Bocchi the Rock was a major disappointment for me. It's been hyped to the clouds everywhere, with clips on TikTok and twitter memes and all that usual stuff. But why?
It's hardly the first anime to deal with social anxiety. A fairly significant percentage of slice of life stories have at least one character who suffers from it. It's everywhere and it's been dealt with in a million different ways. It's one of the things I love about Japanese manga and anime: the fact that stuff like anxiety, pathological shyness and introversion etc. are brought up. Sadly we rarely see these types of characters portrayed in Western media.
Hitori Gotoh (Bocchi) is in a league of her own, though. Her social anxiety borderlines full blown mental illness. She's basically a hikikomori character who hasn't (yet) become a total recluse. She undergoes very little character development throughout the show and, for me, it starts grating on my nerves around episode 4 or 5. I've had my own fights with anxiety and I could not relate much to Bocchi in terms of how she reacts to things. I could relate to her inner monologues and fantasy world, but not so much her seemingly pathological self-loathing and inability to pretend.
But that's not so important really. The show isn't going for realism. It's a comedy and there are arguably many funny scenes. It was also refreshing to see the visual experimentation with claymation, #D animation and real life footage. The art was good, the voice acting was good etc. Technically it's good, even impressive at times. I particularly liked the concert scenes.
Where the whole thing falls apart for me, is in how Hitori Gotoh is set up as a character. We start out learning how she's this prodigy who can play guitar like Hendrix and who has a massive following on YouTube. So you spend the entire show waiting for the payoff. When will people finally see how talented she is? When will she finally blow away the audience. We have been told she's that good and the only thing standing in her way is her social anxiety. The story would have made sense if it was about her overcoming these anxieties through her music and friendships and that the payoff would be recognition - from her band members, the club owners, the audience.
But, it never happens. In a 12-episode anime which is about a band, there's three concerts. One on the street, one at the club and one at the school. At the street and at the club she does show a bit of what she can do, but even so, the reaction from those around her is pretty underwhelming and it feels anti-climactic. Only one of her band members comments on it and it's like "oh cool you're that chick from YouTube. Nice to have you on board". And that's literally the only time in the entire story where Bocchi is praised for her talent by those around her. It doesn't happen again. In the last concert at the school she's basically ignored - her guitar breaks - and it's the lead singer who gets all the attention. Except for when Bocchi does a stupid thing (lol how funny) and once again is the clown of the show. We can't have her get praised now, can we? Nooo! She must be humiliated in front of the entire school.
Why even bother setting her up as a major talent when you basically never see her use it? And even when she does use it (that one time at the club) there's no particular reaction from people. The Ijichi sisters both recognize her from her YouTube videos and both are like "oh so that's you. Cool. Whatever".
I sat through the entire show waiting for Bocchi to finally get the recognition she deserved by finally overcoming her fears and really show what she could do, but that payoff just never happens. Her social anxiety is played for laughs, but becomes extremely repetitive and takes the place of another, better story that's hiding in there somewhere. The girl who we are told is a great guitarist spends 12 episodes being a clown to be laughed at (not with) and hardly showing off her talent - which is basically her one redeeming feature.
There's a narrative principle called "Chekhov's Gun" named after Anton Chekhov, the Russian playwright. And it goes like this:
"Chekhov's gun is a narrative principle that states that every element in a story must be necessary, and irrelevant elements should be removed. For example, if a writer features a gun in a story, there must be a reason for it, such as it being fired sometime later in the plot. All elements must eventually come into play at some point in the story."
In the case of Bocchi the Rock, Hitori Gotoh's talent is the gun. The show literally begins with showing what a great guitar player she is and how admired she is online for her videos. She is a character who has this enormous gift to share with the world, but who is prevented from doing it due to her crippling social anxiety. That's the setup. Now we wait for the gun to go off. We wait for the moment when she finally breaks through her shell and gets the admiration and recognition she deserves. And it sorta kinda happens once (at the club) BUT - and here's the kicker - it changes nothing whatsoever. It does not grow her as a person, as a musician or in the eyes of her friends etc. That one thing we have waited for falls flat and stays there. The rest of the story is just more of her being socially awkward and the last concert is - in terms of Bocchi - a failure.
In Bocchi the Rock, Checkhov's gun is loaded with blanks.
And this is why I can't recommend it. It's unfulfilling, even frustrating. There's no payoff and little to no character growth. There's a decent story in there somewhere, but it never materializes. All in all, Bocchi the Rock is a dud.
