There are things in life we struggle to hold onto: Dreams. Desires. Love. All these things have a way of showing up unexpectedly and slipping away just as quickly. Sometimes cruelly.

We ignore and hide from many things in life to protect ourselves from the truth we’re afraid of. From hurt. From pain. From the walls we want to pretend aren’t there.

From ourselves.

All in the name of love. All to escape the trauma that life has a way of introducing. All to protect ourselves and the ones we care about.

Such is the tale that the Japanese BL Tokyo in April tells. Adapted from the manga series 4gatsu no Tokyo wa by Haru, it follows two young men, Takizawa Kazuma (Sakurai Yuki) and Ishihara Ren (Takamatsu Aloha), who are heart-wrenchingly separated in middle school only to reunite years later when Ren’s company hires Kazuma.

Except for the soul-stirring, beautiful connection that Kazuma and Ren find with and in each other, there is nothing pretty about Tokyo in April. It’s raw. It’s personable.

Rather than shy away from tough subjects, it faces the reality of being gay in Japan while also touching on abuse, attempted suicide, sexual harassment, rape, and corruption in a patriarchal, power-saturated workforce.

Most of all, it centers on what it means to be silenced, to lose one’s voice in a whirlwind of societal preconceptions and prejudiced viewpoints. It’s a raw, disturbing look at what it means to have personal power brutally stripped away.

But it also focuses on what it means to take one’s voice back and fight for the people we love and ourselves, even if that means being hurt.

Fear and love are both all-consuming, complicated feelings that burn like a fire within us. There is no love without fear and no fear without desire. To love and want is to be afraid. It’s overcoming fear to grasp what we believe in, what we hope to achieve, and who we love that makes holding onto those things even more satisfying.

Confidence doesn’t always begin with being confident. Sometimes, confidence is born from fighting for it.

Tokyo in April follows two men who lost their virginity to each other in middle school, which led to a heart-rending journey toward finding each other, protecting each other, and holding onto each other amidst a world that seems to be against them.

And that’s inspiring in a world that seems to be turning against everyone.

For a raw series about holding onto love despite the odds, check out Tokyo in April now on Gagaoolala and Viki.

Rating- 4 out of 5