I can't stop thinking about Bocchi the Rock!

Bocchi the Rock has been living inside my brain ever since the show came out. It's became part of me and I am literally Bocchi the Rock

I love how you are always half a year late to whatever show you are talking about, but still manage to add something new to the discussion or have an interesting perspective.

Bocchi the Rock just kinda came out of nowhere and was an absolute banger. It just sits in my noggin for fun, stealing my brain cells.

Something the show did really well was start by having hitori state a clear goal. She decides she wants to change, and makes a three part plan. Get good at guitar, form a band, perform at the school festival. If she does that everyone will acknowledge her and her anxiety can go away. Over the season we see that plan was magical thinking. Hitori accomplishes all three things but she’s still “the crazy rocker chick” to her classmates. Instead her moments of personal growth came from taking a hard look at herself and challenging her habits. From forcing herself to look a customer in the eye, to leading the band with a killer solo. Those were the real work of her growth. The show ends with the line “time to get back to work.” Even though she met her three goals, she recognizes she still has room to change and there was no magical solution. It’s such a honest and sympathetic depiction of mental illness. I love this show.

3:15 with the exception of Kita, who you could argue might just be a naturally talented singer and it's only her guitar playing which improved way faster than is realistic, actually, everyone else in the band has been practicing for several years. Ryo the most of all, she was already in a pro band that was about to sign with a label in middle school, she's been practicing since a young age because she lives for nothing but playing the bass; she's probably been doing it since she was 5. And Nijika was practicing since sometime in mid-late elementary school. Bocchi only started in middle school, but I think the show says she practiced every spare minute of every day of her life starting early in middle school, so she did basically 10 years' worth of practice in only 3. It's actually not totally unrealistic for them to sound as good as they do. Again, the only thing that's not realistic (besides the fact that they say Bocchi has trouble staying in time with the other members but during all their performances we hear, except that one where the narrative has them fail, she does fine) is Kita becoming a competent rhythm guitarist even capable of ad-libbing a solo in only 3-4 months of playing, with only an hour or two of guided practice (and then however much she's doing on her own, we can't tell) at home per day. But asking us to suspend our disbelief for just the last tiny pieces of the puzzle, rather than the whole basis, is not too much to ask. Sure, the performers they brought in for the actual studio recordings were much more experienced than these high school girls are, but they actually don't perform intricate pieces of music that would be difficult to actually pull off for people with 8000+ hours of practice in their respective instruments. If anything, the most unbelievable aspect is how good the mixing of their live performances in the school festival is (cuz we all know that whoever's handling the mixing in a gym auditorium is not doing a good job, plus the auditorium itself would have bad acoustics) 😁

I also think it's important to distinguish introversion and social anxiety. Ryo is an introvert that has no problems with social interaction, she just wants to avoid them where unnecessary. Bocchi on the other hand isn't just an introvert, she has crippling social anxiety to the point where it significantly affects her ability to exist in society. You can accept your being introverted but still have social anxiety being in the way of trying to make actual connections.

This show is the best representation of social anxiety that I’ve ever seen. Though exaggerated for comedic effect, the situations and the mental gymnastics and absurd hyper-fixations that Bocchi goes through are very similar to my own experiences living with and trying to work on my own social anxiety.

A word for the show: "Wow." I started the show at 21.7.23. Finished it at midnight on 22.7.23. The following week, I suddenly was a person who played the guitar.

It’s funny because every musician I’ve seen talk about this show has always commended it for the things it gets right about being in a band

"There is a difference between thinking of change as improvement and thinking of it as repair" Right in the feels, holy shit. Really love the points you made in this video, editing is fun, and the segment of you talking from personal experience really resonated with me. As a person with severe social anxiety and Hitori Bocchi levels of self-confidence, thank you!!! for binging up the idea of Hitori not being "broken" and "someone who needs to be fixed", but rather a fully-functioning complete person, let it be a little too anxious when met with social interations — this is something I still struggle with and hearing that makes me more optimistic about myself🙇‍♀️ Great video as always, keep up the good work!!

It's genuinely so cool that you make your own music for these videos. Most people prob wouldn't notice that, but I think for me that's why these vids feel so special. Keep up the great work bro!

"After years of practice, all she got was good at guitar" is a strangely hilarious line

"I can't stop thinking about Bocchi the Rock!" same...

Introvert here. I want to be alone, but I don't want to be lonely. I value the time I spend in isolation, but I don't want to feel sick and uncomfortable around others and eventually ruin their mood, and I blame myself for being that way. That's why I relate with Bocchi.

I love just how this show is still gets talk a lot even after we passed two seasons of anime. It just shows how impressive the show is.

13:50 This specifically is something I feel a lot of people missed, or didn't know how to put to words when reviewing this show (including myself). It always bothered me when people talked about Hitori picking up guitar as something of a quick-fix to getting popular. She was struggling with crippling anxiety which resulted in loneliness that made her feel worthless. Picking up guitar didn't just give her hope that she'd be able to gain friends, but she wanted to feel like she wasn't worthless. Hence all the gags about her profusely apologizing for being an inconvenience crawling and not bringing up being Guitar Hero to her band mates, or anyone. It didn't "fix" her and she doesn't feel worthy of any of the attention/praise/company that she has.

Just want to say, two minutes in, I just felt chills. Maybe it's the song, but the music choice, mixing and editing just felt really good.

I just loved the chemistry of the characters, and how they just fit with each other so well Bocchi is the Unconfident, and introverted one While Ryo is the Confident and introverted one Kita is the Extraverted but unconfident one And Nijika is the Extraverted and confident one All of them complete each other, and all of them fit together like a puzzle piece Even if you don't relate to bocchi, I'm sure you'll relate to the other characters This anime was phenomenal, and even though bocchi made me feel like I was getting hit by a semi truck because of how relatable she was, I would 100% go through that pain again, because this anime was amazing

This is by far the best Bocchi video essay I've ever seen. The video may have been late but it is by far the most insightful one. And the message by the end of the video hit me hard. I genuinely love this video so much.

Bocci found in herself one talent that could actually save her from being a disaster. If not that, I guess it would be hard to like her for just literally anything. All her friends appeared because she had a guitar. Main point of this anime, if you ask me, that you have to have some trait people will like you for. Nobody likes silent people just because they exist, especially guys who struggle to communicate.