Review of given

After my friend's words “Watch ‘Given‘, you'll like it”, I just did so, without any prior reading. My friend was right. For one, it's just another story of an aspiring boys band, for other, it's a romance. The plot is well balanced, although the musical aspect interests me more (partly because of the age, I'm regretfully old enough to be a father of any of four main characters). Yet, Yano Shougo's voice indeed gives goosebumps when it's due, it is not common to see a seiyu so “living into” their character — even at the scale of dedication that doing quality anime implies (and this oneis indeed of quality).
Of course there are some parallels — the last (and probably the only) other thing where “older teenage boys” and “rock band” are mixed together as good as here (probably even better) was BECK back in 2004; also, the 2000's Gravitation comes to mind (for the shounen-ai part, although I always regarded Gravitation something like a mock of Weiß Kreuz because of reused character designs), as well as IDOLiSH7, and, for a certain part, Sakamichi no Apollon from 2012.
In terms of music I have no complaints whatsoever, although 20–25 years ago these songs would impress me much more (it is objectively hard to surpass GLAY, Gackt, L'Arc~en~Ciel, and Buck-Tick at the prime of their respective careers — but luckily the show producers didn't set themselves a goal like that) for “slice of life” side as well, visual realism is on par with impeccable Sangatsu no Lion. Romance — well, I sort of envy main characters in the end, but obviously I'm a bit more cynical than the target audience.
Ah, yes: watch the movie. It continues the series tying the obvious loose ends (some of, at least), and I've put the upcoming sequel on my list, the story is not over.
Why not 10/10, just 8/10? A matter of taste. More intrigue and more action (think Psycho Pass or H×H 2011) would make it bull's eye for me, but there should be a place for more down-to-earth things too.