The ongoing, aching sweetness of this story carries over to the journey Nakayama and Kaji make together.

While we goot snatches of it, hints and suggestions, even expressions of feeling during the main series, this really allows Kaji and Nakayama to  work out their relationship. And it is not immature and fresh, it is the flipside of the innocence of Ritsuka and Mafuyu. Both are jaded and disappointed, their relationship isn’t a neat boy-meets-boy, and it develops longer and more slowly over time. It’s messy, and demanding on them both, and quite frankly and honest relationship rather than a super idealised one for television.

Kaji is… incorrigible. In the series, you don’t get much back story, but here, the story delves much deeper into the relationship between Akihiko and Ugetsu, and while it is easy to blame Ugetsu for the difficulties–he is a bit cold and a bit snobby–the story isn’t so tied down and pat. And the messiness Akihiko seems to spread around, it adds to its charms immeasurably.

We watch Kaji stumble and make a mess of things; he and Ugetsu make sport of hurting each other even though the feelings between them run very deep. We see Haruki struggling with his self respect, his feelings for Kaji, and honestly… it’s a perfect, beautiful struggle for all three of them.

Having a lover you can’t walk away from, even though you’re trash together, this is something some of us can identify with. The emotional turmoil Kaji puts himself, Ugetsu and Haruki through, it’s human… and in the flow of the story, it gives us a real voyeuristic feeling you might not get with another type of story. You feel second-hand embarrassment, but also the depth of the heartache.

First love can really fuck with your mind… and crossed wires feel like you’re wrapped up in cords that cut to the bone and leaves scars. The story captures the beauty of this emotional dynamic with a clarity, in a reflective prism many of us can find pieces of ourselves in. While the movie touches on Mafuyu and Ritsuka a a bit, this story is all Kaji, Nakayama and Ugetsu. Mafuyu and Risuka put in appearances, as Mafuyu is working on a new song that’s central to the story’s development, however other than a few scenes and the performance, the boys don’t present their backs to carry this story.

The writing continues to be excellent, the music is excellent, and so is the voice acting. The sound engineering is also exceptional.  The ambient sound in so many scenes giving the story a subtle life that it might take a couple watchings to notice that the backgrounds in scenes, both visually and auditory add a dream like quality to the story that I really appreciated. While the main series of Given is one of my favourites, this movie in many ways surpasses it in terms of emotional development and in a far shorter time frame.

I for one am glad I got to see the relationship between Ugetsu and Kaji play itself out, because it was hard to watch Nakayama pine the way he did (the scene where Kaji takes advantage of Haruki’s feelings hurt my feelings) this makes the story’s progression and resolution so damn satisfying.

I love that there were no villains, no heroes… just three people navigating very common human emotions. Definitely worth the hour’s watch, and I’m amazed they packed so much story into the hour and it didn’t feel rushed at all.