I love Given quite a lot. It's absolutely my favorite BL story. I watched and rewatched the anime (still couldn't get enough), read the manga and God knows how many times I searched for Mafuyu's song on youtube.

But the drama tried so much to compact the events until the band's live concert and summarize the story in 6 episodes that I felt like some of Given's most touching aspects were basically thrown aside.

Many of the moments between the characters (mainly Mafuyu and Uenoyama) that portrayed the great development of their relationship weren't in the show, which made me think that them falling in love had no ground at all and was rushed . Sorry, but I just couldn't grasp the feelings between them! It felt kinda apathetic.

Yeah I know they couldn't possibly show every single one of these moments in the drama, but there were many slow scenes where the characters took sooooo fck long to say a single sentence, which kinda annoyed me (even though it's something common in j-dramas). They could've turned these eternity-lasting minutes of Mafuyu staring at the void into some good scenes to develop sufficiently and convincingly his relationship with Uenoyama, or at least to display a little bit more his daze and confusion towards what happened to Yuki. That would've made the scene where he sings more thrilling and heartbreaking.

The songs were fine. I won't say much about Mafuyu's song because I wasn't able to avoid expecting something as good as Fuyu No Hanashi and comparing both songs, but in a sense it was okay.

The cast was great though! Haruki's actor was perfect! They look so much alike! I also liked Uenoyama's actor. He did a good job in keeping up Ue's awkwardness, kindness and strength, things that make him my very favorite character in the story. Since he's our protagonist, it's amazing that the actor could really get the character essence.

Overall, this drama is not actually bad, but it lacks pulse and life. It doesn't make my heart quiver neither bring tears to my eyes like Given usually does.