Bocchi the Rock! Movie

(Minor spoilers ahead)

It's Bocchi the Rock, but this time it's a movie. What more is there to say?

In all seriousness, the two films (Re: and Re:Re:) are worthwhile viewings for any fan of the series. If you can catch them in theaters, it is a wonderful experience, watching Bocchi on the big screen and hearing the music over loud theater speakers. If you can't, it's still a worthwhile watch for a few new scenes and songs, and the movies' unique framing of the story.

The movies (especially Re:) are framed differently from the series, and it was interesting to see how they were compiled for a ... theatrical experience. A few of the moments that are less central to the overall story were relegated to montages featuring some songs from the Kessoku Band album that previously weren't featured in the anime. One episode, however, was totally cut (the one where they go to Bocchi's house).

I didn't feel like these changes hurt the experience, as the movies clearly were meant to focus more on Bocchi and Kessoku Band's overarching story and less on the fun slice of life moments (of which there are still plenty in the movie), and I feel they succeeded in that. That being said, I'd recommend that someone new to Bocchi the Rock watch the series first before watching these movies.

The final scene of Re:Re:, where (spoilers incoming) the entire series is rewinded back to when Bocchi was an elementary school child, was very touching as a Bocchi the Rock fan. We see Bocchi's growth in reverse, which makes you really realize how far she has come. A perfect ending to a movie all about Bocchi and her growth as a guitarist and as a person.

Let's hope that, following the success of these films, a Season 2 is announced soon!

For starters, it is an abridged compilation of (roughly) the first 8 episodes of the main show. The movie makes it very clear that this is a compilation by the Japanese title calling it 総集編 and Re: (the next movie is also a compliation called Re:Re: lol), but for whatever reason it was not translated into the English title. Cramming 8 eps into a 90 min film makes the story less impactful and detailed, but that's to be expected. (So the 2nd movie is just gonna be 4 episodes worth of plot??) There's also a new original song as the ending theme. That being said ... it does have very little new animation even compared to other compilation movies.

Animes make compliation movies for a lot of reasons - some fans just wanna watch it again in theatre, some people wanna watch(or rewatch) the anime but don't wanna go through all the episodes, etc. There's for sure money reasons, but I wouldn't call it a cash grab because the title (at least in JP) makes it pretty clear this movie is a compilation and popular animes getting compilation movies is nothing out of the norm.

Idk if the two movies are building the foundation for a second season (tbh frieren, also directed by Saito, is more likely to get a 2nd season than bocchi, but also I'd argue bocchi needs Saito less than Frieren). Kamisama lease gimme 2nd season.

This is exactly what you'd expect it to be. It's a summary of most of the events in the anime. It's not bad exactly, but it skips over a lot of scenes and misses a ton of the character development and gags. For example, at the end of the second episode, they skipped the scene where Bocchi manages to make eye with a customer and serves them without having a mental breakdown. It isn't really a big deal since the scene isn't exactly significant to the plot and she's not able to do anything similar to it for the rest of the season, but ... BTR is infamous for it's microscopic details. But because this is a recap, they don't have time for it. Again, it's not horrible, even for a recap they manage to get in a lot of the smaller gags and details, but if you've never seen BTR before then you definitely should not watch this. That being said, if you have watched BTR before, then yeah, might as well watch this if you've forgotten the plot before season 2. Just put it on 2x speed.