given

ギヴン (Given)

8.4(5)

OtakuDen

8.3(349,859)

MAL Score

Ranked #337

Popularity #389

Boys Love
Drama
Music
School

Episodes: 11
Duration: 22 min per ep
Aired: Jul 12, 2019 to Sep 20, 2019
Status: Finished Airing

Synopsis

Mafuyu Satou leaves his dim apartment for another ordinary day of high school, Gibson guitar in hand. He dozes on a quiet gym staircase and runs into Ritsuka Uenoyama, a fellow student who scolds him for neglecting the instrument until its strings have rusted and snapped. Drawn in by Uenoyama’s know-how, Mafuyu asks him to repair it—and to teach him how to play—setting off a connection that leads Mafuyu to a jam session with bassist Haruki Nakayama and drummer Akihiko Kaji.

When Mafuyu finally sings, his unexpectedly beautiful voice pushes Uenoyama to see him as the band’s potential lead vocalist. Mafuyu hesitates, but after an emotional reunion with someone from his past, he begins to open up. With the band’s support, he works to learn the guitar while confronting the unclear, painful story behind how it came into his hands.

Otaku Consensus

Given earns its reputation as a top-tier BL drama because Hikaru Yamaguchi’s direction and Yuniko Ayana’s slow-burn structure make the music feel like emotional action rather than decoration. Critics and fans consistently single out the cathartic performance stretch and the anime’s advantage over the manga — you can actually hear the songs — while the main caveat is that 11 episodes leave some band relationships and side-couple material waiting for the follow-up film.

Why You Should Watch

Watch Given if you want queer romance without gimmicky fanservice, a music anime where rehearsal-room silence matters as much as the stage, and an 11-episode run that actually builds to a release instead of rushing one. It scratches some of the same itch as Nana in how songs become emotional evidence, and it shares Doukyuusei’s interest in intimacy through small, awkward pauses, but its school-band setting gives it a sharper rock-band texture. The appeal is not just “boys in love”; it is watching grief, artistic insecurity, and adolescent attraction get filtered through tuning, practice, lyric-writing, and timing. Viewers who like deliberate pacing and character-first drama will get far more out of it than those looking for constant performance spectacle.

Key Characters

M
Mafuyu Satou
Mafuyu stands out as a BL lead whose quietness reads less like romantic coyness and more like emotional rehabilitation, which is why fans often connect his character growth to the show’s music rather than to dialogue alone.
R
Ritsuka Uenoyama
Ritsuka is compelling because his guitarist’s perfectionism gives the romance a practical texture: affection often arrives through instruction, frustration, and attention to craft.
H
Haruki Nakayama
Haruki functions as the band’s emotional ballast, the older student whose warmth keeps the group dynamic from becoming only a two-person drama.
A
Akihiko Kaji
Akihiko adds a more adult, complicated energy to the ensemble, giving the series a second layer of romantic and interpersonal tension beyond the school setting.

What Makes It Stand Out

1
Lerche’s TV adaptation is unusually compact at 11 episodes, which gives the series a leaner dramatic shape than the standard 12- or 13-episode seasonal template.
2
The adaptation’s biggest medium-specific upgrade is sound: multiple reviews note that the manga’s band material gains a new dimension because the anime can make the songs audible instead of implied.
3
Hikaru Yamaguchi’s direction and Yuniko Ayana’s series composition commit to a slow-burn rhythm, with the emotional payoff structured around performance rather than a conventional confession scene.
4
The production credits include a dedicated CG director, Tomoya Mizuno, matching the show’s documented use of CGI-tagged material for music and instrument-related staging.
5
The show’s community profile is unusually specific: AniList tags it not only as Band and Boys’ Love, but also Coming of Age, LGBTQ+ Themes, Rehabilitation, Rock Music, Bisexual, and Urban.

Fun Facts & Trivia

Fun fact 1: Given adapts Natsuki Kizu’s manga, which began in 2013, and the anime’s success helped lead to an hour-long film released one year later.
Fun fact 2: A manga-reader review notes that the follow-up film closely adapts the manga’s fifth volume, making the TV series part of a larger, highly direct adaptation path rather than a loose remix.
Fun fact 3: The series has strong database performance for a BL music drama: 8.29 on MyAnimeList from 349,702 votes, a MAL rank of #336, and an AniList score of 83/100.
Fun fact 4: AniList lists 14,291 favourites for Given, a notable sign of lasting fan attachment beyond its original July to September 2019 broadcast window.
Fun fact 5: The core visual staff includes character designer Mina Oosawa, art director Kouhei Honda, art designer Eiko Tsunadou, color designer Hiroaki Kaguchi, photography director Naoki Serizawa, and editor Rie Itou.