Given: Uragawa no Sonzai

I was afraid that they were not going to animate Uenoyama being jealous after the movie was released but this was more perfect than I could imagine. Doing the movie seperate showed us a clear image of the story between Akihiko-Haruki-Ugetsu and this OVA made sure we also felt how the song made UeMa feel.

I love how Mafuyu wrote it after being inspired by Ugetsu and also his OWN loss. It was just...PERFECTION.

I ALSO LOVED HOW THEY REDREW ALREADY DRAWN SCENES FROM THE MOVIE!!!

fave cute scenes:
- mafuyu kisses uenoyama first
- mafuyu in yukata

... fave emotional moments:
- the classroom scene
- the clock scene
- mafuyu singing yorugaakeru acapella and the scenes they show during it

fave funny moments:
- UENOYAMA GAY PANIC (YUKATA AND THE CLOCK SCENE AND BASICALLY EVERYTIME HE SEES MAFUYU)
- UENOYAMA YELLING "I DISAPPROVE!!!!" WHILE AKIHIKO IS KNEELING AHAHAHAHAHA

OVERALL. UENOYAMA BEST BOYFRIEND. PERIOD.

When the Given Movie was released, I lamented that the producers made to decision to cut quite a bit from the manga to fit the movie into an hour. In doing so they made the decision to concentrate on the secondary couple which left manga protagonists Mafuyu and especially Ritsuka with very little to do. Ritsuka in particular was hardly more than a cameo. The OVA redresses that completely, concentrating on the manga chapters missing from the movie and turning them into a dense mini movie that comes in at just over 20 minutes. It’s an absolute must for Given fans. Once again, superb ... voice work from Shogo Yano and Yuuma Uchida. Solid if unspectacular animation but ultimately it is more of what made the series so successful, good storytelling and great characters.

First of all i would like to say that im a huge given fan and this ova got me disappointed. I also need to say that I may have some mistakes since english is not my first language. ...

First of all the ova starts showing us how uenoyama and mafuyu have been as a couple and how they are still getting used to each other, which is something good. It continues with their development.

Then we get to another issue of the ova, mafuyu's new lyrics to the song, it reuses the same process we saw when he was writing his first lyrics. Although this time things are shown rushed.

After that, comes the live presentation of the new song. Here they compete against shizu's and hiiragi's band. In the main show they were never shwon further as a band and we never got to see their potential. This was the worse part of the ova, we never get to see the presentation of neither given band nor hiiragi's and shizu's band.

after all this we find out that hiiragi's band won the live presentation without us getting any further information about their band or their song.

this ova rushes the whole thing and makes the live presentation and the new song look like they are no big deal, by doing that it throws away everything that happen earlier in the ova.

the only reason I am giving it a 7 is because we get to see mafuyu's and uenoyama's deveopment that was missed in the movie.

Is this groundbreaking? No. I mean it's an OVA with the missing scenes in the manga. When I first watched the movie, I was extremely disappointed to see they cut these out, but after watching the OVA, I'm glad they did. It would be really confusing to jump back and forth between characters. (although this wouldn't be a problem if they just made it into a series, which is what I think they should've done, but I digress)

Very cute, nothing too deep. I do wish they drew out some more of the more emotional scenes (i.e. the clock scene), but whatever; I have the manga ... so not that big of a deal.

Do you need to watch this? Probably not, but still worth your time. Plus, you HAVE to listen to the orchestra version of Fuyu no Hanashi; absolutely beautiful!!

Hopefully, this means a season 2 or second movie??????

Very wholesome and cute. Good job to the anime creators for adapting the scenes pretty well!

First off, let me start by saying that I enjoy Given. I like it enough to read the manga every time there's a new release. I liked the first season and the movie, but this OVA, I felt was lacking in a lot of aspects.

I knew what to expect of the story from the OVA and it is indeed a faithful adaptation of the manga.
My criticisms are mostly technical. Some scenes felt very awkward. They could've been executed better with background music where and when required. I wish they'd use proper angled shots when the characters are conversing. Even a trivial scene can ... feel impactful if it's properly paired with music, dialogue delivery, and cutscenes or the character's movements and expressions. Here, many significant moments, due to the lack of these factors failed to deliver the impact that they should have. Also, I am upset that they didn't show us even a glimpse of Hiiragi and Shizu's performance.

The art is consistent and decent. There's not much to the characters and their relationships in this OVA. But this isn't a problem of the OVA, it's the story itself. Mafuyu and Ritsuka's relationship develops in the shadows so I can't empathize with them. You know, how in a fictional show, when you can just feel the love between the characters, understand their circumstances and empathize with them? This doesn't happen in their case. Even Haruki and Akihiko got better relationship development than the supposed main pair.

Summing up, I was quite disappointed with the OVA. I hope the plot is executed in a much better way in the upcoming season(s).

Ahh This Ova was so satisfying to watch. As someone who read the manga I highly recommend to watch this ova. The way they showed these two interacting was so cute and they looked comfortable with one another and just happy.

I kept thinking in each scene how cute Ritsuka and Mafuyu were and as someone who is on the angst stage of their relationship in the Manga, this anime showed why they fell in love with each other.
Honestly both Mafuyu and Ristuka are less sad and less conflicted in this so the Ova is a very relaxing watch after watching the Main Anime ... and the movie.Mafuyu truly looks happy in this Ova. It's just so refreshing to look at him smile.
Just go watch it, you will definitely have a fun time.I Find absolutely no faults in the Ova. I just wish it was longer. Those 20 mins were up too quickly.....I want more!!

"Small Spoiler Warning":- There are 2 things I wanna talk about that really made this Ova worth watching.Don't wanna spoil much but I have to mention them in my review.
1) The Song:-
The Ova version of the song "Yorugaakeru " was so good. The softness with only the vocals and Mafuyu's pov of the song instead of Akihiko and Ugetsu shows how a song is a little different for a different person.

2)The Clock Scene:-
Also the clock scene was so well done and I just love how the moment Mafuyu said out loud that the clock in Ritsuka's room reminded him of Yuki, Ritsuka immediately comforted Mafuyu, pushing aside every other thought he was previously thinking to tell him that Mafuyu need not cry alone when he's with him no matter what his past is. That was so well done and the best part is how Mafuyu slowly hugged him back with his eyes tearing up. Now he understood he need not worry that he is hurting Ritsuka or 'sounding weird' in his words. I really think they did this scene better than the Manga!

this ova is an adorable mixture of gay panic and raw emotion. while short, I feel it gives insight into their relationship so that we see them as what they are, teenagers with no clue what love is. the episode flashes quickly from comedy to serious moments which makes it feel as if its short stories at the end of a book but, they are directly related and do not lose track of the main goal of the episode which I believe to be developing the relationship between Mafuyu and Uenoyema in an environment that is not the fast-paced drama of the original show.

English.
These seem like the 30 minutes that the movie was missing, but I understand why they divided it into this little 30-minute episode, here they show us the point of view of the protagonists when the movie was happening at the same time, it's simple and true I think I expected a lot from this episode but I was left with something more interesting, I think that as such what was shown on the screen was more like an epilogue for this couple and I felt like it was the final episode of the main series.
I think that if I will get here after watching ... the series and the movie you will be interested in this episode, it is entertaining but do not expect anything else because it will not give it to you, it is simple in what is shown and that is fine.

Español.
Estos parecen los 30 minutos que le faltaron a la película, pero comprendo el porqué lo dividieron en este pequeño episodio de 30 minutos, aquí nos muestran el punto de vista de los protagonistas cuando al mismo tiempo estaba sucediendo la película, es simple y la verdad creo que esperaba muchísimo de este episodio pero me quedo debiendo algo más interesante, creo que como tal lo mostrado en pantalla fue más como un epílogo para esta pareja y lo sentí como si fuera el episodio final de la serie principal.
Creo que si ya llegaré hasta aquí tras ver la serie y la película te va a interesar este episodio, es entretenido pero no esperes nada más porque no te lo dará, es simple en lo mostrado y eso esta bien.

I enjoyed this a bit more than the movie (minus you know). They really could have spliced this in and expanded on it a little to make a nice 90 minute movie. This has a lot more of the romcom stuff I wanted in the main series.
Nice to see Hiiragi giving Mafuyu music-related advice. And something tells me he won't get along with Ritsuka. Or will he? "Be careful that I don't break your index finger" "He's not as stuck up as you, so it's fine"
And Mafuyu wants to get praised by Ritsuka, but only got a soft critique. God, I love sassy and unhinged ... Mafuyu. Wish the TV series leaned a bit more on that aspect of him. He may be a traumatized boy, but he's also a gremlin.