BOCCHI THE ROCK! has quickly risen in popularity for its painfully relatable depiction of social anxiety and the foibles of trying to make friends when all you know how to do is be really into your hobbies. This anime gets it, it understands and lays out on the table what it’s like to be burdened with introvertedness and social anxiety. One of the ways it achieves this is through its fantastic expressions, reactions and fantasy sequences. Simply put, BOCCHI THE ROCK!’s expressions are perfection, an art form all their own that is so powerfully relatable and conveys anxiety in such creative and hard-hitting ways it warrants an article focusing solely on them — so let's take a look at one of the series’ strongest traits and why they work so well.
BOCCHI THE ROCK! follows Hitori Gotoh, an introverted girl who had trouble making friends in school, hoping that getting good at guitar and starting a band would earn her popularity and friends, so she got really good… but she forgot to sharpen her social skills the whole time, leaving her without the ability to actually get to know people well enough to start a band with them. Thus, when the opportunity to join a band comes along, she’s a nervous wreck who struggles to even show how good she is at guitar as she deals with having new friends, having to be in a band and getting over her many social anxieties. This is supported by the series’ exaggerated expressions, like when Gotoh narrates herself turning to dust because she did badly at playing with bandmates and then the series does a fake end credits scene to illustrate how hard she took it — it’s fantastic and it’s just the beginning of how the series expresses the exaggeration of Gotoh’s psyche.
In the second episode, when Gotoh learns she has to get a job to cover ticket prices for playing the STARRY venue, she goes into an extended fantasy sequence wherein she fears her conversational anxiety in a job setting would lead her to GET THE DEATH SENTENCE FOR CREEPING OUT CUSTOMERS. This is only the second episode and the show just keeps ramping the fantasy and expressions up into weirder and more hilarious and relatable heights. Take later in the episode, when Gotoh is spaced out from using up her small introvert energy battery reserves on serving customers that she just looks like a little space cadet — and what kills me here are the crooked eyes we see all across the series, just really capturing that valid feeling of your brain feeling fried from social interaction.
One of the best expressions the series presents is when Gotoh’s brighter-than-the-sun-extrovert bandmate Ikuyo Kita suggests the introverted guitarist get a social media account to post pictures of herself and Gotoh screeches at such an octave she glitches out of reality, the very thought of putting herself on a social media platform breaking her in a way I have never seen another anime express.
There’s so many sequences like this too, using creative visuals to convey Gooh’s woes as a little social slug, from plenty of crooked-eyed scribble face expressions (the eyes, they crack me up so much) to uses of Japanese dams in place of Gotoh having some nervous barfing and other mixed media to explore all of Gotoh’s spiraling compulsive nervous thoughts and fears. Heck they even utilized the Yamcha crater scene/meme to show how exhausted her interaction with some birds left her.
Some other favorites include the use of funky art cubism to depict Gotoh’s nervousness about playing at the school festival hitting her from behind, Gotoh’s lackluster cute maid love-ray meant to make her class’ maid cafe omelets “super tasty” (because of course she’s too anxious to give it all the flair they want her to), and when Gotoh becomes so deflated she turns into ash that saddens everyone in the room in a moment of ridiculous magical realism.
Everything about these expressions, fantasy sequences and depictions are so delightfully ridiculous, which is part of why they hit so hard. BOCCHI THE ROCK! knows what anxiety feels like, how it would come to life as a visual representation of the nerves and racing thoughts and spiraling scenarios about how everything is your fault and you can never face the world again, and it's seen in these exaggerated sequences.
Gotoh’s crooked eyes/facial expressions capture the feeling that the metaphorical glass of mental stability has cracked, her extended fear fantasies make anyone who has had a spiraling daydream that their one little awkward interaction has made them a reject of society feel seen and every other wild reaction is built off of giving these frantic anxiety thoughts visual life, and they are nailing it every time; from the lows of self-doubt to the short-lasting highs of just a bit of praise repairing your ego.
The designs and execution of the expressions, reactions, fantasy sequences, etc. knock those feelings out of the park. These creative expressions and mixed media sequences are a major factor in why the series gives the impression that it gets it, why it's so effective at depicting social anxiety and all its ups and downs (mostly downs…). It’s so dang validating to see Gotoh exude what we’ve all been through, using wonderfully wild visuals to do so — working with the series’ themes of social anxiety, it's what makes BOCCHI THE ROCK! stand out.
Sean Aitchison is a writer and researcher from LA who watches too much anime and knows too much about Sonic the Hedgehog. Follow him on twitter @Sean8UrSon for his work and listen to his podcast, Sonic Podcast Adventure (@SonicPod).
Source: Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!
Comments
Post a Comment