The Absurd Adaptation of Bocchi The Rock

normally when I recommend anime to people I make it a point to separate my feelings on the production from my feelings on the series as a whole I myself am a huge fan of the craft of Animation I'm a sakuga connoisseur if you will but I know that not everybody out there is this is a community that can enjoy and even don't notice anime that just look like absolute trash so that leaves me in an interesting dilemma where I talk about a lot of series for their more foundational merits first and then talk about animation and then talk about production and visuals as kind of its own separate grading category when in reality those aspects that production are often tied to parts of the foundation itself there's writing fights World building all kinds of stuff in anime that live or die by what was put into the production so what happens when you have a series whose identity is intrinsically tied to production the times when aesthetic and visuals and animation are so crucial and so integral to the series that it becomes the primary thing that is elevating the content well that's when you get Bochy The Rock [Music] to call Bocce The Rock creative would be one of the largest understatements that I have ever uttered on this channel this is a series that seemingly Revels in any opportunity it gets to convey its comedy and convey its drama in the most unique eye-opening ways that I guarantee you have never seen before in the medium of animation and I can say that for a fact because there are gags in this series that don't even use animation comedy is the lifeblood of this series and any chance Bocce has to surprise you or make you laugh through its excessively fun and creative uses of framing timing or just sheer animation power you better Goddamn believe it's going to do it to elevate the extensive commitment it has to its gags and to its character writing I mean take this sequence for example Kita nijika and bochi are all together trying to draft ideas for official clothing for their band and mijika happens to make one single little offhand comment about how they're not here to make shirts that look like sports festival uniforms they're here to make something that looks cool and with that one comment that one half a second remark from nijika the anime series known as Bochy The Rock takes it as a personal challenge to expand and elaborate on bochi's inner feelings in the most extra superlative method imaginable one that begins with a no joke real life Zoe Trope sequence to express the sheer Terror Bocce is facing and Then followed up by a minute long sequence complete in 4x3 cropping of a post-apocalypse where Bocce is being executed for not cooperating in the sports festival again to call this series creative would be an understatement of incredible proportions now with everything that's been said so far you might have the idea that what I'm saying is that Bocce The Rock's value as an anime a really does lie in its animation and its presentation and you would be right that is essentially what I'm saying but not because the source material is bad okay at the end of the day Bocce the rock is an entertaining story with fun characters some Snappy sardonic humor that really plays up what it's like to be introverted some surprising character development and growth and good moments for bocce and nijika it's all there and it's only been getting stronger and stronger as the series progresses but it's also something that without a doubt would not stand out to me nearly as much as it does without that expressive core that ingenious and endlessly imaginative conveyance of the source material it's adapting and I honestly think that goes for a lot of other people as well if you look at Bocce The Rock Source material you will instantly find that it is a yonkoma series basically a manga that is split up into series of four panels that usually focus on telling short punctuated sequences of Comedy or just little scenes in general but the other thing you might notice just by look looking at these pages on the screen is that the manga is undeniably more plain when you compare it to the anime it is a much simpler piece of work and even the iconic boaty faces that you have likely seen scattered across the internet are not even as frequent as you might expect reading the source that they all came from now the point of all this is not to dump on this Source material and the original mangaka it's not exactly something that I would see myself reading but clearly there was enough Merit to this work that talented people in the anime industry were long time fans of this property and had a lot of passion for bringing this story to life even to the extent that the character designer and chief animation director was constantly asking producers if and when it was getting adapted just so that they could be a part of it what I'm really trying to say is that the manga is a good way to contrast what the anime brings to the table because since it's so unassuming and so relatively simple in its execution to enjoy this story I really do think that you have to enjoy and also just understand the writing and the jokes on a fundamental level you can't just hide behind flashy animation or absurdly creative gags you have to actually like and appreciate the core of what this series is some people will and some people won't I've already heard a number of people who went to the manga because of how much they were enjoying the anime and found themselves underwhelmed because the execution really is so much more restrained and simplistic but it's that ethos that I think is what makes the anime as good as it is it's made by people who do appreciate and do enjoy that Source material people who understand the depth and the Nuance it has underneath that cute girl exterior people who see the gaps in these young coma panels and are constantly thinking about ways that they can flesh out the ideas that keep the spirit alive but Elevate everything into a way that genuinely becomes universally appealing take this scene for instance Bocce is trying to come up with lyrics for kesokuban's first song and she wants to create something that isn't emblematic of her anti-social and depressing tendencies in order to do this she projects in her head that she is just this party fiend who drinks and surfs pools at night and you get a little image of party Bocce and then you move on to the next part of the gag however when you look at this scene in the anime it gets a little bit more in-depth we'll say foreign [Music] [Music] this is just one of many examples in this series of the anime taking the general concept and script from the manga but transforming it in a way that is almost unrecognizable as far as Ingenuity and creativity goes the tsuchi noko attention monster the Glitchy Spazzy dead Bocce any of these recognizable iconic memes or gifts that you've seen from the series are almost certainly things that were technically there in the manga but just elevated in a way that feels Transcendent this also goes for the dramatic and more grounded parts of the series as well like the director says this is a story that succeeds not just with its unhinged Slice of Life humor that we've been talking about but also in this beautiful Coming of Age story for bocce as character I remember dismissively saying in the very first episode that I fully expected this series to have very little character development or progression just because it's a comedy one but more specifically than that it's a comedy whose humor is so intrinsically tied to the character of bocce and the way that she behaves so how do you develop a character like that how do you develop this personality whose story completely relies on that personality well subtly gradually it's not like boji's character ever completely changes but what makes her so special is you see the little ways that she is changing and growing over the story you see ways that she puts herself out there more the way that she becomes more comfortable talking to her bandmates and probably the one that stands out to people the most you see her perform the performances in bocce The Rock are extremely interesting to me because functionally they act as the narrative climaxes that symbolize some form of growth in bocce and naturally in anime you want these performances to impact you and look and feel really really cool and they do but they do it in a way that is very different from the approach that the rest of the series takes in contrast to how absolutely insane and wild and unhinged the animation and presentation is everywhere else the actual performances are extremely realistic and nuanced they're carefully instructed intentionally to simulate this idea that you are watching real inexperienced people up on stage performing and gaining experience I mean they even use real-life actors performing with the characters in mind specifically for the base of the animation there's just clearly a lot of intentionality and work being put in to deliver on that contrast and on that premise and I think it's something that you would only get from a team like this that understands this source and its characters and at the end of the day that's really what I walk away from this adaptation feeling the most beyond the incredibly obvious truth that it's being made by extremely talented people what I really feel is that it's being made by people with a true genuine fan love of this property and not only honing in on the essentials of what fans do love about the property but also transforming and elevating them in a way that captivates and entirely new audience I hope this series continues and ends strongly and I hope that this team continues showing us what makes Bogey's Rock so goddamn cool and hey if you want to follow in bochi's footsteps if you want to put yourself out there and reach out make new friends and talk to new people then join the Discord server linked below the like button it's a great Community I'm on there all the time and I'm sure a lot of us would be down to talk about Bocce or anything else thank you all so much for watching I will have a link down below if you want to check out the full interviews with all of the boji staff members that I have been showing throughout the video there's a lot of really cool and endearing insights found in there I know that I immediately knew I loved them when I saw that the character designer I mentioned earlier talk about how their favorite scene was the one with Bocce and nijika outside after their first concert easily my favorite scene in the series so far if you know you know really cool stuff all around and big shout out to sakuga blog for kale collecting that insight and information I love you all and I will see you in the next video [Music]

Channel: PhenomSage

Views: 900,120

Keywords: bocchi the rock, bocchi, the, rock, bochi, bocchi anime, anime, manga, adaptation, anime vs manga, manga vs anime, comparison, the absurd adaptation of bocchi the rock, performance, scene, live, music, funny, comedy, animation, phenomsage, phenom, sage

Id: mrWQTK4UzMg

Length: 12min 2sec (722 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 05 2022