Info
- Title:: Bocchi the Rock!
- TitleEN:: Bocchi the Rock!
- Studio:: CloverWorks
- Year:: 2022
- Format:: series
- Episodes:: 12
2023-07-01 – 2023-07-08 chloe
Episode 1
“wow she’s just like me frfr”
(except for the part where she already got internet famous beforehand)
still, the part of waiting around for somebody to notice you feels painfully real…
Episode 2
wherein bocchi has to get a job, even though she’s too shy for one (just like morrissey!)
they managed to capture some truth in that all of these band members are absolute weirdos.
Episode 3
wherein bocchi is conscripted into writing lyrics.
although… are there people who commonly write the lyrics first? that makes no sense to me, because what are you writing the words to?
and i brought up the smiths earlier, but even that style of independent writing worked the other way, with johnny marr handing a tape to morrissey for him to then write the lyrics and melody to. but making it fit the other way around… can you even fit it the other way around?
(and also speaking of the smiths, i feel like ryo would finagle the profit-sharing contract to split it 70/10/10/10)
Episode 4
i do think it’s kinda funny how the food names and the stores have generic parody names (“moffster hamagy”) but the audio brands – marshall amps, tama drums – are fully legit. they know their audience.
“Abandoning your uniqueness is equivalent to dying.”
Episode 5
the audition!
though wait… if she wears that tracksuit even in her videos, you’d think that somebody would recognize her eventually, right?
Episode 6 - 2023-07-02
it’s called networking, bocchi, and you better get used to it.
Episode 7
wherein bocchi’s friends are invited to her family’s house.
…bocchi and her parents have a weird dynamic.
like, it seems that… fuck.
they’re supportive of her, but in a way where every social gaffe she makes (or has made) is dredged up and thrown back in her face with glee.
so, when she talks about escaping her past, it makes sense why she would care so much about doing so. she is living in a place where she cannot escape it.
(meanwhile, the vast majority of people she comes across do not really care)
bocchi’s parents the kind who still celebrate her first potty day, even as a teenager.
bocchi’s parents the kind who’ll eagerly recount the most embarrassing thing she’s done on each holiday.
bocchi’s parents the kind who keep naked baby photos.
and living under people like this really does a number on a certain sort of mind.
Episode 8
the date of the performance!
Episode 9 - 2023-07-08
Weekend at Bocchi’s
- i like how the band is comprised of one normal person and three fucking weirdos
- upon talking it over with chloe, it’s more like they have one extrovert/influencer, one introvert, and two fuckin weirdos
- it’s fun that they made a beach episode yet very deliberately made it not a swimsuit episode.
- naming your kids “hitori” and “futari” is fun, yeah, but i like how it also translates to futari having a whole bunch of friends too.
Episode 10
attending your self-declared aunt’s concert, indulging in self-rejection.
Episode 11
the episode with the scene!
also wherein they make up for episode 9 by giving the fans what they crave: swimsuit bocchi.
- ryo in a suit is goddamn hot as hell
- the punks in this episode remind me of the metalheads in Zombieland Saga (2018)
Episode 12
you gotta roll with the punches
sometimes your shit breaks
sometimes your keyboard flies off the stands
but the show must go on
and maybe it’s a bit anticlimactic that it ends with them going to the music store, but where else are they to go?
the live show was already kind of their climax, but the paths toward both rock stardom and personal recovery are long and slow.
i’m surprised they didn’t do much with the whole guitarhero conceit either. whenever it comes up, it feels like they do so to either remind the audience that it exists, or remind bocchi that she has another source of anxiety to worry about.
on “guitarhero”
i genuinely don’t know how realistic this is, but also, i genuinely don’t know how realistic bocchi is at representing someone with extreme avpd and social anxiety. she’s maybe a bit too overtly weird, in a way that someone with more self-consciousness would notice and refrain from being. the bocchi times as a representation of her internal state are quite realistic though.
i also don’t know how realistic the idea of her as having a completely separate sphere of online infamy is. it might be realistic, though – i was a lot more open to putting myself out there online as a teenager, and while i didn’t get lucky in the way that she did, it’s very possible that someone like this definitely could if they had the right interests, something engaging about them, a pinch of luck, and a username that cribs from a popular video game series.