Given

Tightly clutching his Gibson guitar, Mafuyu Satou steps out of his dark apartment to begin another day of his high school life. While taking a nap in a quiet spot on the gymnasium staircase, he has a chance encounter with fellow student Ritsuka Uenoyama, who berates him for letting his guitar's strings rust and break. Noticing Uenoyama's knowledge of the instrument, Satou pleads for him to fix it and to teach him how to play. Uenoyama eventually agrees and invites him to sit in on a jam session with his two band mates: bassist Haruki Nakayama and drummer Akihiko Kaji.

Satou's voice is strikingly beautiful, filling Uenoyama with the determination to make Satou the lead singer of the band. Though reticent at first, Satou takes the offer after an emotional meeting with an old friend. With the support of his new friends, Satou must not only learn how to play guitar, but also come to terms with the mysterious circumstances that led him to be its owner.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Satou, Mafuyu Main

Yano, Shougo Japanese

Uenoyama, Ritsuka Main

Uchida, Yuuma Japanese

Nakayama, Haruki Main

Nakazawa, Masatomo Japanese

Kaji, Akihiko Main

Eguchi, Takuya Japanese

Murata, Ugetsu Supporting

Asanuma, Shintaro Japanese

Yoshida, Yuki Supporting

Shin, Yuuki Japanese

Kashima, Hiiragi Supporting

Imai, Fumiya Japanese

Yagi, Shizusumi Supporting

Ban, Taito Japanese

Yatake, Kouji Supporting

Takeuchi, Ryouta Japanese

Uenoyama, Yayoi Supporting

Shimamura, Yuu Japanese

Higa, Yuuji Producer

Matsumoto, Miho Producer

Mori, Akitoshi Producer

Yamaguchi, Hikaru Director

Reviews

Jul 19, 2025

AshParth

Recommended

Carole and Tuesday was the first music related anime that I had gotten invested in most of the genre. Given was the second anime that had me fall in love with the genre as a whole. I've watched this back in 2019 before the COVID pandemic had hit and now over five years later, as there have been movies including a recent one that I'd never knew existed, I decided to give this a re-watch as I was due for one. Plus, I'd mentioned one of the couples from this anime for one of the days of Pride Month last month, which ... was another reason that I decided to give this a re-watch since it's been a while. This was wholesome and comfortable whether you're into boy love or not.
The story centers around two young men. A bored guitarist of a small all-boy band named Ritsuka Uenoyama, who loves to nap more, fixes some guitar strings of another young man named Mafuyu Satou, who is a shy and quiet one. Mafuyu wishes Ritsuka to teach him how to play the guitar, even though Rituka had fallen off a bit despite being passionate about guitar play since he was younger. To Ritsuka's surprise, Mafuyu had shared his singing talent and was invited to join the band. The other band members, Haruki Nakayama and Akihiko Kaji, were impressed with Mafuyu and decided to make this band happen and practice as much as they could. However, Mafuyu doesn't know how to write lyrics since there is more to what's going on with his life until Ritsuka has discovered much on what's happened, including the guitar that belonged to Mafuyu's ex-boyfriend who'd committed suicide.
Now, upon research, this anime had three arcs involved. The first arc is the relationship between Mafuyu and Ritsuka. The second is the band being formed. The third arc is about Akihiko and Haruki, which happens as soon as the band is becoming well-known. This might be a weird take, yet the focus felt more on Mafuyu and Ritsuka, which I was honestly invested the most. I like Akihiko and Haruki, too, though there wasn't too much unless that's explored a lot in the movies that take place after the anime. Although they are still likable since they are the moral support for both the band and for Mafuyu and Ritsuka. The relationship, development and the chemistry between Mafuyu and Ritsuka works well as it reignites Ritsuka's passion in music as well as Mafuyu learning to move on after his ex-boyfriend's suicide, even though it wasn't explored too much. To be fair, it was mentioned a few times throughout the anime despite being an eleven episode series.
Not to mention, there isn't much on boy love anime that involves two young men connecting with one another, and this anime is a perfect example of doing so since Mafuyu and Rituka are a perfect example. Though it isn't just the chemistry that carried this anime, it's the music, too. It also takes about both lost love and moving on. Courtesy of Mafuyu learning about moving on from his ex's suicide before moving onto Ritsuka's, who had entered his life upon fixing his guitar strings. Learning from Ritsuka in exchange for being the vocalist was pitch-perfect on how their relationship goes on that even the other band members had picked up, suggesting that it would benefit on rekindling Ritsuka's passion. With that, it had made the band, given, a hit.
The animation also carries on how wholesome the anime is when it's above your standard quality. Like how each character expresses their happiness, sorrow, anger, and even depression. Most of the time, you see a little gloom. But thankfully, you'll see more joy as the series goes. The motion of the band performing was also a standout for the series since it is a musical anime, after all. Oh, and there's this little dog that Mafuyu keeps that is cute despite not being on screen too much. You also have Ritsuka's sister, who teases her brother a fair bit. You have a friend of Mafuyu's ex-boyfriend who brings the suicide up a couple of times, yet he does go off a little. Then you have the other classmates, who I have to admit are forgettable most of the time.
Especially with their given voice acting. Mafuyu's voice actors do well when expressing emotion along with his character. His la la's, though, are a little toned down. Shogo Yano and Brandon McInnis voiced Mafuyu. Yuma Uchida and Jessie James Grelle voiced Ritsuka. Masatomo Nakazawa and Y. Chang voices Haruki. And Takuya Eguchi and Jonah Scott voices Akihiko. Again, most of the side characters are pretty forgettable even with the voices they were provided with. I guess in all fairness, the main four are the center of attention, hence why they take on the stage more, pun intended.
As far as this anime goes, this is one hundred percent pure comfort if you were to play it in the background or just want to binge with the emotion and music that it provides. I admit there could've been more, but you can't win them all, as some folks would say. Still, this is worth a watch if you're into music in anime. I'm gonna give the band eight Mafuyu giving Ritsuka sparkling eyes out of ten. 8/10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jan 8, 2025

Curlybrace101

Mixed Feelings

There’s no question that Given is *the* BL anime of the modern era. It is the most watched BL on MAL, constantly tops popularity polls, and whenever anyone these days gives BL recommendations, the first thing you hear is Given, Given, Given.

It’s also disappointing.

Here’s the thing: Given is a drama. It takes itself extremely seriously, so I will take it extremely seriously as well, and thus come to the conclusion that it is not as deep and intelligent as it markets itself as.

Now, Given isn’t bad. It’s a competent story and the relationship between the leads, Ritsuka and Mafuyu, is well done. They had ... good chemistry, their relationship was well developed, and I liked how the top was the awkward and inexperienced one paired up with a more self-assured and experienced bottom. It’s a more refreshing take on tired tropes. However, Given is not just a romance, but as I stated before, a romantic drama, and it is in the drama where the problem lies.

There is one main source of drama in this show: grief. (I don’t consider this a spoiler, but if you want to go in blind, stop reading now). Mafuyu, the love interest, is grieving. Very specifically he is grieving his late boyfriend who killed himself.

And that? That’s something. In fact, it was why I wanted to watch the show to begin with. It has so much potential to be a very grounded and deep story about not just grief, but the very specific trauma of losing someone to suicide. There’s so much room there for it to be such a meaningful story about processing trauma and recovery.

And…well, I can’t say it’s *not* that, but I will say that I don’t think it’s enough. The way it addresses this clear trauma is very skin deep, and it feels almost like set dressing. It’s there, and Mafuyu clearly thinks about it regularly, but we don’t really get to see any introspection or reflection on his feelings, let alone the nasty effects that kind of trauma inherently has.

You wanna know something? Yuki, Mafuyu’s late boyfriend, didn’t just kill himself. He killed himself after the two had an argument, and then Mafuyu was the one who found his body.

It needs more. It needs more introspection—about how personally hurt he is, how he simultaneously blames both himself and Yuki, how he hates himself for causing this but hates Yuki for doing this to him, how he still gets flashbacks of finding the body, how he still loves Yuki despite all of that—just...*something.*

But we don’t get anything like that. It’s a trauma that inherently causes a storm of conflicting emotions and negative effects, and we don’t see anything like that. We just know he’s grieving, and it’s sad.

And remember, this isn’t just a drama, but a romantic drama. Dating again while you’re still grieving your old partner is difficult and complicated, so it *should* come with a lot of reflection on the trauma and grief, but in Given, it doesn’t. Mafuyu is grieving and sad but he never talks about his feelings, shows any nasty side effects of the trauma, or lets it affect his new relationship.

I say this as someone who has some personal experience with this subject, because it feels to me like the author does not. There was so much potential for it to be extremely meaningful, but it just comes off like it was added for pathos.

That’s my only real hangup with these 12 episodes. As I said, the story is competent and the main romance is well developed (although, I would not have put their first kiss during the one time Mafuyu was grieving the *most* lmao. Like, what?).

In this first season, the beta couple is also fine, although this does only apply to this first season. I’ll warn you now, the first movie is focused on the beta couple, and it includes the infuriating BL trope of a character being sexually assaulted by his love interest. In fact, it’s worse than a lot of other BL that play the assault as sexy and romantic, because Given fully plays the assault for drama—presenting it as horrifying and upsetting—but then the victim still chooses to forgive the perpetrator and they end up together in the end. I'm not saying it's impossible to pull something like that off (for example, I think The Rose of Versailles...kind of made it work—at least better than this) but it's *extremely* hard to do, and I think Given didn't do it well, with how the perpetrator's reasoning felt rather unfounded and he didn't seem nearly apologetic enough, not to mention they hardly even dwell on it. It was a really graphic scene of sexual assault too.

The review is marked as a 7/10 because it’s only for the first season (it’s easy to pretend the movie didn’t happen), but I thoroughly dislike the movie, so I’d probably give the manga a 6/10.

Not bad, but disappointing.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Sep 19, 2024

1l4xis

Not Recommended

I can't imagine you would enjoy this show unless you are strongly into Boys love. The plot could of had some potential but failed to develop anything apart from the relationships between the main characters. I was only interested in the musical aspect of the show and was very dissapointed. Mafuyu went from learning basic chords to basically playing like a normal guitarist in the space of one episode (with barely any practice and no time). I was also so dissapointed they only managed to create one song including the whole band and barely spent any time showing them performing it or creating it. I ... felt as though the show was just about sexual deviance and if you compare it to 'Nana' or 'Beck' (musical animes), it fails to achieve anything of value in any aspect. This is more fit to be a softcore hentai than an anime

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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