Heyo folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’ve got my ticket in hand, and am eager to shuffle into Starry for Kessoku Band’s first four-member performance. Well, technically they performed a trial song that one time, but playing for two people is quite a different experience from playing for an unruly live crowd. Fortunately, Bocchi’s recent street performance clearly did some work in bolstering her confidence, and in particular helped her towards a key personal realization: your crowd is not your enemy, they actually want you to succeed.

For most of her musical career so far, Bocchi has essentially treated her desire to play music and connect with fans as something to apologize for – like listening to her music is inherently an imposition, and thus she has to either hide her identity or trick people into paying attention. But with one eye opened towards the street crowd, she is beginning to realize that people actually want to hear her music, and that the experience of playing live is inherently a conversation between musicians and audience.

Many artists struggle with the contradictory desire to be heard and terror of being known, but the reason that struggle is worth it is that nothing can compare to the feeling of seeing someone’s eyes light up in response to something you created, and knowing your ideas and emotions enriched or spoke to them in some way. Now that Bocchi has experienced a brush with that feeling, I’m hopeful it will inspire her to greater confidence on the stage, but would also be perfectly content with more lovingly animated Bocchi freakouts. Let’s get to it!

Episode 7

We open on a variety of “summer” tonal signifiers – the incessant whine of cicadas, a general saturation of white light, and a water bottle tumbling down a vending machine, all leading into Nijika’s declaration that “summer’s in full swing, huh?”

Nijika and Kita are apparently on a journey to Bocchi’s house. Given we basically never see Bocchi’s actual neighborhood, their trip is also serving as a reminder to me of how far Bocchi lives from the big city

A strong contrast is established between each side’s style of anticipation: these girls walking gaily in the sunlight, their body language loose and comfortable, versus Bocchi tensing silently in the gloom of her home

The plan is to design T-shirts for their live show

Ryou declined with one of her signature lies. I really respect how much Ryou does not give a fuck

Bocchi has of course overthought this encounter, and hung a massive banner welcoming them on the side of her house. It is a heartbreaking truth of social anxiety that it often prompts significant overthinking of what exact level of camaraderie or deference others expect from you, when the truth is generally that as long as you seem comfortable, other people will feel comfortable around you – which is of course the one thing socially anxious people generally can’t fake

And of course, “just be your comfortable self” isn’t really helpful advice when you’re not comfortable as yourself, or don’t necessarily like yourself

The storyboards can be so mean to Bocchi. After her goofy introduction bombs, we cut to a sequence of harshly realistic partial body shots, as if we in the audience are plummeting from Bocchi’s fantastical idea of how this would go to the reality of its fallout

Nijika hopes that matching T-shirts might create a sense of band unity

Bocchi’s overbearing decorations mostly just intimidate her fellow bandmates

Then her sister stops by to reveal all her terrible secrets. Goddamnit, Minibocchi

Nijika offers a variety of stickers and colored pencils for designing their T-shirts, explaining she’d also like to sell them as merch. She’s clearly the most band manager-like of the quartet, which is a role every band needs to have filled in some capacity. The truth about playing in a band is that writing, practicing, and performing music is only one of the several jobs you’ve assigned yourself – you also need a marketer, someone to establish relationships with clubs, someone to manage fan relations, etcetera, and for most bands that’s going to be their own responsibility. For my own band, I handled most of the interfacing with DJs and promoters, while our bassist with a music technology degree produced our tracks, and our lead guitarist lived that carefree Ryou life

Holy shit, we actually jump to some bizarre stop-motion animation for Bocchi’s traumatic memories of sports festivals. And it’s not just a random flex – these ominous little stick dolls really do support Bocchi’s conception of the sports festival as some terrible occult ritual

And then a brief flourish of Fist of the North Star-reminiscent background design and linework, just because they can

I wonder who they brought in to animate this bonfire sequence? The KA staff list for every episode of this show is a trove of wonders

Jeez, what is wrong with Bocchi’s parents? The moment they learn she has friends over, they basically perform the same hazing ritual her little sister did. No wonder she doesn’t feel comfortable outside of her closet

Most of the anxiety-related humor in Bocchi comes from a place of understanding, but these two are just outright mocking her. Mean-spirited stuff

Kita’s heartwarming movie choice of course only bums Bocchi out more. See, this is the show’s usual mode: Bocchi’s having a bad time, but her suffering is relatable and self-inflicted

Kita is very nice to Bocchi, but she doesn’t seem to fully understand the extent of Bocchi’s insecurities – she just treats Bocchi like she treats everyone else, and takes Bocchi’s responses at face value. In contrast, Nijika genuinely understands how anxious Bocchi is, and thus she is generally much better at gently nudging Bocchi back towards socialization

Ryou’s sole contribution towards this T-shirt design process is exploiting her bandmates’ goodwill to try and get them to pick her dinner for her. A-plus work, Ryou

Bocchi’s eventual T-shirt design is ripped straight from the aisles of Hot Topic. Her bandmates attempt to let her down gently

Hah, I love this brief cat face Nijika adopts before leaning in to beg Bocchi for a fashion show. In the best anime comedies, every frame of a character reaction is its own unique gift – like the irrepressibly expressive Moriarty in Sherlock Hound, or basically everything that happens in Nichijou

They do indeed get Bocchi out of her tracksuit, and prove that she’s actually cute when she’s wearing conventional clothes. Of course, this just means more eyes on Bocchi, so she’s eager to return to the tracksuit – essentially her mobile version of the closet sanctuary

Having her face exposed transforms Bocchi into the saddest, tiniest Bocchiblob yet. The fallout of this sadness wave exposes Nijika and Kita to withering toxins, killing them both. Kessoku Band is defeated

In the end, they go with Nijika’s band logo idea, which is for the best. Brand recognition demands consistency and simplicity – once you’ve got the logo imprinted in people’s minds, you can think about other designs

Each of them compliment the T-shirt with an element of their own style – Kita’s skirt, Ryou’s cool rocker pants, Bocchi’s inescapable tracksuit bottom

“Shouldn’t we still make the rain charms, just to be safe?” Bocchi’s anxieties are now reflecting her new desires, including her fervent wish to put on this concert. Not being able to play live is now scarier than the alternative

And Done

And so the day of the concert dawns, with thunderous clouds and torrential rain. Well, it wouldn’t be Bocchi if anything was ever easy, but our heroine is certainly expressing more confidence and commitment to live performance. I wasn’t particularly happy with how Bocchi’s family were portrayed in this episode – the show has been towing a careful line in regards to finding humor in Bocchi’s feelings without making her the butt of the joke, and I feel like that material definitely crossed it. Fortunately, that was only a small segment of an episode that was mostly focused on exploring how Bocchi’s relationship with her bandmates has evolved, and that increasing closeness and mutual understanding came through clearly. Good luck, Bocchi!

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