My thoughts on given - BL anime

you ever just think about BL anime and realize how weird the selection is? like, you’ve got the soft, quiet ones where two boys stare at each other for ten episodes and maybe hold hands once. then you’ve got the complete chaos ones—dramatic, sweaty, borderline horror—and both are labeled “romance.”

some of them try to tell real emotional stories (like Given or Sasaki and Miyano), and then others feel like someone wrote it during a fever dream and hit publish (Junjo Romantica, I’m looking at you).

what gets me about Given though—it actually treats grief and love like they mean something. Mafuyu isn’t just “sad pretty boy who sings”; he’s trying to live again. and Uenoyama? poor guy didn’t even plan on catching feelings. it just happens. it’s quiet, awkward, and real in that specific BL way where no one knows how to talk about emotions but they still crash into each other anyway.

Given isn’t perfect. the pacing drags, and the band subplot sometimes feels like filler. but it’s one of the few BL anime that doesn’t feel like it’s winking at you for being gay—it just is.

so yeah. Given is less about “yaoi tropes” and more about “two guys trying to make sense of grief, music, and each other.” that’s rare. and maybe that’s why it sticks.