BLog: Given
BLog reviews recent boys love, yaoi and LGBTQ+ English translation manga.
[image error]Given Vol. 1
Story and art: Natsuki Kizu
Translation: Junko Goda
Publisher: SuBLime Manga
Release Date: February 11, 2020
How do you translate something auditory to an entirely visual medium?
Like watching your favourite music video on mute, or your favourite band in concert with the volume turned down, how do you capture the overwrought, electric, tumultuous feelings our favourite music produces inside us?
Given‘s English-subbed anime predates the English translation manga by almost a year. I actually caught an episode and have it on my Crunchyroll queue to continue–I got an unspoken BL vibe without knowing anything about it; sad, cute boys in a band, I’m sold. Now that I’ve read the first volume of Natsuki Kizu’s manga, I’m going to hold off on continuing until the other four volumes come out in English. Similar to seeing your favourite book translated to movie form, I want to form my own opinion on the unheard music of Given.
The manga follows 16-year-old guitarist Ritsuka Uenoyama, whose skips basketball practice one day to find his favourite napping stairwell invaded by quiet, puppy-cute Mafuyu Sato, sleepily cradling a broken guitar. After restringing and tuning the instrument, Mafuyu is enchanted by a single strum of the guitar and follows Ritsuka to his band’s practice, where 22-year-old drummer Haruki Nakayama and 20-year-old bassist Akihiko Kaji quickly adopt him into the group.
As Ritsuka begrudgingly teaches the newcomer to play guitar, Mafuyu remains an enigma to him. When Ritsuka hears Mafuyu sing a snippet of a song in his head, the guitarist becomes obsessed with bringing Mafuyu into the band as vocalist, but questions remain. Where did he get his guitar, an expensive red Gibson ES-330? Why would someone so captivated by learning guitar be so resistant to joining a band? Are the rumours about him dating a boy at his old school true?
Back to my point of translating music onto the manga page, I think of another band comic, Scott Pilgrim, that also received a screen treatment. Perhaps it was a lack of imagination, but I never did the music version of visualizing (auditoralizing?) the songs of Sex Bob-Omb on the page–I loved the grungy, grainy, distorted Beck tracks of the Edgar Wright film, even if I ultimately found the adaptation disappointing, especially the treatment of the film’s racialized characters. Perhaps I should have made more of an effort to do so, but seeing the music of Sex Bob-Omb represented did more for me than lyrics and notes.
For being a manga about a band, music and, especially, lyrics are sparse on the pages of Given Vol. 1. You see the band in action a couple of times, practicing for an eventual concert debut. Until Mafuyu becomes involved they’re an instrumental band only. The intensity, motion and emotion of the band is communicated entirely in small snippets of them playing, and Mafuyu’s awe of them. As Mafuyu and Ritsuka’s friendship develops, as the latter writes a song for the former, and as we learn about the Mafuyu’s heart-wrenching connection to music and his guitar, the idea is floated that he put lyrics to Ritsuka’s song, but we see all of this without much actual representation of music on the page.
Again, for being a manga about a band, the pages are quiet with active music. Instead, the lyricism of Kizu’s Given comes from the exploration of relationships in between the band members picking up their instruments, be that the developing relationship of Ritsuka and Mafuyu, the complicated one sided relationship between brotherly Haruki and playboy Akihiko, or the friendships swirling around Ritsuka as he learns about Mafuyu’s past. The descriptions of Mafuyu’s voice throughout Vol. 1 fulfill a similar purpose. The first time he hears Mafuyu sing, “it was like I could feel the air resonating with his song.” Akihiko later describes Mafuyu’s voice as being “kinda husky and pretty” with a “feeling of incredible passion and fury”. These explorations of relationship, the art style, the inter-chapter pages documenting the characters, their styles, their instruments, their favourite music, help you to start filling in the music for yourself. The driving force of Given, what will keep you turning the pages, is the relationships of these boys, with all of the glorious angst, adorable friendships, and inevitable dramas. The extras at the end, as well, a documentary-style interview with the band answering questions about one another and their musical tastes, was an adorable addition.
In setting out to capture the music of Scott Pilgrim, Wright decided each of the story’s bands would be tackled by individual, real world bands and musicians–Beck for Sex Bob-Omb, Metric for The Clash at Demonhead. I think that’s a genius tool, music is as much about sensibility and aesthetic as the actual notes. With the on-page evidence, picking up clues of the band’s tastes and Mafuyu’s voice, if I was to adapt Given‘s music for the screen–with my own Western twist and tastes–I’d tap the talents of either earlier Arcade Fire, or the less electronic, more rock ballad work of Years & Years. Something rock, but mournful, queer and powerful. But that’s the thing about music, it’s all subjective.
Level of Problematic: Very sad, very gay lead vocalist; this one has a T+ (Older Teen) rating, for discussions of suicide, I’m guessing, and maybe illusions to sexuality? I’m interested to see how the suicide aspect of the story plays out, at the end of Vol. 1 we still don’t actually know what happened, but otherwise Given is refreshingly clean of shitty tropes.
Level of Adorable: Passing out drunk on top of your long-haired best friend, who has a big gay crush on you; I devoured this one. More, goddamnit, more pretty band boys and gay feelings I say!!
Level of Spiciness: Your favourite high school napping stairwell; this one’s all about the moe and the sad gay feels. Maybe it’ll get a little sweaty and shirtless in further volumes, it does have that Teen+ rating, and it does get very hot underneath the stage lights…
