Given

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Given is a truly amazing story that features great art, a compelling plot, and plenty of emotional moments. All of the protagonists have an amazing amount of depth and complexity that complements the mature themes present in the plot, drawing the reader in and presenting a narrative that feels real and heartfelt. This manga will play your heartstrings like a fiddle (Or perhaps a Gibson hollow body) and take you on an emotional rollercoaster as you follow the ever-shifting feelings of love, pain, desperation, and soul-searching that plague the cast. As a sub-theme to the plot of personal connection and growth, the power of music ... as a tool for healing and expression plays a vital role for most of the characters. If you like a fantastic romance story, Given is definitely worth the time.

I remember reading a lot of yaoi when I was younger and discovering my sexuality. I read a lot of trash, like terrible trash, and was very confused as how these authors thought gay people worked. As a bi man who has dated a man before, I fell like I can see past the allure of "oh my goodness, this boy is kissing another boy!1!11!" that most BL relies on.

Foremost, I think I should give my opinion on the manga. It is very very okay! Its not bad, but I also don't think that because it doesn't really do much wrong makes it good. it ... didn't blow me out of the water, but its not trashy like most BL manga I read when I was a very confused 16 year old. The romance is okay, the characters are very standard, the yaoi curse of everyone being down bad for their male friends is still here. I think the biggest crux of the manga is that it kinda... rushes? Instead of focusing on the romance between 2 characters, it just lets everything happen in a chapter or two then moves on. It tries to be a lot while not being amazing at any of them, feeling more like a collection of sub plots without an overarching narrative. The best thing that exemplifies this is the whole, yknow, suicide thing. Its revealed, doesn't go too in depth, then gets resolved and never really brought up again. Incredible.

I've been pretty negative but honestly what gets me is that its kinda cute at times. The art is good, I'm a bit of a music nerd so the band aesthetic is an easy sell to me, and its not something I constantly roll my eyes at. Its crazy how its just like a straight romance manga but with boys instead of being a weird sex kink for perverts that makes you want to take a long, cold shower after reading it. I just kinda wish there was a bit more to it...

Many works seem to believe that just mentioning suicide automatically makes the script better. It does not. Especially when it’s not really elaborated upon, just thrown in the mix for some free drama. Unfortunately, some readers will fall for this bait, and proclaim the story deep and dramatic and whatever.

So, what is Given actually about? The thing is, I struggle to summarize it. Not because it’s complex, but because what I consider its biggest flaw – it doesn’t have a point. With most of fiction, you can usually grasp what the author is going for. Sometimes it’s to explore deeps though. Sometimes the main point ... is just see some cool mecha action or cute girls doing cute things, and that is okay too (when it actually delivers the premise, of course). Given simply feels lacklustre. Now of course, you could make a counterpoint that the point of Given is just to be a BL. You could even paraphrase my previous point and say it’s supposed to be “cute boys doing cute things”. But as lot of yaoi, it can’t help but attempt to seem like it’s more than that.

The central theme is of course boys being gay. But there is also the storyline about them being in band, which isn’t exactly engaging, and is easily topped by works actually focusing on the band aspect, like Beck or Sakamichi no Apollon. There’s the aforementioned suicide, but as mentioned that theme is exploited rather than explored. There is, I guess, some attempt of high school romance drama. Instead of doing good at one point, it attempts many and success at none of these. At least in my experience, this makes Given a confusing read, because I feel like the “goal” is constantly changing with focus all over the place. And not in a good way like some more experimental works, but in a way of unexperienced writer. And of course, it falls in the usual BL trope of “Well wouldn’t you know, pretty much every male character is gay or bi, what are the chances, huh”. I would have liked to say the relationships are realistic and feel natural, but you know how it is. Similar to shippers, the writing of Given just needs two supposedly likeable characters to be around each other to make them into pairing.

The story goes from a start about music to some smutty relationship content – which only dons the appearance of being there for the story, but it’s really just the usual “uwu boys together”, even with the attempts at making it “deep” as mentioned above. It then circles back to the music towards the end, as if remembering that it was supposed to be about music. Some sort of idea of pitting the music and the relationships against each other was appearing, but I wouldn’t consider it well executed. I was going to say the ending was alright, or at least not bad – despite my enjoyment negatively impacted by the fact that the work couldn’t make me care about any of the characters (more about that further down), and that it felt all ultimately meaningless. But the very final page really killed the vibe, what a distasteful and tone-deaf way to end it, huh.

Going back to shipping, I’ve read that Given started as Haikyuu doujinshi. While I haven’t been able to confirm this, it would make sense – a fanfiction doesn’t need to create personalities, it takes them from the original work. But turn the fanfiction into an original work itself and now you can’t just reuse the personalities, for obvious reason. So you’re left with a bunch of characters of little personalities, personalities that readers imagination used to fill with the personalities of the original characters they are based one. It would certainly check out.

The characters are… uninteresting. I can’t actually remember a name of single cast member and I've literally just finished reading the manga. Design-wise Haruki is the only one that stands out, and even that is mostly thanks to his hairstyles. Rest is just Generic Bishounen A, Generic Bishounen B etc. Yes, I still did have to look up his name.

The art is easy the best part of Given. It shines with double page spreads and I especially loved the colored drawings at the start of each volume. Unfortunately, “best part” doesn’t necessarily mean the whole manga is great. In this case, it just means that it’s the only aspect I would call good.

Ultimately, this is definitely among the better BL manga. But as a manga in general, it’s at best slightly over average. So as usual, if you're a fujoshi you'll likely have a grand time, but readers of regular manga will likely be disappointed.