Bocchi the Rock Ch. 82 - Stressed Bocchi and Weird Adults

Written by Rei Caldombra 11/8/24 - Previous chapter: https://www.blogunderalog.com/blog-collection/bocchi-the-rock-ch-81-review

Back with Bocchi the Rock, and we’ve got a super fun and silly chapter this time around friends.

We start off with Bocchi lamenting over her 3rd year of high school starting. As she has expressed many times, she wants to get rich off the band so she doesn’t have to go to high school anymore. But this is a good manga and sadly Bocchi is not in an actual Manga in universe, so Bocchi does not conveniently have everything she wants handed to her. While she still has a similar motivation, her way of thinking has changed since earlier in the series. She now enjoys the company of Kita and her friends, so she is afraid of NOT having them around rather than being afraid of them being around. And now that she is seeing the reality check of Ryo being kicked out of the house after her graduation, she realizes that could happen to her too once she is no longer a student. So she is stuck between two different ways of continuing her life that have positives and negatives. The uncertainty of your future pretty much becomes a constant worry once you reach high school and beyond, so it makes sense for someone as mentally unstable as Bocchi to still be taking it hard even after becoming more mature over the course of the story. Bocchi spiriling through anxiety about her future also fits perfectly with the main plot of this chapter.

Best drunk girl Kikuri is back with her usual drunken antics. Calling back to their first meeting, Bocchi has to help Kikuri get off the ground by treating her to some cup clam chowder (they don’t say it is clam in this scene but you can read it on the cup) as Kikuri has lost her bass and mistakes a different object for Bocchi. Bocchi starts with a lie to try to escape, but then caves and gives in to Kikuri’s desire. Jimihen, being the good boi he is, recognizes Kikuri as dangerous and bites Hiroi. This along with the joke of Jimihen being the one walking Bocchi while she is comatose from her mental anxiety spiral are really funny. But Kikuri’s introduction to Jimihen is just the beginning of Kikuri meeting the Gotoh family.

Kikuri meeting Bocchi’s family is absolutely hilarious, I’ve been hoping this would happen. Kikuri is treated very kindly by Bocchi’s family, they appreciate her being a mentor to Bocchi. Bocchi’s dad loves when Kikuri smashes equipment like “old rockers”. This tracks with him encouraging Bocchi to get smashable guitars after she accidentally breaks the guitar at the school festival concert. He’s an old rocker himself.

If you haven’t read the Kikuri manga or picked up on the subtext about her character you may think Kikuri is just a dumb drunk stumbling through life without thought, but she is very self-aware of her behavior. And to be clear, I love Kikuri as a character and the jokes I make at her expense is not actually thinking she is a bad person. I love her enough that I will be doing a writeup and video fully focused on Kikuri!

She may be a drunkard but she knows that she should not be replicated 1 to 1. Bocchi’s parents are good ones overall but they are not exactly the best at discouraging potentially problematic behavior. She gets along with dad thanks to for her crazy rocker status, and she gets along with Bocchi’s mom because she is also apparently a heavy drinker. Bocchi turning out like Kikuri may be inevitable when you have both halves and the whole as adult figures in her life. We already see that influence with Bocchi saying her moms old drinking title is cool. This scene also re-contextualizes Bocchi’s fantasy of the future she had before having the street concert with Kikuri. In a reality where the band fell apart, she imagined herself as a shut in who just drinks all day. The reveal of how Bocchi’s dad and mom met is actually cute, when mom saw that dad was getting pressured to drink, she jumped in to take it all.

Futari shows up next. At least we know Futari has a good head on her shoulders as she quickly recognizes Kikuri as the suspicious type of person that she should make sure everyone around her knows is close to a child. Next Kikuri prompts Bocchi to do a gag like she thinks Futari was doing, so Bocchi imitates Tokugawa Leyasu’s frowning portrait. I don’t believe this has any particular significance, it could just be a historical image the author likes and wanted to replicate. It being about frowning could represent how she is miserable at this moment.

Which leads into the best moment of the chapter. Momma Gotoh is very drunk now and decides she’s jumping into the impression game. She pretends to be a new child in the Gotoh family, continuing the funny trend of the childrens names literally just meaning “1st, 2nd, 3rd person”. I’m thinking Bocchi’s mom says she hates carrots is because children stereotypically hate vegetables, and uncooked carrots are a common one they hate (fun fact, children tend to hate vegetables because they are wired to have stronger reactions to bitter things).

Kikuri being instantly sobered by the power of Bocchi’s Mom’s cringe is insane and absolutely hysterical.

Absolutely everyone cringes from Bocchi’s mom, and Kikuri goes straight into one of her anxiety spirals filled with very relatable worries for me and my generation (I’m the same age as Kikuri). Bocchi has no choice but to go along and suffer, but the silver lining is that this horrible experience makes the school day tomorrow seem easier. Futari has leveled many insults against Bocchi but she still does love her sister, even if she is like a gloomy bug.

Thankfully Shima shows up to save Bocchi from these weird adults, her being one of the only high-functioning ones in this story. She tracked Kikuri here and prepared a gift for the poor family suffering through her presence. Hearing that Kikuri was sobered, Shima wants to know how to obtain this power. But not wanting the adult cringe to spread, Bocchi hides it. This world is truly over if even Shima cannot be relied upon to be normal.

Not a ton to say here, this was a funny and wacky chapter filled with the adults of this world being stupid and Bocchi suffering with her anxiety of the future and from being around said adults. This chapter also reminds us of how similar Bocchi and Kikuri are, hopefully, she won’t turn out as bad in the end when it comes to being an irresponsible drunk, but with the positives, such as her being a good mentor. Though we already know she can be a good mentor thanks to Ame (which I’ve talked about in my other chapter reviews).

I love these dumb anxious mentally unwell goobers

Thanks for reading!

My Patreon if you would like to support me and the website (which now has a poll you can vote in as a paid member, and by becoming at least a free patron you can get email notification for when I post on the website): patreon.com/ReiCaldombra

I talked about Bocchi’s dad in: https://www.blogunderalog.com/blog-collection/appreciating-wholesome-dads-in-anime

Previous chapter: https://www.blogunderalog.com/blog-collection/bocchi-the-rock-ch-81-review