Review of given
It's been a few months now since I first watched Given and let it consume a large part of my life, just like that. Now that I've also watched and reviewed the movie, I'm going back to do a review for Given, too. Given is, as has been mentioned in other reviews, a revolution of the BL genre. It tells stories of same-sex relationships without blatantly fetishising them like others do, and I love it for that. I had heard of the series a long time back but avoided it because I know how most of the stuff in this genre goes. Spoilers: it ain'tgood. Given, though? Blew my expectations to smithereens. Given is good in so many ways I can't put it into words without turning it into an essay (which, now that I finished writing and went back over the review... it IS an essay). Let me properly get to this review. As a heads-up, if you are reading this review as someone who hasn't watched all 11 episodes of Given, this review will contain spoilers. Okay, that's the one disclaimer I have.
The Given anime is about loss, grief, love, coping, and learning to move on. And yes, it's also about music. Music is what ties most things together in this series, and it's done in a really beautiful way. Music is what brings Ritsuka and Mafuyu together in the first place, as fellow high school students who have an interest in music, but in different ways and for very, very different reasons. Mafuyu's voice is what reignites Ritsuka's passion for music, and it's also what ultimately leads to Mafuyu joining Ritsuka's band, leading up to them performing live alongside bassist Haruki Nakayama and drummer Akihiko Kaji.
The depiction of relationships and love in this series is seriously unique, and it's one of the things that made me regret not having experienced Given sooner. Given portrays more sides to love than just the "black and white" ones, the good and the bad ones. There are other sides to it that mangaka Natsuki Kizu wrote so incredibly well. A lot of the series really resonates with me, and I found myself able to relate in many ways even to the high schoolers who are a lot younger than me. Adding in the older members of Given, Akihiko and Haruki, also provides a more 'adult' view on things, and more grown-up issues, which I very much appreciate. The characters are with flaws and multi-dimensional, and to me, they're all relatable in their own ways.
The most poignant moment of the series for me, besides Mafuyu's singing in episode 9, is Akihiko's confrontation with Ritsuka two episodes prior. Ritsuka has been acting strange as of late due to his growing jealousy of Mafuyu's past lover, and the very perceptive Akihiko has noticed and decides to do something about it. Ritsuka's line "is there something wrong with me?!" after Akihiko correctly assesses that Ritsuka has romantic feelings for Mafuyu, hit really, really hard. I may have cried, maybe. Probably. It's something I'm sure many LGBTQIA+ people like myself have wondered at some point, and the situation is handled so well here. Akihiko is someone Ritsuka very much looks up to, and for Akihiko to say "no, there's nothing wrong with you just because you like a guy - I've had experiences with dudes, too" is so, so important. It's important not only to the story but also to Ritsuka's character development and recognition of his feelings. He's not strange, and he certainly isn't alone in having feelings for someone of the same sex. It's a source of comfort many people need, and it meant a lot to see that depicted in a series like Given.
I'm wrapping up this long-winded review by saying that this series may have possibly changed my life with how impactful, powerful, relatable, and moving it is.