3ET: Free!

Can't care about the insecure haters, too busy swimming

Studio: Kyoto Animation

Director: Utsumi Hiroko (Debut)

Main Cast: Shimazaki Nobunaga as Nanase Haruka, Suzuki Tatsuhisa as Tachibana Makoto, Yonaga Tsubasa as Hazuki Nagisa, Hirakawa Daisuke as Ryuugazaki Rei, Miyano Mamoru as Matsuoka Rin

Writer: Yokotani Masahiro (Hataraku Maou-sama!, Beelzebub)

Music: Kato Tatsuya (Mirai Nikki, Medaka Box)


I have to confess something. Free! passed my test before I saw a single second of it. There was a zero percent chance that a show about a high school boys swim team, animated by KyoAni, and with an admitted boys-love fangirl directing it was ever going to get a fair shake from me. I mean, given that I'm a former swimmer who is very appreciative of well-drawn pretty boys, would you expect anything different? This is why I'm going to my friends, mostly my straight male friends, to talk about why it's actually good. Yes, it panders to a certain crowd, but that doesn't mean it's bad. Or maybe they're just too scared to tell me it's crap.

While I wait for their responses, I can talk about what the show is about. Haruka, Makoto, Nagisa, and Rin were on a swim team as kids. After winning a big relay race, Rin moves to Australia for training. In high school, the remaining three start a competitive swim club at their school the same year Rin moves back. They recruit Rei, a member of the track team, to be the fourth member of the club, since four people are needed for a relay. Meanwhile, Rin is angsting over both a race he lost to Haruka back in middle school when he visited Japan over winter holidays, as well as a yet to be revealed issue. Also, Haruka loves water almost to the detriment of anything else. There, that's the first three episodes in one paragraph.

High quality manservice coming up!

Now, onto what makes the show good. The first thing my friends agree on is that the animation is top notch, with the swimming animations deserving a lot of praise (they're right, the swimming looks accurate). Also, the writing is good enough to raise the characters above normal pretty boy archetypes. All of them have real ambitions and are making efforts to work towards them. It's not just a show about cute boys doing cute things, it's a show about cute boys working towards the goal of forming a swimming club.

The best thing about the show so far though is the rivalry between Haruka and Rin. Earlier parts of their rivalry is shown in flashbacks, which not only establishes that there is a rivalry, but it shows that Rin wasn't always a muffin of angst. He already has a character arc, from a happy little kid to a moody teenager. While this process usually happens naturally, it seems like something actually happened to him to cause this change. The fact that most of this story happens in episode two is the main reason that it my friends' pick as the best of the three so far (I agree).

Rin, don't take your frustration out on Haruka. Or do.

That's not to say this is a great show by any means. The comedy falls flat as often as it hits. The first few minutes of episode one were pretty brutal, with lots of pandering while it introduced four of the main characters. Episode three was just introducing Rei, with no dramatic tension as to whether or not he joined the club. We all knew he would. Although, I would argue that by the end of the episode, we actually had a good feel for Rei's character, how he fit in with the other boys, and what he wants to get out of the swim club. It wasn't high theater, but it was solid characterization that was done in a cliche fashion.

I'll close by saying there is a lot more I could discuss about Free! I could talk about how turning men into sexual objects is different from doing it to women, how using a viewpoint character mitigates some of that objectification, the role of gender in the show, or how easy it is to ship the boys together (both my friends agree on this last point). But, that's for later posts when I need to just rant and rave about this show like a crazed fanboy. I think the best way to describe Free! is competent. It's a competently made sports show about swimming. And I'd like to think that even if it wasn't aimed directly at me, I'd still be picking it up for this season.