Taylor

Dollar Store K-ON. That’s what I called Bocchi the Rock when I first saw it on MyAnimeList a month ago, a Dollar Store K-On. That of course was before I noticed it was produced by the much loved Cloverworks, and after finally watching it, I have to admit I was wrong, which I’m man enough to do (because its so rare that I’m wrong). Bocchi the Rock is no Dollar Store K-On. Its Private Selection K-On.

Hitori Gotou, our pink haired protagonist sits along in her house lamenting what a loser she is. Her first year of middle school and nobody likes her, but resolves to change that through the power of music and friendship or something. Armed with her fathers Gibson guitar, Hitori spends the next 3 years mastering the art and making a grand total of 0 friends, but hey shes kinda famous online! Anyway one thing leads to another and another girl approaches her in a park and asks her to join a band and everyone cheers. Yeah but if I do it everyone yells at me and I have to register in a database. Fucking double standards. Their band sucks, to put it nicely, just jamming some instrumentals in a seedy below street level dive, but their hearts in it and Hitori, God bless her, she’s chipping way at that social anxiety. Watching her playing her guitar from her closet as she uploads clips to her YouTube is equal parts heartwarming and depressing, but not quiet as depressing as her trying to “put herself out there” in a way that would prompt her classmates to talk to her. But I think thats the most human part of the narrative: Putting the impetus of socializing on others to make the first move. If you're reading this and you do that, don't do it, it's dumb. Just go talk to people its not hard.

I’ve bitched a lot lately about how I’ve fallen off the slice of life moe train in the past few years. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all I keep saying, but Bocchi breaks out of that rut for me. Yeah the art style is real moe crap but the characters are real and honest enough to be relatable in their own weird ways so when they do their dumb cute faces it doesn’t have quiet the saccharine after taste that regular slice of life does. I even found myself actively cheering for little Hitori, weirdly enough. I WANT to see this retarded high school girl succeed. I WANT her to headline the Budokan.

Though this share’s many similarities with K-On, I was out of pocket to refer to it as a clone. Bocchi definitely has enough charm of its own to set it apart from the Cute Girls Doing Cute Rock Things genre that K-On so well defined. I won’t say it’s a much watch, but if you want to laugh while watching airheaded girls try and make a band, then try it out.