Given Movie 1

The band "given"—comprised of Ritsuka Uenoyama, Mafuyu Satou, Haruki Nakayama, and Akihiko Kaji—has advanced to the final screening of the Countdown-fes Amateur Contest, in which they will be judged on their live act. Although enthusiastic, they worry about having only one original song to perform.

Mafuyu embraces the idea of learning more about music in order to create new, emotionally resonant songs. In this regard, he unexpectedly receives help from Ugetsu Murata, Akihiko's on-again, off-again lover. Ugetsu has unsuccessfully tried to let go of Akihiko, who himself is torn between lingering feelings for his past and an uncertain resolve for the future.

As the competition draws near, Haruki uncharacteristically begins to doubt his place in the band and the trust he shares with Akihiko. It is a given that not all attachments last forever, but it remains to be seen what can be salvaged from the ruins of heartbreak—or if only regrets will endure.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Nakayama, Haruki Main

Nakazawa, Masatomo Japanese

Kaji, Akihiko Main

Eguchi, Takuya Japanese

Murata, Ugetsu Main

Asanuma, Shintaro Japanese

Satou, Mafuyu ing

Yano, Shougo Japanese

Uenoyama, Ritsuka ing

Uchida, Yuuma Japanese

Kashima, Hiiragi ing

Imai, Fumiya Japanese

Yagi, Shizusumi ing

Ban, Taito Japanese

Yatake, Kouji ing

Takeuchi, Ryouta Japanese

Itaya, Shougo ing

Takanashi, Kengo Japanese

Ueki, Ryou ing

Amano, Hirosato Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Matsumoto, Miho Producer

Herek, Samantha Assistant Producer

Yamaguchi, Hikaru Director

Reviews

Feb 2, 2021

September

Recommended

"Given the Movie" finally came to Crunchyroll, and I stayed up until 4 AM to watch it as it streamed live. I'll preface this by saying that I'm all caught up with the manga and I've listened to all of the drama CDs, which both means nothing was a surprise, and I also had some media to compare the film to.

The film starts off practically right after the anime series ended, but instead of focusing on Mafuyu and Ritsuka, it focuses on Akihiko, Ugetsu, and Haruki, much like how the manga is structured. What stuck out to me first thing was how great it was ... to see how Mafuyu has changed after experiencing that catharsis post-Fuyu no Hanashi/episode 9. He's way, way more expressive not just verbally but overall, which Ritsuka helpfully points out in the film (side-note: best boyfriend? Best boyfriend. Mafuyu is LUCKY.) as he tries to cheer Mafuyu up. Seeing the progression of Mafuyu's and Ritsuka's relationship, albeit in a minor way, was nice, too.

I feel like I can relate a lot more to the main characters of the film- not to put down Ritsuka or Mafuyu by any means, but they're high schoolers with high schooler issues, feelings and levels of maturity- and I'm a lot older than that. So, having characters like Akihiko, Ugetsu, and Haruki in the spotlight is kind of refreshing considering the problems they're facing are more relatable to myself. They're all well-written characters, even those that ended up in the background this time around, but it was just really nice to see the complexity of especially Ugetsu and Akihiko, not to mention their relationship. The build-up to the mature scene of the film is incredibly solid and though it happens fairly early on in the film, it certainly didn't feel that way (mostly because there are eleven anime episodes preceding the film, of course). The conflicts feel realistic and Akihiko's 'redemption arc' is a tough read and watch, but it's all so, so, worth it in the end.

Overall, the only real issue I had was that it was too short of a film and that it felt rushed sometimes. That's only to be expected, though, considering everything they crammed into less than 60 minutes, and when seeing it that way, it's also impressive that it for the most part DIDN'T feel rushed with everything that was covered. They stayed very true to the source material of the manga, and since I absolutely adore the manga, both the anime and the film are great as a result.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Feb 2, 2021

CrimsonKing25

Mixed Feelings

As much as I do like the story of Given and the characters, the AkiHaru arc is my least favorite for a lot of reasons. Reasons you may agree or disagree with but nonetheless, I didn't really enjoy it as much as I did with Mafuyu's and Uenoyama's arc. Here's the thing, I don't absolutely hate the AkiHaru arc but I was left disappointed by how things turned out for the characters and the romance for Aki and Haru.

Given has an issue of the characters not properly communicating with each other which causes problems when if they were just honest with their feelings, the problems ... wouldn't be an issue. Aki, Haru, and Ugetsu all had this issue where none of them were completely honest about what they want. They weren't honest in conveying their feelings which resulted in miscommunications which then lead to *that scene* with Aki and Haru.

Between the three of them, Haru is my favorite whereas Aki and Ugetsu are not. This story arc didn't do them any justice with how much miscommunication there was. Why did Ugetsu do the things he did instead of being honest to Aki. Why was Aki not truthful to Haru when things were getting complicated. There were many, and I mean MANY opportunities for the two of them to be honest. Except they didn't.

And what happened with Aki and Haru during *that scene* (trying to keep this spoiler-free as possible) made me all the more disappointed with the story. It had to go with the assault trope in BL stories and seeing Haru going through that much pain made me mad at Aki. What's worse is that the issue is sort of brushed under the rug and we have the two of them together. And I hated it. I hated that things had to turn out that way for them to be together. The saying "this needed to happen" does not apply to this. What happened in *that scene* did not need to happen for them to be together.

As much as I wanted to like Aki and Haru as a couple, the way things went about for them to be together was not great. They deserved better. Their love story deserved better. This arc deserved better.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jun 11, 2021

TheBlazingBlade

Not Recommended

Kaji is a piece of crap. Sure the story ends well... be he straight up ran from everything in his life and messed up everyone else's. He also raped Haruki. WTF. WHY IS THAT OKAY to people?! Why does Haruki say he consented? He didn't. Kaji... you are trash. If you read through the manga he is an even worse piece of crap. I don't care if someone tries to turn their life around, that doesn't mean it makes everything they did okay.
There are SO many other animes that have better stories, with romance, that is about music.

I liked the original anime so ... much better. This movie ruined it. I originally wanted a season 2 to see what became of the band and the romance, but I don't care anymore. Any future season 2 can go burn.

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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