Among the many LGBTQ+ tropes in fiction, an overwhelming amount of it is tragic, leaving few options for queer viewers seeking out positive escapism. Having queer-coded characters that are never explicitly stated to be queer not only exploits the audience, but seems like a mockery of the LGBTQ+ community. There’s already an overabundance of media featuring straight characters.
It’s clear that the audience is being teased with the lack of a definitive answer, but when representation in media is so important, it’s frustrating to see the multitude of queer subtext left up to the watcher’s interpretation. His homestay parents joke that they’ll take that as a no and chalk it up to him being a late bloomer, and move on with the conversation without considering that Rin might not be interested in girls at all. He doesn’t reply either way, but instead awkwardly stammers out a non-answer. In another instance, Rin visits his homestay parents in Australia, and they ask whether he has a girlfriend yet. The episode ends without definitively stating Rei’s preferences either way, since it was all a big misunderstanding. In one episode, the rest of the team assumes Rei must have a girlfriend occupying his time, but when they see him talking with a boy, wonder if he has a boyfriend instead. Throughout the show, the characters’ sexual orientations remain ambiguous.
As the story follows them from middle school into university, there’s tons of character growth and competition, and Free! deserves to be taken just as seriously as any other sports series instead of being labelled as nothing but fanservice. It’s nice to see sports anime such as Run With the Wind get praised for their storytelling and characters, but I wish that Free! could be seen in that light as well. For people who aren’t into that, it’s hard to convince that there’s more to the show than abs and pretty boys. The camera practically drools as it pans across the butts and abs of the characters as they emerge from the pool, accentuated by beads of water and sparkles. The plethora of muscles and the way they are framed has been a turn off for many potential audience members.
While the perfectly sculpted muscles of the main male cast is what led to the show’s boom in popularity, it has also caused harm for the show. One of the biggest gripes I have now with Free! is the amount of fanservice the show throws at you. Haruka and his friends must bring back their high school’s swim team so they can compete once more. After learning that Rin is back in Japan, the two meet again and renew their rivalry. As Haru and his best friend Tachibana Makoto enter their second year of high school, they encounter a familiar face: Hazuki Nagisa, a teammate from their elementary school swim team. After falling out with his friend and rival Matsuoka Rin in middle school, Haruka quit competitive swimming while Rin left to study abroad in Australia. Re-watching the anime as an adult, however, made me realize that the show that brought me such comfort over the years has quite a few things amiss.įree! is about Nanase Haruka, a cool and quiet sixteen-year-old boy who loves swimming so much he bathes in his swimsuit and takes his clothes off the moment he sees a body of water large enough to swim in. It became my comfort anime, as I found it to be a fun and relaxing watch during those bad days. As a teenager, I was enamored with these beautiful boys and the melodrama surrounding them. Once I caved to the show’s immense popularity and watched it in its entirety, I too came to understand what the hype was about. I didn’t experience it for myself until a few years later, when the sequel series Eternal Summer was airing. Lo and behold, only a few short months later, Kyoto Animation releases a full-length series featuring those same swimmers titled Free! – Iwatobi Swim Club.
In just 48 hours, this short, dubbed the “Swimming Anime” spreads throughout the anime community like wildfire, with its own fanfiction, AMVs, and even a petition by Crunchyroll to have an anime released. Unlike the regular shorts that showcase the studio’s animation and feature petite girls, it focuses on four swimsuit-clad boys cavorting by the pool. Levi x listener akira dubs.It’s March 2013, and Kyoto Animation has dropped a new 30-second advertisement.