without trivializing its protagonist like Komi-san's inability to communicate. A lot of the jokes came through animation. Studio CloverWorks almost redeemed itself from the fiasco of The Promised Neverland Season 2, giving us one of the most experimental anime seasons, a show full of genre and even middling pastiches without ever feeling like a parody of a popular team-up epic.
From clay, decoupage, zoetrope, and even live-action footage—as well as comedic references to anime ranging from Neon Genesis Evangelion to Ashida Nojo and Dragon Ball Z—Bocchi the Rock! is one of the funniest and most imaginative comedies of the season. Watching Bocchi's many hilarious facial expressions when her separation anxiety attacks are triggered is one of the show's greatest joys, and there are plenty of fantastic visual gags in which Bocchi transforms into kaiju, slugs, radioactive dust, and more.
Of course, this is still a musical, thank goodness for Bocchi the Rock! Not only have great songs, but know how to deliver a great musical performance. The first time the entire Kessoku band performed live, it started off as a disaster, with the show conveying the anachronisms and lack of rhythm and confidence through animation, even using frame rate to reflect the characters' mentality and how they were slowly gaining confidence in their skills.
