For some reason (well, I know exactly the reason) I’ve been feeling quite unfulfilled where music anime were concerned. 2019 was desperately in need of a good one (though to be fair, good ones are as rare as hen’s teeth), and while it’s way too early to tell, it might just have it in Given. NoitaminA is miles off their glory days of 7-10 years ago, when they aired two series and the odds were pretty good both would be excellent and almost 100% that at least one would be. But it’s rebounded nicely in the past two years – inconsistent but more often than not offering something genuinely different and of good quality.
Make no mistake, Given is a genre series – this is unapologetically BL (so if that’s a deal-breaker for you, bail out now). And I’ve learned through experience that you have to be very careful with genre series, because not only is there a risk that the tail starts wagging the dog where tropes are concerned, but fans can be very defensive where any criticism is concerned, and dismiss any critiques as bias. That’s no less true for BL than any other genre, but I don’t want to let that sort of thing scare me away from what could be a good series – and Given certainly seems like it could be a good series.
Apart from romance, the theme here is music – rock music, to be concerned. The first boy we meet is Satou Mafuyu (Yano Shougo), who’s perpetually agape of expression and carrying a bitchin’ Gibson ES-330 (and unless this is a custom job it’s a classic, as that axe was discontinued in the 70’s). It’s pretty obvious Mafuyu doesn’t know much about guitars, not least to his high school classmate Uenoyama Ritsuka (Uchida Yuuma). Uenoyama first runs into Satou-kun sleeping in Uenoyama’s usual hiding spot, and eventually winds up changing the strings on his Gibson (which he thought he’d broken when he broke a string).
At first glance these two look like a pretty typical odd-couple pairing. Mafuyu is delicate and innocent, and Uenoyama very much an alpha-male type who’s good at sports and plays in a band. What unites them of course is the guitar – and Mafuyu immediately starts nagging Uenoyama to teach him how to play. I don’t blame him for resisting – Mafuyu comes off as pretty annoying to be honest, and knowing how to do something doesn’t remotely mean that you also know how to teach it. He tries to pawn Mafuyu off on the light music club, but instead Satou-kun follows him around like a puppy.
Eventually he winds up at the studio where Uenoyama-kun’s band practices. There are two other members, both of whom are seemingly a little older – drummer Kaji Akihito (Eguchi Takuya) – who used to date Uenoyama’s older sister, which makes me wonder if that’s how he ended up in their band – and bassist Nakayama Haruki (Nakazawa Masatomo) and Uenoyama of course plays the guitar. A Fender Telecaster to be precise. And he shreds it pretty good when the band practices in front of their audience of one – it’s clear from the reactions of Kaji and Nakayama that this is not his usual performance. That’s clear from the intensity of his own facial expressions in any case.
I’m no mathematician, but when I add up the numbers what seems to be missing here is a vocalist – which I’m assuming is where Satou is going to come in, at least where the band is concerned. Tastes play into it, but the practice jam we get is way better than anything I’ve heard in that other current music anime. All in all this is a really nice first episode – the interactions feel very real, and the euphoria of being young and throwing yourself into rock and roll is quite admirably communicated. Given is a romance, so it would be nuts to try and assess it before we get an idea of how well that side of the series is going to work, but so far so good.
leongsh
July 12, 2019 at 10:06 pmThis is one of the five series starting this season that I have committed to follow even before the season started. It looks like a good fairly blind choice based on series summary and a Noitamina series. There seems to be a good budget behind it too as you can see the money spent in the animation of the band playing – the fingerwork playing the guitars and drum action matching to the music heard. It seems to have gotten approval from Fender, Gibson, Pearl and Sabian to have their trademarked brand names displayed. Here’s hoping they keep it up.
I am curious that you did not mention the (REDACTED) that Mafuyu saw in relation to the Gibso guitar he has that was shown in flashback at the early part of the episode. Could it be you’re familiar with the material and not wanting to spoil things?
One last thing. This being a BL series does not bother me. As long as there is an interesting story to be told with interesting characters, I am game.
Guardian Enzo
July 12, 2019 at 10:25 pmNo, not familiar with any detail from the source material – just an oversight on my part.
elianthos80
July 13, 2019 at 12:47 am@Enzo: well I hope there won’t be any cause of complain or unease either on the blogger or the readership’s side 😛 . For what it’s worth – and YMMV notwithstanding – Given does belong in the new wave of BL which tend to be much less problematic-tropes-ridden than its ancestors.
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Not a bad start, although I think we can see which other series Lerche received more cash to make this season :P.
About the band… well Enzo between the OP sequence and next week preview we can make an educated guess.
On the music side there are a few manga details that made me suspect the autor either did some serious research or is a music ( instruments) buff of sort 🙂 and we got some little clues of that already. Now I am quite eagerly waiting to hear the actual music… indie rock band is quite a large range term after all. So far so good but I am anticipating the big spoilery moment rendition.
One thing I miss is the slight Haikyuu flavour of 1) the original designs 2) the humour/timing/delivery. Hopefully point 2) will get to shine in the following episodes. Not-Kageyama I mean Ritsuka’s inner mental theatre and the band goofy moments are pretty amusing on paper.
And talking of Ritsuka while I defer to your manly experience he doesn’t really gave me strong alpha-male vibes this week. His sister has him under her thumb at home and he’s so weak to – his words – the ‘abandoned puppy’, plus he really doesn’t behave like the soul of the classroom’s party as of now so to speak… two classmates seem to be his friends, but then he’s either daydreaming at his desk or sleeping (until Mafuyu spoiled his spot) or spending his socializing time ( = playing with the other two guys) outside of the class.
On the hanging bit I sorta see how Leongsh noticed but you didn’t mention it, I think it was meant to be a blink-and-you-miss-it here, for now. We will come to know more bit by bit. Relatedly…
@leongsh: good catch taking note of that fleeting scene btw.
Guardian Enzo
July 13, 2019 at 7:58 amWhen I say alpha male, from a high school male perspective – he’s the classic physically imposing, popular guy (even if he’s sensitive). He’s got hunk friends, he’s good at sports, he seems to be popular.