How This Song Shows Ryo's True Feelings

Today is Ryo day. Why? Cause Ryo is broke, just like me! Every day is Ryo day. And what better way to celebrate our goddesss of wisdom and economics than by pschoanalyzing the depths of her insecurities and struggles without her consent by analyzing her song. Ah, another Ryo day, another demolished weed. Ano bando, or that band is the iconic song that turned our blob Bocchi from I see to I SEE. Girl fingered that guitar so hard on stage, you cannot help but wonder the amount of fingering practic

e she did in her dark, dark closet. Deep dark secrets aside, today we will be looking at the LEGENDARY That Band by kessoku band, the song that gave goosebumps to a worldwide audience, showed everyone the true guitarhero. As Bocchi played her guitar, the audience shrunk back in awe, then Bocchi said “Nah, we’d win”, and bocchi the rocked all over the audience. This was a true bocchi the rock. Bulls-t aside, as before, I’ve made alterations with my garbage Japanese abilities , to an existing tran

slation, so do tell me in the comments if you find any mistakes. To get right to the point, I think Ano Bando is most likely a song about Ryo’s inner thoughts and struggles, in particular, her perspective of being a creator. And speaking of creators, this creator right here just starting a streaming channel and plans to play jrpgs, sing karaoke (yes there will be a bocchi karaoke) and even game with you guys in stuff like mario kart so come check it out if you’re interested. Ryo would approve of

my shilling I’m sure. I know many people will say “canonically Bocchi writes all the songs”, which, is true, so I’m gonna frame it this way: I think this song is about Ryo’s feelings, but you can interpret it as either Ryo expressing herself, or BOCCHI’S interpretation of Ryo’s feelings. Honestly, after many read overs, there even is a way you can say it’s BOCCHI’s feelings instead of Ryo, but I’ll go over the entire song first assuming it’s Ryo’s feelings, then we’ll have a look at how it coul

d fit Bocchi and discuss whether Bocchi or Ryo writing it seems to fit more. We begin with public humiliation……wait wrong script. We begin immediately with Ryo listening to a mysterious other band, that band, Ryo feels as if their songs, their music is laughing at her, looking down on her. That’s bands songs are described with shrilling, ringing, the piercing sounds of a railroad crossing. Ryo really said (metal pipe falling song). I don’t know what in god’s name that band is playing but it’s cl

ear miss professional bassist here finds it unbearable to hear. We continue to the pre-chorus and with both the previous mentioning of the railroad crossing and this whole mv’s setting AT a railroad crossing. It’s pretty obvious the whole song is trying use the railroad and train as a metaphor for something. The pre-chorus has Ryo tell a mysterious persons not to push her, because the train is coming soon…..oh s-t wait NONONOONONO-. Ok, but this is what Ryo actually fears though, getting run ove

r by Thomas- well “dying”. In the anime, there is a certain famous, renowned quote by our grass demolishing, jellyfish haired bassist: abandoning your uniqueness is equivalent to dying. And it’s pretty clear Ryo isn’t just saying it to Bocchi, but personally feels very strongly about this, to the point of fighting with and breaking up with her old band because they starting taking their lyrics in a more commercial direction instead of their original straightforward style. It’s at this point that

it dawned on me. I think that band could be referring to her old band before she left, the band that turned their lyrics into generic positive nonsense with no soul. That’s why their music became unbearable for Ryo to listen to, as if looking down on her uniqueness, as if insulting her as a person. When we look at these words “don’t push me forwards”, it’s a bit harder to see in English, but there’s essentially a double meaning here. “Pushing someone forward” can mean pushing physically, but ca

n also mean pushing them forward mentally, as in trying to give them a positive message to move them forward. But Ryo rejects this, because to her, using these fake encouraging words that doesn’t express her true feelings, is like pushing her off onto the railroads when the train is already coming soon. You can also interpret this in another way with Ryo telling others not to “push her forward” to become more successful in a commercial sense, because if she does, to Ryo, it’s the equivalent to a

bandoning her identity as a person, it’s equivalent to getting run over by the train, dying. I say all of this, but I want you to keep in mind that this mysterious band’s identity doesn’t HAVE to be Ryo’s old band, but can be talking about popular bands that write generic positive lyrics with no soul in general, Ryo hates them all the same as the message sent would be the same. But I do like the idea that that band IS Ryo’s old band cause it makes this song a lot more personal for Ryo, and, well

, that would actually make Ano Bando a……diss track. (play diss track) I always knew the demolisher of weeds would be built for thug life. We move on to the “NAH I’D WIN” We move on to the chorus, where Ryo closes her eyes and runs aways from the dark, dark world, where happiness is just an illusion- An interesting thing to point out is right after Ryo points out the train is approaching soon, we see the train pass by at sonic speed in the mv. Good thing she didn’t get pushed, bro would have been

flying like team rocket, angry birds style. This whole dynamic between Ryo’s feelings, the idea of “dying” and the train makes me feel like the train represents “that band”’s journey. Ryo is suffering on the inside, saying not to push her into someone else’s journey, a place where she doesn’t belong, because it would remove her of her uniqueness, it would kill her. If you even want to stretch it a bit, you could even hypothesize that back then, when Ryo’s standpoints and values weren’t as firm

as they are now, seeing the commercial success made it tempting for Ryo to abandon herself and do it for the money, (to be fair she does like money), hence her telling that band to “not push her”, because deep inside, she didn’t want to lose herself. I think this kind of doubt is really common in real life. Many people have successful friends or enemies, they look at themselves and start to question: “what am I doing?” “Is this really the right path?” Especially when money is involved, and you s

tart to ask yourself what you truly value. And so as the train approaches, she doesn’t get pushed into the train, she doesn’t get caught up in that band’s path, and instead closes her eyes and covers her ears. For many reasons, she hates seeing “that band”s journey. Maybe it’s seeing music, the thing she loves, get tarnished, maybe it’s seeing this commercially method she hates succeed, maybe it’s even temptation or jealousy of that success. Either way, the only thing she can do is hide in a cor

ner like a 10 year old when their parents are fighting and close her eyes. As she closes her eyes, she sees a light. OMG IT’S NIJIKA AND JESUS- This light cast upon the darkness actually has a slightly different meaning in Japanese, just uh there’s no word for it in English. Official bocchi translations will call it “halo”, but what 後光 actually refers to is this light from Buddha that shines upon kind, noble people as a form of assurance. You can think of it as a holy light that shines upon good

people. It doesn’t have to be physical light either, wait l can’t touch light. It can just be a “shining” holy feeling you get from good people as if they were saints. Like think about the vibe Nijika gives off. Like that, my ANGELLLLLLL. In the context of this song, I’d imagine this light to be from Ryo herself, a way to say that her ideal to truly express herself with her songs and not convert to commercial garbage is the correct way. As she closes her eyes, she gains comfort within herself.

As she covers her ears, she hears just hears her heartbeat. And this heart sways her body. It is her own heartbeat, her own self that can excite her, give her that creators satisfaction. It goes to show how much values being herself, not getting washed away by the waves of normalcy. We can even see this with her many eccentric habits like eating grass, sending nijika a goddamn video to ask what to eat for dinner etc. She will be herself to the end and I really respect it. Maybe I should eat weed

. Yet you feel a tint of sadness, suffering when you have to not look, not hear anything when the train comes by. Ryo only wants to hear her own music, she doesn’t want to see or hear whatever the world is saying, she only wants the true message she’s trying to express, and because of this, she resorts to running from reality. Closing her eyes, covering her ears, it’s as if she’s rejecting the world itself for her ideal of individuality. I think we can see this struggle when Ryo talks about her

previous band breakup, where she mentioned after the fight, she started hating the whole idea of bands in the first place. I’m sure to see your band go down a path you hate, and to choose your own path, it must feel like fighting the world, and I can’t blame Ryo for rejecting the world, rejecting the very idea of bands at that point. Continuing on to the second verse, Ryo describes her past experience, looking for a place where she belonged in the dissonance. Dissonance is a very interesting cho

ice of words cause it can mean conflict between people, but is also a musical term that describes 2 musical notes that basically tldr, sound bad together, you know, bad synergy like cock and chilli. The context here is a double meaning. Ryo was looking in a place where she belonged, within a place with conflict, within a place where their ideals for music didn’t even match. And while some may think sad songs are too emo or depressing and sound like that one 15 year old goth boy that listened to

linken park every day without headphones at school, sad songs are important to Ryo because she was saved by one. We don’t know any backstory to this, but it’s not hard to imagine, many people listen to depressing songs to feel like someone can relate to them, to feel understood. Like me fr……. Yet despite how she holds this sad song dear to her, despite her hatred for irresponsibly written happy lyrics without heart, she acknowledges that that band’s happy songs, fake words are a cast to someone.

Those happy lyrics she hates so much, also saved someone. That’s also not hard to imagine. Holy s-t look at idol fans. I think some of them rely on their idol’s holy light for oxygen. 1 I love you would turn them from humans to cave monkeys. A drip of idol sweat would extend their life expectancy by 20 years. 1 handshake would warrant an amputation to store their hand lifetime in an airtight jar. Some people just want happy lyrics to encourage them instead to depressing lyrics to feel related t

o when they’re depressed and hey, fair enough, live as you will…..ok maybe don’t. This acknowledgement that the fake happy lyrics are also important starts too, casts self-doubt upon Ryo. Is she the weird one for not finding comfort in encouraging words? Is she weird for not being emotionally touched by the smiles in these words? Is she wrong for wanting to be herself? Combined with the past band experience, she starts to feel that she’s the one in the wrong. The “only” here, sang as a back voca

l is amazing. It changes the sentence from “I’m wrong” to “I’m the ONLY one that’s wrong”. It adds to the feeling of being an outcast for thinking this way, as if the world is rejecting her uniqueness, as if she’s alone in this struggle. And the way “only” is the singular word sang as a backup vocal not just emphasizes how lonely it must feel to be alone in that position, but also hints at how this singular lyric “only” could have perhaps only been sung inside her heart and not out loud in this

song, just to further emphasize how she ALONE is wrong compared to the world. She’s so lonely, like an abandoned dog….what do we call that? Oh. A bi-h- We then move on to the second chorus, where Thomas comes again. G-GODDAMMIT THOMAS, HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU, THE KID IS SCARED, SHOO. Ryo once again, rejecting that band, rejecting conformity, closes herself from that band’s songs, the ones the feel like 5 year old chalkboard screeching to her. Yet, there is one small difference: the

end. The one small, but crucial line that leads up to the bridge: I don’t need it. While she still rejects, runs away from the conformity of that band after the acknowledgements that that band is needed by someone, she reaffirms herself that her own sounds, her own music is the only one she needs, and proceeds to say: I don’t need it. I don’t need anything else. I don’t need anyone else’s music. BASED. CHAD. I BOW TO YOU MY BROTHER, KESSOKU BAND THE ONLY MUSIC WE NEED, LET’S GO COMMIT BAND GENO

CIDE- This is the first sign of confidence we’ve seen from Ryo. After all that self doubt and calling herself the “only one who’s wrong”, she decides and declares that she truly doesn’t need anyone else’s music. See this is why meditation is important, you get to reflect on how correct you are. Especially for using your friend’s body as a cash cow. This video is sponsored by onlyfans- I personally think this entire self-doubt reassurance process fits Ryo’s personality very well. While her aloof

side might give her the image of a calm, cocky musician, cases like her spiral of doubt when her past band went separate ways and how she acted strong but was apparently traumatized by her past school festival performance really reflect what Ryo is like as a person. As any person would, she had, she has doubts on herself, she might not be as confident as she looks, she’s not immune to sad emotions as the kuudere expressions and intonations may indicate, but at the end of the day, she is someone

that is capable of not giving in and sticking to her ideals. And the bridge proves this, by being a complete parallel to the past 2 choruses. Ryo states once again to those seemingly blissful lyrics not to push her forwards, followed by a direct warning: Don’t touch my heart so lightly. I really like the dichotomy of this very sentence and the past 2 choruses. While all we’ve seen Ryo do so far is basically shut herself away from the world mentally for the sake of sticking up to her ideals, this

is a direct confrontation to the problem, a direct confrontation to what she’s rejected for so long. The very first “don’t push me forwards” at the beginning was followed by a statement full of fear, fear that she was the one in the wrong, fear that she would become what she hatred. But what followed the second one was the polar opposite, a beautiful parallel: a statement telling that band not to touch her heart so lightly, because her ideals of writing true meaningful words from the heart will

not be wavered. This is continued by Ryo successfully boarding the train, successfully not “dying”, with her as the only passenger. Unlike the previous trains, which were that band’s, someone else’s journey, this train, this journey belongs to her and her alone. That’s why she is the only passenger on this train, as she boards it and it departs. I believe what Ryo wants to say with the train metaphor is: watch the road kids, don’t get run over- Everyone has their own path, there is no need to b

oard someone else- board someone else’s train. Because Ryo has decided that even if she walks this unknown path, chasing her dream in solitude, it’s ok, because this journey is hers alone, and that is what gives it meaning. That is what gives her her individualism, the soul of her path. With this acceptance, Ryo begins her own journey…….by becoming a muppet. She claps her hands, symbolling these are the sounds only she can make. “The sounds are mine alone” sounds only she is capable of making, b

ecause her sound, the heart of her music is unique to her. And with the music of her heart, she does RUMBLING RUMBLING IT’S COMING-, what pretty footprints we have here teehee. Ryo leaves her marks behind like a BI-H, I hope not literally, by stomping until footprints are left behind. I like the indications of “leaving footprints behind”, it implies that her path will leave a mark behind in history, that her own individualistic path will not be one she just walks herself, but one she will keep m

oving forward on until she does achieve something, leave something behind. And with this newfound confidence, she can open her eyes, and directly face that band’s train- She doesn’t need to close her eyes, hide herself from the success, the paths of others, the “positive” bands anymore because there is no more self-doubt, she knows there is no need to conform. Her self-confidence in her path is rooted in herself as a loner who walks her own path, the music she herself loves and is proud of, so e

ven though she still doesn’t approve of all these fake positive bands, she no longer fears them, she can look at them in the eye and say (this is who I am). A beater. She accepts it, the impulse of solitude. Now I say solitude here, but this is actually a pretty bad translation. Kokou means solitude, but also comes with the meaning of one who stands at a higher stands at a higher position than others, usually referring to the inner mind, or morals. One who is able to stick to their ideals. That’

s why this sentence is Ryo accepting the consequences of her impulses, her will to walk her own path. I love the parallel of kokou and kodoku, it’s like Ryo can finally hold her head high in pride, knowing that her path is superior. While her heart were previously the clutches she desperately needed, it’s now the wings she uses to fly. She no longer has to hide from the world to be herself, she has her heartbeat to prove that she is herself. And because of this, she doesn’t want to hear anything

else, just herself. The parallelism here is absolutely amazing. While the end result doesn’t seem to differ so much, with Ryo ultimately only wanting to hear her own sounds. The past Ryo did this out of desperation, the suffocating feeling of being crushed by “that band”, trying to cling on to herself. But now? Ryo doesn’t need your S-TTY MUSIC, Ryo just doesn’t want to hear anyone else, cause her own sounds are the only things she wants. She doesn’t need to shut herself off from the world anym

ore, she doesn’t need to cling on to anything, she has simply fully accepted herself, her own sounds, and her heartbeat ascerns it. It’s such a beautiful message, it’s literally poem-esque storytelling within the lyrics of a single song with minimal information on a character’s backstory. Bocchi lyrics are incredible, we should put this s-t in mandatory literature class. We need future generations to analyze the greatness of being alone frfr. What? Normies? They don’t exist, you must be hallucin

ating. Knowing the meaning behind the whole song, it gives me chilling goosebumps to see what this song meant it the spur of the moment when it was performed. I do realize that this specific hidden meaning might be pushing it a bit, but do hear me out: On the verge of their entire performance being a complete disaster, bocchi’s insane solo is followed by this song that just screams, “it doesn’t matter if the other bands are “better”, this is OUR path” and went full shounen powerup. If the fear i

n the first 2 choruses is represented by the shakey performance of guitar, loneliness and the blue planet, then the confidence of the final chorus is represented by the performance of that band. I don’t know s-t about music composition or theory, but I can FEEL the desperation in the song, you can feel, see how intense the playing was on stage, bro was wetter than a pacific ocean. Because this song, at that very moment was a message: This is our path, and even if we’re different from most bands,

we’ll show that it’s the correct one and leave a mark behind. That band is a song about that band….s-t. That band is a song about Ryo’s journey self acceptance, the self-acceptance of her identity as a loner, as one who chooses to walk her own path, even if it’s out of the norm or different from others. What a beautiful journey Ryo’s path was…..OR IS IT? Guys I literally warned you. Fool you once shame on me, fool you twice (empty ryo head). What’s interesting about the lyrics here is technical

ly, this overall journey could be applied to bocchi too. Bocchi is also a loner, bocchi is also one who would reject the world for being an outcast and hide, bocchi is also someone who went after Ryo’s advice, decided to proceed with gloomy, depressing lyrics, her true feelings. Lines like “I only want to hear the sounds I make” makes it even more convincing considering the shoebox bocchi works in and bocchi was technically saved by a “inkya” band. If we take this song as a kind of “the life les

son bocchi learnt from Ryo” message, you can see parts where it fits. However, I personally don’t really like this interpretation because of a few problems. 1. Is we’ve never exactly seen bocchi struggle with this kind of self-acceptance as a loner thing, I would argue the whole point of bocchi is she’s lonely and she wants friends. She most certainly doesn’t have the confidence to say s-t like this, and like, if that band isn’t ryo’s past band, Bocchi never mentioned another band she ever had c

onflict with, another band that made her feel like her path was wrong. In fact, bocchi literally covers popular songs despite being depressed, which feels contradictory to the whole message of that band. She also initially actually wrote fake happy lyrics before ryo convinced her not to and she didn’t have this big reaction or character development moment that would fit the message of this song. That’s why I do truly stick to the idea that the song has to be about Ryo’s feelings. As for who wrot

e it, honestly, there aren’t any plotholes in saying Bocchi wrote it. Ryo’s backstory was basically revealed by her directly telling Bocchi, so as far as we know, Bocchi knows as much about Ryo as we do, and would be able to draw the same conclusions about her feelings. I say this without strong evidence, I also feel like Bocchi has a similar impression of Ryo with us, the viewers: A cool confident bassists who’s had her struggles in the past but is now confident in her love and knowledge for mu

sic, especially in her own indivisualistic way….and she’s a bit of a bocchi golden digger but you know that’s not the point, everyone has a flaw or two, we should forgive robbery. I personally still like the idea of Ryo writing the song, because this song FEELS heavy, it carries the emotions of someone overcoming their past trauma, and I don’t know, it feels weird to have a third person write and interpret these kind of lyrics instead of being from the heart. After all, Ryo is the only one that

truly understands the pain she went through during the band breakup. That being said, if you really like the headcanon that Bocchi writes all the kessoku band songs, then there’s nothing with thinking that Bocchi wrote it. In fact, I almost think that it’s left vague on purpose. And that’s when I realized: if if I could be a constellation is a song about the connection between Bocchi and Kita, then perhaps that band is a song about the connection between Bocchi and Ryo, and not necessarily in a

2-way message kind of way. What Bocchi and Kita shared were their feelings of insecurities, their admiration for each other, and what Bocchi and Ryo share is their roles as loners who deeply love music. Just look at how much of the same wavelength they can be on. Ryo, the one who values individuality over anything, probably loves all of Bocchi’s weird quirks, I mean, who wouldn’t like a personal metamorphasizing blob? Ryo is also a massive introvert and has been through the “hiding from the worl

d feeling” so while she might not know social anxiety, she probably does understand the feeling of fearing the world, which is why she can be such a good mentor to Bocchi. Which means Never Forget is the connection between….? Master Ryo can be the one who mentally guides Bocchi through her journey of music, to teach someone as frail to social pressure as Bocchi to never give up her identity in her songs. And this very song, that band, is the story behind that lesson. What this song depicts is th

e journey of a lonely girl who found her own way through her sheer will, through the blessings of an angel. Through past experiences, through past comrades falling to the temptation of success, the girl walked her path of solitude, upholding her ideals in the pain of isolation, holding her most prized possession to her heart. What resulted were new comrades, now walking the true path of individualism, the path she once dreamt of. And to one who is seemingly lost to the terrors of the world, she

is now able to say, unwavering “just write how you truly feel, those words may not resonate with most people, but to those that it does, it will hit deep”. If guitar, loneliness and the blue planet is the story of a person’s deepest feelings, then that band is the story behind that story. It is the story of what began it all.