Bocchi the Rock is a Masterclass in Adaptation

why am I even watching this anime instead of reading the original manga this is a question I increasingly find myself asking as I get older and my free time exponentially begins to dwindle why would I invest three hours of my time to watch a 12 episode anime series when I could probably read the original manga in less than an hour I sited through and dropped a bunch of anime adaptations over the years but in watching Bochy the rock for the first time in a long time I found an adaptation I can wholeheartedly recommend watching over reading the original manga of course there are cases where there is no prior Source material so you'll have to watch the anime to experience the story but that tends to be the exception rather than the norm but Bochy The Rock stands as a prime example of what makes an anime adaptation worth viewing over the original manga specifically in its unique blend of experimental animation techniques in concert of its suburb sound design the votry The Rock anime creates an adaptation that far surpasses the original Source material it gives it a reason for being over its original manga counterpart Mochi the rock is a prime example of what the key to a successful anime adaptation is it lies not merely in visual Fidelity as some people seem to believe but in the use of the properties of the visual medium to their fullest to create a unique experience to be clear the bocce The Rock manga is not bad by any stretch of the imagination but I imagine you would be hard-pressed to find a large population of people who had heard of Bochy The Rock before the anime aired the characters are fun as well as the story but it's hardly the Pinnacle of its genre Bocce the rock is one of the few cases where I can wholeheartedly endorse watching the anime over reading the manga curiously Buchi the rock is probably not what comes to mind when people talk about a show being quote unquote well animated especially when you look at some of the more mundane scenes the backgrounds are visually detailed but that's because our digital scans of photo graphs from the Tokyo area leading to backgrounds that are completely static and reliant on foreground movement of the characters there are cases where the CGI looks a little bizarre and the show is clearly not immune from the cost saving techniques that have become ubiquitous in the anime industry if you watch carefully you'll see no shortage of Steel frames and someone suspicious camera angles both designed to save time effort and money oftentimes the animation becomes intentionally bad as a way to reinforce certain Story related gags despite this there's no shortage of people praising the animation and direction of bochu The Rock when you ask people what makes good animation you often get a response about shows being animated with a very high level of visual Fidelity for instance ufodable is a highly praised Animation Studio because of the remarkable beauty of most of their Works particularly in their action scenes when people talk about bad animation they often refer to weird looking in between frames or egregious cost cutting measures like over-reliance and still images of of course there are cases where an anime can look so cheaply made and so visually off-putting as to completely ruin your enjoyment of the product what can get you a berserk 2016 but I want to make the case that simple visual Fidelity is not and has never been the primary goal of the anime media and it is precisely this willingness to detach from highly realistic animation techniques that is defined anime to understand what I mean by this it's useful to have a brief discussion of the history of Animation animation techniques and Anime I am by no means an expert on animation or even particularly well versed or skilled in the Arts so this explanation might be a little rough but it's necessary to understand the goals and backgrounds of anime as a medium and what makes Pochi The Rock shine above its compatriots as a gross oversimpification before the Advent of computers all animation was drawn by hand his drawings would then be transferred onto plastic sheets called cells and then photographed and played back in sequence to create the appearance of movement traditional 2D animation can be broadly classified between full and limited styles of Animation as the name implies the goal of full animation is the creation of fluid and realistic movement a goal not shared by limited animation prior to the 1960s the animation Market was dominated by Disney in the west and in Japan by toei animation as well as his predecessor Nihon dolga both companies were heavily focused on producing polished full animations as can be seen in classic Disney cartoons from this era one of the most clear ways the difference between full and limited animation manifests was that full animation requires the drawing of completely unique frames for every frame in the animation whereas the first limited animation shows would reuse the same image for three frames this is referred to as three frame shooting and was ubiquitous among early anime other limited animation techniques include the use of stop images or still frames sectioning where only a part of a scene or character is animated movie instead of drawing an entire new new frame or repetition where a series of frames are reused for sequences like walking or running even though anime has been made by computers for years now you can still see many of these limited animation techniques at a work in modern anime while it has its predecessors the first widespread use a limited animation was the Seminole 1963 anime Astro Boy one of the most famous and consequential anime ever created due to the economic and time constraints of producing new weekly episodes of Astro Boy the anime makes extensive use of limited animation techniques to save money and Manpower Astro Boy and other anime from this era rely heavily on limited animation techniques that convey the sense of movement while remaining largely still in his book anime's media mix Mark Steinberg professor of Cinema studies at Concordia University refers to this interplay between Stillness and motion that is characteristic of anime as Dynamic immobility one of the most classic examples of dynamic and Mobility would be when a samurai or other swordsman Cuts an object as a way to highlight the swordsman's incredible precision and speed the object almost always remains still for a second before cleanly splitting apart it is a Stillness that helps to enhance the sense of motion despite the fact that when you cut something in real life it obviously doesn't stay still before splitting apart while this sense of dynamic immobility and application of limited animation techniques is the result of the economic and production constraints in most anime it's in these limited animation techniques that anime becomes well anime consider the iconic image of gendo from Neon Genesis Evangelion with its hands cross beneath his face this image is Iconic because of its frequent appearances in Ava but this was the result of a limited animation technique known as a bang system where a cell is drawn and then reused several times on different backgrounds on the flip side will anime often incorporates a sense of Stillness manga does the opposite to create a sense of movement out of a still medium for example consider the use of speed lines they create the sense of movement despite the fact that the image is still very still or consider how Maga very frequently changes angles and perspectives from frame to frame this sounds trite but this wasn't always the case it was actually tezuka osamo Fame creator of Astro Boy that pioneered this idea of making manga feel as though it was moving previously the way manga was created was highly reminiscent of early Cinema scenes with Jeremy as one fixed angle and distance from the characters it was tezuko who experimented at the idea of using multiple angles and spatial distances in his manga as one manga critics succinctly put it whereas previously one scene was equal to one frame hezeko created style where one scene was equal to multiple frames it was these Innovations among others that allowed Astro Boy to convey a remarkable degree of motion for a still medium the intense popularity of the Astro Boy anime actually puzzled producers at the time who wondered why audiences so readily accepted the limited animation of Astro Boy compared to the highly fluid form full animation that was the norm at the time Steinberg argues that the answer to this question lies in the interplay between Manga and Anime as he explains the quote feet a limited anime was not only making still images feel like they were moving but also making moving images feel like they were still end quote it's not through the creation of Highly realistic smooth animation that makes viewers feel as though their favorite manga has come to life it's through the deliberate use of Stillness to bring continuity to the original manga that defines modern anime this continuity is important for the business implications of what's referred to as media mix or the serialization of entertainment franchises across many mediums like television books manga toys and video games the dynamic immobility of anime helps bring continuity with the other aspects of the media franchise and encourages the sale of character Goods like figurines posters or keychains as well as sales of the original Source material this is relevant because because anime itself is often not a particularly large Money Maker resulting in anime is sometimes being seen as a kind of glorified advertisement to drive sales to more profitable aspects of the media mix the unfortunate consequence here is that this kind of business incentive often does not leave room for a particularly creative or inventive use of the unique audiovisual media that anime provides manga naturally provides a storyboard for an anime to work off of which is why you can pair and Anime adaptation of a manga who can usually very clearly see what scene is being adapted particularly when you're working with a well-established and popular Source material it's very tempting to just play it safe with the anime sure now something with passable production values and popular voice talent and then you sit back and let the anime coast of the popularity and quality of the original manga but what this creates is a whole host of anime adaptations that feel more like animated versions of the original manga rather than a unique anime version of the manga this brings us back to the original question of what makes an anime worth watching over its manga originator if most anime exists simply to evoke a sense of the Manga why should I even bother watching the anime the difference between an average adaptation and one that is truly special lies in their ability to experiment with and play with the medium of Animation to enhance the original story one of the key Innovations of anime's limited animation was how it was able to break free of the ideology of realism that defined full animation and created a whole new style and aesthetic while creating a work that is visually appealing and enjoyable to look at will no doubt create an anime that is fun to watch it's through experimenting with the balance of anime and animation techniques that you can create a series that stands apart from the source material to bring it back to brochie the Rock the most memorable aspects of the show are its many Bochy time sequences that employ a variety of often surreal scenes and animation techniques to reinforced boji's social anxiety the interspicing of claymation live action minimalist among other animation styles are not only highly entertaining by dynamically reinforced to the viewer at the depths of Bocce's social anxiety as through these Bocce time sequences that the show is able to turn what is otherwise a one panel passing gag from the manga into something memorable and visually striking take the tuchinoko gag from when kezukuban goes to take group pictures in episode 4. the original scene for the manga is only eight panels long but the scene became one of the most memorable parts of the entire anime through its creative use of animation and audio design boji's disassociation and flaying around on the ground vividly drives home her social isolation when keita suggests that Bocce opened her own social media account Mochi and the show begin to break down in dramatic fashion as if the video itself were experiencing some kind of error the use of inventive animation is not only narratively interesting an artistic that illustrates how deep boji's social instability goes but is also visually striking in a way that the original Source material is often not this inventive animation also helps to disguise instances of cost-saving limited animation techniques from the viewers while the show is no stranger to limit animation I barely noticed it on my first viewing because of how seamless it often is take sick hacks performance in episode 10. funnily enough there is extremely little animated footage of sick hack playing there's a small bit at the beginning with short shot lengths and zoomed in angles likely to save time to work on kesokuban's beautifully animated performance during the Culture Festival instead the scene is mostly composed of stop images imposed over computer animated psychedelic background effects one pick a sick hack plays psychedelic Rock but it also serves as a way to visually show how the performance impacts Bocce we see how she goes for being perturbed by the environment the the crowd visually melting away as boatia becomes completely enraptured in the music and divorced from her surroundings the scene was likely conceived in part out of an inability to invest significant resources in animating sakak's performance but the end result is actually more narratively effective and visually interesting than if they had cobbled together some CGI this is a good segue into how the music and sound design work in concert of the animation the music from Bocce is extremely good the studio went out of its way to get many famous Japanese musicians to work on the soundtrack taneikuchimaguro lead vocalist for kanaboom of Naruto Fame wrote and composed the first ending Distortion Nakajima iku vocalist and guitarist for the math rock band tricot wrote and composed the second ending katakara kidazawa yuho lead vocalist and guitarist of the peggies known for their openings of bunny girl Senpai and rent a girlfriend wrote and composed a third ending nanigawarui the lyrics were Gita tokoloku to awe Hoshi and wasu that tagaranai were written by Zach known for her work on the chernibio series one of the key advantages of anime over manga is of course that anime is both an auditory as well as visual media it's no coincidence that many music focused anime like poetry The Rock chaon hebk euphonium or your boy kungming are generally considered better than their original Source material what's amazing about you the rock is the incredible effort and attention to detail that went into the audio and visual design allowing them to mesh seamlessly with the narrative both mutually reinforcing each other take for instance the first time kessokuband auditions to earn the right to perform at Starry when you look at Kita playing the guitar she looks stiff and unnatural compare this to bochi whose guitar playing is much more fluid a nice bit of visual storytelling to reinforce how Kita is to a novice at the guitar compared to botri's extensive experience at the end of their performance nijika's sister gives them all advice if you tells Kita and botri to start looking down so much she tells nijiko to stop looking so tense she tells riro to have greater awareness of her band now fast forward to the episode 12 performance of Cesar need naretada go on as kita's stiff and unnatural strumming reflective of the effort she's put into practice furthermore we also see her spending more time looking up and directly at the audience instead of down at her guitar nijika looks significantly more relaxed behind her drum set when botchi's guitar string snaps bro has the awareness to turn and kyunijika into repeating the last eight bars of the song so both she can get her chance at the guitar solo through the gross glances and non-verbal communication we can see just how much more in sync and comfortable they become playing with each other the visuals and audios work seamlessly in his performance to convey just how far kesokuband has come since her first performance together the sheer degree of effort and attention to detail that went into all of kasokuban's performances is truly remarkable my understanding is that the band is animated correctly to match whatever song they're playing though I don't have the musical knowledge to confirm or deny this an obvious example that even a green horn like myself can notice is that nijika's head the symbols is correctly synced to the songs you should then play the audio is panned to give the impression that the viewer is watching from the audience bouchi's guitar plays out of the right ear and realest bass plays out to the left when he watched them play for a real live audience for the first time you can hear that the song is a little off-tempo and that the members are out of sync with each other in all their performances the shadows and lighting dynamically move given the sense that they're really being lit by the stage it's this wonderful moment towards the end of the performance of Cesar ninada Tara were after bouchi successfully recovers from a string snapping we hear her take a deep breath and stare upwards directly into the lights before finishing off the song a simple but potent way of relieving the tension built by the string snapping Fiasco when they finish playing we finally see bochi look directly into the crowd For the First Time The rapturous Applause of the audience slowly Fades out and the audio focuses in on botu's slow and deep breaths as we see her soaking the performance she and her friends gave it's all of these details the breathing the glances the musical flourishes that makes these scenes so memorable all details that there would be simply no way to convey in a manga panel both of the Rock's adaptation is what I wish more anime adaptations would be like the show is clearly a labor of love born of a production staff who intuitively and deeply understand the feelings and story of the original manga from interviews we know that the animation director has been a huge fan of the manga since the very beginning and that familiarity and respect for the original Source material shines through rather than just string together the original four coma manga and add some music and vocals the show uses the unique characteristics of anime as a medium to bring the manga to life with details and techniques only possible in video funny enough this level of experimentalism and creativity is likely only possible coming from a lesser-known source material after all why bother taking the risk of chainsaw man a spy family or a komisan Bocce the rock is a master class in adaptation and what makes anime as a medium special and how much more an anime adaptation can be than just a long-form commercial for books and character Goods

Channel: Gomi-San

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Length: 18min 17sec (1097 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 20 2023