YoshiKyon

6/10

Anilist: [link]

I've been kinda dreading writing this since I started watching Bocchi, because I know I'll likely get some hate for thinking it's pretty mediocre, but so be it. Started watching this one with a friend as it was airing and it took us this long to get round to finishing because... we just weren't really that invested, honestly.

Bocchi is, at its core, an idol show, which isn't something I'm especially interested in personally. The boundaries on genres are always fairly flimsy anyways, and most idol shows fall into slice of life pretty heavily, but I tend to pick out the focal point of a show, and Bocchi is far more about the band dynamics than it is about any individual character. If you've only heard about this show from others and haven't watched it, that might sound odd - everyone talks so much about the cast and the characterisation - but I'll get into it below.
Some mild spoilers ahead, though.

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If you read the ways people talk about or interact with Bocchi the Rock, it'd make sense to think it's a comedy drama, focused on character interactions and dealing with interpersonal relations. Sometimes, it is! But mostly, it's more about the formation of the band - the potential for messy relationships is shrugged aside incredibly quickly, replaced by a constant struggle to make the band work. The two intertwine occasionally, with a lot of the band's troubles coming directly as a result of a character flaw, but the solution is almost inevitably a "teamwork will save the day!" coming together of the band, rather than any growth or development. (For what it's worth, the "together, we're unstoppable!" style of writing is also the reason I'm not really fond of sports anime. It's weird how similar sports & idol plots end up being, honestly, at least in terms of major story beats.)

So I was never going to be too fond of the show, but that isn't what I was told going in. Everything I'd heard was about a main character with overwhelming anxiety, and it's really relatable, and it's so refreshing to see this kind of stuff done well, and... I'm not convinced I watched the same show as those people, to be honest. Bocchi, the character, is a caricature at best - where characters like Komi (saying nothing good about the side-cast in Komi Can't Communicate, but Komi herself at least) portray social anxiety and communication issues in a way that feels true to the experience, Bocchi is so over-the-top and is so often the entire punchline of the joke that it feels more like mockery than any kind of understanding. (There was exactly one scene where I got it and could see why people said it, but that was it. Nothing outside of that one moment.)

So what we've got so far is a story progression that I was never going to particularly like, and a comedy setup that is both incredibly repetitive and usually strays into blatant mockery. What's left is a reasonably likeable cast - outside of Bocchi herself - and some good music, and it's these that save the show, in my opinion. The rest of the band are decent, but the supporting cast - both Kikuri, the drunk singer/guitarist from another local band, and Seika, the venue's owner & a bandmate's sister, bring a dynamic to the character interactions that feels refreshing, with neither being overtly cheery or optimistic but both doing their parts in helping the band achieve their goals. The music, meanwhile, is a big deal in idol shows and really sets this apart from something like S1 of Bang Dream!, which has the same story beats but without either of those redeeming elements.

I won't say this isn't worth watching at all - my scores reflect my own tastes entirely, and someone who likes idol shows would like this a hell of a lot more than I did - but know what it is beforehand. More importantly, know what it isn't: this sure as hell is not a considerate reflection of living with anxiety, that's the punchline and nothing else.