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)
This season has worked a decent mix of story ideas that have been about tournaments, team building for Rin and his school and the general character growth pieces. We’ve had some good time recent with what Haruka and Makoto worked through, expanding on his past, and we’ve seen how Rin is shaping his team in a different way than the previous captain. It helps that he has largely receptive team members but also a good team to compete with, so they’re not drastically slowing down or suffering losses because of his style. The combination of all of it has kept it from being all about our main characters and their story in a way, but the first season was largely about them becoming the swim team and getting all that together. Finding your way in story terms after that isn’t always easy.
Events here focus a bit on Makoto once again as we see he’s not quite up to speed where he should be, and Gou is a little concerned about that, and we get some other fun stuff that shows the community involvement side that he has well. Haruka is, of course, just interested in his own times and training and knows that Makoto will do what he needs to get the things he needs to accomplish done, and that if he does really want help he’ll ask for it. There’s also just the fact that he does work with kids in helping them to learn to swim that makes him such a nice character to work and like all the more. Some of what he does and sees there strikes a chord with his own childhood and past and that’s kind of nice as well, especially since one of the kids in it is a younger brother of a classmate of theirs that wasn’t exactly a friend to Haruka for many years.
What Makoto is dealing with in the child, Hayato, is that he really is afraid of the water and he’s not really wanting to be there which complicates it. He had problems in the ocean before with his older brother, who blames himself for it all, but it provides for a good bonding and healing story to be told over it as Makoto is intent on getting Hayato to swim and enjoy it. Kisumi is a nice addition since we see how he’s so outgoing when with Haruka but a little melancholy while talking to Makoto about Hayato. There’s a lot to like with the progress that he makes, and seeing how Haruka watches from the side and in his own way admires what it is that Makoto is doing. It’s a solid episode when it comes to passing on the love and joy one should get from swimming and being in the water while also making Makoto even more adorable than he already was.
In Summary:
Focusing largely on Makoto, the episode works really well to make him endearing and likable and basically putting him on a pedestal as a guy who can largely do it all. There’s a lot to like with the narrative that’s placed here and Makoto is certainly the most accessible of the characters and, in a lot of ways, the most normal. Bringing in Kisumi helps to flesh out a bit more about Haruka but it also serves to get Hayato’s story moving in a good direction. It’s not a world changing or series changing episode, but it’s one of the better episodes of the season for me.
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.
