Hello friends, colleagues, my esteemed guests — it’s been a while, huh? I’ve been busy with work and other things and haven’t been too motivated to write something for this good ol’ blog. That is, until the Fall 2022 anime season started.
If I have to be 100% honest, I haven’t been watching that much anime recently. The only stuff I’ve watched have been short anime related to the games I play — stuff like Petit Sekai (the anime short version of Project SEKAI) and Umayuru (the new Uma Musume anime shorts). Nothing over the past few seasons really grabbed my attention, so I’ve just been lurking the anime stratosphere and mostly keeping up with some manga.
But something about this season’s offerings drew me in, so I tried some out. Not the popular shows, like the new season of Boku no Hero Academia or the heavily-hyped Chainsaw Man (though I might give that a shot one day…). Nah, I think the first show I watched was… Pop Team Epic season 2. [Well, technically, it was a spinoff to one of my all-time favorite anime called Tatami Time Machine Blues but that started before the season technically started so ackchyually it doesn’t count.]
But that’s not all! Of course I had to watch the new season of Mob Psycho 100 complete with banger OP (callback to my last post about my favorite anime OPs and EDs…). And hey, sequels weren’t the only appealing thing airing this season — how about a new original anime? Why not Do It Yourself? And to top it off, how about another new cute girls doing cute things (CGDCT) show? How about… Bocchi the Rock?
Well, guess which one I ended up finishing? I’ll give you a hint, it’s in the title of this post.
I could go on a whole spiel about why I loved Bocchi the Rock from its comedy to its cinematography and innovative use of different mediums, but there’s a whole bunch of blogs out there who can describe it way better than I can (like this). At first when the season started, I wanted to write something about how Bocchi and DIY both have main characters (MCs) that stray from the usual character trope of either peppy ball of energy or painfully average and unconfident. But as the season went on and DIY started being pretty mid for me, I realized there was a better topic to discuss, something near and dear to my heart.
Said topic is connected with this anime’s main character, Hitori “Bocchi” Gotoh. If you haven’t watched the show, first off, what are you doing with your life?? Go watch it now! Anyway, let’s just say she’s the poster child of /r/me_irl: has social anxiety and absolutely no social life. In other words, an introvert. Easy as that.
…Or is it? Let’s dive a bit deeper.
What is Introversion?
Well according to our friend/overlord Google:
From this you might assume introversion is being shy, so introvert = shy. Done. Easy.
WRONG.
I’m seriously not a fan this definition, because introversion and shyness are two totally different things. If you research further (AKA click any of the links to sites defining introversion), you’ll see that it’s a bit more complicated. The term introversion was popularized by famous psychiatrist Carl Jung as an “attitude-type characterised by orientation in life through subject psychic contents”, with its counterpart extroversion as “an attitude-type characterised by concentration of interest on the external object”.
In normal person words, introversion is the mindset of being comfortable focusing on inner thoughts/ideas, while extroversion is the mindset of being comfortable around others. One important note is that introversion and extroversion are seen as two opposite ends of a spectrum, meaning someone can fall between the two extremes (and most people do, actually).
Personally, I’ve always thought of it like an internal battery: introverts recharge their battery by being alone or in small groups and use up their battery being overstimulated in large groups, while extroverts are the opposite, recharging their battery being stimulated by large groups and using that battery being alone or in small groups.
Shyness, on the other hand, is more about the fear of social judgement (its counterpart, outgoingness, is the lack of that fear). You can see how the two could be connected, but they definitely are NOT the same. You can be both outgoing and an introvert, or shy and an extrovert (which sounds like a horrible combination). I think this article does a wonderful job of explaining the differences and providing good examples of situations with these different groups. Here’s the TL;DR from them:
And if you’re still confused, here’s a helpful meme, complete with some characters from the show:
Bocchi the Rock and Introversion: Some Case Studies
So now that we went into the technical stuff, the question becomes “is Bocchi shy or an introvert?” The answer is yes.
…Ok, ok, save your boos for later. I know that sounds like a cop-out answer, but it’s true — she’s both shy and an introvert. The former is 100% obvious, and we could even go a step further and say she has social anxiety, which I personally consider an advanced form of shyness (don’t quote me on that I’m not a doctor). As for the latter, that’s best shown in the end of the first episode when she flakes out of the afterparty because she had too much social interaction for the day, but there are definitely tons of examples sprinkled throughout the show.
This is a good example of why I think people confuse introversion and shyness — Bocchi is one of possibly thousands of characters that are both, and there’s really not that many characters out there that are only one or the other. People see characters described as introverts acting shy and correlate the two thinking they’re one and the same when news flash: they’re not. It’s why I appreciate the non-shy introverts whenever they show up in any media form.
So then you might be thinking, “well what do those non-shy introverts look like?”. Great question, reader!
The good news is we don’t have to look far for an example — Bocchi’s fellow bandmate Ryou Yamada is absolutely an introvert and not shy at the same time. What a twist! She prefers to spend her time alone going to record stores and actively declines invitations to hang out from classmates with outlandish excuses, which is 100% introvert. As for the non-shy angle, she’s definitely not the type to approach others on her own, but she can hold her own in social settings which is more than we can say for our pink tracksuit-wearing MC.
Another pretty good example of a non-shy introvert is a fellow blue-haired character, Rin Shima from Yuru Camp. I mean, look at her role in the show — the experienced solo camper. If that doesn’t scream introvert, I don’t know what does.
At the same time, though, she’s absolutely not shy. Look at how she first interacts with the other main characters in the show — not in a panic or anxious. No, she holds her own similar to Ryou. Her adorkableness is an added bonus.
It’s also worth going into the other bandmates since they’re all a bit unique from each other. Ikuyo “Kita” Kita is absolutely the complete opposite of Hitori — outgoing and extroverted (the former with how easily she approached Bocchi during their initial meeting, the latter from her easily inviting people to their show and going out seemingly every day with friends during their summer vacation).
Nijika Ichiji is probably the most complex of the group, but she’s definitely not shy given she approached Bocchi in the first episode out of the blue. Definitely more outgoing but not Kitan~~ levels.
As for introversion vs. extraversion, I can honestly see her going either way on the spectrum — she works at the live house where tons of people gather, so she’s not totally introverted, but she’s also grouped with the indoor people during their trip to Enoshima. It’s hard to say with such limited info, but if I had to choose, I’d say right in the middle. In other words, an interchangeable E/I in the MBTI test (which is honestly pretty bunk).
So what?
Well, I hope this was a helpful look at something you probably didn’t give two carps about. Hopefully you learned something and can apply it in the future. I encourage you to really think the next time you see a character — are they really an introvert, or are they just shy? Maybe they truly are both! But always remember: there is a difference.
And hopefully I don’t have to cringe from seeing another “OMG that’s such an introvert thing!!!1!” related to shyness.
Thanks for reading this short post! It’s something I’ve wanted to write for a while now, and I’m glad to finally have it all written out. I have no promises about when I’ll post again because let’s face it — I’m inconsistent as hell with all this. See y’all in a few months, I guess? Until then, thanks again for reading and stay safe out there.
Fractals and Recursion 