February 21 marks the birthday of Hitori “Bocchi” Goto from BOCCHI THE ROCK, and the author revealed an adorable 2025 illustration to commemorate the occasion. The introverted lead guitarist and lyricist from Kessoku Band, can be seen holding a cake, with numerous different versions of the character (casual, Bocchila, maid, worm) appearing.
BOCCHI THE ROCK Season 2 TV anime was recently announced. The first season’s assistant director Yusuke Yamamoto will be directing the sequel, taking over the first season’s Keichiro Saito (known for directing Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End). Studio CloverWorks will again be animating.
You can see the new Bocchi illustration below.
Aki Hamazi writes and draws the original Bocchi the Rock 4-panel manga, which began in 2018. The first season of the anime adaptation was also animated by CloverWorks and ran 12 episodes from October to December 2022. Crunchyroll is streaming the anime, describing the story:
Hitori Gotoh, “Bocchi-chan,” is a girl who’s so introverted and shy around people that she’d always start her conversations with “Ah…”
During her middle school years, she started playing the guitar, wanting to join a band because she thought it could be an opportunity for even someone shy like her to also shine. But because she had no friends, she ended up practicing guitar for six hours every day all by herself.
After becoming a skilled guitar player, she uploaded videos of herself playing the guitar to the internet under the name “Guitar Hero” and fantasized about performing at her school’s cultural festival concert. But not only could she not find any bandmates, before she knew it, she was in high school and still wasn’t able to make a single friend!
She was really close to becoming a shut-in, but one day, Nijika Ijichi, the drummer in Kessoku Band, reached out to her. And because of that, her everyday life started to change little by little…
Source: Aki Hamazi via X
Featured image: BOCCHI THE ROCK © AKIHAMAZI/HOUBUNSHA, ANIPLEX
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