Review of given
“Everything that you left behind became my everything.” These words from the opening song hold true for Mafuyu Sato (CV: Shougo Yano), one of the main protagonists of the series. He seems like an ordinary person, but at the very first episode, you can already see that he has been through a lot, and this has turned him who is today: an expressionless, gloomy guy who doesn’t really communicate. The only thing he seems to care about is a guitar he holds throughout the first episode, which he doesn’t even know how to play. Bring in Ritsuka Uenoyama (CV: Yuuma Uchida), a regular guy who’s interestedin music and basketball. After going through his hobbies everyday in his life, he started to grow bored of them. But because of those feelings, he was able to meet Sato, and after fixing Sato’s broken guitar, Sato pesters him into teaching him how the play the guitar. After a few events, Uenoyoma hesitantly decides to teach Sato how to play, and introduces him to his band, containing Haruki Nakayama (CV: Masatomo Nakazawa) the bassist, and Akihiko Kaji (CV: Takuya Eguchi) the drummer. The story is how both of them figure out their feelings for each other and how music plays a part with it.
The story in itself isn’t that extraordinary. To be honest, it was kinda slow, the music itself doesn’t happen until near the end of the series, and if you compare it with other music anime, they’d probably be similar, but what struck me the most from this anime was how realistic it was. The characters and the emotions they experienced were portrayed accurately and realistically, and the drama wasn’t randomly selected and placed here and there just for funsies, but they were there to help the characters grow and realize how important the other one is to them, especially given that this is a BL anime. BL anime tend to have wacky and random scenarios that don’t make sense at all, and the romance is just wrong, but Given is one of those rare sights where everything is placed correctly and the romance is actually right.
If you’re looking for good music, then you’ve come to the right place. As a music anime, you would expect it to have several different music tracks throughout the series, but this isn’t the case. Aside from the background music, there were only 2 actual music tracks in the series (excluding the OP and ED’s), with one being an instrumental and one having lyrics. I thought that the instrumental was actually pretty good, especially with how good and fluid the animations of the band members were when they playing the bass, guitar, and the drums. The background music fit with the scenarios that were being portrayed in the show, so that was a plus. The opening and ending songs were also really good, and they really fit how the story would go.
What I really loved about the show was the actual performance song. Even I was shocked when I first heard it. The whole time Mafuyu sang, you could really hear the raw emotions he had for the person he once loved. The way Mafuyu sang implied that even if he wasn’t a trained singer, he could express that what he felt for his lover was real, and that the anger and sadness and regret and love that he felt is still there and will remain, but fade away but by bit. If this didn’t make you emotional enough, Mafuyu’s monologue about his past lover will surely make you tear up. Both his performance and monologue really made me feel emotional, and I’ve already rewatched this part dozens of times because I couldn’t get over it. This is Shougo Yano’s first actual main role in a Music anime, and I’m really surprised that he isn’t in more. I’m sure that we’ll be seeing more of him in the future because of this song. The only thing I didn’t like that much in the performance was the 3D CGI’s they put for some of the scenes when they were playing, but I brushed it off because the amazing song made me forgive it all.
Overall, I definitely loved it. This anime is one of the rare cases where I would rewatch it again if I have the time. This has already taken the spot of my favorite Music and Shounen Ai anime, and it definitely deserves its spot there. Even if I wasn’t into BL anime, I would still have loved it.