Free! is a Japanese anime television series directed by Hiroko Utsumi and produced by Kyoto Animation and Animation Do. The anime is based on the light novel written by K?ji ?ji, High Speed! (Japanese: ???????!, Hepburn: Hai Sup?do!), which received an honorable mention in the second Kyoto Animation Award contest in 2011 and was later published in July 2013. The first season, titled Free! - Iwatobi Swim Club for international distribution, aired in Japan in 2013, and the second season, titled Free! - Eternal Summer, aired in 2014. An animated film, High Speed! - Free! Starting Days, was released in December 2015. A film trilogy was released in 2017 with the first two being compilations of both seasons of the anime series titled Free! Timeless Medley - Kizuna (Bonds) and Free! Timeless Medley - Yakusoku (Promise). The third film in the trilogy titled Free! Take Your Marks! features a new story. A third season of the anime series is scheduled to air in July 2018.
Video Free! (anime)
Plot
Free! is set in the town of Iwatobi, which is based on the real town of Iwami, Tottori. Iwami has since used Free! to promote tourism to the town. The story starts with four boys--Haruka, Makoto, Nagisa and Rin--before they graduate from elementary school. They all participated in a swimming tournament and won, though they parted ways. Years later, Haruka and Makoto reunite with Nagisa when he enrolls in their high school. Not long after, Rin, who was thought to be in Australia, turns up and challenges Haruka to a race and wins. Afterward, Nagisa suggests creating a swimming club and using the school's run-down outdoor pool. Haruka, Makoto, Nagisa, and later on, Rei, create the Iwatobi High School Swimming Club and work together to make the club a success. Rin's victory over Haruka means nothing to him as he realizes that Haruka had stopped swimming competitively and wasn't in top shape. He claims that he cannot get over the fact until Haruka competes against him for real. The members of the Iwatobi High School Swim Club later enter a swimming competition against Rin.
Maps Free! (anime)
Characters
Iwatobi High School
- Haruka Nanase (?? ?, Nanase Haruka)
- Voiced by: Nobunaga Shimazaki (Japanese); Todd Haberkorn (English)
- Haruka is a second year (third year in Eternal Summer) high school student who loves swimming and being in the water. He is a strong and quiet person who displays limited facial expressions and has a hard time communicating his feelings. His style captivates many and he has a strong fixation towards freestyle swimming. His love for water is so strong that he often strips down to his swimsuit at the sight of water and even considers encountering a waterfall to be a romantic experience. Due to his girlish name, he is often mistaken for a girl at the start of each school year and is usually called Haru. After his first year in middle school, he quits competitive swimming after hurting Rin's feelings by beating him in a race, but regains his passion after racing Rin again when they reunite.
- Makoto Tachibana (? ??, Tachibana Makoto)
- Voiced by: Tatsuhisa Suzuki (Japanese); Johnny Yong Bosch (English)
- Makoto is Haruka's best friend, also a second year (third year in Eternal Summer) high school student and in the same class as Haruka. Unlike Haruka, he is more outgoing and often speaks up for Haruka. He is nice and considerate to others, putting others before himself. However, he is sensitive and gets scared easily (Nagisa often enjoys teasing Makoto by scaring him). He develops Thalassophobia due to a traumatic incident in which an old fisherman, whom Makoto greatly idolizes, drowns in a typhoon alongside many others. He is captain of the swim club. His specialty is the backstroke.
- Nagisa Hazuki (?? ?, Hazuki Nagisa)
- Voiced by: Tsubasa Yonaga (Japanese); Greg Ayres (English)
- Nagisa is a first year (second year in Eternal Summer) student who also goes to Iwatobi High School. He is very spirited and outspoken. He has admired Haruka's swimming since elementary school and enrolls at his high school hoping to swim with him again. He's the one who comes up with the idea to start the swim club at Iwatobi High School and is treasurer for the club. He has a strange fascination towards the school's mascot, Iwatobi-chan. His specialty is the breaststroke.
- Rei Ryugazaki (??? ?, Ry?gazaki Rei)
- Voiced by: Daisuke Hirakawa (Japanese); J. Michael Tatum (English)
- Rei is Nagisa's classmate and also a first year (second year in Eternal Summer) student at Iwatobi High School. He is logical and intelligent, but is easily manipulated by Nagisa. He is heavily attracted to all things beautiful, both tangible and intangible, and will do everything in his power to avoid things he claims "unattractive." He used to be on the track team as a pole vaulter, but could not perform well because he constantly over-analyzed his jumps. He refuses several times to join the swim club because he doesn't think swimming beautiful enough to learn how to do so. He eventually joins after seeing Haruka's elegant freestyle swimming. At first, he is unable to swim any stroke, but with help from Haruka, he manages to learn the butterfly stroke. In Free! Eternal Summer, Rin teaches Rei to swim the other three swimming styles.
- Gou Matsuoka (?? ?, Matsuoka G?)
- Voiced by: Akeno Watanabe (Japanese); Jamie Marchi (English)
- Gou is Rin's younger sister. She is a first year (second year in Eternal Summer) student at Iwatobi High School. She prefers to be known by the more typical reading of her name, Kou, due to Gou being a boyish name, though she eventually gives up, mostly due to Nagisa insistently calling her Gou. She joins the swim club as the manager, in hopes that she can help change Rin back to his old self. She is very organized and determined, even going as far as using calligraphy to create a 60+ page training regimen to develop the team's abilities. Gou has a muscle fetish (even if it is her own brother) and tends to blush around muscled men when with them.
- Miho Amakata (?? ??, Amakata Miho)
- Voiced by: Satsuki Yukino (Japanese); Caitlin Glass (English)
- Miho is Haruka and Makoto's homeroom teacher. She teaches classic literature. The students nickname her Ama-chan. Rumors among Iwatobi students suggest that she had gone to Tokyo to pursue her dream of modeling for a swimsuit company, but failed and became a teacher instead. Although she has a quirky and upbeat personality, sometimes she uses old, confusing literature phrases to make a point. She becomes the faculty advisor for the swim club after Nagisa finds out her work in Tokyo involved modeling working under the name of "Marin-chan." She appears to loathe her days as a model and takes extreme measures to hide her previous career. When in conversation, she will emit evil auras if she feels the subject is growing dangerously close to the topic.
Samezuka Academy
- Rin Matsuoka (?? ?, Matsuoka Rin)
- Voiced by: Mamoru Miyano (Japanese); Vic Mignogna (English)
- Rin is Haruka's rival. He transferred from Sano Elementary School to Iwatobi Elementary School so he could join the swim club with Haruka, Makoto and Nagisa, leading them to victory in the relay. His father had won the same competition and dreamed of becoming an Olympic swimmer as a young man. As an adult, he dies in a typhoon. Rin goes abroad to study at an Australian swimming middle school but experiences difficulties training, suffering a tough loss in a race against Haruka during his first winter vacation. His personality has changed by the time he returns to Japan, estranged from his former teammates and enrolling in Samezuka Academy but not joining their swim team until his reunion with Haruka. Rin's conflicted feelings lead to him failing his individual events and he considers quitting swimming. Instead, he swims in a relay with Haruka, Makoto and Nagisa again and decides to follow his personal dream. By the beginning of the second season, Rin has become Samezuka's swim team captain and is friendly with all the members of the Iwatobi Swim Club, even Rei. Rin is actually better at swimming butterfly, but chooses to focus on freestyle in order to compete with Haruka. Rin seems to be very protective of Gou, especially when Seijuro calls her by her first name and Momotaro gets near to her. Rin is often misunderstood and his speech is taken the wrong way.
- Sosuke Yamazaki (?? ??, Yamazaki S?suke)
- Voiced by: Yoshimasa Hosoya (Japanese); Ian Sinclair (English)
- Sosuke is Rin's childhood best friend from Sano Elementary School. In Eternal Summer, he transfers to Samezuka Academy so he can spend his last year of high school swimming with Rin in his hometown. He is also good friends with Gou, having spent his holidays with Rin and her in their elementary days. Having a strong personality, he does not let anything irritate him. He takes a dry and harsh position on swimming toward himself and others around him. He is a very skilled butterfly swimmer, and was ranked in the top 10 in Japan. After Rin left for Australia, he set a goal for himself to one day become a professional swimmer alongside Rin. Due to over-training in his first year of high school, he severely injured his right shoulder, ruining his chances of entering the professional world. He appears in the second season.
- Aiichiro Nitori (?? ???, Nitori Aiichir?)
- Voiced by: K?ki Miyata (Japanese); Josh Grelle (English)
- Aiichiro is a first year (second year in Eternal Summer) student and member of the Samezuka Academy swimming team, who idolizes Rin. He shares a dorm room with Rin in the first season, then Momotaro in the second season. He swims long distance freestyle, but begins to focus more on breaststroke in the second season. At the end of the series, Rin appoints him to be Samezuka's new captain.
- Momotaro Mikoshiba (??? ???, Mikoshiba Momotar?)
- Voiced by: Kenichi Suzumura (Japanese); Jerry Jewell (English)
- Momotaro is Seijuro's younger brother and a first year (in Eternal Summer) student at Samezuka Academy. Initially he doesn't join the swim team, but does so later on at Rin's request. Like his brother, he also has a crush on Gou and is a very enthusiastic person. He is a skilled backstroke swimmer with the given nickname "The Sea of Japan's Sea Otter" because of it.
- Seijuro Mikoshiba (??? ???, Mikoshiba Seij?r?)
- Voiced by: Kenjiro Tsuda (Japanese); Robert McCollum (English)
- Seijuro is the captain of the Samezuka Academy swimming team and a third year student (first year college student in Eternal Summer). He is an enthusiastic person and a skilled swimmer.
Others
- Goro Sasabe (?? ??, Sasabe Gor?)
- Voiced by: Hiroshi Yanaka (Japanese); Christopher R. Sabat (English)
- Goro was the swimming coach at the abandoned Iwatobi Swimming Club, having coached Haruka, Makoto, Nagisa and Rin while they were in elementary school, and since then working as a part-time pizza delivery man in Iwatobi because he loves the town. He begins re-coaching Haruka, Makoto and Nagisa, with the addition of Rei upon seeing their enthusisam. He is normally very laid-back, but can be incredibly strict with the Iwatobi boys when coaching. In Eternal Summer, he rebuilds the Iwatobi Swimming Club and renames it "Iwatobi SC Returns" and develops the club into a recreational center and swim school.
- Chigusa Hanamura (?? ??, Hanamura Chigusa)
- Voiced by: Satomi Sat? (Japanese); Tia Ballard (English)
- Chigusa is Gou's friend and a first year student at Iwatobi High School. She usually spectates the Swim Club's tournaments to support them.
- Ran Tachibana (? ?, Tachibana Ran)
- Voiced by: Miyuki Kobori (Japanese); Sarah Wiedenheft (English)
- Ran is Makoto's younger sister. She and her twin brother Ren appear to adore Makoto.
- Ren Tachibana (? ?, Tachibana Ren)
- Voiced by: Yuka Maruyama (Japanese); Megan Vander Pluym (English)
- Ren is Makoto's younger brother. He and his twin sister Ran appear to adore Makoto.
Media
Radio show and drama CDs
An Internet radio show to promote the anime called Iwatobi Channel (?????????, Iwatobi Channeru) began broadcasting on June 17, 2013. The show is streamed online every Monday, and is produced by the Japanese Internet radio stations Lantis Web Radio and Onsen. The show is hosted by Nobunaga Shimazaki and Tatsuhisa Suzuki, who voice Haruka Nanase and Makoto Tachibana from the anime, respectively. Two CD compilation volumes were released between August 21 and September 25, 2013.
Two volumes in a drama CDs series, titled Iwatobi High School Swimming Club Activity Journal (???????????, Iwatobi K?k? Suiei-bu Katsud? Nisshi), were released between August 21 and September 25, 2013.
Anime
Animation Do released a splash image for a new project in April 2012, which was followed by a television commercial for the project in March 2013. The commercial quickly went viral among fans--especially users of the blogging site Tumblr, who quickly developed a sequel around what they dubbed as the "swimming anime". Despite only being a 30-second commercial, a wide variety of fan works expanding upon the nameless characters from the ad were created, including hypothetical biographies, art, and fan fiction, along with online petitions calling on the studio to turn it into a real series.
The 12-episode anime television series, produced by Kyoto Animation and Animation Do, is directed by Hiroko Utsumi, written by Masahiro Yokotani, features character designs by Futoshi Nishiya and music by Tatsuya Kat?. The series aired in Japan between July 4 and September 26, 2013 on Tokyo MX, and was also streamed on the Japanese video-sharing website Niconico and simulcast by Crunchyroll, who also possesses the home video rights to the series. The series was released on six BD and DVD compilation volumes between September 11, 2013 and February 5, 2014, with certain volumes containing short bonus episodes. A 13-episode second season, titled Free! Eternal Summer, aired between July 2 and September 24, 2014. Funimation has licensed the second season for streaming and home video in North America, and they attempted to negotiate with Crunchyroll about releasing the first season on home video. However, Discotek Media released the first season on behalf of Crunchyroll on DVD with English subtitles, but noted a dubbed release might come eventually. The English dub of the first season is available on Crunchyroll, with the English voice cast reprising their roles. Crunchyroll and Funimation released the first season on Blu-ray and DVD on May 9, 2017 with an English dub.
An animated film based on the second volume of the original light novel, titled High Speed! -Free! Starting Days, was released in Japan on December 5, 2015. The film was directed by Yasuhiro Takemoto and the screenplay was written by Maiko Nishioka. Yokotani worked on the story composition, and Nishiya served as character designer and chief animation director.
An animated film trilogy was announced by Kyoto Animation. The first two, titled Free! -Timeless Medley- Kizuna (Bonds) and Free! -Timeless Medley- Yakusoku (Promise) are compilations of both seasons of the anime series, with new scenes added. Kizuna focuses on the five main members of the Iwatobi Swim Club, while Yakusoku focuses on Rin and Sousuke from the Samezuka Swim Club. Both films opened on April 22 and July 1, 2017, respectively. A third film, titled Free! -Take Your Marks, is a new story taking place in the spring as Haruka deals with high school graduation and everyone's futures as they move forward in their lives and was released on October 28, 2017. All three films were directed by Eisaku Kawanami, and much of the staff from the anime series and High Speed! film returned for the compilation films, including series composer Masahiro Yokotani, character designer Futoshi Nishiya and composer Tatsuya Kat?.
A third season has been announced and is set to premiere July 2018.
Music
The opening theme is "Rage On" by Oldcodex and the ending theme is "Splash Free" by Style Five (Nobunaga Shimazaki, Tatsuhisa Suzuki, Mamoru Miyano, Tsubasa Yonaga and Daisuke Hirakawa). The ending theme for episode 12 is "Ever Blue" by Style Five. The single for "Rage On" was released on July 17, 2013 and sold over 24,281 copies. The single for "Splash Free" was released on August 7, 2013 and sold over 47,646 copies. For the second season, the opening theme is "Dried Up Youthful Fame" by Oldcodex, and the ending theme is "Future Fish" by Style Five. The ending theme for episode 13 is "Clear Blue Departure" by Nobunaga Shimazaki, Tatsuhisa Suzuki, Tsubasa Yonaga, Daisuke Hirakawa, Mamoru Miyano, Yoshimasa Hosoya, K?ki Miyata and Kenichi Suzumura.
Five character song singles were released sung by the voice actors of the main characters. The singles for Haruka Nanase (sung by Shimazaki) and Makoto Tachibana (sung by Suzuki) were released on August 7, 2013. Makoto's single sold over 23,487 copies, while Haruka's single sold about 20,371 copies. The singles for Rin Matsuoka (sung by Miyano), Nagisa Hazuki (sung by Yonaga) and Rei Ry?gazaki (sung by Hirakawa) were released on September 4, 2013. Rin's single sold over 18,698 copies, while Rei's and Nagisa's sold over 15,021 and 14,283 copies, respectively.
Four duet character song singles were released sung by the voice actors of the main characters. The single with Haruka (sung by Shimazaki) and Makoto (sung by Suzuki) was released on December 18, 2013 and sold over 16,361 album copies. The single with Nagisa (sung by Tsubasa Yonaga) and Rei (sung by Daisuke Hirakawa) was released on January 15, 2014 and sold over 11,980 copies. The single with Rei (sung by Daisuke Hirakawa) and Rin (sung by Mamoru Miyano) was released on February 12, 2014 and sold over 13,389 copies. The last single with Haruka (sung by Shimazaki) and Rin (sung by Mamoru Miyano) was released on March 19, 2014 and sold over 15,866 album copies.
Light novels
The original light novel High Speed! (???????, Hai Sup?do) is written by K?ji ?ji, with illustrations by Futoshi Nishiya. ?ji entered it into the second Kyoto Animation Award contest in 2011, and it won an honorable mention in the novel category. It was published by Kyoto Animation on July 8, 2013. A second volume was published on July 2, 2014, and the story takes place when Haruka and Makoto are in junior high school.
References
External links
- Official website (in Japanese)
- Free! - Iwatobi Swim Club (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
- Free! on IMDb
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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