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The author very clearly has real life experiences that shine through in Bocchi the Rock!

Disregard any first impression of this anime following a K-On! format. It heavily follows Bocchi's (the MC) thought processes as she struggles with acute anxiety, among other things. Social anxiety is portrayed perfectly in Bocchi the Rock!. Even the progression of starting an amateur band hits home. The sound and music are all fantastic and leaves one excited to hear the main characters' band's next performance.

However, this isn't a show that's jam-packed with band rehearsals and gigs. Not yet, anyway. Life's not that simple for Bocchi.

The main cast is all-female. ... In fact, almost every character on the show is female. And as Bocchi thought-spirals into a depression-hole again and again, her bandmates and her new friends are learning her quirks, and they do their part in pulling her back to reality before their next rehearsal, gig, or even for a stroll through the town.

Simply and beautifully animated, the muted color palettes that work well with the content. The studio also employs mixed media to portray the MC's inner monologues reminiscent of Shaft studio (Madoka Magica).

I'm not someone who recommends things. You'll either watch it and immediately understand or you won't.

Great art and soundtrack.

Horrible female characters.

There might be some spoilers but I need to stress how terribly represented these characters were.

First of all she ****s a wolf and gets pregnant while in college, which ruins her entire life in hindsight, but under the guise that she is "strong and determined" she makes it out to be some kind of blessing. Anyway so run out of town with no employment, she somehow with her savings buys and maintains a wicked nice house and plot of land just because its a bit dilapidated. Meanwhile she shows very little personality save for swooning over wolf dick ... and worrying about her kids. I was hoping she would go back to school or something or show some kind of personality and live an actual life not just "I am woman, must raise kids".

Her kids are the main characters hence the name of the show, and the girl of course falls in love with a boy who basically stalks and assaults her when they first meet. And when she falls in love her entire personality goes completely out the window and she becomes this meek, sallow individual rather than the wolf-like rambunctious character that we met at first, which was a saving grace of the film.

That pissed me off like get a woman to write your female characters next time. Summer Wars was great from what I can remember. This movie however fucking sucked.

The easiest way to convey what mind state you should read this manga in is that it is like South Park but for Japan. Every chapter has a new dysfunction of society or psychological disorder that is poked fun at and trivialized in a way that makes people afflicted with these dysfunctions laugh at themselves, a much needed remedy. The first chapter opens up with suicide being the main joke, a huge problem in Japanese society being suicide rates. This joke often comes back to in the form of the main character falling into despair over various aforementioned social or personal dysfunctions.

Each volume is sub-titled ... "The Power of Negative Thinking", negativity being a constant personality trait of the MC's.

The twist on it being a straight up social commentary is that the MC is the quirky teacher of a quirky group of curious students, mostly females, all who have something wrong with them to say the least. They are all infatuated with Itoshiki Nozomu their teacher, and time and again are completely thrown off by his sudden outbursts. It is almost as if he intentionally derails their thoughts every episodes with his own "band-aid thought" of the subject. His silly little comforts often drive them crazy or make them unimpressed, but they still pay attention to him.

The other MC is a girl who is super positive and often comes around when he is hanging his head in despair. Their dynamic usually leads to her positivity overwhelming the situation, sometimes not to a good end result (each chapter ends with an often whacky punchline, making fun of "explosive ending" or "it was a dream all along" tropes").

I enjoyed the representation by each of the characters of separation anxiety, OCD, dissociative identity disorder, guilt complex, acute social anxiety, manic depression, toxic positivity, truancy, and many others by the characters. For a mangaka these disorders are actually represented surprisingly realistically.

A lot of jokes fly over my head being American but I still find the ones I understand hilarious and relatable.

You either understand it right away and fall in love, or are confused by the pacing and seeming lack of plot. I fell in love clearly lol 10/10