Bocchi the Rock! teems with experimental animation that captures the social anxiety and catastrophizing the anime’s namesake character experiences. It’s a fun ride. Bocchi the Rock! follows the members of Kessoku Band: Hitari Goto (better known by her nickname Bocchi), Nijika Ijichi, Ryo Yamada, and Ikuyo Kita. Each of the girls fall into different psychological profiles. Bocchi is a neurotic introvert who uses lies to cover her insecurities. Nijika is a cheery extrovert and the glue of the band. Ryo offers another introvert, but she doesn’t suffer from social anxiety; she’s a loner but able to social just fine. Ikuyo rounds out as another extrovert, but unlike Nijika Ikuyo suffers from social anxiety. She’s not at the same level as Bocchi, but her anxiety and insecurities trouble her since she needs social interaction.

The character mix creates interesting dynamics as the girls struggle to build their band. Bocchi as the lead guitarist outshines all the others, but her inward-facing and anxiety holds her back until a situation happens and she has the save the band’s performance. The title, Bocchi the Rock! plays on how she, well, rocks as a guitarist, and how, despite all her catastrophizing, she is the rock of the band. All the other members aim to perform to her level, particularly Ikuyo.

Bocchi’s anxiety and catastrophizing allows the animators to play. Her delusions range from stop motion animation to psychedelics similar to what you’d see from Pink Floyd…ahem, I mean Space Dandy. Sometimes her delusions spill outside her mind and suck in the other band members, playing around with the Fourth Wall within the narrative (sometimes including you the audience too!). The visuals work well to capture the mindset. When I suffered from unchecked social anxiety, catastrophizing and panic attacks would feel as the animators show: wild, overwhelming, strange, and spiraling. Yet Bocchi shows how these episodes are temporary and how you can push beyond them to still achieve big things, like playing music in front of your entire school.

So this brings me to the story’s depiction of introversion. The side character Kikuri Hiroi shares much with Bocchi but turns to alcohol as a means to cope. The story shows how this is mildly destructive: she’s a functional drunk. This contrasts with Bocchi who pushes through her episodes and aims at growing herself. In both of these cases, introversion is shown as a sort of disability with these characters. This is a standard bit of the extrovert bias. However, because the story is told from Bocchi’s point of view, and her desire to grow beyond her anxiety (which is different from introversion), the mix of introversion and anxiety makes sense. Bocchi equates the two.

Thankfully, Ryo shows how introversion doesn’t have to have anxiety or be a disability. She’s a loner because she likes to be alone. She can socialize just fine; she chooses not to. The anime shows how socializing exhausts her. I identify with Ryo the most of all the girls. Social anxiety never goes away when you have it, but it can be largely overcome with a lot of work. Introversion doesn’t equate to anxiety. Rather, it’s a state of energy. Socialness drains energy; solitude recharges energy. Ryo provides a good example of healthy introversion. While Bocchi is interesting as a main character, I would’ve preferred Ryo as the main character. She’s more interesting simply because she’s healthier. Granted, her character growth wouldn’t as pronounced or as comedic as Bocchi’s.

On the other side of the introvert-extrovert spectrum, you have Nijika and Ikuyo. Nijika is to Ryo as Ikuyo is to Bocchi. Nijika is a healthy extrovert who is drained by solitude. She lacks anxiety or inferiority problems. Ikuyo, on the other hand, suffers from inferiority and anxiety which hampers her ability to socialize. While not as extreme as Bocchi, she shows how anxiety decouples from introversion. Of course, all of this happens under the main thrust of the story: cute girls wanting to create a successful band. However, the psychology drives the girls’ social interactions and the comedy.

Ryo, despite understanding how Bocchi thinks, likes to watch her squirm and doesn’t bother to help her with her social anxiety. In her defense, she does that to everyone; she’s a people watcher. I get that–I am one too. Ikuyo looks up to Bocchi and takes Bocchi’s episodes in stride. Nijika helps Bocchi the most. Nijika accept Bocchi where she is and often gives Bocchi a little push to stretch a little further. Nijika is patient with Bocchi. Every introvert needs a good extrovert to help them navigation the social world. Even those like Ryo, who can socialize but choose not to, benefit from someone like Nijika to offset the energy drain and smooth the experience.

Nijika’s role for the band is smooth the personalities and keep them together. Her elder sister runs a music venue where the girls work to help pay for their performances at the venue. The anime takes a more realistic view of the band. It shows even winning two fans is a hard row. The anime focuses on contrasts: from the personalities of the girls to how the girls move through photo-real landscapes. The contrasts and experimentation make the visuals interesting. Whenever the girls play, their animations match the music they perform from more precise animations to more impressionistic animation of the girls playing their instruments. Bocchi the Rock! offers a wide variety of animation styles, yet it doesn’t feel segmented or choppy despite this variety. It all works together through the use of common character design, design patterns like Bocchi’s anxious deformations, and color schemes. You see the same color palette throughout regular-world scenes and Bocchi’s delusions.

Bocchi the Rock! offers an interesting look at personalities and the difficulties of performing music. If you’re an animation person, you definitely want to check out how CloverWorks plays with stop-motion, deformations, and other fun animation tricks.