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Anime’s Spring 2025 season may not exactly be teeming with groundbreaking titles and giant blockbusters, but it’s far from a disappointment. Spring 2025 revived popular franchises through Mobile Suit Gundam: GQuuuuuuX and My Hero Academia: Vigilantes. Spring 2025 also saw the return of none other than Cowboy Bebop director Shinichiro Watanabe in Lazarus. There’s even an anime adaptation of the hit fighting game Guilty Gear Strive in Guilty Gear Strive: Dual Rulers.
That said, one of Spring 2025’s best anime is a dark horse that few, if any, talk about online. The anime in question is Rock is a Lady’s Modesty, based on the manga of the same name by Hiroshi Fukuda. At first glance, the music anime may not seem like much since it retreads familiar ground. But when given a chance, viewers and would-be fans will be rewarded with a refreshing take on one of anime’s most overused trends of recent memory.
Rock Is a Lady’s Modesty Was Buried by Its Obscure Streaming Service
The Anime Is 1 of Spring 2025’s Most Underappreciated Series
Simply put, Rock is a Lady’s Modesty flew under most people’s radars because it’s currently streaming exclusively on HIDIVE. For those who may not be familiar, HIDIVE is an anime streaming service that boasts simulcasts and some old-school favorites. However, the fact of the matter is that HIDIVE is a lot more niche than Cruncyhroll, or even Netflix’s anime bloc. HIDIVE didn’t do anything wrong, but any anime that airs on its services first is doomed to obscurity, unless it’s already a juggernaut like Oshi no Ko.
As of this writing, and excluding pirate sites, Rock is a Lady’s Modesty can’t be watched elsewhere. There’s also currently no word if it will ever be dubbed in English, or if it will eventually be streamed on another service in the near future. Because of this, very few anime fans even heard of it. At best, those who dutifully follow the year’s seasonal anime releases would’ve only known of it from a YouTuber’s rundown of their Spring 2025 recommendations.
It also doesn’t help that the manga itself is fairly new, and it doesn’t command that big a fanbase. The manga is successful enough to get an anime adaptation and be an ongoing manga. Right now, Rock is a Lady’s Modesty has seven volumes, with more on the way. But when compared to massively popular manga such as Fire Force and Wind Breaker, both of which have successful sequel seasons airing right now, Rock is a Lady’s Modesty is an aptly modest manga hit that had very little hype going in when its anime was announced. This will most likely be the case when it ends.
Not only is Rock is a Lady’s Modesty already one of Spring 2025’s most overlooked and underrated anime, but the case could also be made for it being one of the year’s most consistent series. More importantly, it could soon be hailed as the best and most unique of its particular genre. What Rock is a Lady’s Modesty lacks in popularity and typical audience hype, it more than makes up for in its solid execution and unapologetically infectious energy.
Rock Is a Lady’s Modesty Is an Edgier Spin on a Familiar Subgenre
The Anime Has a Lot in Common With Bocchi the Rock! & Similar Music-Focused Series
On paper, Rock is a Lady’s Modesty is an all-too-familiar rehash of the band anime. It doesn’t help that, once again, it’s the story of seemingly pure teenage girls going on a quest for self-actualization by forming a jarringly intense rock band. Anyone who watched the breakout hit Bocchi the Rock! will be more than familiar with this set-up. They’ll also be able to see where Rock is a Lady’s Modesty will go in terms of characterization and narrative. This exact story and niche within the broader coming-of-age genre arguably started with K-On!, which first aired nearly 20 years ago.
However, what sets Rock is a Lady’s Modesty apart from its contemporaries is that it isn’t a cute band anime that gives viewers a comfortable watch. Rather, Rock is a Lady’s Modesty a hardcore rock band anime that stars equally hardcore rock musicians. Although Lilisa Suzonomiya, Otoha Kurogane, Tina Isemi and Tamaki Shiraya are all students in elite and prestigious finishing schools, they’re anything but courteous and polite women.
Beneath their high-class facades, they’re all fiercely ambitious amateur rock stars who will push themselves to the breaking point just to play as well as they want to. This is especially true for Lilisa and Otoha, who form the anime’s core vitriolic duet. Their bond is forged by the foul-mouthed tirades that they spit at each other after every jam session, and their shared fiery passion for playing rock music. Rather than be coy about it, Rock is a Lady’s Modesty leans as much as a televised seinen anime can into the inherent tension of it all. Strong yuri (i.e. girls’ love) undertones are a well-known convention in band anime, but Rock is a Lady’s Modesty boasts a decidedly more mature and sexual (but still respectful) take on it.
Where most other band anime would play the juxtaposition of teenage girls against hardcore alternate lifestyles for laughs, Rock is a Lady’s Modesty doesn’t. After the anime gets the obvious jokes about finishing school students liking Linkin Park and transparent sexual innuendos out of the way, it zeroes in on how rock music is both an emotional outlet and a source of identity. Besides its choice of music and edgy fashion sensibilities, what really makes Rock is a Lady’s Modesty stand out is how it’s so much more than a celebration of the camaraderie and confidence that an artistic pursuit like music can foster.
Rock Is a Lady’s Modesty Is 1 of Spring 2025’s Most Overlooked Yet Empowering Anime
The Anime Has a Strong & Relatable Message
In Rock is a Lady’s Modesty, Lilisa lives a double life. To her family and classmates, she presents herself as a demure and refined noble lady-in-the-making. She’s also well on her way to becoming the next Noble Maiden: a title bestowed upon Oshin Girls’ Academy’s model student of the year. But in reality, Lilisa is a repressed rock star who swallowed her pride and passion for playing the electric guitar as a promise to her mother.
What makes this more pressing is that Lilisa and her mother come from an ordinary middle-class background. Her mother’s second husband is a wealthy man. Any slip-up on Lilisa’s end wouldn’t just put her family’s new comfortable life at risk, but betray her mother’s trust as well. Needless to say, Lilisa is under a lot of pressure to be the woman that everyone wants her to be. Lilisa thinks that she had made the right choice, but deep inside, she can’t shake the run away from the feeling that she had dug a gaping hole in her soul.
Everything changed when Lilisa met the more carefree Otoha, who is just as passionate — or even more so — when it comes to playing the drums. It’s through Otoha’s flirtatious and playful insults that Lilisa realizes that she’s been lying to herself this whole time, and takes up the guitar again. They even form an instrumental rock band, and set their sights on an upcoming battle of the bands. Lilisa and her newfound friends have to do this all in secret, lest their reputations as noble ladies be tarnished.
It’s hard not to see Rock is a Lady’s Modesty as anything but a rage against the metaphorical machine. In this case, the «machine» is the suffocating societal expectations placed upon women, and the narrow-minded idea of what it means to be «mature.» Lilisa isn’t only expected to conform to said elites’ idealized vision of what a woman should be, but she’s also expected to abandon everything that gave her joy under the pretense of growing up. It’s only through rocking it out with her band and getting on Otoha’s nerves that Lilisa not only regains her freedom, but her sense of self as well.
Right now, Rock is a Lady’s Modesty is just a few episodes away from wrapping up its first cour. Time will tell if it will get to continue chronicling Lilisa’s reclamation of her true self, or if this will be its first and only season. But regardless of the series’ future, anime fans should watch Rock is a Lady’s Modesty right now. It’s the aggressive, fresh new take that an overplayed genre desperately needed, and it’s also an empowering rallying cry to pursue what really makes one happy. It may be the tail end of Spring 2025’s anime season, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late to meet Blanc de Noir+α and follow their lead.
Rock is a Lady’s Modesty is currently streaming on HIDIVE.
