is a Japanese anime television series produced by CloverWorks, based on the four-panel manga series Bocchi the Rock! by Aki Hamazi. The series follows the socially anxious Hitori Gotō as she joins Kessoku Band and fulfills her dream of performing live.

The first season consists of 12 episodes and aired from October to December 2022. On June 7, 2024, the first part of the series' compilation film was released in Japan, with the second part released on August 9 of the same year. In February 2025, production of the second season was announced.

The series received widespread critical acclaim for its animation, writing, music, and exploration of social anxiety, as well as numerous awards.

Characters

Yoshino Aoyama as Hitori Gotō Sayumi Suzushiro as Nijika Ijichi Saku Mizuno as Ryō Yamada Ikumi Hasegawa as Ikuyo Kita Maaya Uchida as Seika Ijichi Kotori Koiwai as PA-san Sayaka Senbongi as Kikuri Hiroi Misaki Watada as Futari Gotō

Production Development

Prior to the greenlighting of Bocchi the Rock!s anime adaptation, character designer and chief animation director Kerorira was a fan of the manga for its comedy, art style, and characters, and in particular Hitori's "unhinged" nature. While meeting with animation producer Shouta Umehara at an illustrator exhibition, Kerorira brought up Bocchi in conversation and expressed a desire to work on an anime adaptation of the series. As it so happened, Aniplex had just recently proposed such a project to CloverWorks, as Umehara learned when he inquired to his superior, Yuichi Fukishima, about the possibility. Kerorira joined the project (becoming the first to do so) as its character designer after expressing his enthusiasm for the series and presenting his drawings of the characters. In addition to the character designs and animation supervision, Kerorira also contributed a significant amount of key animation to the project (estimated by Umehara to amount to somewhere between 500 and 600 cuts of animation, around two episodes' equivalent), which he stated was done to provide the other animators with an understanding of the "platonic ideal" of the anime's production value. Kerorira felt that providing such a baseline as the chief animation director would allow for smoother collaboration, as it would lead to a creatively unified end product while allowing the animation staff to incorporate their own individual expression and limit the number of corrections that would need to be made after the fact.

Series director Keiichirō Saitō, who previously served as episode director on The Idolmaster SideM, and Sonny Boy, came to work on the anime adaptation of Bocchi the Rock! after Kerorira recommended him to animation producer Shouta Umehara. As Umehara was familiar with Saitō's work, having served as an episode director for The Idolmaster, he considered Saitō to be an ideal choice, and Saitō joined the project as director a few days later after discussions with Umehara and Kerorira. Erika Yoshida, the screenwriter in charge of series composition, was recommended on referral from a colleague of Umehara's at Aniplex, who had previously collaborated with Yoshida on Love Me, Love Me Not. As he was aware of Bocchi's similarity in premise and genre to K-On!, Umehara spoke to Kerorira, asking him what unique qualities Bocchi had that would distinguish it from K-On!, and worked to help ensure that capturing those aspects of the series was a priority of the production.

Writing In reading the manga prior to production, Saitō was attracted to the relationships between the main protagonist, Hitori and the supporting cast, which were not as intimate as relationships depicted in similar works and gave Saitō the impression that "they respect each other's individuality and personal space." He found this quality of the story to be both personally relatable and distinctive. Saitō also liked the ways in which Hitori's expressions were often exaggerated to perceptibly disturbing extents, in contravention of conventions. This aspect of Hitori's characterization was expanded upon in the anime, as Saitō believed that "girls who are flawlessly beautiful aren't as cute as girls who are a little mysterious or sometimes make weird faces." Kerorira additionally said that Hitori's withdrawn nature made it more difficult to depict her emotions visually compared to those of the other characters. As such, her basic facial expressions were limited, while the animation relied on the more "slapstick" scenes of exaggeration to depict her emotions. Although consideration was taken to ensure Hitori was consistently cute, even when the animation was exaggerating her facial features, the comedy of such exaggeration was generally prioritized.

In adapting Bocchi the Rock! from its original 4-koma format, Saitō and Yoshida introduced numerous substantial differences from the source material, such as rearranging events and altering some jokes to aid the anime version's pacing and surreal presentation. Saitō and Yoshida added more of a surrealist bent to the anime as they wanted to prioritize comedy and emotion over a wholly realistic depiction and felt that the choice of cutaway gags in the anime allowed them to better convey the story while ensuring that every episode had a clear focus. In integrating these cutaways into the anime, Saitō chose to contrast main character Hitori's thoughts during her instances of introspection and "strange" behavior with the external reactions to and conversations about Hitori among the supporting cast. This was done both for storytelling considerations such as the direction and pacing of certain scenes and also to present Hitori more empathetically by showing that the supporting cast did not regard her as pathetically as she would want to believe. Saitō said that whether or not a conversation between the supporting cast occurring during these moments needed to be depicted in detail or not was one of the most difficult aspects of the production.

In terms of character portrayal, Saitō emphasized that Hitori's eccentric traits should not be depicted too strongly, as this could make viewers uncomfortable. Instead, both her positive and negative traits should be presented in memorable way. Saitō stated that: "We strived to make you laugh when she does something weird, but also make her especially captivating when she shows off her cool side from time to time." Original creator Aki Hamazi also stated that she did not want either "introvert" or "extrovert" characters to be "portrayed as if they were bad people", noting that although Hitori is isolated, she is not bullied because of it.

Animation

Character designer and chief animation director Kerorira drew nearly 600 key animation frames in total, equivalent to the workload of two episodes; director Keiichirō Saito was responsible for the opening animation, storyboards for four episodes, and the direction of two episodes. Kerorira originally considered an animation style with more lines and richer details, but ultimately adopted the simpler style requested by Saito in order to facilitate the production of scenes with extensive movement. Kerorira also gave each key animator a high degree of creative freedom to enrich the expressiveness of the animation. Saito believed that "rather than a simply perfect beautiful girl, a girl with slightly strange and distorted expressions is even more adorable". Although the team paid close attention to maintaining Hitori's cute image, scenes where her expressions become heavily distorted prioritized comedic effect over cuteness. The anime also frequently incorporates live-action footage; screenwriter Erika Yoshida stated that this was not done to reduce workload, but rather to add entertainment value.

Kerorira stated that Nijika Ijichi and Ikuyo Kita have similar personalities and visual characteristics. To better distinguish them, Nijika was designed with a slightly more mature feeling, while Kita has a greater emphasis on her cheerfulness and childlike qualities, with a more youthful smile than Nijika's. For Ryō Yamada, who does not display obvious emotions, Kerorira adjusted the way her eyes were drawn when joking in order to show subtle changes in expression and her mischievous personality without disrupting her overall image.

To create the live concert scenes of the anime, the production team recorded physical actors playing the concerts. The recording was then adapted into a computer-generated previsualization so that the animators could establish their preferred shot direction for the scenes using a virtual camera system. The previsualization was then used as the basis for the final animation. To ensure that the characters were portrayed accurately in these scenes, the actors were given information about the characters and advised on how to convincingly physically act as them. This process was handled by concert director Yusuke Kawakami. Afterwards, concert animator Yuki Ito's team drew the key animation based on the completed 3D computer graphics footage. Keiichirō Saitō consulted with the music production team at Aniplex to ensure that the ambient noise in the concert scenes was accurate to reality, although it was sometimes omitted when Saitō deemed that it would detract from an important dramatic scene.

Casting Yoshino Aoyama, Sayumi Suzushiro, Saku Mizuno, and Ikumi Hasegawa respectively voice Hitori Gotō, Nijika Ijichi, Ryō Yamada, and Ikuyo Kita. Animation producer Umehara noted that whenever the production team had differing opinions regarding voice actor selection, the input of the original work's creator Aki Hamazi played a decisive role. In particular, the voice actors for Hitori Gotō and Ryō Yamada were not finalized for a long time, and were ultimately chosen by Hamazi herself. Hamazi stated that Aoyama's performance made her burst into laughter on the spot, saying that Aoyama portrayed the character like a "strange otaku". Umehara, meanwhile, considered Suzushiro the voice actor who most resembled the character herself, saying that Suzushiro's voice had an "airiness" similar to Nijika Ijichi's.

Aoyama said that during her school years she was a relatively cheerful otaku, but was fundamentally still an "introvert", allowing her to strongly relate to Hitori Gotō. During the recording sessions, sound effects director Akiko Fujita also provided Aoyama with detailed guidance, such as speaking "as if she were looking at the floor" and making her voice "a little more ordinary". Suzushiro stated that Nijika Ijichi possesses traits of both an introvert and an extrovert, and often says things while pretending to be carefree. Mizuno described Ryō Yamada as a calm "odd person", and was instructed during recording to speak "in a way without emotional fluctuations". Hasegawa considered Ikuyo Kita to be a complete extrovert; when voicing serious conversations between Kita and Hitori, she was often reminded to "be more cheerful and not worry about anything".

Music