What They Say:
Nanase Haruka loved to be in the water – loved swimming. In elementary school, Nanase Haruka, Tachibana Makoto, Matsuoka Rin, and Hazuki Nagisa attended the same swimming class together. Time passed, and as Haruka was living an uneventful high school life, he suddenly encountered Rin again. Rin challenged Haruka to a race and showed him how much stronger he had become. Soon enough, Makoto and Nagisa also rejoined the group, and along with a new classmate, Ryugazaki Rei, they established the Iwatobi High School Swimming Club.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Free! moved us to the tournament side of things last time around and that worked well since it let our main characters shine a bit. In particular, it gave us some quality time with Haruka and Makoto as we got to see them as kids with some of what has defined their relationship all these years. It’s more from Makoto’s point of view of course, but it was a natural thing to idolize, envy and admire what your friend can do. But as their school careers can go only so far, the chance to truly compete in a real way against each other in a setting like this won’t be around long. So it was good to see Makoto get that chance and have a sense of closure in some way with it that does, in the end, reaffirm their relationship and friendship.
With this episode, events are moving towards the medley relay race and there’s a lot of anticipation to be had for that portion of it. Ahead of that, we get some decent time with both the main cast and the other team with Rin making his decisions on who will compete and the order of it all. While the Samezuka team had its moments in the first season, there’s definitely a lot more to like with them this season as they’re more humanized and have a better sense of having fun with each other. It’s not to the same style and level as the Iwatobi members of course, but it’s quite a change from what we saw of Rin and the team last season. We also get some decent minor drama and emotion from them as there are dreams, friends and pasts that get drawn into it a bit, especially with Sasuke understanding how some of the others are feeling about what’s coming up. The first half brings all of this together well before moving to the new day and the tournament itself.
While the tournament has its issues, the shift to the post-tournament material is a little abrupt in some ways but still works well as we get the gang dealing with life in general, the club and their desire to swim and participate. And amid all of it, Haruka swims on and on and on. it’s kind of amusing in a way that he can almost always be found in water or thinking of water. The focus isn’t totally on Makoto, but he’s definitely the main thread that we get here and there’s some decent stuff with him and seeing the continuing bond between the boys in how they interact and support each other. It may not be as strong as the previous episode, but it still tries to work the feels as much as possible.
In Summary:
Free continues to move right along and we get a decent episode here, albeit one that in a number of ways feels kind of unfocused. It’s work through the boys lives, touching on the connected moments, giving us time with Makoto a little more as his life moves forward and he deals with closing out certain things while thinking of the future, and we get to see more of how their main competition is handling things. I particularly like the growth and change coming from how Rin is serving as captain of his team as it’s showing a mixture of two styles with his own and it’s achieving some good results. A decent if largely unexceptional episode.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
