REVIEW: ‘Bocchi The Rock!,’ Episode 6 – “Eight Views”

Bocchi The Rock! is a slice-of-life anime produced by CloverWorks. Having passed their audition, the next step is to sell tickets to their upcoming show. While Kita, Nijika, and Ryou sell theirs quickly, Hitori feels pressured to get hers sold fast. But how can she advertise tickets when she can’t even speak to strangers in Bocchi The Rock Episode 6?

After a brief recap of the series so far, the main story opens with Hitori having a predictable panic attack about how she will sell her tickets. With her parents both happy to go, she still has three tickets she doesn’t know what to do with. And unfortunately, Hitori has gone into full self-sabotage mode.

Within her rapidly melting down brain, Bocchi The Rock Episode 6 has its protagonist come up with several simple ways to get rid of her tickets that would likely work. She even goes so far as to make flyers to hand out to classmates that would probably earn her a pity purchase, if nothing else. Yet she can’t. This starting and stopping of ideas because you talked yourself out of it is yet another struggle I felt so hard. I can’t even tell you the number of times I’ve pitched writing ideas to my editors and had them greenlight it, only to have me fall back into deciding it was a ridiculous thing to even think about and that it wasn’t a good idea. The struggle is real.

Hitori gets lucky, though, when she has a chance encounter with an older woman who also happens to play in a band. After Hitori provides the woman with some remedies for her hangover, she sees her generosity returned when the woman sets up a street performance for the two of them so they can move her tickets.

While all this is happening, Bocchi The Rock Episode 6 best moments occur away from Hitori. For the first time in the series, we see her bandmates for an extended period without her, as she is supposed to be at band practice. When she doesn’t show, we see the girls exchanging their thoughts and concerns about Hitori, her place in the band, and her anxiety struggles. This sequence is a lovely moment for the show, as it lets the viewer fully appreciate what those closest to Hitori think of her, uncolored by the girl’s panicked imagination.

The visual presentation continues to blend all of the show’s elements in a wonderfully effective presentation. Hitori’s imagination remains as vivid as ever, and the street performance delivers another fantastic musical sequence, proving that last week’s audition wasn’t just a visual fluke.

Bocchi The Rock Episode 6 continues to up this show’s multi-faceted game. Humor, music, and the highlight of seeing how Hitori’s friends see her all come together to knock this episode out of the park for the would-be rocker and her friends.

Bocchi The Rock Episode 6 is streaming now on Crunchyroll.