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 – Eternal Summer certainly had a lot of fun in the previous episode with the way the tournament was playing out and the material we got from the past that helped to flesh out Sousuke as well as Rin. There’s a lot to like with both characters, but a lot of it is just in seeing how that team as a whole has come together to be the kind of people you want to compete against. Sousuke’s troubles have been in the background for a bit but it got a nice push to center stage there and we saw how the Iwatobi kids realized what was going on, which in their own way made them admire him all the more for what he was striving to do. There’s a rivalry to be sure, but it’s also one that has a really good layer of friendship to it that makes it give you the warm and fuzzies that usually don’t exist in real life.
Now that the Iwatobi guys are on their way to the nationals, their profile has certainly risen a bit at school. They were largely an unknown club to be sure, but with this win they’re getting a lot of attention and are enjoying it, especially Nagisa. It’s an important aspect of respect being brought into play and while Haruka doesn’t care much one way or the other, it’s something that definitely needed to be covered. The advancement is doubly important to the school though as no other sport has done this in twelve years when the judo team went to the nationals, so that helps to spur everyone on to support the team. That kind of pressure affects everyone differently, but we get some decent stuff in seeing how they all deal with it and the kind of view that Haruka takes since all he wants to do is swim. That’s long been his thing from the very start of the show, so its reinforcement here isn’t a surprise.
There’s a good mix of material here as we get the guys from both teams going through their lives and dealing with things, such as school work and some of the simple interpersonal aspects of being friends. Rin has his own things going on with a letter from Australia that’s arrived while Haruka is very inwardly focused for the most part. There’s also some significant emotional investment in this episode as we see Makoto doing his best to get through to Haruka, who is in his own world of problems, and it’s very hard to watch them. Makoto is trying to do what he can for his friend, to help him and be there for him, but there’s such a break between them even after the recent clearing of the air that there’s some really harsh words and physical aspects. And some pretty hard emotional ones as well as Makoto reveals the truth about his own future, which is what he has to think about even if it impacts others badly.
In Summary:
There’s a good mix of material in this episode that doesn’t feel like it has a central theme, though the idea that it’s a transitional piece works well. We get the guys riding high on their way and their path to the nationals now being there as well as some good positive reinforcement from their fellow students and faculty for what they’ve accomplished. But we also get the more personal struggles coming into play for a lot of the characters, with Makoto and Haruka being the big pieces of it, or rather the flashiest of it when you get down to it. It’s hitting all the right notes as the show works through the progress of time and the realities of what students have to face, which in turn impacts their various teams in big ways. It’s a good episode, but one that I think will flow better when watched with the others around it in a marathon session.
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.
