A teaser trailer released on Sunday confirmed that Aki Hamaji’s four-panel comedy manga Bocchi the Rock! is on its way to the big screen next year. The new anime film, titled Eiga Bocchi the Rock! Hoshi no Ashiato (Bocchi the Rock! the Movie: Footprints of the Stars), is scheduled to open in 2027.
A Story About Seika Ijichi
Rather than retelling the main series, the film draws from “Hoshi ni Tamukeru Ai no Hana,” a special story printed at the end of the fifth manga volume. That chapter looks back at a prologue to the main events and puts the spotlight on Seika, the older sister of Nijika Ijichi. Fans who have followed the band’s story only through the television series will get a closer look at the family history behind it.
The Team Behind the Bocchi the Rock! movie
CloverWorks is producing the movie, with Shin Wakabayashi, known for Wonder Egg Priority, in the director’s chair. Erika Yoshida, whose credits include Maebashi Witches and Trickster, returns from the television anime to write the screenplay. Yukiko Horiguchi, a veteran of K-ON!, Lucky Star and Tamako Market, handles character designs.
The rest of the core staff includes:
- Stylist: Hiroaki Iriyama
- Color Key Artist: Kazuko Nakashima
- Art Director: Yuki Funagakure
- Compositing Director of Photography: Yūya Sakuma
- Editing: Daisuke Hiraki
- Sound Director: Akiko Fujita
- Graphic Design: Yūto Hama
- Distributor: Animec
From Manga Page to Franchise Powerhouse
The English edition from Yen Press introduces Hitori Goto, a painfully shy girl who spent all of middle school mastering the guitar and building a modest, anonymous YouTube following, all in the hope that someone else would approach her first. Nobody at school cares about her guitar, and she is ready to give up until Nijika Ijichi finds her sulking in a playground and begs her to fill in for her band’s unreliable guitarist at their first live show.
The manga inspired a television anime that premiered in October 2022. A concert in February 2025 revealed a second season, with Yūsuke Yamamoto taking over as director from Keiichirō Saitō and Keito Oda joining Kerorira on character design. The franchise has also done well in theaters. Bocchi the Rock! Re:, the first of two compilation films, opened on June 7, 2024, and sold 140,000 tickets for 218,470,888 yen (about US$1.38 million) in its first three days. The second, Re:Re:, followed on August 9, 2024.
Hamaji started the manga in Houbunsha’s Manga Time Kirara Max in December 2017, and it is still running. Houbunsha shipped the eighth compiled volume on November 27, while Yen Press shipped its seventh English volume on November 11.
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