Pop Team Epic manga author Bkub Okawa honored the Bocchi the Rock ending video with a rather unique illustration of Popuko. The illustration features Popuko flipping off the viewers, in Pop Team Epic’s true fashion, but with a color scheme and style that clearly matches Bocchi the Rock. In the original video, Ikuyo Kita raises her index finger.
Haruka Suzuki, the animation director of the ending video, and Aki Hamaji, the author of Bocchi the Rock manga, reacted to the visual post with “😌🖕”. Suzuki noted in a different tweet: “That is, in truth, the index finger lol I’m sorry…!!!😌🖕.” In Okawa’s illustration Pipimi is also shown while pointing out that Popuko (or the author) seems to be easily influenced.
Ikuyo’s scene is acknowledged to some extent, playfully, as the middle finger among fans. On Nico Nico Doga, for example, users can type comments in videos, which will be shown to other viewers, and often when this scene in the Bocchi the Rock shows up, the comments are filled with “the finger” emojis. Check out the ending video:
Bkub Okawa has been running the Pop Team Epic series on Takeshobo’s Manga Life WIN manga website, and the anime’s second season is currently airing.
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Aki Hamaji has been drawing the Bocchi the Rock 4-koma manga in Hobunsha’s monthly magazine Manga Time Kirara Max. The series released the fifth compiled volume on November 26, 2022. The anime has been airing since October 8.
Crunchyroll is streaming the anime this season and describes the plot as:
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: Official Twitter
© Bkub Okawa / Takeshobo © Aki Hamaji / Hobunsha, Aniplex