Review of given

If I had to summarize this whole anime, it would be akin to life after love. What does this anime excel in? The theme- watching the main character move forward from tragedy to live and forgive is really inspiring and well developed. It was also more realistic from typical boys love works. The art- For a BL anime, Given was given (hah) a lot thought for the anime adaptation. The animation was wonderful, and I already love the art style of the manga author. The sound- The OST score was well coordinated as well as just enjoyable. While the ending and opening didn't quite stickwith me, there is music in the anime that was like 12/10 lyrically and musically like it gave me chills.

Okay so again, reiterating that this is a really good anime, there are still things that I think could be negatives depending on who is watching:

Subplots- so this anime balances the romantic plot and the main plot pretty well. But- and this is entirely a personal preference- I felt like there were too many subplots, romantic or otherwise. Like, I really only cared about the main characters' relationship and the main story line, so the anime did drag a bit when the focus was shifted to other characters. However, this plus side is that there are a lot of interesting characters.

Scandalous stuff- For better or for worse, there really wasn't much of this. The anime's romance is very vanilla like very, very vanilla. It's really cute, don't get me wrong. I think I just wanted more of it. But, this is one place that it differs from traditionally yaoi/shounen-ai.

Summary: Great non-traditional shounen-ai with a heartfelt and moving story, quality animation, dynamic characters, and a good soundtrack- definitely worth a watch