given - on the other hand

First of all i would like to say that im a huge given fan and this ova got me disappointed. I also need to say that I may have some mistakes since english is not my first language.First of all the ova starts showing us how uenoyama and mafuyu have been as a couple and how they are still getting used to each other, which is something good. It continues with their development. Then we get to another issue of the ova, mafuyu's new lyrics to the song, it reuses the same process we saw when he was writing his first lyrics. Although this time things are shown rushed. After that, comes the live presentation of the new song. Here they compete against shizu's and hiiragi's band. In the main show they were never shwon further as a band and we never got to see their potential. This was the worse part of the ova, we never get to see the presentation of neither given band nor hiiragi's and shizu's band. after all this we find out that hiiragi's band won the live presentation without us getting any further information about their band or their song. this ova rushes the whole thing and makes the live presentation and the new song look like they are no big deal, by doing that it throws away everything that happen earlier in the ova. the only reason I am giving it a 7 is because we get to see mafuyu's and uenoyama's deveopment that was missed in the movie.

Is this groundbreaking? No. I mean it's an OVA with the missing scenes in the manga. When I first watched the movie, I was extremely disappointed to see they cut these out, but after watching the OVA, I'm glad they did. It would be really confusing to jump back and forth between characters. (although this wouldn't be a problem if they just made it into a series, which is what I think they should've done, but I digress) Very cute, nothing too deep. I do wish they drew out some more of the more emotional scenes (i.e. the clock scene), but whatever; I have the mangaso not that big of a deal. Do you need to watch this? Probably not, but still worth your time. Plus, you HAVE to listen to the orchestra version of Fuyu no Hanashi; absolutely beautiful!! Hopefully, this means a season 2 or second movie?????? Very wholesome and cute. Good job to the anime creators for adapting the scenes pretty well!

First off, let me start by saying that I enjoy Given. I like it enough to read the manga every time there's a new release. I liked the first season and the movie, but this OVA, I felt was lacking in a lot of aspects. I knew what to expect of the story from the OVA and it is indeed a faithful adaptation of the manga. My criticisms are mostly technical. Some scenes felt very awkward. They could've been executed better with background music where and when required. I wish they'd use proper angled shots when the characters are conversing. Even a trivial scene canfeel impactful if it's properly paired with music, dialogue delivery, and cutscenes or the character's movements and expressions. Here, many significant moments, due to the lack of these factors failed to deliver the impact that they should have. Also, I am upset that they didn't show us even a glimpse of Hiiragi and Shizu's performance. The art is consistent and decent. There's not much to the characters and their relationships in this OVA. But this isn't a problem of the OVA, it's the story itself. Mafuyu and Ritsuka's relationship develops in the shadows so I can't empathize with them. You know, how in a fictional show, when you can just feel the love between the characters, understand their circumstances and empathize with them? This doesn't happen in their case. Even Haruki and Akihiko got better relationship development than the supposed main pair. Summing up, I was quite disappointed with the OVA. I hope the plot is executed in a much better way in the upcoming season(s).