Manga / Bocchi the Rock!

I am going to make it through this year if it kills me ^note From left to right: Ikuyo Kita, Ryō Yamada, Hitori "Bocchi" Gotō, Nijika Ijichi

Hitori Gotō is a lifelong introvert with paralyzing social anxiety so intense she struggles to even start a conversation. She taught herself how to play electric guitar with a dream that playing in a band would give her the companionship, attention, and belonging she has always craved. Now fifteen years old and in her first year of high school, Hitori has become an outstanding solo guitarist with a thriving online following (under the pseudo-anonymous handle "guitarhero"). Unfortunately, her confidence with a guitar has not magically translated into social confidence, and she seems doomed to graduate from high school without making a single connection to another classmate.

One day, while Hitori is lugging her guitar after school moping over an unsuccessful attempt at breaking the ice, she is noticed by Nijika Ijichi, a second-year Nice Girl from another school, who asks Hitori to fill in at short notice as a replacement guitarist in her band. Suddenly, Hitori finds herself a member of "Kessoku Band" (a pun off "zip ties") alongside Nijika on drums, their aloof and mischievous bassist Ryō Yamada, and lead vocalist, second guitar, unrivaled extrovert, and Hitori's schoolmate Ikuyo Kita.

With the help of her three new bandmates and a cast of other characters from the local music scene, Hitori (nicknamed "Bocchi" by the group) slowly moves towards her dream of acceptance, popularity, and true friends... despite all the best efforts of her (still) horrendous social anxiety.

Bocchi the Rock! (ぼっち・ざ・ろっく!) is an ongoing Slice of Life manga written and illustrated by Aki Hamaji, which began serialization in Manga Time Kirara Max in 2017, with an English release by Yen Press starting in 2023. An anthology manga was released in 2022, with a second following in 2023. It also has an anime adaptation directed by Keiichirō Saitō for CloverWorks that aired in Fall 2022, with 2 compilation movies, Bocchi the Rock! Re: and Bocchi the Rock! Re:Re:, released in June and August 2024 respectively, and a Japanese stage adaptation receiving a short run in August 2023, with a re-run and a sequel in September 2024.

A spinoff Slice of Life manga starring Kikuri Hiroi, ぼっち・ざ・ろっく！外伝　廣井きくりの深酒日記 (which roughly translates as Bocchi the Rock! Gaiden - Kikuri Hiroi's Heavy Sake Diary or Bocchi the Rock! Gaiden - Kikuri Hiroi's Heavy Drinking Diary), written by Aki Hamaji with art by kumichou, began serialization online on COMIC FUZ in 2023.

Not to be confused with Hitori Bocchi No OO Seikatsu, although they both have socially awkward protagonists named Hitori.

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Tropes in Bocchi the Rock! include:

• Adults Are Useless: In a manga-only scene, none of the adults at Starry (Seika, PA-san and Kikuri) are able to help the girls (Bocchi and Ryo in particular) study for their exams, as the first one never went to high school properly, the second one dropped out and the third one is, well, Kikuri, who even suggests that they should cheat or threaten the teacher.
• Alliterative List: According to Nijika, the three B's one should avoid dating stands for bassists, bassists and bassists. ^note The phrase she is parodying is "band members, bartenders and biyoushi (beautician/cosmetician)". The idea is these occupations don't earn a lot, and due to the nature of their work, they carry a high risk of falling in love with one of their customers.
• Art Shift: The anime adaptation frequently shifts into different visual styles for various gags, including live-action stock footage, claymation, paper cutouts, and even an actual 3D Zoetrope in Episode 7.
• Beach Episode: Defied in Chapter 6 of Kikuri's spinoff. Eliza makes plans to have fun at the beach, but Shima shoots it down, pointing out that if they went now, it'd be twilight by the time they got to the ocean, and swimming's offlimits this time of year, anyway. When Eliza throws a tantrum, Shima compromises by bringing out soumen and watermelon for them to eat indoors.
• Bland-Name Product:
  • "Moffster Hamagy", the energy drinks Nijika and Ryou brought in Episode 3, are Monster Energy Lo-carb, just with one stroke of the large "M" removed to make it look like an H.
  • "Onikoro", Kikuri Hiroi's choice of drink, is a stand-in for Onikoroshi ("Oni killer"), a cheap convenience store sake that comes in similar juice boxes.
  • Nijika drinks "Pukuru Sweet" in episode 7, which is a stand-in for the Japanese sports drink Pocari Sweat.
  • Same goes for various websites or services they use, such as "Isstagram" for Instagram or "LOINE" for the LINE messaging app. The manga also mentions sites like "Spotifi" and "BandKamp", stand-ins for Spotify and BandCamp respectively.
  • In episode 8, Hitori has an Imagine Spot where Kita orders from "Starpucks" instead of Starbucks.
  • Chapter 55 has Bocchi and Seika playing "Squidoon".
  • Although musical equipment in the anime is usually branded by the actual brands (see Product Placement below), in Volume 5's extra flashback chapter, Seika's band is seen using a Mershall amp, instead of Marshall.
  • The official manga translation has its own set of stand-ins, such as "Winstagram" for Instagram.
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: The series' sense of humor largely follows this format due to the manga being a Yonkoma. Someone says/does something outlandish and someone else calls them out on it.
• Book Ends: The first and last episode of the show's first season are both named after the same song, "Rock'n'Roll, Morning Light Falls on You".
• Boring, but Practical: Bocchi's new Yamaha Pacifica guitar may not be a hit among collectors when compared to her father's Gibson Les Paul Custom, but Pacificas are still considered excellent guitars nevertheless.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: One of the extras for Volume 1 of Hiroi's spinoff sees the members of SICK HACK discussing its release.
• Brick Joke:
  • After Kita explains that Ryo bought her bass, the flashback has Ryo say she will have to eat weeds from now on to make up the debt, with Hitori assuming she was joking. Ryo shows up later while actually eating weeds, showing that she wasn't joking.
  • In Chapter 9/Episode 5, Nijika angrily reveals Seika can't sleep without hugging stuffed animals. Come Chapter 55, it turns out Nijika has stuffed animals on her bed.
  • At the beginning of Chapter 56, Nijika worries that the others didn't study at all and they're going to get low marks on their exams, and that they'll blame it on the work they did for the album. Come the end of Chapter 57, Nijika shows the completed album to Seika, declaring "It's the album everyone sacrificed their academic futures for!", with the exact same picture of the others with low marks on their exams she had when worrying about them behind her.
• Calling Your Attacks: When Bocchi's class holds a maid cafe for the School Festival, Kita explains to Bocchi that to cast a "deliciousness spell" on the food she needs to do it with love; what follows is an over-the-top sequence that wouldn't be out of place in Sailor Moon or Pretty Cure, complete with spinning, sparkling stars and Kita launching a heart at the food to make it taste better.
  Kita: Omelet rice, if you please...become delicious!
• Can't Hold Their Liquor: Chapter 69 has Ryo and Bocchi getting drunk on amazake (a low alcohol to non-alcoholic drink). Ryo starts complaining about the way that young people don't pay attention to music they're listening to, merely using it as background music for Tick Tock videos, while Bocchi acts like she's the biggest star in the world. They are both so out of it that Nijika prohibits them from ever drinking alcohol, even when they'll become adults, while Kita observes that drunk Hiroi seems tame compared to how they were acting.
• Cassandra Truth: Nobody from Kessoku Band believes Bocchi when she says she managed to sell all her five tickets for their show.
• Christmas Episode: Chapter 29 has the Starry Christmas party on Christmas Eve, which also doubles as Seika's birthday party. Chapters 63-64 have the next year's party.
• Cliffhanger: Chapter 64 ends on the reveal that Kita ran away from home.
• Coincidental Broadcast:
  • The story starts with this. As Hitori recalls her Friendless Background, she expresses some intent to change it, but then immediately resigns herself to the status quo after considering her communication difficulties and problems keeping eye contact. And then Naoki comes by and switches the channel to an interview with a band when one of its members reflects he was an introvert at school and notes "a band is a place where introverts can shine."
  • As a meta case of this trope, Episode 5 happened to air just two days after it was announced that the Series E banknotes (including the ￥10,000 banknote featuring author Fukuzawa Yukichi, which would be replaced by a new design featuring Shibuzawa Eiichi) would end production. "Farewell Yukichi" indeed.
• Compliment Backfire: In her picture diary, Futari praises Hitori's dedication to practicing the guitar, saying that she herself does not have time for that as she has friends to play outside with—sending her older sister to despair over the lack of her own social life.
• Cover Version: A cover of Asian Kung-Fu Generation's "Rock'n'Roll, Morning Light Falls on You" as performed by Kessoku Band is used as the ending for the final episode of the first season.
• Crazy Enough to Work: Volume 6 of the manga starts with the introverted Ryo being tormented by the sheer loud presence of Starry's new energetic part-timers. Tired of this, she enlists the fellow introvert Bocchi in her plan to make them shut up, which involves feeding them snow crab while performing "Poison" by Sorimachi Takashi. ^{Her reasoning} People tend to be quiet when eating crab, because they are concentrating on removing the shell, and "Poison", the opening theme to the live action version of Great Teacher Onizuka, has reached a memetic status in Japan for its uncanny ability to make babies stop crying. Somehow, it works perfectly, and the normally rambunctious part-timers enter a trance-like state and stay perfectly calm and quiet the whole day. Her plan only falls apart when Seika orders her to stop since her shenanigans are ruining the venue's atmosphere.
• Crowd Surfing: In Episode 12, following a successful school concert, Bocchi panics when Kita suddenly asks her to address the crowd. In a sudden burst of inspiration, she decides to throw herself at the crowd — who promptly dodge her, sending her faceplanting into the floor.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • Both Volume 4's opening color story and bonus story are about Yoyoko and her band Sideros.
  • Chapter 75 is about Seika, PA-san, Gin, Kikuri, Shiba and Poison Yami running into each other at a food court.
• Deranged Animation: The anime sometimes delves into this to express how extreme Hitori's social anxiety gets, such as when she violently "glitches out" at the mere thought of having an Instagram account. The rest of the band's response indicates Hitori is having a bad anxiety attack at the same time.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: All the opening and ending songs are credited to Kessoku Band and are sung by the voice actresses of the main characters. The opening, "Seishun Complex", is sung by Ikumi Hasegawa (Kita), while all four members take their turn for singing the endings, first Hasegawa on "Distortion!!" (episodes 1-3), then Saku Mizuno (Ryo) on "Karakara" (episodes 4-7), then Sayumi Suzushiro (Nijika) on "What Is Wrong With" (episodes 8-11) and finally Yoshino Aoyama (Bocchi) on "Rock'n'Roll, Morning Light Falls on You" (episode 12).
• Don't Try This at Home:
  • In Episode 3, when Bocchi tries hiding and sitting on a desk that's stored beneath her school's stairs, there's an onscreen warning not to try this.
  • Inverted when Kikuri explains how her alcoholism is necessary for her to maintain a "Happiness Spiral", after which she turns to the audience and encourages kids to try it themselves (even though they really shouldn't).
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • The entire band shows up in Episode 10 of Slow Loop, where they have a brief cameo playing at the school festival there; the episode aired seven months before Bocchi the Rock!'s anime adaptation did. This reflects how both manga's characters regularly make a Continuity Cameo in each other's series.
  • The twin-tailed girl who glares at Bocchi during Kessoku Band's visit to Shinjuku FOLT is Yoyoko Ohtsuki, who in the manga becomes Kessoku's tsundere rival (although it's just her; the rest of her band, who are introduced later, get on with the Kessoku girls just fine). In the anime's first season, she can be seen in the opening sitting with SICK HACK.
  • Nene first appears in Chapter 35 as one of the new students at Bocchi's school who happens to catch sight of the outfit Bocchi chose to spark conversation, while Ere first appears in Chapters 36-37 as a member of an idol group who are playing at the same live house as Kessoku Band. Both of them return in Chapter 52 as Starry's new part-time workers.
• Entertainingly Wrong: When Kita writes her first lyrics in Chapter 54, everyone assumes she's writing about her love life with a scum boyfriend. In fact, she just turned her diary entry about eating gyoza into lyrics, and has no idea how everyone's taking it. It doesn't help that she's too embarrassed by her comparatively mundane lyrics compared to Bocchi's 'socially aware' lyrics to tell her the truth.
• Epic Fail: Kita realizing that she spent a lot of yen on a six-string bass instead of a guitar.
• Expressive Uvula: When Kita begs Bocchi to teach her the guitar, the camera briefly shows her uvula with the same anxious expression Bocchi is making.
• Faint in Shock: Together with Giving Up the Ghost and Quivering Eyes, this is Kita's reaction to the rest of Kessoku recognizing the expensive guitar she bought is actually a bass guitar.
• Fake-Out Fade-Out: Happens twice early in the series. The real-life implication is that Bocchi gets momentarily discouraged from being in a band, and both of these instances end when Nijika calls her out.
  • The first time is in Episode 1, after Bocchi has realized she flubbed on her first team getup, with her saying she "turned into ash, never to hold her guitar again". The credits start rolling before Nijika interrupts to bring her back to reality.
  • The second instance is in Episode 3, after she gets overshadowed by the much cheerier Kita. This part even comes with a Thanking the Viewer moment.
• Fictional Counterpart: The live venues are based on real places, if slightly off from reality. Most blatant is SICK HACK's "home turf" the Shinjuku FOLT, an obvious play on the real life Shinjuku LOFT. Even Starry itself has a real equivalent named Shelter.
• Friendless Background: The Opening Monologue hangs the lampshade on Hitori being this all her life before the story begins.
  Hitori: The girl who wonders, "Would it be okay for me to join in?" and so misses her chance, ending up all alone. The girl who ends up all alone at a picnic, swapping parts of her lunch with a teacher. The girl who doesn't join any clubs, comes home right after school, and finds her smartphone nothing but messages from her parents and coupon offers. That's me.
• Giving Up the Ghost:
  • Together with Faint in Shock and Quivering Eyes, this is Kita's reaction to the rest of Kessoku recognizing the expensive guitar she bought is actually a bass guitar.
  • In reaction to Kita's social skills, Bocchi's own ghost plays a gloomy song with Ryou as her audience.
• Heroic BSoD: Hitori frequently has mental breakdowns for different things. Most of them are anxiety attacks due to her severe social anxiety, but her trauma buttons being pressed on also has similar effect. This happens so frequently it's nearly Once an Episode. For example:
  • While thinking about how to improve Kessoku Band's visibility in Episode 4, Kita suggests all members make their own accounts on Isstagram. The prospect of being on social media alone causes Hitori to "glitch out," with the rest of the band backtracking from that idea indicating Hitori is having a massive anxiety attack in front of them.
  • In Episode 7, Hitori has a traumatic meltdown when reminded of sports festivals while attempting to design band T-shirts with Nijika and Kita. While Hitori is a babbling mess, the episode goes to its commercial break, and she isn't better by the time the episode resumes. Nijika comments that "this week's Bocchi Time lasted through the whole commercial break", implying that Nijika seeing Hitori having breakdowns is... a common occurrence.
• Hollywood Homely: invokedThe trope gets loudly complained about by Bocchi, who hates how the main character of Kita's favorite movie is supposed to be a "plain girl" stuck in a Love Triangle yet is obviously extremely cute, meaning someone actually plain like herself isn't even worth looking at. Bocchi herself isn't an example, though: everyone else in the series agrees she's really good-looking, it's just her usual disastrous self-esteem and lack of fashion sense doing its thing.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: In the anime, almost every episode's title is named after an Asian Kung-Fu Generation song, just like how the names of the main cast are based on the AKFG band members' last names.
• Imaginary Friend: Guitarman, the show's mascot, is actually an imaginary friend of Hitori's. She also says that due to her Friendless Background, she has plenty of those.
• Imagine Spot:
  • Bocchi often has them thanks to her social anxiety making her constantly imagine worst-case scenarios, causing her to space out. One notable re-occurrence within them is her rather depressing visions of becoming a hopeless NEET, with one having her mother simply begging her to eat dinner with her, giving up on finding Bocchi a job after failing to enter university and being forced out of her sales job, and another having her turn into an alcoholic living alone, who lies in bed all day while drinking cheap beer and thinking about her time with Kessoku Band, with even her parents giving up on her.
  • In the opening color section of Volume 5, it's her mother Michiyo's turn to have a depressing vision of Bocchi's future, with Bocchi becoming a middle-aged shut-in draining her parents' pensions, and an elderly Michiyo explaining the noises she's making to Futari's daughter as being a mouse.
• In-Universe Nickname: Manga only - the manager of Ishibashi Music shop (where Bocchi buys her new guitar) decides to call Nijika the Archangel of Shimokitazawa. Her sister, meanwhile, used to be known as Satan of Ochanomizu back when she worked there.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • In Episode 7, Bocchi has a traumatic meltdown when reminded of sports festivals while attempting to design band T-shirts with Nijika and Kita. While Bocchi is a babbling mess, the episode goes to its commercial break, and she isn't better by the time the episode resumes. Nijika comments that "this week's Bocchi Time lasted through the whole commercial break."
  • In Chapter 67 (released post-anime), Kita's dad mentions "this new popular TV series that takes place in Shimokitazawa", which is a fair description of the Bocchi the Rock! anime.
• Lemony Narrator: The narrator for Kikuri's spinoff, Super Shuten Douji EX-kun, never passes up the chance to point out her numerous flaws.
• Loophole Abuse: Discussed early on; live houses such as Starry are legally registered as restaurants rather than venues of entertainment, mainly because restaurant licenses are easy to get and it's completely acceptable for restaurants to have live music. In practice, this means every ticket is, strictly speaking, for a drink rather than a musical performance.
• Lyrical Dissonance: Discussed when Bocchi confides in Ryou how she's afraid her downer lyrics will alienate the rest of the band and how she struggles to write happy lyrics, to which Ryou replies that it would be funny for Bocchi's lyrics to be sung by a normie like Kita.
• Magical Realism: It is indicated that things like Kita's radiance whenever she's overly positive and Bocchi's various form changes whenever she's suffering a meltdown are not purely symbolic, as characters in-universe actually react to both as though they physically happened.
• Missing Mom: Nijika reveals in Episode 8 that her and Seika's mom died when Nijika was still a child.
• Mistaken for Badass: While Bocchi is holding up a sign in the hallway in maid costume during the school festival, she gets accosted by a pair of post-apocalyptic hooligans. However even with their intimidating presence, Bocchi does not budge, and this insane confidence along with her dark aura causes the punks to cave in and apologize profusely, meekly taking a seat in the maid cafe. In reality, Bocchi was just having one of her despair episodes and was almost unconscious.
• Mood Whiplash: In episode 8, Hitori and friends are at an izakaya cheerfully celebrating their first successful concert, and Hitori wonders if being at an izakaya will be even more fun when she's old enough to drink. Then, Hitori overhears a conversation between two semi-realistically drawn businessmen where one speculates that his wife is having an affair because he's been forced to overwork. The conversation ends with the businessman drunkenly confiding in his friend that he's been considering committing suicide on the train tracks, much to his friend and Hitori's horror. The conversation triggers Hitori so badly that she has an episode over where her life might end up if she doesn't become a successful musician, imagining herself as a failed businesswoman that becomes a NEET at the end of her career.
• Musical Theme Naming:
  • All members of Kessoku Band share the last names with their counterparts in Asian Kung-Fu Generation.
  • Members of Sick Hack (Kikuri's band) are named after 88Kasyo Junrei, although their drummer, Shima Iwashita, is a very roundabout case - she is named after the actress of the same name, who, among other roles, starred in a 1986 movie Yakuza Ladies (Gokudou no Onna Tachi), while 88Kasyo Junrei's drummer, Kenzo, is described on the band's page as "the drummer, gangster and the one who chuckles" (Doramu to gokudō to fukumi-warai).
  • Sideros, a band led by Yoyoko, has their band members' surnames taken from members of Kinniku Shoujo Tai.
• Nice Girl: All the main characters fit, though to different extents since some have Jerk with a Heart of Gold tendencies - but in the end they're still genuinely kind, pleasant and decent individuals.
  • Bocchi, for all her extreme shyness and pessimism, is a genuinely kind girl, supportive towards her friends, and also polite despite having No Social Skills.
  • Nijika, aside from The Leader, is also The Heart of the group, being a sweet, selfless, supportive, kind and honest girl who keeps the members together, and does this out of gratitude towards her sister (who took care of her and was the one who started STARRY, and Nijika continues the activity helping her and with her foundation of a new band).
  • Kita is extremely cheerful and extroverted to the point it can overwhelm more withdrawn characters, but is genuinely kind and friendly, with a natural charisma and people-orientation. She's also shown to be very supportive, caring and loyal to Bocchi.
  • Among the adults, the nicest is undoubtedly PA-san, a kind, friendly and easygoing Perky Goth and Perpetual Smiler who is nothing but kind and sweet towards the band members.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Partial example. Musical duo Klimt Night's background is based on that of YOASOBI, though the members themselves aren't.
• Nobody Loves the Bassist: Lampshaded on numerous occasions.
  • First, there is Nijika's dating advice (see Alliterative List above).
  • Futari describes bass as "The thing that's like what onee-chan plays, but sounds plain." Ryo, incredibly annoyed by this, then instantly makes her listen to some bass playing, stating "Commence brainwashing" as she does so.
  • While making their music video, Ryo mentions how unattractive members tend to only appear subliminally, especially drummers and bassists.
• Numerical Theme Naming: The Gōtō siblings' names are Hitori ("one person," and by extension "alone") and Futari ("two people").
• Oh, Crap!: After the audition, Bocchi is feeling pretty good about herself... until she realizes that she now needs to go out and sell at least five tickets for the performance.
• On the Next: Parodied in Volume 1 of Hiroi's spinoff, which features a spoof preview for Volume 2 with superhero Hiroi setting out to help/fight the attention-seeking monster Bocchi.
• Pose of Supplication: Bocchi does this twice: first in episode 4 where she apologizes to her bandmates for not having finished their song's lyrics after a week, and in episode 12 where she apologizes to her father for damaging his guitar.
• Posthumous Character: Nijika and Seika's mother, who features in Volume 5's Whole Episode Flashback extra story.
• P.O.V. Sequel: Kikuri's spinoff explores what she's doing during the events of the main series, providing more context on what happened, starting with how she came to meet Bocchi. However, it mostly skips over events Bocchi took part in.
• Practically Different Generations:
  • Nijika is a high school student and her older sister Seika is 29 (30 come Chapter 29, 31 come Chapters 64-65).
  • Bocchi is a high school student and her younger sister Futari is 5.
• Product Placement: The anime gets sponsorships from major musical instrument manufacturers such as Gibson, Pearl, Tama, Ibanez, Yamaha and Roland, which pretty much guarantees everything it shows is accurately branded.
• Punny Name:
  • "Kessoku Band" not only means "unity (musical) band", it's also the Japanese word for a zip tie.
  • Bocchi's given name, Hitori, set up Ryō's pun about 'Hitoribocchi', a term meaning 'all alone'.
• Real-Place Background: Let's say Shimo-kitazawa isn't a made-up place. It is, in fact, known for its large number of small live-music venues.
• Relax-o-Vision: Instead of showing Bocchi throwing up after the band's audition, the anime shows various dams spewing out water for 20 seconds.
• Running Gag: There are multiple instances where characters tell Kessoku Band ("kessoku" meaning both "zip-tie" and "unity" in Japanese) to change their name when they do something not very team-bonding.
• Sailor Fuku:
  • Bocchi and Kita's high school uses sailor fuku for the girls' uniforms. Flashbacks show that Bocchi also wore one when she was in middle school.
  • Volume 3's opening color story reveals Hiroi also attended a high school that used sailor fuku for the girls' uniforms, though Seika and PA-san didn't.
• School Festival:
  • Episodes 11 and 12 have one take place at the school that Bocchi and Kita go to. Naturally, Bocchi's class is doing a maid cafe (much to her embarrassment) that the other band members also end up participating in. Later, Kessoku Band has their school festival performance.
  • The manga and anime have different takes on the situation with Nijika and Ryo's school; in the manga, Nijika says their school is strict, so they don't have events like that, while in the anime she says the school's festivals are super uptight, being mostly science project posters and the like.
• Seppuku: After messing up almost immediately the first time she tries to play with a band, Bocchi announces she's going to kill herself in shame, with an Imagine Spot of driving a guitar into her stomach the way a samurai would use their sword.
• Shout-Out:
  • Overlapping with Named After Somebody Famous and Theme Naming, all the main characters share last names with the members of Asian Kung-Fu Generation down to the kanji and they even have the same instruments with the only difference being the positions of lead vocalist and guitar being switched for Kita and Bocchi in the series. Their birthdays are also reversed versions of AKFG members' birthdays, i.e. Bocchi's birthday is on February 21st (2/21), which is a reversal of Masafumi Gotoh's birthday (December 2nd, or 12/2).
    • ...and then there's Bocchi's dog, Jimihen.
  • Almost every chapter of the manga begins with a halfpage spread of the characters recreating shots from Japanese music videos from bands such as Kana-Boon, Unison Square Garden and of course Asian Kung-Fu Generation.
  • Chapter 51 has Bocchi imitate the poster for The Shawshank Redemption as she walks back home in the rain without an umbrella, happy after hearing the new school term doesn't start tomorrow, because it's Saturday, but the coming Monday.
  • Numerous album covers were parodied in the Episode 4 search for a good spot for the Band's promotional picture.
  • In Episode 4, Hitori enters the restaurant with "Are ya winning, diners?", a parody of the "Are Ya Winning, Son?" meme.
  • In Episode 4/Chapter 7, Ryo’s Lampshade Hanging of the “Kirara Jump” in the openings of anime adaptations of Manga Time Kirara works involves a redraw of the shot from Cagayake Girls, with the position of the Kessoku Band members corresponding to the instrument played by both the HTT and Kessoku Band member (Bocchi/Yui -> Lead Guitar; Nijika/Ritsu -> Drums; Ryo/Mio -> Bass; Kita/Tsumugi -> Keyboard).
  • Kikuri's "Happiness spiral" chart from episode 6 is based on Vicious Cycle of Drug Addiction, a 2010 PSA chart from an issue of Miyagi Kensei-Dayori.
  • Episode 7 has several as well:
    • Kita's favorite movie Kisses Over Flowers is a parody of the classic Shoujo Boys over Flowers.
    • Bocchi's glowing, color-changing, star-shaped glasses are a nod to Elton John.
    • When Bocchi 'turns to dust', the song that plays is "Nausicaa's Requiem".
  • In Episode 8, when Bocchi is completely burned out, she does the famous pose from the last panel of Tomorrow's Joe.
    • In the same scene both Guitarman and Microphone descend from the sky as angels to take Bocchi away, while cheering "Congratulations! Congratulations!", and Nijika's sister calls her out for mixing her references around.
  • In Episode 9, in the aftermath of being attacked by birds, we see Bocchi laying down in a smoking crater in the ever-so-memetic Yamcha pose.
  • In Episode 10, the ceiling shot and line from Neon Genesis Evangelion is referenced:
    - "An unfamiliar ceiling"
    • A classmate in Bocchi's class with an X in her brown hair seems to reference the main character of the very series that helped put Manga Time Kirara on the map.
    • Slow Loop gets referenced too, with the Occidental Otaku Eliza having keychain charms of Hiyori and Koharu.^note This also references the Bocchi cameo in Episode 10 of Slow Loop.
  • Episode 11 has a few of them:
    • Ryo saying that they should have Bocchi wrapped in black tape and play guitar on the ocean, referencing the infamous T.M.Revolution Hot Limit music video.
    • When Ryo tries a maid costume, Kita says "Hold it!", with a speech bubble and captions in the style of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
    • One of Bocchi's Imagine Spots takes the form of a Stylistic Suck CG animation in which a t-posing render of her flies into a stack of blocks, punctuated by the sound of bowling pins being knocked over, parodying a similar scene from the PS4 trailer for Undertale.
  • In Episode 12, Bocchi briefly gains a golden, electric aura identical to that of a Super Saiyan when the thought of quitting her job fills her with "a mysterious and overwhelming power".
    • Hitori's father talks to her about destroying a cheap electric guitar on stage as a stunt. In that moment, a background silhouette mimics Jimi Hendrix's famous guitar burning stunt at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.
• Sleep Learning: Parodied in a manga-only scene. Nijika's shocked at Ryo's low score on her English test, because she said she'd been studying English daily. It turns out Ryo meant she'd been sleeping while listening to English-language music every day.
• Sneeze Cut: In episode 6, after Kikuri buys Bocchi's final concert ticket, she ends up asking Bocchi to lend her some money for her train ride. As Bocchi is giving her the money, she wonders if she's having Déjà Vu, thinking of the moment when she had to pay for Ryo. Back at Starry, Ryo sneezes.
• Soda-Candy 'Splosion: It's a sore spot for Yoyoko that her Mentos and Cola videos don't get anywhere near the views of her bandmates' vids online.
• Spiritual Antithesis: To K-On!. While both manga are published by Manga Time Kirara (though K-On! ran in the main magazine, while Bocchi runs in Max) and focus on a group of high school girls coming together to form a band, Bocchi isn't as idealistic, having a more cynical sense of humor (especially in regards to Hitori's extreme social anxiety as she struggles to connect with her bandmates). Unlike K-On!, where the band is part of a school club and the characters spend more time hanging out than practicing, Bocchi's characters form their band outside of school (as the members go to different schools), with the series putting more focus on the musical aspect and showing how difficult it can actually be for a band to become famous. In fact, several decisions about the story and characters were deliberately made to differentiate it from K-On!.
• Sprouting Ears: Portrayed differently in anime and manga.
  • In the anime, Kikuri gains cat ears when Bocchi reveals to the others that she still owes her the money for a train ride. When Seika asks Bocchi if Kikuri owes her any more money, Bocchi says that she doesn't, then glances over at Ryo, who also sprouts the same ears. Seika then subsequently makes both bassists not only pay Bocchi their debts back, but also apologize for returning it so late.
  • In the manga, Kikuri shows those ears in the same scene, but under different conditions - she simply has them while trying to act cute around Seika.
  • In episode 7, we also have Nijika sprouting ears (along with a cat smile) when she learns that Bocchi has some clothes other than her pink tracksuit, although she has never worn them. Cue her and Kita playing dress up with Bocchi.
• Stylistic Suck:
  • In Episode 8, Kessoku Band's first performance is rather deliberately mediocre: not to the point of outright comedic terribleness, but bad enough to make it clear why the audience is mostly on their phones. It mainly comes down to the instruments being out of sync and various mistakes being made on the inexperienced Kita's part.
  • In Episode 11, a moment of Hitori worrying about the following day's performance has her turn into a low-poly CGI model in a T-pose that then gets tossed through several poorly-rendered walls into a bunch of texture-less blocks, all while the axis used for 3D modeling software is visible in the top right corner.
• Sustained Misunderstanding: Kita's mom gets the idea that "Gotoh-san" is extorting Kita, having misunderstood Kita talking about Ryo leeching off of her, and Bocchi's attempts at explaining her online side-work only serve to dig her deeper.
• Those Two Girls: The unnamed girls from Hitori's street performance in episode 6, who become so captivated by her playing that they instantly become her (and by extension Kessoku Band) fans. They also appear at the band's gig in episode 8, as well as the school festival performance in episodes 11 and 12. Later in the manga, they also help Kessoku Band make their first music video. They even appear in the background of the Slow Loop cameo.
• Title Drop: In Episode 8. Nijika nicknames Hitori as "Bocchi The Rock".
• Truck Driver's Gear Change: The opening, "Seishun Complex", does this twice in its full version: The song starts in D minor, goes up a half step to E-flat minor for its third chorus, and once again to E minor for its final chorus/outro.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: After their audition goes well and they start to celebrate, Bocchi takes a moment to run to the side and throw up, at which point the screen shifts to stock live-action footage of several running dams to signify what's happening.
• Weirder Than Usual: In episode 9, Kita mentions how Bocchi has been acting strange lately, such as suddenly bursting into samba when she seems on the verge of crying. While Ryo claims that it is normal for Bocchi, we soon see Bocchi actually acting weird, being mentally dead, burying cicadas in front of Starry and mumbling names of various acids - all of this because the summer break is nearly over and none of the other girls ever invited her to hang out.
• Wheel o' Feet: Bocchi ends up doing this while running away in Episode 2 and 3, complete with a whizzing sound effect.
• Whole Episode Flashback: Volume 5's extra story jumps back to when Seika was 21 and Nijika was 9 for the events that led to Seika leaving her old band and establishing Starry.
• World of Technicolor Hair: Of the main cast alone, Hitori has pink hair (as do her mother and sister), Ryo has blue hair and Kita has bright red hair. Several other characters also have odd hair colors that nobody ever comments on.
• "YEAH!" Shot: The "Kirara Jump" is both Invoked and Discussed in episode 4, as they use a Jump picture for the promotional photo. The actual photo is a Downplayed version, as they are barely off the ground. And yes, this image is used in the OP (though it only appears as a still image that Bocchi uses as her computer's wallpaper).
  Ryo: Any anime where they jump in the OP is a god-tier anime.
• Yonkoma: The manga is written in this 4 panel style, with standard manga panels occasionally interspersed for plot important events. The anime takes this format and expands many gags that were only one panel in the original into full-fledged visual comedy sequences.

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