It’s been a minute since the last music anime I’ve watched. There have been idol anime that have aired, but while I’ve enjoyed some idol music, I’ve never really been grabbed by series like the Idolmaster franchise. However, after watching Bocchi The Rock, I found myself looking for more rock band anime, so when Rock Is A Lady’s Modesty came up in the schedule, I decided to give it a watch. I found myself getting more than I bargained for, in a good way.
To start things off, this is a show where the title is possibly a little off. Something like Rock Is A Lady’s Release Valve or Rock Is A Lady’s Outlet could work just as well. The show follows Lilisa Suzunomiya, a student at the prestigious all-girls private school for the elite, Oshin Girls’ Academy. Unlike her classmates, she was not born into money–her mother married into it, after some unspecified thing happened causing her to separate from Lilisa’s father. Before that happened, he’d instilled a passion for rock music in her, not just as a fan, but as an aspiring musician. However, with her mom having remarried, as with her now attending this elite school, she thinks she has to leave that part of her life behind her, in order to become the model wealthy heiress so she and her mother don’t appear to be frauds in front of their in-laws.
Except, while exploring the campus, Lilisa discovers an old school building, where, in the music room, she meets one of the most popular girls in her class, and one she considers her rival for the award of the Noble Maiden: Otoha Kurogane. And she finds her playing the drums – rock drums. After a smack talk inspired jam session, they realize that they both need rock music, not just to listen to, but to make it. So, maybe they should form a band.
To be upfront, this show is what I’d describe as Seinen-light. There’s some Sub-Dom dynamic innuendo, but nothing really raunchy. Where it gets real is with a level of profanity that would never, ever fly in a Shojo, or possibly even Josei magazine. After each jam session, and after a couple concerts, Lilisa and Otoha (along with a couple other band members encountered later) unleash some truly hilarious torrents of profanity at their rivals (and occasionally at each other) that would make Sarah Silverman blush. As someone who appreciates a good torrent of cussing, there is some artistry in the cavalcade of obscenity that comes in some of these scenes.
All of this shows rock music, to these characters, as serving as a pressure release from the oppressive world of this elite girls’ school. A form of true self expression in an environment where the self must be denied and condemned to fit within what are, frankly, patriarchal and oppressive views of femininity. In short, the “Noble Maiden” is a bullshit concept, and that sometimes you need to have a way to cut loose – and rock music, performed privately or in public, is a way to do that.
All of this would not be enough to support the series though if the music wasn’t good. Good news: it’s good. The band’s performances themselves are modeled by Band-Maid, doing instrumental covers of various Japanese rock songs, and it looks and sounds wonderful. The songs are strictly from Japanese artists, which probably makes things easier from a licensing standpoint, but it doesn’t matter, because the music sounds great.
Do I like Rock Is A Lady’s Modesty more than Bocchi? I don’t know, it’s mean to make me choose my children like that. Would I want Lilisa’s band (Rock Lady) to meet Kessoku Band (from Bocchi)? Part of me thinks that’d be a really mean thing to do to Bocchi – but it’d also be hilarious.
What I do want is more of both of those shows.
Rock is a Lady’s Modesty is available for streaming on HiDive, and volume one of the manga is available for preorder from Bookshop.org and Books-A-Million. Buying anything through those links supports the site.
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