Anime Orbit is an irregular column where I summarize a stop along my journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of popular culture over the past week. Expect spoilers for covered material, where relevant.

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What we’ve basically got here, in BOCCHI THE ROCK!‘s third episode, is an adorable little tale about how mistakes are rarely as big in reality as we make them in our minds, and how even people who really seem like they’ve “got it together” only occasionally actually do. Along the way, BOCCHI THE ROCK! continues to casually be one of the best-looking anime in a season that is not lacking for visual style. Witness the series go all-in on one-off gags by shifting art styles, waving around paper cut-outs on popsicle sticks or even weaving in tiny snippets of live action footage for additional effect.

Really though, none of that would be half as impressive without the character work on display here. As with any comedy, dissecting why Bocchi is funny kills the humor somewhat, but it is again worth circling back around to this idea of Hitori as the Ultimate Introvert. A constantly-fretting ball of anxiety who frequently blows things up beyond all reason in her own head, only to be taken aback when it turns out that no one is actually out to get her. It is, as I mentioned back in my writeup for the premiere, an immensely relatable feeling.

This episode centers around Ikuyo Kita (Ikumi Hasegawa), who Hitori is trying to recruit into her band as a second guitarist and vocalist. Her initial attempts go so poorly that she spends a memorable scene hiding in shame under the stairs at her high school, and laments her lack of social skills the only way she knows how; playing the guitar and singing while an imaginary music video plays in her mind.

^{Hitori from Bocchi the Rock 🤝 Eve from Birdie Wing
causing random music videos wherever they go.}

Kita is, in theory, Hitori’s total opposite; an irrepressible little firecracker of pure energy who gets along with just about everybody. But, as it turns out, she and Hitori have more in common than may first be obvious.

Like, a lot more.

“Kita is the guitarist who previously bailed on the band Hitori is now in” more.

As we find out, Kita cannot actually play the guitar. She lied about being able to, and joined the band to get closer to Ryo. And I want to be clear here; when I say she “joined to get closer to Ryo,” I mean she has a big-ass gay crush on Ryo and wanted literally any reason to be near her. This is not subtext.

^{Wow, a preppy girl falling for the slightly butch bass player. Surely this is a unique circumstance in history, never to be repeated.}

We also learn that another reason Kita flaked out on being in the band is that, incredibly, she does not even own a guitar. She thought she did, and much is made of Hitori’s correct deduction that she’s been practicing this entire time just by feeling the calluses on her hands, but in one of the series’ comparatively more low-key gags, it turns out that she actually bought a six-string bass. Thankfully, at episode’s end, Ryo buys it off of her and she gets an actual guitar instead.

Which, yes, of course things resolve themselves cleanly. (Why wouldn’t they? If you want emotional devastation there are other shows airing this season for that.) Hitori spends some time worrying that Kita might replace her at the club, since she seems to be better at most of the club work than Hitori herself is, but that quickly dissolves when the aforementioned callus plot point rears its head. Hitori ends the episode as Kita’s new guitar teacher, and the band grows into a proper quartet, where it will likely stay for the rest of the series.

The rest of the girls take Kita’s deception in stride, and Nijika reasons that if she hadn’t done all that, she and Ryo wouldn’t have met Hitori. Forgiveness comes easy because, well, none of this was ever a huge deal in the first place. It was just mildly inconvenient. Bocchi the Rock! is developing a running subtheme, almost, about how these things seem so much more important in our own heads than they ever are to the people around us.

But in a more general sense, the series continues to be warm, personable, and full of charm. Here’s to looking forward to the rest of the season.

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