Bocchi The Rock!

is a Japanese four-panel manga series written and illustrated by Aki Hamaji. It has been serialized in Houbunsha's ''seinen'' manga magazine ''Manga Time Kirara Max'' since December 2017. Its chapters have been collected in five ''tankōbon'' volumes as of November 2022.

An anime television series adaptation produced by CloverWorks aired from October to December 2022.

Plot

Extremely anxious and socially awkward Hitori Gotō longs to become a rock musician in spite of her struggles, whilst fulfilling her desires to one day make friends. She is even given a chance to do so after she is taken in by Nijika Ijichi to become a member of the newly formed Kessoku Band.

Characters

Kessoku Band

is the center band in the series, based in STARRY, a live house in Shimokitazawa. The members' family names are derived from the real-life J-Rock band Asian Kung-Fu Generation, with their instrumental roles matching as well (for example, the Yamada of both bands play bass).
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:The protagonist and lead guitarist of Kessoku Band. An extreme introvert who has trouble with most social interactions. She learned how to play guitar in her first year of middle school, thinking this would help her make friends. Despite becoming incredibly skilled at playing guitar, and having a small fanbase online (under the alias "guitarhero"), she still has not been able to make friends as easily, until she was dragged into playing with Kessoku Band. Since then, Hitori has been gaining a few friends and learning to interact with other people. She is usually seen wearing a pink tracksuit, which she even wears over her school uniform.
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:The drummer and founder of Kessoku Band. Her older sister, Seika, runs a live house where they often play. Nijika looks up to her older sister Seika since they lost their mother at a young age and their father disappeared. She's very kind, cheerful, friendly and outgoing, also being the one holding the group together and helping Bocchi with her social anxiety the most.
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:The aloof, quiet and mischievous bassist of Kessoku Band with a cool demeanor and an androgynous appearance, to the point she sometimes attracts other girls (including Ikuyo) without intending to. She often spends what allowance she gets from her family on new music equipment, which leaves her with little money for anything else, to the point of eating weeds when she has no money for food. After having a falling out with her last band over creative differences, Ryo was convinced by Nijika to start a new one with her.
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:The vocalist and secondary guitarist of Kessoku Band, who attends the same high school as Hitori. In contrast to Hitori, she is a cheerful, charismatic extrovert who has an active social life, to the point that her extroversion makes both Hitori and Ryo feel overwhelmed at times. She initially joined Kessoku Band to get closer to Ryo, whom she has a crush on, but fled after lying about her guitar playing skills. With Bocchi's help, she becomes a decent guitar player in her own right, and soon settles on playing secondary guitar and providing the band's main vocals.

SICK HACK

SICK HACK is a psychedelic rock band, based in FOLT, a live house in Shinjuku. The members share their last names with those of the real-life band 88Kasyo Junrei.
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:The bassist and vocalist of SICK HACK. An alcoholic who spends most of her money on booze, particularly boxes of Onikoroshi sake, and calls her bass guitar "Shuten-Douji EX." She was formerly a classmate of Seika in college. Finds kinship with Hitori after coming from a similarly reclusive childhood.
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:The guitarist of SICK HACK.
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:The drummer of SICK HACK.

SIDEROS

SIDEROS is a metal band, based in FOLT, a live house in Shinjuku. The members share their last names with those of the real-life band Kinniku Shōjo Tai.
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:The guitarist and vocalist of SIDEROS.
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:The drummer of SIDEROS.
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:The guitarist of SIDEROS.
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:The bassist of SIDEROS.

Music related characters

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:Nijika's older sister and the manager of STARRY. She's professional, serious and aloof, and described by Nijika as a tsundere.
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:The public address system engineer of STARRY. She looks a bit creepy with her goth style and piercings, but she's kind and good-natured.
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:The manager of FOLT.
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:A freelance writer who contributes to music information websites.
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:A manager of Stray Beat, a record label. She is in charge of managing Kessoku Band.

Supporting characters

Gotō family

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:Hitori's mother.
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:Hitori's father.
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:Hitori's younger sister.
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:The family's pet dog.

Production

Prior to the greenlighting of ''Bocchi the Rock!''s anime adaptation, character designer and chief animation director Kerorira was a fan of the manga for its comedy, artstyle, and characters of the manga, and in particular Hitori's "unhinged" nature. While meeting with animation producer Shouta Umehara at an illustrator exhibition, Kerorira brought up ''Bocchi'' in conversation and said they would want to work on an anime adaptation of the series. As it so happened, Aniplex had just recently proposed such a project to CloverWorks, as Umehara learned when he inquired to his superior, Yuichi Fukishima, about the possibility. Kerorira joined the project (becoming the first to do so) as its character designer after expressing his enthusiasm for the series and presenting his drawings of the characters. In addition to the character designs and animation supervision, Kerorira also contributed a significant amount of key animation to the project (estimated by Umehara to amount to somewhere between 500 and 600 cuts of animation, around two episodes' equivalent), which he said he did in order to provide the other animators with an understanding of the "platonic ideal" of the anime's production value. Kerorira felt that providing such a baseline as the chief animation director would allow for smoother collaboration as it would lead to a creatively unified end product while allowing the animation staff to incorporate their own individual expression, and limit the amount of corrections that would need to be made after the fact.

Series director Keiichiro Saito came to work on the anime adaptation of ''Bocchi the Rock!'' after Kerorira recommended him to animation producer Shouta Umehara. As Umehara was familiar with Saito's work having served as an episode director for ''The Idolmaster SideM'', he considered Saito to be an ideal choice, and Saito joined the project as director a few days later after discussions with Umehara and Kerorira. Erika Yoshida, the screenwriter in charge of series composition, was recommended on referral from a colleague of Umehara's at Aniplex, who had previously collaborated with Yoshida on ''Love Me, Love Me Not''. As he was aware of ''Bocchi'''s similarity in premise and genre to the popular series ''K-On!'', Umehara spoke to Kerorira asking him what unique qualities ''Bocchi'' had which would distinguish it from ''K-On!'' and worked to help ensure that capturing those aspects of the series was a priority of the production.

In reading the manga prior to production, Saito was attracted to the relationships between Bocchi and the supporting cast, which were not as intimate as relationships depicted in similar works and gave Saito the impression that "they respect each other’s individuality and personal space." He found this quality of the story to be both personally relatable and distinctive. Saito also liked the ways in which Hitori's expressions were often exaggerated to perceptibly disturbing extents in contravention of '' moe'' conventions. This aspect of Hitori's characterization was expanded upon in the anime, as Saito believed that "girls who are flawlessly beautiful aren’t as cute as girls who are a little mysterious or sometimes make weird faces." Kerorira additionally said that Hitori's withdrawn nature made it more difficult to depict her emotions visually as compared to the other characters. As such, her basic facial expressions were limited, while the animation relied on the more "slapstick" scenes of exaggeration to depict her emotions. Although consideration was taken to ensure Hitori was consistently cute, even when the animation was exaggerating her facial features, the comedy of such exaggeration was generally prioritized.

In adapting ''Bocchi the Rock!'' from its original 4-koma format, Saito and Yoshida introduced numerous substantial differences from the source material, such as rearranging events and altering some jokes in order to aid the anime version's pacing and surreal presentation. Saito and Yoshida added more of a surrealist bent to the anime as they wanted to prioritize comedy and emotion over a wholly realistic depiction, and felt that the choice of cutaway gags to the anime allowed them to better convey the story while ensuring that every episode had a clear focus. In integrating these cutaways into the anime, Saito chose to contrast main character Hitori's thoughts during her instances of introspection and "strange" behavior with the external reactions to and conversations about Hitori among the supporting cast. This was done both for storytelling considerations such as the direction and pacing of certain scenes, and also to present Hitori more empathetically by showing that the supporting cast did not regard her as pathetically as she would be wont to believe. Saito said that whether or not a conversation between the supporting cast occuring during these moments needed to be depicted in detail or not was one of the most difficult aspects of the production.

In order to create the live concert scenes of the anime, the production team recorded physical actors playing the concerts. The recording was then adapted into a computer-generated previsualization so that the animators could establish their preferred shot direction for the scenes using a virtual camera system. The CG previz was then used as the basis for the final animation. In order to ensure that the characters were portrayed accurately in these scenes, the actors were given information about the characters and advised on how to convincingly physically act as them. The music production team at Aniplex were consulted by Saito to ensure that the ambient noise in the concert scenes was accurate to reality, although it was sometimes not included when Saito deemed that it would detract from an important dramatic scene.

Media

Manga

''Bocchi the Rock!'' is written and illustrated by Aki Hamaji. It was initially serialized on Houbunsha's ''Manga Time Kirara Max'' magazine on December 19, 2017, as a guest work. A full serialization started in the same magazine on March 19, 2018. It has been collected into five ''tankōbon'' volumes as of November 26, 2022.

Anime

An anime television series adaptation was announced on February 18, 2021. It was produced by CloverWorks and directed by Keiichirō Saitō, with Yūsuke Yamamoto serving as assistant director, Erika Yoshida writing the series' scripts, Kerorira designing the characters, and Tomoki Kikuya composing the music. The series aired from October 9 to December 25, 2022, on Tokyo MX and other networks. Kessoku Band performed the opening theme , as well as the ending theme "Distortion!!". Crunchyroll licensed the series outside of Asia. Plus Media Networks Asia licensed the series in Southeast Asia and they released it on Aniplus Asia and Bilibili. Many of the anime's episode titles come from songs by rock band Asian Kung-Fu Generation, such as " After Dark" and "Korogaru Iwa, Kimi ni Asa ga Furu", with the final episode ending with a Kessoku Band cover of the latter.

Music

The opening theme of the anime series is "Seishun Complex" sung by Ikuyo Kita (Ikumi Hasegawa) and the anime has four ending themes: "Distortion!!" also sung by Ikumi Hasegawa from episodes 1–3, "Karakara" sung by Ryo Yamada (Saku Mizuno) from episodes 4–7, "Nani ga Warui" sung by Nijika Ijichi (Sayumi Suzushiro) from episodes 8–11, and "Korogaru Iwa, Kimi ni Asa ga Furu", a cover of Asian Kung-Fu Generation song of the same name, sung by Hitori Gotoh (Yoshino Aoyama) in episode 12. The series also had a number of insert songs, including "Guitar to Kodoku to Aoihoshi" in episode 5, "Ano Bando" in episode 8, "Watashi Dake Yuurei" in episode 10, and "Wasurete Yaranai" and "Seiza ni Naretara" in episode 12. Each of these insert songs were also sung by Ikumi Hasegawa, except "Watashi Dake Yuurei" which was sung by Kikuri Hiroi (Sayaka Senbongi).

Most of these songs had a digital single released individually on various streaming platforms on the same day as their anime debuts: "Seishun Complex" and "Distortion!!" on October 9, "Karakara" on October 30, "Guitar to Kodoku to Aoihoshi" on November 6, "Ano Bando and Nani ga Warui" on November 27, and "Wasurete Yaranai", "Seiza ni Naretara" and "Korogaru Iwa, Kimi ni Asa ga Furu" on December 25, 2022. A full single of Seishun Complex, including the B side track "Hitoribocchi Tokyo" (played in the teaser video of the series) and instrumental versions of both songs released on October 12, 2022 on digital platforms and in physical stores. However, the song "Watashi Dake Yuurei" will only be released alongside the 5th volume of the anime in Blu-Ray on April 26, 2023.

A full album of songs by Kessoku Band, named ''Kessoku Band'', was also released digitally on December 25, and later physically on December 28, 2022. It contained 14 songs, nine of them originally featured in the anime as opening, ending and insert songs, while the rest were original songs exclusive to the album or not featured in the main series, like "Hitoribocchi Tokyo" and "Flashbacker" (the former was used in the teaser video and the latter was used in a post-premiere PV). The original soundtracks of the anime were released as two volumes, each included in the first two Blu-Ray releases of the anime on December 28, 2022 and January 25, 2023, respectively.

Games

The main characters from this series were added to ''Manga Time Kirara'' mobile RPG game ''Kirara Fantasia'' shortly after the first anime episode premiered. All characters are voiced by their respective anime voice actresses.

Reception

Critical reception

In ''Anime News Network''s Fall 2022 Preview Guide, the anime received generally positive reviews from contributors.

Accolades

In 2019, the series ranked eighth at the Next Manga Awards in the print category.

Popularity

The series' sudden growth in popularity following the airing of the anime prompted an unexpected influx of fans who formed an excessive line at mangaka Aki Hamaji's booth at Comiket 101 on December 30, 2022, prompting event organizers to direct Hamaji to a different location. Consequently, Hamaji moved her booth outside of the event hall, and published a map directing her fans to its new location. Wares at Hamaji's booth were exhausted by 12:51pm that day.

The manga had also reportedly been sold out in various bookstores both during and after the anime finished broadcasting, prompting Houbunsha to announce three rounds of reprints of all of the manga’s volumes, including the Anthology Comic, one month after the final episode aired, with added copies printed for each of those rounds. The latest round marked one million copies of the series in circulation, not including the digital versions. The magazine the manga is published in, ''Manga Time Kirara MAX'', had also reportedly sold out of its January and February issues on their first days of circulation, helped by the January issue featuring a guitar pick as a bonus to celebrate the anime's airing.

Notes

References

External links

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{{CloverWorks

2022 anime television series debuts
Anime series based on manga
Aniplex
CloverWorks
Crunchyroll anime
Houbunsha manga
Music in anime and manga
Seinen manga
Tokyo MX original programming
Yonkoma
Comedy anime and manga
Slice of life anime and manga