No spoilers in this article.
Given is a Boys’ Love series.
It is also the series I would recommend first to someone who has never watched Boys’ Love before.
Not despite that. Because of how it’s made.
“I’m Not Sure BL Is for Me”
You might have a particular image of what Boys’ Love is.
Stories about male romance, made for a specific audience. Something that might not speak to you personally.
That feeling makes sense.
Given quietly dismantles it.
Because what Given is actually about is not the specificity of same-sex love.
It’s about the universality of falling for someone.
Getting confused by your own feelings. Not being able to say the thing. Getting hurt because you care too much.
Those feelings don’t belong to any particular kind of relationship.
They belong to anyone who has ever wanted someone and not known what to do about it.
The Romance Doesn’t Come First
When you start watching Given, you are not immediately watching a love story.
You are watching a boy who has lost his passion for music.
And another boy who is carrying something he can’t put into words.
Ritsuka Uenoyama used to love playing guitar. Somewhere along the way, that love faded. Then he hears Mafuyu Sato sing — by accident, just once — and something wakes up inside him that had gone quiet.
Mafuyu is holding a broken guitar he can’t play. He is quiet in a way that suggests the quiet has a reason.
Their connection begins not as romance but as something harder to name. A pull. A mutual recognition. Something that happens through music before it happens through feeling.
By the time romantic feelings arrive — and they do arrive — you are already in. You already care about these two people as people.
That is not an accident. It is exactly how Given is constructed.
Want to understand what Mafuyu was carrying before any of this began? ✅ Mafuyu Sato from Given: What His Silence Is Actually Made Of
It Doesn’t Make a Point of the Gender — And That Changes Everything
This is one of the most quietly distinctive things about Given — both as a BL series, and compared to many other BL titles.
A lot of Boys’ Love stories place the fact of same-sex attraction at the centre of the conflict. I’ve fallen for someone of the same gender — what does that mean? Will I be accepted? What will people think? These are real questions, and stories that explore them honestly have their own value.
Given made a different choice.
When Ritsuka realises he has feelings for Mafuyu, what he struggles with is not I’ve fallen for a guy. What he struggles with is what do I do with this feeling? How does Mafuyu feel? How do I even say it?
Those are the questions of anyone who has ever fallen for someone. Regardless of gender.
The series doesn’t pause to underline the fact that its characters are male. It doesn’t frame same-sex attraction as a crisis to be resolved, a secret to be hidden, or a barrier to be overcome.
It simply shows people falling for each other. Getting jealous. Getting scared. Not knowing what to say. Showing up anyway.
And the people around them — the other band members, the people in their lives — respond the same way. There is no moment where Haruki or Kaji reacts to Ritsuka and Mafuyu’s relationship with surprise or discomfort. They simply receive it, as naturally as they receive everything else.
That normalcy — in the characters and in the world they inhabit — creates something important for the viewer.
It makes same-sex love feel like what it is: ordinary. Human. Not a plot point. Just two people, finding their way toward each other.
For someone new to BL, this matters more than it might seem. There is no moment where Given asks you to adjust your expectations. It just puts two people in front of you and lets you watch them fall.
Music as the Language of Feeling
Given contains one of the most emotionally powerful live performance scenes I have encountered in anime.
Mafuyu has been unable to sing for most of the build-up. Something is frozen inside him. Something that has to do with a person he lost, and words that were never said, and a guilt that has no resolution.
And then he sings.
What happens in that moment is not just a good musical performance.
It is the moment when everything that had been locked inside him finally finds a way out.
If you have ever had a feeling you couldn’t put into words — if you have ever needed something other than language to carry what you were holding — that scene will reach you.
Regardless of what genre it belongs to.
Heavy, but Warm
Given is not a light series.
There is grief in it. Guilt. Relationships that ended before they were finished. Characters carrying things they haven’t been able to set down.
But there is also the warmth of a band of people who genuinely care about each other. Moments of levity. Clumsy kindness. The feeling of people slowly, imperfectly, finding their way toward each other.
Heavy, but warm.
That balance is part of what makes Given so approachable as a first series. It takes its emotional material seriously without becoming difficult to be inside.
Where to Start
If you’re ready to watch, the recommended order is:
① TV Anime — 11 episodes Start here. This is the foundation of everything. Mafuyu and Ritsuka’s story begins here, and nothing that comes after lands as hard without it.
② Given: The Movie (2020) Picks up where the anime ends. Shifts focus to the older members of the band and a more complicated love story.
③ OAD: The Other Side A short companion piece to the 2020 film. Watch it after the movie.
④ Given: Hiragi Mix (2024) Deepens the story around Mafuyu’s childhood friends.
⑤ Given: To the Sea (2024) The conclusion of the series. The feelings that were never delivered finally find their way.
For the full watch order with more detail: ✅ What Is Given? — Where to start if you’re new to the series
A Final Note
Given is Boys’ Love.
But you don’t need to watch it as Boys’ Love.
You can watch it as a story about a boy who lost his love for music and found it again. About another boy who stopped being able to speak and slowly learned how to sing. About four people in a band, finding their way toward each other through sound.
The genre is the container.
The feeling inside it is universal.
Start with episode one. See how you feel by episode four.
I think you’ll want to keep going.
Ready to go deeper?
✅ Mafuyu Sato from Given: What His Silence Is Actually Made Of
✅ Ritsuka Uenoyama from Given: The Boy Who Acts Before He Thinks
✅ When Your Partner Finishes Their Ex’s Love Song — What Given: To the Sea Understands About Love
✅ What Is Given? — Where to start if you’re new to the series
