Free! - Review

The main swimmers in Free! (Image taken from: geekosystem.com)

So, I didn't get to posting this review yesterday, but since I have a late start this morning, I have time now. Anyways, as the picture might suggest (along with the caption), Free is an anime about competitive swimming and what it means to the five pictured guys above. Most of the storyline follows the drama between Haruka, Makoto, Nagisa (far left three in above picture) and Rin (far right in above picture). What happened was the four swam in a relay while they were younger and won, and therefore share that memory, but Rin left to train in Australia to follow his father's dream of being an Olympic swimmer. Eventually, Rin returned to Japan, but went to a different high school with a more elite swimming team than the other three guys' school. In fact, Haruka, Makoto, and Nagisa are the three that started to swimming club at their school, which Rei (second from right to left) eventually joined so the team could officially travel and compete.

The four Iwatobi swimming club members [Left to right: Makoto, Rei, Haruka, Nagisa] (Image taken from: static.zeropan.com)

Overall I felt Free was going to have a lot more boys' love moments than it had. I expected to be dropping the anime part way in, but honestly, any lovey moments between the guys wasn't bothersome. I don't mean to say homosexuals disgust me, because they don't, just I am straight. I'll leave it at that. But anyways, Free was a great anime showing the unity amongst the four teammates (especially at the end -cough-) regardless of how much BL was involved. Most of it was just a lot more of extra friendly actions that you wouldn't see from typical guys. It's friendly-friendly, not the typical insult-friendly that has invaded our society, though I'm just as guilty. All in all, the swimming scenes are great some of the dramaful times seemed a bit exaggerated, but kind of necessary. To top it all off, the legendary Kyoto Animation put this series together, therefore it's almost guarenteed to be a hit somehow. I liked it, maybe not top 25 quality, but it was still a very well made anime.

All five of the main swimmers (Image taken from: sankakucomplex.com)

Ruri's Rating: 8.5/10

Suggestions: None I've personally watched.... but sports animes (Slam Dunk, Eyeshield, etc.) might be good for you. MAYBE K-On, also by Kyoto but girls and a music club.