Bocchi the Rock!: Hitori Gotoh (INFP)

Bocchi the Rock! is about a character named Hitori Gotoh (who appears to be an INFP) that dreams about being a part of a band. The show centers around four characters, but most don’t get a significant amount of character development, since Hitori Gotoh is the primary focus. We considered multiple types for Hitori Gotoh (also called Bocchi), but ultimately settled on INFP. This character is given a lot of internal dialogue throughout the series, which made it fairly easy to decide on a specific personality type. We believe INFP is the popular opinion on Hitori Gotoh, so this conclusion shouldn’t be controversial, but of course, you’re welcome to share your opinion in the comments.

Fi:

“In fact, my identity, my entire identity, is crumbling.”

“Rock resonates as the music of the perpetual underdog. Is it really rock if it’s sung by life’s winners?”

“I personally find status-quo-affirming lyrics annoyingly irresponsible, but…”

Bocchi lives in her internal world of values and emotions. Introversion is this character is obvious and extreme, to the extent that she is stuck in a Fi-Si loop at the beginning. She’s withdrawn from the world, drowning herself in music and occasionally writing songs about her emotional experiences. (Her internal world is highly dramatic.) When interacting with others, she struggles to stay fully present, since her focus is primarily internal.

While she finds it difficult to go against the flow in social settings, internally Bocchi has strong preferences and opinions, which tie closely to her identity. For instance, she views rock as the music for the underdog and doubts the validity of rock music that’s sung by “winners”. Of course, she takes this a step farther and ceases to like a band once she finds out that it’s popular. Similarly, she views status-go-affirming lyrics to be irresponsible. Values such as these essentially place a greater focus on individuality and encourage isolation from others, which indicates Fi rather than Fe.

Bocchi struggles to act outside of her typical character, and is prone to viewing attempts to do so as a breach in her identity. For instance, she notices that Kita would make a good addition to the band, but freaks out at the idea of asking her. She makes the statement that her “entire identity is crumbling.” She makes similar identity-centric statements at other points in the show.

Ne:

“Meanwhile, I’m in a potato-quality tracksuit with a real bear of a set of bags under my eyes, and a back as arched as a cat. Wait, do I also smell like mold? I spend so much time in the closet. No, I smell like mothballs. Meanwhile, Nijika-chan smells great. She smells just the way a high school girl should!”

“What if a record producing company is in the audience?”

Bocchi is constantly speculating and running “what if” scenarios. It doesn’t take much for a situation to prompt her to play out an imaginary scenario in her head. For instance, when she’s hanging out at the park, she sees a man sitting alone and makes up a scenario surrounding why he’s there. She ends up empathizing with the man (internally, of course) over a situation that ends up being completely fabricated on her part.

The scenarios that Bocchi plays out inside her mind often end up being far detached from reality. She also plays them out in a lot of detail. For instance, at one point, she considers the possibility that the band fails to be successful, resulting in her needing to get a real job. She assumes that she’s not smart enough for college, and ends up in an office job that moves her to sales in order to get her to quit. From there, she imagines failing at the sales job, getting fired, and living in her box.

Overall, Bocchi’s internal dialogue is nearly constant and often out of sync with observable reality. However, it does allow her to be highly creative, which is especially useful in regard to songwriting.

Si:

“Two more additions to my dark past in one day.”

Bocchi is prone to dwelling on her past, staying in her comfort zone, and relying on routine to distract herself from what’s important. This struggle of hers is extremely pronounced. For instance, she does things like write a song about her past on the spur of the moment, and spend five hours editing video to escape reality. She often opts to fall back on monotony or the known rather than stepping out and risking something new.

As a character who is stuck in a Fi-Si loop, Bocchi struggles to act bold or impulsive in any way. She has a pronounced need to be prepared for new situations. For instance, when two band members come to her house, she feels the need to practice putting up and taking down decorations, along with simulating games of twister so that she can feel fully prepared.

Te:

“I can’t get my priorities in order.”

“Real life is scary.”

Bocchi struggles to take meaningful steps towards completing her goals. From the beginning of the show, Bocchi declares that she wants to start a band, but over a long period of time, she fails to make any realistic effort to do so. She doesn’t define steps, or make a plan; she basically just hopes her goal will happen to her. Her best effort ends up being walking around the school while carrying around a guitar.

Later, after the band essentially does fall into her lap, Bocchi continues to demonstrate a general struggle to get her priorities in order and focus on her goals. She views real life as scary, and will avoid completing her most critical tasks by distracting herself with a lower priority task. Eventually, as the show progresses, we see Bocchi become slightly more assertive and more focused on finally achieving the goal that she’d been fantasizing about for so long.