Relation to Band Culture–In the first place, did you two have any experiences relating to band activities and/or experienced live music culture before you appeared in "Bocchi the Rock!” ?Aoyama: The main character, Bocchi, has never played in a band at all and she’s never listened to music from the perspective of whether she could become popular or not. So in the first episode, “Bocchi Rolling”,Bocchi felt fear when she visited the live house, STARRY, with Nijika Ichiji. I felt the same thing. People who play in a rock band seem to be a little bit delinquent. They look flashy, and you might not be able to approach them casually, like ....... I think I was similar to Bocchi-chan.
—Aoyama-san, Have you ever played the guitar before the YouTube guitar project ("Road to Guitar Hero")?Aoyama: I had never touched a guitar at all. In that project, I was given a guitar and asked to learn how to play "Seishun Complex. It was a tenacious project. All the post recording was done, but we started without knowing how much Bocchi-chan was portrayed as a guitar prodigy.
Mizuno: I have some experience with guitar. When I was in elementary school, a rock musician taught me how to play the guitar, and the first kind of guitar I touched was an electric guitar, which got me hooked on playing guitars. I also tried playing the bass guitar once, but it took me a long time to learn how to play it, and I didnt continue. But I was able to play rock guitars rather smoothly. I joined a band when I was in high school, but we were in the countryside, so there were not many places to practice, but I made friends with the band members and also got closer to the studio staff.
At that time, I felt a connection that only people in a rock band can have, and I thought it was similar to the relationship between Nijika and Ryo Yamada. Ryo-san says out of the blue things that other people might wonder what she is talking about, but she and Nijika are able to rally around each other due to their connection with each other. It is like a family, isn't it?
— I see. So you were able to use your experience of learning guitar and playing in a band in this animation?Mizuno: I think so. I had hoped to be able to use some of my experience of playing music in a band someday, so I am glad I was able to. I played in a band once at a school cultural festival.
Aoyama: That is exactly like “ Bocchi the Rock!”
Mizuno: It was a girls' band, and I made a band with my classmates. There was a girl who played drums, and she knew that I could play guitar, so she asked me to join her. We played guitar, drums, and keyboards, and I was the singer, too.
Aoyama: That's cool! You were a real band member!
Mizuno: That's not true (laughs). But I was really nervous. At the scene of the school festival in this anime, there were a lot of people. In reality, I don't think it is very common to have that many people gathered, so I was really impressed by Kessoku Band.
— In the latter half of the series, there was the story of the school's Cultural Festival. It was a really great episode, wasn't it? I myself played in a band, and had a live performance at a Cultural Festival when I was in high school, so I felt nostalgic of the tension, excitement, and the atmosphere of the day by watching the episode.Aoyama: I was very moved. The entire cast watched the final episode, "Kimi ni Asa ga Fururu" (Morning Comes Down to You) together. Normally, the story starts with the opening song or the title of the episode, but the 12th episode started with the performance. I was first impressed by the fact that it set up the viewers to feel as if they were spectators at the Shuka High School Culture Festival. Starting that scene is very crafty. Then, in the performance scene, they added the school scene and the scene where Bocchi was a slug in the corner in the background. “Bocchi the Rock!” is a story of Bocchi-chan's coming-of-age story, but it is also a story of the life of Kessoku Band, and I thought it was really good that it didn't go too far in either direction. I was crying so hard.
Mizuno: Yes. I did, too.
Aoyama: Seriously, everyone was crying. But everyone was so focused on the animation and thought that only they were crying. When the commercial break came, they realized that others were crying. It was really funny. It was like a graduation ceremony.
Mizuno: On the lyric card of Kessoku Band album, there are four colored circles representing each member, and as you turn the page, the three members get closer and closer, but only Bocchi-chan's color can't get closer, but eventually the four get closer. When I saw the scene of the Cultural Festival in the last episode, I felt that there was still a sense of loneliness from Bocchi-chan.
Aoyama: She is a little apart from everyone else.
Mizuno: That's right. When I saw that, I thought that Bocchi-chan was still feeling alone, but the story itself ended with the continuation of daily life after that. I felt that the story ended with the four of them coming together in the end, which made the story more touching.
Aoyama: (laughs) Normally, it would have ended the story with the bang with a scene of the school festival live performance. However I was surprised when I received the script that the performance scene was just in part A and they included a scene of part B where everyone goes to buy musical instruments together. I think a live performance is something special for a band. Musicians spend their usual everyday lives for special occasions. I can imagine that by ending with that scene of going shopping, that shows this band will be moving on to something new and special. If it ended with the live scene, it would end up being special. But the fact that there is still room to imagine the hope that something special might be waiting for them is truly divine.
Mizuno: I cried during the live performance scene, laughed during scenes of their daily lives, and cried again at the end.
Aoyama: I don't think there is any animation that ends with the line, "Another day at work, huh?” I think that was the best final episode ever.
Photo by Mitsuru Nishimura
