A Bocchi the Rock! prequel movie is officially on the way. The film, titled Bocchi the Rock! Hoshi no Ashiato, was announced on November 1 through the franchise's official website with a first teaser trailer and a teaser visual, and it turns the clock back to Nijika Ijichi and her older sister Seika, before Kessoku Band ever existed.
The 33-second teaser keeps the focus on the two sisters, offering the first animated look at their younger days. The teaser visual released alongside it shows the pair together under the film's tagline, "BEFORE KESSOKU BAND EVER EXISTED— A STORY OF TWO SISTERS' DREAMS, BEGINNING WITH A FAREWELL."
Watch the first teaser trailer for the film below:
Two cast members have been announced so far, and both are familiar voices. Sayumi Suzushiro returns as Nijika Ijichi, while Maaya Uchida voices her older sister Seika Ijichi, the manager of the STARRY live house.
CloverWorks returns to animate the film. Shin Wakabayashi directs, Erika Yoshida handles the script, and Yukiko Horiguchi designs the characters. The movie adapts the prequel story included at the end of the manga's fifth volume, which follows the Ijichi sisters long before Nijika founded her band.
What is Bocchi the Rock! about?
Bocchi the Rock! is a comedy, music and slice of life series based on Aki Hamazi's four-panel manga, serialized in Houbunsha's Manga Time Kirara MAX since 2018 and collected into eight volumes as of November 2025. Yen Press releases the manga in English. The TV anime premiered in 2022, two compilation films followed in 2024, and a second season is in production.
Here is Crunchyroll's description of the first season of Bocchi the Rock! TV anime:
Hitori Gotoh, “Bocchi-chan,” is a girl who’s so introverted and shy around people that she’d always start her conversations with “Ah…” During her middle school years, she started playing the guitar, wanting to join a band because she thought it could be an opportunity for even someone shy like her to also shine. But because she had no friends, she ended up practicing guitar for six hours every day all by herself. After becoming a skilled guitar player, she uploaded videos of herself playing the guitar to the internet under the name “Guitar Hero” and fantasized about performing at her school’s cultural festival concert. But not only could she not find any bandmates, before she knew it, she was in high school and still wasn’t able to make a single friend! She was really close to becoming a shut-in, but one day, Nijika Ijichi, the drummer in Kessoku Band, reached out to her. And because of that, her everyday life started to change little by little…
Bocchi the Rock! Hoshi no Ashiato opens in Japanese theaters in 2027.
Source: official website of Bocchi the Rock! Hoshi no Ashiato
