— A Story About Music, Loss, and the Feelings We Can’t Put Into Words ー
This article contains very minor spoilers.
Let Me Be Honest First
When I started watching Given, I thought it was going to be a band story.
Music, romance, friendship. That kind of thing.
But it wasn’t — not exactly.
What Given is really about is this:
How do people find a way to let out the feelings they’ve never been able to say?
That question stayed with me long after the series ended.
Basic Information
| Title | Given (ギヴン) |
| Author | Natsuki Kizu |
| Genre | Coming-of-age, Music, Band, Boys’ Love |
| Original Manga | 9 volumes, complete |
| TV Anime | 11 episodes (2019) |
| Films | Movie (2020), Hiragi Mix & To the Sea (2024) |
Story
Ritsuka Uenoyama is a high school student who plays guitar.
He used to love it. But somewhere along the way, the passion faded.
Then one day, he meets a boy on the school staircase.
Mafuyu Sato.
He’s holding a broken guitar he doesn’t know how to fix. He’s quiet. Distant. Hard to read.
But Ritsuka hears him sing — just once, by accident.
And something that had been asleep inside Ritsuka wakes up.
Mafuyu eventually joins the band Ritsuka plays in, called Given, as their vocalist.
But Mafuyu is carrying something. A past that isn’t easy to put into words.
Slowly, through music, the feelings that had been frozen begin to move again.
Given is a story about pain and the slow process of finding your way back.
Characters
Mafuyu Sato
The boy at the center of the story.
Quiet. Emotionally closed off. But in possession of a voice that stops people in their tracks.
The weight of what he can’t say is what drives the entire story forward.
Ritsuka Uenoyama
The guitarist. Intense about music, and the first person to recognize Mafuyu’s gift.
Awkward when it comes to feelings. But when it matters, he shows up — sincerely, consistently.
Haruki Nakayama
The bassist. The oldest member of the band.
He watches everyone carefully, holds the group together, and keeps his own feelings quietly to himself.
Akihiko Kaji
The drummer. A university student.
Calm on the surface. Gives short, exact words when they’re needed most.
But he too is carrying something unresolved — something that takes the whole story to work through.
Three Reasons Given Stays With You
① Music as the place where feelings finally get spoken
In Given, music is not just atmosphere or aesthetic.
It is the place where what cannot be said in words finally comes out.
Mafuyu cannot explain what he feels. He doesn’t fully understand it himself. He moves through life as if time has stopped somewhere inside him.
But when he sings — everything that had been locked away arrives all at once.
That’s why the live performance scenes in this series hit differently. They are not just exciting moments.
They are the moments when someone finally says what they have been carrying for a long time.
② Love is not made simple here
Given does not pretend that loving someone makes things easier.
Loving someone means being jealous. Loving someone means being unable to speak. Loving someone means getting hurt.
The series takes the difficulty of love seriously — the weight of it, not just the warmth.
That honesty is part of why the characters feel so real.
③ Silence has a reason
Mafuyu might look, at first, like someone who simply doesn’t talk much.
But as the story unfolds, the reason behind his silence becomes visible.
Given asks you to consider:
What if someone’s inability to speak isn’t a personality trait — but the shape of something they’ve been through?
That question changes the way you watch the whole series. And it changes the way you watch Mafuyu sing.
Recommended Viewing Order
There are several Given releases, so here’s the order that works best:
- TV Anime — 11 episodes — Start here. This is the foundation of everything. Mafuyu and Ritsuka’s story begins here.
- 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.
- OAD: The Other Side (うらがわの存在) — A short companion piece to the 2020 film. Watch it after the movie.
- Given: Hiragi Mix (2024) — Deepens the story around Mafuyu’s childhood friends. Quietly devastating.
- Given: To the Sea (2024) — The conclusion of the series. The feelings that were never delivered finally find their way. Many people say this is the one that made them cry the most. → If you’ve already seen it, read this essay: [When Your Partner Finishes Their Ex’s Love Song — What Given: To the Sea Understands About Love]
Watching in this order lets the emotional weight build the way it was meant to.
Who Is Given For?
- People who love music-centered coming-of-age stories
- People who want more than romance — the pain of human connection, too
- People who are drawn to quiet, emotionally restrained characters
- People who love stories about loss and slow recovery
- People new to Boys’ Love who want something that feels like a human drama first
- People who have watched Tsurune, Mashiro no Oto, or Blue Orchestra and want something with that same quiet intensity
A Final Note
Given is a Boys’ Love series.
But that’s not what stays with you longest.
What stays is this:
The moment when a feeling that could never be said finally becomes music and finds its way out.
Every character in this story is carrying something they haven’t been able to express.
And slowly, through a band, through sound, through the act of playing together — they find their way toward each other.
Quiet. Deep.
That’s what kind of story this is.
If you’ve finished the series and want to go deeper — especially if Given: To the Sea moved you — this essay goes into the moment that broke me most:
✅ [When Your Partner Finishes Their Ex’s Love Song — What Given: To the Sea Understands About Love]
