Review of given

As Crunchyroll states it: "Why You Should Rock Out With Given, The Best Summer Anime You're NOT Watching" AND YOU SHOULD WATCH IT, regardless if you're a fan of Shounen Ai (or as we otakus like to call it BL) or not. Heck, it's not even about if you're a straight male or female casually watching BL. It's just SIMPLY PHENOMENAL in every degree. Many will tend to call out Shounen or Shoujo Ai (or as we know it, Lesbian and BL) as those kind of taboo subjects that are made even worse when described into a medium (e.g. anime), and more often than not, themediums triumph and/or silence the naysayers to an insane degree, that it's worth watching them to understand more about their world and how these people perceive same-sex love (a.k.a LGBT). Heck, look at Japan and their recent history with LGBT, with more people coming to accept it even though it's criminalized (for the better seriously). One solid reference I can give is last Fall's Yagate Kimi ni Naru (Bloom Into You) by budding yuri mangaka Nio Nakatani, more than knowing that there's a demand for such a genre as BL or Lesbian, she decided to go that route, and lo and behold, Troyca's anime adaptation made justice to her manga source and garnered a name for herself.

In the same way (as @RebelPanda puts it), (also budding managaka) Natsuki Kizu's Given treads along that EXACT SAME path: "it is NOT a romance, but rather, a self-realization love story." But more than that, it's not just about the good times, but also the bad times, where letting go past hurts and moving on reeks of more damaging and hurting to the soulless human spirit.

Mafuyu Satou, a seemingly random boy, holding onto a broken guitar. The start may not seem like much, but the broken Gibson ES-330 he's clutching onto dear life, holds all of his past memories, from the presence of the other people that it has been used from, and the strings which shows the connections and then the eventual disconnect with the events thereon that has scarred his life to bits, not letting go of the past, and certainly not moving forward towards a brighter future. He leads the usual day in, day out with his 9-month old Pomeranian dog named Kedama, petting it before he leaves his house, and nothing more. That is until he meets the person who will change his life and turn it upside down musically with tremendous force:

Ritsuka Uenoyama, a young, up-and-coming guitarist for a small band. His training from young serves his expertise well, though his character interactions seems somewhat bullish due to his inexperience communicating with others amidst his kind personality. Oh, and he doesn't fall in love easily, unlike the rest in his band: Haruki Nakayama and Akihiko Kaji, both of which have treaded the BL line and are experienced in what they do (in music DUH), but on the romance side, not so much as their secret rivalry extends onto people in relation to them, that are in love with one another (a.k.a Haruki's crush on Akihiko, while Akihiko is livng with his present boyfriend).

With the seemingly kind-as-usual Uenoyama reaching out to Mafuyu, the first step being to repair the strings of his Gibson guitar, sparks a full-on length of descriptions of who Mafuyu realy is, deep in his core: not just someone who has played in a band before, nor someone being both a musician and singer, but someone who can't quite get his feelings right and remains on the fence after his past childhood love (a.k.a Yuki Yoshida) is gone from his life which eludes the constant aloof to the surroundings around him. And along with the help of Uenoyama's band friends Haruki and Akihiko, plus his friends in his previous band (i.e. childhood friend Hiiragi Kashima and band member Yagi Shizusumi) who was once tolerant but ignorant on the overwhelming effect of post-mortem Mafuyu and getting his groove back, it was a journey of many embarrassingly trivial issues with momentary feelings and emotions on the rocks until the disperse of negativity into pure frustration, a sound that needs to be let out into the wilderness. A sound that supresses all the times of unhappiness, into one of a solid firm foundation and connections that are once snapped but threaded back (like guitar strings) to right where they started to overcome and take hold of their own futures. And believe me, the guitar string has always been a ridiculous yet personified symbolism in this show (and rightfully so), but it works to a T here.

What I simply love about Given is more than just extending the main and backstories of both the essential and related characters from the manga source, it ACTAULLY fleshed out the somewhat brushed-pass casual scene shots in the manga to full activity statuses, meaning that you could actually see more of just their usual stances, be it in the band, in their own individual happiness and sadness, and co-animating it with the present manga scenes made it for an experience that I could well say, the anime is leaps and bounds better than the manga in every conceivable way. Furthermore, the "show, don't tell" approach works insane wonders, working with very few from the start and slowly letting us the audience know of the true value and disposition of each of the central characters, be it the roles that they play in each other's lives and the eventual "Eureka!"s which led them to develop resolutions to NOT keep each other at arm's length, and work together to create an impact so big that it keeps us on our toes all the time.

And before I go on, I would like to applaud the shounen VAs who worked on this series for their voice acting, especially co-leads Yuuma Uchida (for Uenoyama) and upcoming new VA Shougo Yano (for Mafuyu). More notably for Shougo Yano, because while he has done a main lead before (that being Tsurune's Nanao Kisaragi as his first), this depiction of Mafuyu is simply amazing right down to the core subjects. And holy smokes, for a young 20 year-old, his voice acting is one of the new generation's best. That song in Episode 9, was just true refinery and soulful acting to everyone's knees, leaving all of us speechless. What a VAer, literally taken aback by his sheer performance going above and beyond.

Once again, on the art and animation side, Lerche doesn't disappoint to great effect, and it seems that aside from Kanata no Astra (by the same studio) being a underrated heavy-hitter, Given is the one which shares the same lineage as the studio's way of recent above-average quality shows through and through, ONLY except that this series is massively overlooked for it being the basis of a taboo subject. But regardless, what the production team managed to do, with director Hikaru Yamaguchi landing his very first full-on half-hour series, it was nothing but god-damningly, exceptionally impressive to say the least. I'd thought that the 3DCG would waver at times, but surprisingly Lerche did their very best to keep it as consistent as it would watching someone play the guitar on YouTube. The vibrant art helped play along with the background emotions of the characters, whether solemn or casual emotions that acts as the casual to the shift in relations with swiftness. All I can say is that Lerche is my SOTS (studio of the season), and having watched Kanata no Astra, Given, in the same season, really gives the studio the cut above the rest.

And of course, how would Given be without its iconic music, I mean, why the hell not! Since it is made out of a musical setting, music is the primary source, the icing to the cake. Making music out for a living is bread-and-butter of these small bands, and whether they are liked or not is up to them to create inspirational music, one that deeply touches the soul. And need I say more when Mafuyu's music makes us shudder in spirit? That was definitely an explosion of tense feelings that needed to be plugged out into the world. And as priceless as Uenoyama is to Mafuyu, his inspiration as the latter's new found love interest only gets better from here on. Not to mention the extremely senstitve and foreshadowing OP which sounds great, as well as Mafuyu's ED with his cute and cuddly pet dog being the visual cue into his singing. Both are top-notch songs worthy to be placed into your J-pop playlist.

Overall, Given is a by-product of a wonderful and amazing adaptation, but as mentioned, the BL aspect hinders people watching it, so get your mind out of the gutter, and go watch this, NOW. I believe that this (along with Bloom Into You) are the strongest contenders and representations of respective gender's same-sex romance, that their shows are not afforded to be missed critically. So even as a straight male, I HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommend that you take a gamble at this series, and it will set you ablaze at its Given (pun) potentials.