Given: The Wonderful Humanity of it All

Intro

A year ago, I was browsing Crunchyroll's Youtube channel, making a list of anime to watch, when I stumbled upon this clip of the anime: Given.

Upon watching it, I burst into tears. Was it because of the raw emotion that the scene contained? Yes, but it also struck me with a deeply personal and relevant cord as I was then. I became obsessed with the anime, watching all the clips multiple times and crying almost every single time. I have never felt such emotion when watching any media centered around gay people. But Given was different; Given was profound in a way that might have been entirely accidental, but it might have helped improve my life. I have some explaining to do.

Me explaining myself

I try not to talk about myself too much in my work, as it is a bad idea. People are not interested in me as a person per se, and I don't want to risk oversharing details. So I will be giving (lol) a broad overview of the personal reasons why Given affected me the way it did to help you understand why I think the anime is as good as it is. Okay? Okay. Let me start.

I first became aware that I wasn't straight at thirteen, becoming very aware of my homosexuality at fifteen/sixteen.

I developed a highly negative opinion of myself. All I saw of gays were either great evils that must be destroyed by heterosexuals or tragic victims of a cruel un-accepting society where any love or self-expression was fleeting and would end in death/misery or forced into a loveless marriage forever. They were more often than not highly effeminate and were the targets of ridicule because they failed to be masculine. I spent my teenage years and my very early 20s (until now) fighting the psychological equivalent of gravity-utterly impossible and self-destructive. I hated myself on a scale that I am still working through.

So when I saw that clip and subsequent clips, I kept crying because I felt human for the first time. I felt that I wasn't a freak of nature or an endless failure of a man. I saw myself for the first time in the various characters depicted. I saw their humanity reflected in me.

Please do not think that I want you to feel sorry for me. I am much better than I was at the start of my 20s, and I will continue to work toward full acceptance of the self as I grow older. I had to explain how I created the hell in my head. I have never been persecuted for being myself (although I am grateful to live in one of the few African countries that don't persecute gays). Society and art haven't been the best at offering humanity to gay people, but I ultimately let it get to me. I am responsible for creating my hell of heaven. Given was just the wake-up call I needed to help myself.

Theming and story

What is the central theme of Given? I would argue that loss and trauma are the primary ones. It focused on Mafuyu's unspoken trauma over the suicide of his boyfriend Yuki, who often was emotionally absent in the relationship. Others could argue that it is about growing up and longings, such as Ritsuka's discovery of himself and his first love or Haruiki's (open) secret crush on Akijiko, who was suffering in a toxic relationship. All of these characters are drawn together for their love of music, and romance quietly blooms between the four across the series. While abuse, trauma, and difficulties exist within the series, the characters are not defined by their suffering or struggles.

Neither are their stories exclusively bound by their non-heterosexuality, nobody has to come out, and the world doesn't care or treats the coupling like an open secret. Normally Hollywood or even indie movies containing gay people have to revolve around the trauma of being gay or having to come out. Given that other BL anime, however, seem unconcerned about this. I found it honestly very refreshing and human.

I know there is some struggle in the show, such as when Ritsuka asks Akijiko if something is wrong with him for liking Mafuyu. Akijiko says there isn't any, and the world continues to turn. Interactions like these show the struggle of growing up in a more socially conservative country while not making it all about the battle. It felt more relatable than something like The Prom or Brokeback Mountain. It's not all suffering; there can be joy, highs, lows, and hope.

Characters

Given is based on four main characters, Mafuyu Sato, Ritsuka Uenoyama, Haruiki Nakayama, and Akijiko Kaji; during the series, the four start to fall for one another in several days. Ritsuka is a brash stoic whose first experience of love leaves him confused and scared in a way that feels very human. Indeed, an experience that most gays can relate to, but without (in Hollywood movies) society collectively shitting on him. He doesn't have any crisis of identity or frets about having to come out; all he needed was the assurance that he is normal and can get on with his life. Ritsuka has a life outside of being gay; he has a sister, a band to play in, and a school to attend. He feels like the sort of kid you would meet at your high school.

Akijiko is the complete opposite of most stereotypes of gay and bisexual men in Western media; he is masculine, utterly shredded, cool, and calculating, all to hide how much of a mess his life has been after he got into a toxic relationship. He sleeps around with women but hides his feelings for Haruiki to keep him from getting hurt. Akijiko is a complex and sometimes polarising figure in the anime and manga, the strongest point of contention being in the movie, where he almost rapes Haruiki. It's a horrific scene, made all the tragic considering the chemistry between the two leading up to that scene.

The aftermath, which understandably traumatized Haruiki, creates a morally gray drama between the two that is extremely human, with Akjijko trying to regain Haruiki's trust and love again and the latter figuring out if that is possible. The ending to the two's arc is also polarising, as some have said them ending up together excuses the abuse. I can't entirely agree with this, as the ending was earned through Akiko's deliberate action to improve himself and eliminate toxic people. He wasn't like Christian Gray, who he doesn't change but apologizes and gets Steele. Arkiko worked for his chance of redemption.

What I love about Given's protagonists is how human, flawed, or even broken they can be without the threat of destruction or exclusion. They can grow, change or even self-destruct of their own accord. They can live their own lives without being entirely ruled by their sexuality. Something that Hollywood has struggled with in its depiction of gay characters for a very long time. I can see my flawed, scared, and hopeful self in them. Despite his confusion, I love that Ritsuka can still live and accept his blossoming love for Mafyuyu without the entirety of Japanese society attempting to crush him. Or the complete absence of the soul-crushing shame and self-hate that many a gay man (both real and in fiction) has to suffer through. It was refreshing to see a work of fiction that isn't about gays suffering internally because of who they are, and it offers hope that the pain isn't all there is to be gay.

Japan vs. the West-Reality vs. Art

Japan is one of the most paradoxical countries regarding culture. On the one hand, they are as technologically advantaged, if not more so, than major first-world countries, but they also use fax machines. Japanese people tend to be very emotionally and sexually repressed, yet their art (and porn, not that I'd know) is some of the emotional (or extreme) in content. Gay marriage is not recognized, there are no legal protections against discrimination, and the treatment of gays in Japan is mixed, ranging from acceptance to downright hostility. In comparison, the West is technologically advanced (no fax machines there). People are more expressive of their emotions and sexuality (sometimes too much), society is liberal, and gays are accepted by society for the most part.

So why is the West seemingly incapable (in its art) of writing better gay characters than Japan? As mentioned previously, for most of the modern history of art across Western culture, depictions of homosexuality were based on wholly evil characters, noble suffering, or objects of ridicule. Those that were not these things were rare, such as Neil Gaiman's The Sandman being an early example and recent stories like David R Slayton's Adam Binder trilogy.

While this has been changing recently, I am concerned that we (in the West) are falling into another trap, which we would like to call the Icon. The Icon homosexual is the perfect gay who suffers some mild pushback from society before triumphing and living happily ever after. They tend not to have flaws and are made to push the equality message. It's an improvement, but I struggle to connect with them or see them as anything but an aspect of the writer's ideology.

I believe that the problem is ideological first and social second. The evil homo is an example of a Christian ideology believing that anything non-heterosexual is bad and must be destroyed. Coupled with the hostile society of the time, you have a perfect monster. As we progress to the early 2000s, the aftermath of the aids crisis, and just society at large, we have stories of gays suffering and dying. Examples would be BrokeBack Mountain or Holding a Man, all promoting tragedy and unhappy endings.

Please do not think I don't think gays shouldn't suffer or die, we are human that is part of the experience, but it isn't the sole aspect of us. Same with being a monster, there are plenty of monstrous gays, but not everyone is such a monster.

Now that we are with the Icon, the aspiring movie poster gay inspires dozens of teenagers to understand they are alright as they self-discover. Which is excellent, but the humanity is still not there. I am not an inspiring icon; I am just an ordinary human trying to live my best life like the rest of you. Hollywood and Western culture industries seemingly can't see that homosexuality is normal and nothing to be celebrated and shunned.

This is why I saw Given, with its slice of life, the quiet existence of its non-heterosexual characters. I related more to them than anyone in The Prom or the dozens of shallow gays Disney puts in before cutting out of the Middle Eastern and Chinese movie releases. Ritskua, Mafuyu Nakayama, or Akihko are not perfect people. Mafuyu struggles to communicate and is trauma ridden from seeing his boyfriend hang himself. Akihiko almost rapes Nakayama in the movie after the breakup of his (Akihiko's) boyfriend.

They are not perfect people but not monsters; they can commit evil or have inner lives outside of who they want to bang. And that is something Japan gets right where the West fails; the absence of an ideology within the story allows the writers of Given to see their characters as human and will enable them to be so. As far back as I have gone, I have not seen any homophobic stereotypes. But I have noticed how none of the characters in Given (for example) express any homosexual interest outside the privacy of their homes/ in the presence of trusted friends/ or other gays. The lack of involvement of Ritskua or Mafuy's parents in the two's budding relationship was noted by me as an interesting cultural difference between the West and Japan in attitude. It is quiet and often an (open) secret within society about the existence of gay people within Japan.

Conclusion

Given is not only a beautifully written/performed and animated show about trauma, growing up, and friendship but also one of the most human depictions of a group of people I have seen, period. It puts the West's attempts at humanizing gays to shame with its unconcern around the drama but rather the day-to-day life of an ordinary human. The utter mundanity of a group of people who might have different tastes in romantic partners from the majority feels strangely revolutionary to me. Perhaps it's just my feelings and emotions that have plagued me for a long time. I can't believe I am saying this, but the West needs to take some notes from Japan on depicting minorities with any sense of humanity. While that happens, I will continue doing my part to make the gays in my fiction more human than previously or even now. Japan is such a strange cultural paradox.

Please consider reading Black Masquerade: The third entry in the Eight Nightmares Collection, now available at selected retailers.

Acknowledgments

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