Synopsis :
Yukio "Koyuki" Tanaka wasted away his middle school days listening to Japanese pop music and apathetically trudging through life—until a casual run-in with the enigmatic guitarist Ryuusuke "Ray" Minami. Through this encounter, Koyuki realizes what he has been missing all this time as Ray introduces him to western rock music and jumpstarts his desire to play guitar.
My thoughts :
I've only read the manga (and the live-action movie) so I can't speak for the anime, but it was amazing. It has lots of brilliant music reference, amazing character development, the "loser" hero that we root for, and unique artwork by Harold Sakuishi. If you love music and haven't read/watched the series, I'm definitely recommending it to you :)