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This Week in Anime - Why You Should Rock Out with Bocchi the Rock!




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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3450
PostPosted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:45 pm Reply with quote
I really like the show for the creative animation and comedic beat, but the "band" aspect of the show mostly fall flat and just makes me wished they'd go the K-on route and mostly just ignore that aspect. Music is super generic, which fit with the skill level expected of high school but means listening to it is pretty boring. Which doesn't help when concert sequence are just too long and mostly use CG model anyway, I end up just doing something else once those sequence happens. And there's just a lot of point that don't seem to really make any sense from a music creation point of view. Why insist on your lead singer also playing guitar when she can't and you already have a lead guitarist? Why would they all split up and work in their own corner when making a new song rather than collaborate? The awkward hybrid of SoL and band aspect just means the later is undercooked and take time away from the former.
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Millhi



Joined: 20 Feb 2017
Posts: 144
PostPosted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 3:27 pm Reply with quote
Saying the performances are 3d models is a bit misleading tbh. The end product you see on screen is fully hand drawn. They use real actors then make a cg previsualisation with cams for framing and then use that as a base to animate normally.


Tldr: its cg assisted help but what you see is hand drawn.
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lossthief
ANN Reviewer


Joined: 14 Dec 2012
Posts: 1440
PostPosted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 10:12 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
And there's just a lot of point that don't seem to really make any sense from a music creation point of view. Why insist on your lead singer also playing guitar when she can't and you already have a lead guitarist? Why would they all split up and work in their own corner when making a new song rather than collaborate?


Well there's a couple answers to the first question. For one, Kita is playing what's typically called rhythm guitar, which not every band wants or needs, but is extremely common in rock music - especially the kind of rock Kessoku band are playing. They don't *need* rhythm guitar, but if they have the time and resources to teach Kita - and she clearly wants to learn, as evidenced by buying (what she thought was) a guitar - then they certainly wouldn't be the first upstart band to start training a new member on a new instrument.

As for the songs, having just one or two members do the bulk of the writing is extremely common. Of course the individual members will have input and influence on the final product - changing up a drum section, tweaking a solo, or even adlibbing depending on their recording situation - but it's actually pretty uncommon for every member of a band to have an equal contribution to each track. And it's also pretty common to split the duties between writing the music and lyrics.

In the show's terms, Ryo is by far the most experienced musician in terms of actually playing for audiences, seems to be proficient at both Bass and Guitar (or at the very least had a spare guitar to lend Kita), and has the most in-depth musical knowledge. It makes sense that she would take the reins in constructing their sound. They also address why they think Bocchi would be the best pick for lyrics in the show, and the work flow of Bocchi writing lyrics which Ryo then builds a song around is a pretty typical one.
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a_Bear_in_Bearcave



Joined: 14 Jan 2019
Posts: 551
Location: Poland
PostPosted: Tue Nov 29, 2022 11:00 pm Reply with quote
Actually Bocchi plan of learning guitar to be popular kind of worked - not only was she scouted because she lugged her guitar around in hope someone'd talk to her, and Nijika actually did, but also her years of practice made her important member of the band despite the handicap of her social anxiety, and main star whenever she manages to overcome her limits. She put in the work and eventually it actually paid off.

meiam wrote:
I really like the show for the creative animation and comedic beat, but the "band" aspect of the show mostly fall flat and just makes me wished they'd go the K-on route and mostly just ignore that aspect.

Considering that the recent "Bocchi saves the band by shredding" is one of the best part of the anime, I think you're wrong with what works well in this show. The concert parts are not only keeping it real by showing complete story of a band life, but they also show how the band is getting better, and how Bocchi is progressing herself. Removing that, even if we ignore that this is adaptation of source material, would make the show far worse.
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njprogfan
Collector Extraordinaire



Joined: 08 Feb 2007
Posts: 1232
Location: A River Named Toms
PostPosted: Wed Nov 30, 2022 3:30 pm Reply with quote
This looks like something I'll watch down the road, but I would love to see one of these high school band anime have a male playing one of the instruments, just to change it up. I loved K-On and the like, but it would be interesting to see a different mix; no love interest tropes, he doesn't need to be a frontman or lead guitarist, maybe play the drums or bass....something different...
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Thatguy3331



Joined: 18 Feb 2012
Posts: 1799
PostPosted: Thu Dec 01, 2022 4:47 am Reply with quote
Bocchi went from a show that I tried out mostly on a whim (this said whim lead me to watching like 11 to 12 shows this season not counting the mon shows, christ) where I found episode 1 fairly solid and entertaining to now one of my favorite things to look forward to in conjunction with Mob. Each week is a joy both in it's humor (which also hurts because, off, I'm been there several times) and also the way in which they express Bocchi's anxieties and other gags. For me the biggest thing that sells the show for me is the idea that, even if it's small Bocchi is making progress, but in her own way that fits her. Episodes 4, 6 and the recent episode 8 are some of my favorite episodes because of Bocchi receiving guidance from people who aren't "traditionally" put together people and actually being able to act on that (which certainly isn't the only time she's helped her band as Nijika points out)

Komi and Watamote were certainly the shows I first thought of when thinking that shows about "lol I can't social" exist on this sort of scale with Komi being on the end where it's more cutesy and not that big of a deal to Watamote which is just "EVERYTHING IS BAD AND IT PROBABLY WON'T GET BETTER." (From what I hear though Tomoko does make friends in the manga so that's nice) Bocchi is definitely a lot closer to Watamote but not so close that she doesn't show signs of pulling herself into a better situation, it also helps that Bocchi has like an actual passion for something which helps give her some vague sense of focus ( even if as the show itself posits that alone isn't nearly enough lol ) That said I'd definitely be interested in digging deeper to some other shows of this nature or adjacent to it to see how Bocchi stacks up in it's depiction like this. Like even if I were to say mob I'd say that show is somewhere in between Komi and the middle of the scale. Like lord could you imagine someone like Bocchi going 100%? lol There's a lot of other series out there like this so it'd be an interesting topic to ruminate over.

This and Chainsaw man have my favorite OPs this season (sorry mob I love yours too tho) and yeah the show for a while felt like it was getting better each week which was crazy to me. Normally I'd want to read the manga after liking an anime adaptation on it's own this much but I'm afraid that it'll be a massive downgrade just because of how strong of an anime this is (Love lab was very similar for me back in the day lol) what a nice problem to have haha
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JustMonika



Joined: 17 Jan 2022
Posts: 1165
PostPosted: Sat Dec 03, 2022 2:34 am Reply with quote
Been checking it out and loving it. Just hoping eventually it gets dubbed. I always prefer dubbed but especially when it's comedy. I mean the reason Nagatoro, Konosuba and Girlfriend, Girlfriend are so side splitting funny is because of the dub.
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