The Best Slice of Life Anime

this year was a really phenomenal year for anime UFO table set a new bar for seasonal anime with the Entertainment District Arc of Demon Slayer spy family broke multiple streaming records and became a worldwide sensation Love is War solidified itself as the best romantic comedy and the industry with its third season lycris recoil became a very surprising Banger of a show and I mean come on look at this season Fall 2022 easily has the best lineup for shows in the entire year with bleach having its triumphant return chainsaw man finally hitting its spot in the anime scene and MOB psycho 100 concluding its consistently powerful Story the standard and quality for anime was so ridiculously high this year that picking a favorite or a best for 2022 seemed almost impossible that was until one day I saw an anime climbing the ranks of my anime list called Bochy The Rock before its sudden climbing I had never even heard of it before so naturally I did what anybody would do and investigated to see what this underground anime made taking over the scene was about the first thing that stood out to me was the studio cloverworks for those that don't know cloverworks has been kind of on a really horrible streak when it comes to tackling stuff by themselves yeah spy family was great right but they did it with the help of the amazing wit Studio cloverworks on their own has developed a title for fumbling the bag in recent times hori Mia while I personally did love this anime was really rushed and cut out hundreds of chapters of the source material Wonder egg priority showed a lot of promise but its finale was an absolute disaster and um well the promised Neverland season 2 happened and it it definitely was the anime of all time foreign yeah so the night I discovered Bocce I put it on the shelf and I figured it probably wasn't worth my time because of cloverworks history about a week would pass and I went on with my life you know watching other shows but for some reason I couldn't get the cover art for this show out of my mind so that's when I thought to myself well screw it and I turned on the first episode within that very same day I had completely caught up with the show cried during one of the scenes and started listening to the songs on my own time Bocce The Rock has instantly become a favorite of mine and I didn't even plan on watching it at first and in a year filled with Banger after Banger after Banger anime so many that would take me a while to list them all to me Bocce is undoubtedly the best anime of 2022 allow me to explain foreign [Music] follows hitori goto later nicknamed Bocce who suffers from severe social anxiety she is inspired one day to pick up the guitar to try and overcome her anxiety because she wants nothing more than for people to notice her and appreciate her and to just become friends with people her goal is to become as good as she can and then play it at her school Festival but the end result in reality is that she practiced so hard she wasted pretty much all of her middle school years now she's in high school and determined to accomplish her dreams but she's still feeling shy about it until a chance encounter with drummer nijiki ichichi who begs her to join her rock group called kisoku band I love me some rock and roll so that alone pretty much got me hooked however great music isn't the only thing that this spectacle of a show has to offer throughout the runtime of this video I plan to sell you on the show why you should watch it and if you have already watched it give you a bunch of insight that you might not have thought about originally we'll start with the cast since the main hook to the the show is the band and its members all of the band members are absolutely phenomenal in their own unique ways and thanks to Reddit user El Benji I've got some perspective on how each of these characters is not only fully realized in personality their spot in the band is a metaphor in itself what I mean by that is that the author Aki hamaji has written every character in the band's instrument or their role to directly correlate to who they are or who they're trying to be for example we have ikio Kita the vocalist for the kesoku band and one of the guitar players since she's a vocalist she is extroverted bright and has an aura that's infectious to those that see her to anyone watching this is almost the definition of a lead singer in most bands she originally had the goal of using the band and music to get closer to the person she adored that being the band's bassist Rio which I'm actually a big fan of this detail it's really rare to see representation like this that isn't fetishizing the characters or that isn't done pretty dang poorly there are many times I've seen it either shown off screen or unfortunately [ __ ] sexuality is used as a gag but here kita's feelings for Rio are just so casually mentioned that it's really refreshing major props to cloverworks and to the original mangaka for being able to have something that involves LGBT representation in a show that is done normally more Studios and writers should take note from this anyways her goals as of episode 12 seem to have changed while she still likely does like Ryo now she seems to want to hone her skills and be able to play guitar with her heart instead of just following the Rhythm then we've got the drummer I mentioned earlier nijika her sister originally was in a band and since she had no real parental figures besides her sister she was completely inspired by her with nijika taking an interest in music her sister made the decision to quit her band and funded her very own venue named Starry specifically so nijika could fall more in love with music nijika's dream is to make their venue even more famous because of her sister's sacrifice for her happiness with a goal as big as that naturally you gotta have the backbone to support it and she sure does it's the drummer's job to keep the entire rest of the song and members in check since they provide the Rhythm or the metronome that the song builds off of and that sense of stability is a core part of nijika as a character she keeps everyone together and makes sure everyone's feelings are okay or understood and is the biggest believer and motivator for change in hitori and of course we've got the bassist Ryo Yamada who wants to uh huh um what what does Rio want to do all jokes aside Rio isn't jika's best friend and she writes the lyrics for the band she was originally in another band but the band started trying to make the songs more mainstreaming and she felt like that was copping out since the meaning for music to her is expressing how you really feel since the band lost its genuine feeling she left and went to write about what was important to her this is the most ironic since Brio's personality is crass and monotone with her poking fun often at others or making very satirical remarks while also seeming incredibly calm but this plays into her being a bassist the bass is often a relaxed sounding instrument and it provides a consistent Baseline for the rest of the song to be built off much like the drums this in itself is a neat metaphor for them being best friends since their instruments work hand in hand to form the songs together she always means well much like the bass does in her songs not overpowering the other instruments and being supportive to help them be the best they can be and of course we have hitori the lead guitarist who as I mentioned earlier wants to use the guitar and a band to make people finally appreciate her and lead her into breaking out of her shell and becoming more social her entire life she's wanted to talk to people but can't find it and her to muster up the courage and ask other questions or strike conversations the band mates although they don't completely understand why she is the way she is treat her kindly and do everything they can to help her be the best version of herself approaching the subject of social anxiety and Anime isn't anything new especially as of late with the likes of Comey can't communicate being a hit last year however what about and Yuri on Ice regardless of how I feel about those shows objectively felt like they were lacking a bit and talking about the topic of social anxiety and Comey while I actually do enjoy that show I feel it does some um well really odd things and it's a betrayal of social anxiety laughs [Music] Ochi is the first anime I've seen that feels able to encapsulate the feeling of social anxiety very well hitori is a person who really badly wants to be able to talk with and get along with others but is always stop by herself and the inner Labyrinth of her mind while they tone up her inner panics with really wacky sequences and animation to be very comedic they are weirdly enough really relatable and kind of a perfect portrayal of how [ __ ] like this actually feels despite being a bit of an extrovert I've got social anxiety and I can't count how many times I've been absolutely sure of something and then started freaking out right beforehand leading to me chickening out or times where I've wanted to make a phone call and not been able to going out of your shell to do stuff could leave you feeling completely MC inside or in some cases like you're disintegrating into dust my girlfriend is much more similar to bochi as she is both an introvert and has social anxiety and even she who hasn't seen the show has told me clips I've sent her are how she feels trying to converse sometimes it's no coincidence either that people on all platforms are making posts about how much they relate to this show it's a betrayal that strikes right into people's hearts and emotions that's what makes Bocce's persistence fighting through her anxiety and striving to be who she really wants to through her anxiety very awe-inspiring I'll talk more about Hattori later though for now I'd like to speak about the heart put into this series this anime is quite literally filled to the brim with passion for literally just art as a whole I'm not kidding every episode feels like a movie because of how meticulous the attention to detail is the anime has references to at least one other anime per episode such as the ceiling scene from Evangelion which there are actually a lot of Ava references the congratulations scene felt very similar I'm stuck with the birds looks visually similar and there is probably probably more than that that I didn't get to notice there's a hallway scene from fuli [ __ ] that is in one of the shots Ryo mentions a show that has them jumping in the air during the opening is god tier which more than likely is a reference to chaon there is a reference to ashita nocho with even KO sound effects on the scene to just hit the hammer on the nail hatori goes Super Saiyan in the last episode and the scene where she gets attacked by the crows as a direct reference to Goku being knocked out cold the list goes on and on and all of that is because like I said this show literally celebrates the medium of art as a whole the homages here are likely to give credit to the masterpieces that came before it since at least one of them has more than likely inspired one of the animators on this team although it isn't in the anime each chapter of the manga starts off with a reference to a popular Japanese music video and each one of the band members shares a name scheme similar to a member from the band named Asian Kung Fu Generation this is a group famous for the openings of songs many of you have probably heard like for a race [Music] Full Metal Alchemist [Music] doraro [Music] bleach and Naruto but I'm sure there are many more that I'm not aware of their music slaps and I think that the cast naming scheme being similar to Kung Fu Generation is just such a cool Easter egg but she has pins on her back that are references to other real world bands like super Beaver creepy hype and Crow magnons there are posters in story that are references to other bands like bump of chicken and one in her room two Kana Boon this just like the references to other anime could go on and on these are deliberate choices of the animators because the details like this were left decently vague in the manga meaning that once again the anime is choosing to celebrate art the animators at cloverworks have given each character in this series a specific way that they walk talk move and present themselves to the point that even if you don't know the characters you can tell exactly what kind of people they're supposed to be by how they present themselves background characters are animated and given traits that even if they don't speak much make them instantly recognizable a great example is this character from Starry that I'm pretty sure the community literally refers to as pie ason because she has never given a name but because of how she's animated along with her voice actress you can tell what kind of person she is despite not knowing her at all even if she isn't given much screen time she's still very recognizable to anybody that's seen this show and has almost a hundred favorites on my anime list probably more than that because as of writing this that probably has changed this is a character we don't even know the name of there's almost no CGI if it's there I can't notice it or it's times they use it for visual gags which Speaking of this is the first anime I've ever seen that is able to blend all types of animations and art styles together for gags that just make sense backgrounds are fully animated background characters feel alive and are moving or doing things it's just insane how much attention to detail they put into the animation of the show they didn't need to go this hard but here they are going all out to animate a scene of just characters walking down the street it's also full of a lot of very experimental animation like there's a scene that goes very low poly all the way down to 3D models and it has Bocce get flung at a bunch of rocks [Music] this gets extra hilarious when you find out that the animator of this scene wrote down notes for it and didn't even know what they meant by these notes so when they went to go do it they just did whatever they wanted to want to watch them turn into classic paintings Bam Bam there's even one scene where the animators decided to scan a taco send into the show and have a Tori eat a literal PNG of Taco son there are so many hilarious sequences in the show that involve the animators just throwing whatever they want to at the wall and it's insane that it just [ __ ] works so well the animation is just exceptionally fluid especially when it comes to them playing music speaking of my God does the music in this show hit I'm a really big rock fan like a really big one I'm gonna bunch a lot of sub-genres together here to tell you guys that some of my favorites currently include Ice Nine Kills Foo Fighters Green Day [Music] it's All-American Rejects Asian Kung Fu Generation and if you're in my Discord you already know this but don't make fun of me here my all-time favorite band is Weezer [Music] I know I know I'm a big Weezer fan don't give me Flack for it move on just forget about it the music in this show is genuinely really really good for no reason I've listened to all the tracks they've released and I listened to a lot of them multiple times a day like that band [Music] guitar loneliness and blue planet I'm a sucker for when characters are the ones singing the songs and every character has a song that they've sung that's been officially released some that come to my mind are karakara sung by Rio's voice actress Saku Museum what is wrong with this band sung by nijika's voice actressiro rock and roll morning light falls on you is sung by hattori's voice actress Yoshino oyama [Applause] good majority of the songs are sung by Keith's voice actress ikumi hazagawa and man do I love it these guys have great voices hell one of the best songs is one that wasn't even used in the anime called I can't sing love songs and it rules this song is [Music] they didn't need to go that hard on the music but I am all for it I really hope they make more music but anyways I'm a fan of chaon let me get that out of the way I'm sure somebody's gonna ask about that in the comments while it's by no means my favorite anime in the world it definitely was a good watch but one of my biggest gripes with the series is that we almost never get to see the band actually play their instruments we only really get to see it happen in the opening and ending of the episodes which is lame I want to see them actually jam out Bocce isn't like that at all in the 12 episodes of the series we get to see the band play four or five times and damn do we really get to see them play their performances almost feel like their live performances most animes tend to actually when it comes to the episodes use the pre-recorded versions of the songs but Bocce doesn't do that they use raw vocals from both Kita and Rio's voice actresses because there are Stark vocal differences between the episode versions of the songs and the official releases of the songs which adds an extra layer to authenticity combined with the raw vocals is every character moving as if they're playing their instruments legitimately and I don't mean something easy like just their fingers I mean their expressions their eyes and the characters as a whole during one of the performances Rio nods at nijika during the song just like a real band would and we see a lot of perspective shots of Keto watching intently on hitori especially during the last episode it wasn't always this way though at first the group together were really rubbish but this makes sense honestly nijika and Ryo are best friends so they're used to playing together but Kita is a new guitarist and isn't very used to singing and playing at the same time and itori had been playing for a long time but only by herself she isn't used to playing with a crowd this shows during their first performance where the band is actually making genuine mistakes which is another thing I like the band doesn't come together and is automatically perfect right off the bat they have flaws nijika was playing off Tempo which drew the entire band off Tempo since she is the support and backbone for all they're playing kita's voice was jumping around in speed trying to keep up with the drums and she was rushing her guitar playing because of this Bocce was rushing to keep up two and this is all because the band was nervous playing for the first time the reason for this is probably because their band is very fresh and while they get along fine behind the scenes they don't really know each other very well so the show takes a few episodes away from the music and builds the relationships as people and lo and behold the next time they play music they are all performing together really well a band is a team so their bond together has to be strong it's their Newfound bond that helps Kita realize bochi is having technical issues during their last performance together and what's impressive is we can literally see her picking up on and then trying to cover for bocce it's impressive for an anime to convey visual depth like that I find it very impressive how well the anime is available to show perfectly how band members interact with one another on stage and how it captures the feeling of going to a concert is really amazing the stage lighting the raw sound and the audience all come together to make the most authentic and probably the best musical performances the anime medium has seen to this point but while I think the animation is spectacular the music the representation and the fellow bandmates are perfect as is the one thing that has taken this show above and beyond for me that has led to me falling in love with it is hitori something that I've noticed over time with anime and manga is mangakas tend to create characters that are meant to be related to by the reciprocated gender what I mean by that is that my friends and I tend to relate to other male characters this isn't to say that there aren't great female characters because there are many of course but the majority of the time authors tend to cater to gendered experiences and feelings for example okabe from Steins Gate and Subaru from re-zero are tended to be related to by guys while a character like usagi suniko from Sailor Moon and toru Honda from fruits basket are meant to usually be related to by girls the reason for this is because steinsgate and re-zero are written by males and fruits basket and Sailor Moon are written by females hitori is a character that breaks the mold of this because she's a female character written by a female author and is one of the First characters I think I've ever seen that can easily be related to by anybody out there not just because of her social anxiety but because of her undying devotion and passion from the very first episode there is a clear passion Hattori has for the guitar as demonstrated through her dedication to practicing and mastering it along with posting to YouTube under the Guitar Hero Alias but not only that like I mentioned earlier she has a passion for her dream and wants to interact with others I'm gonna recap here really quickly because this video has definitely gotten a bit long very classic for my videos the reason she picks up the guitar in the first place is because in an interview a band member says that he used to be the guy in the back of the room that pretended to read a book which immediately you can tell strikes a chord with her with her Newfound inspiration she sets out to make a goal to perform at her school's festival and like I mentioned earlier that time frame passes since it's now gone she does whatever she can to make sure she gets another chance what's to her that anything she can do is slapping on a bunch of bad merchandise and taking her guitar to school thinking that she'll get the attention of some people but weirdly enough her plan of bringing her guitar actually does work just probably not how she intended to because she's scouted out by nijika who goes to a different school and a park and dragged to Starry without agreeing to it although she performed on stage in a box this Knight provided major are changes for her life because she had finally been given an opportunity in a band and she received her first nickname ever from here on out Bocce would get very subtle I'm talking blink and you'll miss it but very amazing character development starting off the season when the inability to so much as look at someone that isn't a member of her family she progresses to being able to open up about herself to her friends she managed to get a job when she never thought she ever could and although she wants to quit it sometimes she was able to look a customer right in the eyes and actually talk to them hitori goes from a loner that desperately wants attention to having a friend group that cares about her and encourages her and they push her to reach her potential as a person she went from playing in her room for an audience that could never truly see her to being able to play on the side of the road and on stage now let me paint you a picture to just show you how amazing her character development actually is and episode 8 they're playing their first gig at Star sorry and like I mentioned earlier their first song is a mess everyone is stumbling with their instruments and kita's vocals are all over the place the reason for this is that they're obviously all worried and thinking to themselves do we sound good nijika and Rio weren't very confident in bochi's Guitar skills as is I mean they both told her she sucked during the first episode this is the first time she's played on stage outside of a box for crying out loud so they have no idea how things are going to happen with her Kita being brand new to the guitar more than likely added even more worry to the entire band's mindset as is no one seems to be giving a [ __ ] during their performance and once the song is over some of the audience is even audibly talking badly about their band this clearly breaks some of the band members most evident through Kita who is normally the talkative outgoing one here she starts stumbling with her words and she even Falls silent hitori is sitting there by herself thinking that their songs still aren't good enough despite all the work she's put in for it she sits there as the people that bought her tickets look at her sadly she remembers how she made them smile during the streets this is the moment she's been waiting for right now her entire life has been leading to her being on stage at this moment but she's also nervous can she let this opportunity go to waste though will she get a chance like this again it doesn't look like the band will carry on after their first song I mean everyone's morale is down but hitori knows what to do but can she do it though she knows that she can sound really good people love her YouTube channel after all but this is different this is a live audience she wants to cheer her friends up but obviously she can't do that easily right now but this is when the advice that Rio shared with her a few episodes prior fits perfectly oh although he or she isn't necessarily writing this still kind of fits right but can she do that she risks publicly embarrassing herself now that her base is being shown she doesn't have the comfort of her box anymore while I was watching this my adrenaline reached an all-time high because I had no idea what was going to happen next in such a tense situation but Ben this happened [Music] [Applause] character development you can tell in this moment that nijika realizes that she's the YouTuber Guitar Hero and her solo [ __ ] rules everyone in the audience shifting their attention to the banded disbelief gave me serious Goosebumps and the realization from her band is amazing they realize this is their chance their opportunity they don't even introduce the next song and just go right into playing it I cried my eyes out during the scene because hitori risked so much through this but in the face of being judged she showed extreme courage and emotional strength all of what I just said about her thoughts and how she might have been feeling was stuff I imagined she could be feeling during this scene that's how expertly realized her character is any audience member could easily feel what must be going on in that head of hers she leads the group through the song not nijika the drummer he's Tori is the one that sets the tempo for this song everyone else follows what she's doing you can tell because Kito gives hitori a bunch of glances to make sure she isn't messing up and staying on hitori's time and this scene Bocce completely embodies her YouTube username of Guitar Hero this is the first glimmer of her coming completely out of her shell and it pays off because the audience went from not caring and talking badly about them to being really impressed and admiring them this is [ __ ] awesome it might not look like it to the average viewer but this is character development at its finest and is the moment I absolutely fell in love with this show it's because of her putting herself on the line with this that nichika puts her trust in hitori to make her dream come true and she earned her real nickname foreign this newfound sense of confidence and their building up friendships between the group is demonstrated perfectly at the school Festival the band doesn't stutter here while they might be nervous they play their first song very well but then during their second song hitori breaks a string on her guitar and most anime I can guarantee this scene would have played out with the band stopping hitori running off stage embarrassed but then Quito lets hit horror use her guitar and she plays the solo and everyone loves it hooray her school goes crazier or something you know along those lines here that doesn't happen at all instead it's demonstrated how well the band mates trust each other now when bochi breaks her guitar string mid-performance Kita is able to repay bochi for saving them earlier by improvising until she figured out what to do Kita completely trusts bochi to be able to find a way to make her solo happen still and she does she plays is the guitar using a jar what how cool is that that's so silly through gradual small steps and changes in her lifestyle hitori is able to start reaching her dreams the fact that her development is subtle and not right in your face or huge makes it feel very human and I love that this is displayed perfectly in sequences during the last episode that's a direct parallel to the first episode in the first episode of the series hitori is shown coming home from middle school with lines of pairs of shoes that never get used to go anywhere but it's cool and she is shown being giddy about trying out the guitar for the first time in front of a mirror the colors are very gray and mute to show that Bochy feels that she has no meaning in her life and all forms of light are cast out from her room in the last episode she is shown much more confidently in front of that mirror and instead of the shoes never being used she is walking out of her house using one of the pairs to go to work with her friends the colors are much more vibrant and light is coming into her dark room for the first time in the series showing subtly the very positive changes Satori has made as a person she went from hardly smiling and staying cooped up in her room with performing live just being a far away dream to being able to talk about her next performance in concert with her friends with a smile on her face there is an intentional last scene shown after the credits in the last episode of bocce The Rock and that is where hitori is walking under a bridge it shows the bridge from a bottom-up perspective with a bridge in the middle and the sky on both sides this is a direct callback to the very first shot of the entire show where hitori is a child the ceiling of the school or daycare is cold mute and has sterile pearlescent lights there is an empty space in the middle of the ceiling where there is nothing there in musical terms this could metaphorically mean that Bochy feels she has no bridge in her life since the guitar's bridge is one of the most important pieces without it the strings for it would not stay in place and you would probably not be able to even play the instrument or it could be suggested that she feels like nothing is in the middle of her through this visual cue in other words this means Satori feels she has no meaning or purpose in her life it's no coincidence that the last shot of the entire show after the credits is this shot of the bridge it directly mirrors the code open of the first episode now Bocce has a bridge in her life she has the support for her strings meaning she has her friends to help anchor her down hell you could even say that she is now the bridge for her band without her Kita would have never come back their performances wouldn't have happened and kesoku ban would likely just become a distant dream for nijika she has the middle part of her filled in with purpose because now she has goals that are accomplishable and this bridge marks a metaphorical transition to all of us that things will get better as long as we keep moving down our paths boat to the rock is a show that I hopped on the train late for but I'm very glad that it's a show I didn't miss there is so much to it that I didn't talk about in this video it's filled to the brim with appreciation for other animes and art forms that came before it celebrating creativity as a whole it has solid fluid movie-like animation to it that makes every scene breathtaking to watch unfold this show has the best soundtrack and band that I've ever seen in an anime personally and has one of the best casts of characters that I feel I might have ever seen hitori is one of the most relatable characters in the medium and I cannot believe how much a high school girl has inspired me as a person and as a creative I knew after watching the first episode that I would need to make a video for this series and it's been motivating me more and more every time I revisit it just like hitori I want to continue to Chase my dreams and follow my bridge to making them realized the passion for this show is just infectious and every character every song and every frame Aki has written a brilliant manga for us to enjoy and cloverworks has redeemed themselves delivering a masterpiece that transcends the medium of anime I truly love boat through the Rock and I wholeheartedly mean it when I say that it is the best anime of 2022. hey guys Hunter Roo here I know it's been a really long time since the last upload but if you aren't checking my community tab you might have missed that I took a quick break Higurashi videos will be coming down the line again but I just wanted to take a second to say if you could I would really appreciate it if you could support me on patreon now normally I'm not the kind of person to sell out or ask for this kind of thing but recently you might have heard that YouTube introduced some new policies that are really hurting creators and I happen to get one really big hit by my rent a girlfriend video it was performing really well and was providing me a lot of finances to do a lot of things on the side and after an age restriction all of that money is gone and it is doing practically zero views so because of that your boy's in need my patreon is set up tiller you can literally donate one dollar but you can donate more if you wanted to but you know I'm a college student I understand that money is scarce and it's hard to support people you really care about sometimes so even a dollar would really help but anyways hopefully you guys enjoyed the video I'm very happy to be back let me know what you're thinking down below a big thank you to Ryan my girlfriend Juliet Mimi my friend sure and some other people that didn't want their names disclosed for helping me with this video they read the script they said it was good and because of that it ended up happening so thank you guys so much but that's enough rambling I've gone on a little bit too long if you got here this far you rock stay cool I hope this new year does some really great things for you and I will see you guys in the next video the puzzle

Channel: MrHunteru

Views: 90,523

Keywords: bocchi the rock, bocchi, the, rock, bochi, bocchi anime, anime, the absurd adaptation of bocchi the rock, animation, bocchi the rock review, The Masterpiece That is Bocchi The Rock! - Honest Review, Bocchi The Rock is The Pinnacle of Slice of Life, BTR, bocchi the rock anime, gigguk, bocchi the rock is the pinnacle of slice of life, Anime Analysis, best anime, anime recommendations, k-on, bocchi the rock songs, kita ikuyo, hitori goto, nijika ijichi, ryou yamada, bocchi the rock solo

Id: iFBWE1nw39I

Length: 37min 2sec (2222 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 16 2023