I think Rin will get in Iwatobi... Maybe. Or not.
*avoids stones and tomatoes*
Yeah, I know. After my monstrously long analysis about how I didn’t believe that Rin would get in Iwatobi, it sounds completely ridiculous that I would state the opposite even so hesitantly, right? Surely, I must jest, right? RIGHT?
Yes, I changed my mind. Maybe not completely, but some things happened in the series that threw me off, caught me by surprise and changed my point of view on many things.
And this is normal. No, I’m not trying to make excuses for myself. It’s normal to change your opinion the more data you acquire. New information leads to new conclusions.
Well… allow me to explain what happened and I changed my mind.
And if you still believe I’m talking nonsense after you read this…
__________________________
First off, I can’t say I don’t feel a little smug here. Many of my hypotheses came true.
Rin realised that no, he doesn’t have the talent to pursue his father’s dream.
Rei will be the catalyst for this story.
Rin was hurt not just because he lost to Haruka; something else was at works before they raced that winter.
Rin believed that his for-the-team self was not good enough for the Olympics and he became a loner.
Now, the things that I was wrong about:
Rin’s father didn’t abandon his dream because Rin was born (which COULD be true, because really, can we PLEASE learn what young Rin said to teenage one during the funeral of his father in his dream? Please? Thank you). He might not have been good enough himself. He might have preferred to make a family instead. He might have lost interest.
Rin didn’t enter the relay to beat his younger self out of him by beating the Iwatobis.
Rin continued to pursue his father’s dream for three years.
The things I was wrong about were few, but rather important. Important enough to make me not only doubt my previous hypothesis, but also start considering the opposite outcome for this story.
The first one was Rin’s reveal that the reason he joined the relay was because he longed to swim with the others, even if it means it would be in different lanes.
I underestimated Rin’s nostalgia and love for his old team.
This kid REALLY misses his friends.
He wanted to swim with them so much, he didn’t care if he was in the same team.
Why is this so important that it made me reconsider things? Well, it’s simple.
Rin’s longing won over his dream already.
The second thing that ties to it is that most probably, guilt isn’t pushing Rin to go through all the hardships of realising that he’s ordinary. The reason is not that much tied to his father, after all.
It’s something much simpler and even sadder.
Why, really? What pushed Rin to endure constant struggling and have only disappointments as a reward in a foreign country, if not guilt for this father’s dream?
What could have been so strong of a motive?
That was the one moment my mind froze and realised that KyoAni was taking the mature route with Rin; a route I never even considered they would take. And here’s why:
Let’s go someplace else first. Let’s visit the very end of High Speed! the novel Free! is based on and is a sequel for.
But Haruka is looking up at the sky, as if trying to see where it ends, with a far-off gaze. “…Rin.”
Time freezes for a moment when Haruka calls Rin’s name—and Makoto and Aki both turn to look at Haruka.
A bit embarrassed at being called by his first name, Rin responds, “…What?”
"Are you going after your dad’s dream?"
"Not sure yet." But even if he isn’t sure right now, if he can’t see the goal, he can put forth all his effort to try to find out.
The breeze blows, and the sakura branches shift. The wind rises over their heads, blowing through the campus, and whipping up into the vast sky beyond, tempting them all to follow to some far-off future.
I emphasised some parts here for a reason.
At the end of the novel, right after the children celebrate their winning in the relay, Rin (and all the others) is confident. He is willing to put all his effort to struggle, to fight. He and his team broke the record (High Speed!) with their relay, they felt like they could win over the world, Rin especially, whose dream depended on this. Surely, he could do it, right?
KyoAni pretty much took all this confidence, crowned it over-confidence, crushed it with failure and turned it into bitterness.
They actually made the event that made Rin hopeful for his future, what he believed it ruined him. They made him believe that if his winning in the relay didn’t exist, he wouldn’t fly so high, he wouldn’t have all these expectations on himself, so the wouldn’t fall so hard and hurt himself so much when reality slapped him mercilessly across his face. After all, the higher you fly, the more you hurt when you fall.
They took Rin’s joy and turned it into bitterness.
That’s pretty much the method of turning hope into despair and have the character continue to hope against reality, so they would get stabbed deeper the more they hoped.
I had to pause the episode at that part and let this sink in.
Because this? This is a mature theme. This is part of growing up. It’s the part where we realise that no, we won’t be able to achieve our dreams, no, we can’t do anything as long as we believe in ourselves, no, no matter how enthusiastic we are…
…no matter how much of an effort we put…
… no matter how much of a romantic dreamer we are…
… no matter what we achieved in the past…
… we just as might not make it.
And this is true for the majority of us: we won’t be able to make it.
However, most of us have this lesson in adulthood, when we reach the part where we fight for ourselves and we have to be our own provider. We are old enough and we have enough real-life experiences to hold us above the water (no pun intended, really) so as to not give up completely our lives and become depressed; we grow up and learn how to survive the hits real life is giving us. We also have our own providers for support to do this, mostly our family; they keep us up because they’re there. This is how we mature; we learn the true face of reality.
In our society, we learn this around the age of 20+. It’s an age when our brain is mature enough to take it.
Rin was taught that at the age of fourteen. In the middle of his teenage years, when boys usually have their growth sprout. And he was alone in a foreign country.
CHRIST, KyoAni. You decided to give that lesson to a fourteen-year-old boy?! Who didn’t have a father to tell him anything about lost dreams, when he might have been just the person for it?!
No wonder Rin turned completely bitter and aggressive and selfish. He had his childhood taken from him too soon. And it happened because his “crime” was that he dared to dream big.
The third thing is that declaration from Rin:
Another mind-freezing moment, where again I had to pause.
Rin didn’t continue to struggle after his defeat to Haruka. He gave up. He hadn’t spent three years struggling. He fell 1) too hard 2) from too high 3) all alone 4) too early in his life and the hurt was so much he didn’t have the heart to pick himself up from the ground.
If Haruka gave up competitive swimming because of guilt, Rin gave it up because of despair. (Christ, KyoAni. Christ.)
However, this also makes me wonder about this:
Why is Rin so confident here about racing Haruka? Remember, at that point, Rin had NO idea that Haruka hadn’t swum competitively for three years; from his point of view, Haruka was fine with his life and love for swimming, something Rin knew really well.
So… if a year of training didn’t have any positive results for Rin against Haruka, how come Rin here is certain that he can face him when he hadn’t swum competitively (if at all) for three? And it’s not like Rin is simply “acting cool” here to “save face”; they’re getting ready to swim, they’re going, the race is in his face. He cannot act cool when reality is there and HE is the one initiating the race.
(This could apply to Haruka as well, but he did know that Rin had given up swimming, so… Let’s just say they’re competitive dolts who mirror each other and leave it at that.)
In episode 11, we learned this:
Here Rin is saying that he wanted to swim again period, not just competitive swimming, which requires much more rigorous effort. Something doesn’t add up, KyoAni…
Close the parenthesis here.
Moving on, if Rin gave up swimming, and started it again because of his race with Haruka, that also means that he gained the courage to go after the Olympic dream after said race as well.
Rin has only recently regained the heart to fight again. And he wants to start from Haruka, because it’s with Haruka that it ended three years ago.
And he did it. He beat Haruka.
But, he stumbled onto his feelings towards his team.
And the fourth thing that made me change my mind was this:
Rin won’t swim in the relay.
That was the biggest and most important reason. It threw me completely off.
Rin wanted to swim with them again, regardless of lanes. He focused on swimming with them and not with his own team…
You cannot swim with a team if you don’t swim for it.
He’s focusing on the team he’s not.
Rin’s desire to swim with his friends again gets smashed.
In the meantime, however, his dream is intact.
Remember, the raced Haruka in order to make a fresh start for his dream and start from zero again. What he says to Rei here is not false.
Returning to our issue, the Olympic dream is indeed in higher places than Haruka. Haruka was just the beginning for Rin, the signal that now he does have a chance to make true the dream the crushing of which left him bitter and cynical. He claims it all the damn time; he claims it to Rei again.
By all means, not being able to swim in the relay shouldn’t have been such a terror for Rin; his 100 m. free race is there; the road to his dream is there; it’s the Iwatobis that are stolen away from his sight.
This is Rin with his dream in the works, while his past friends are getting away from him.
This is Rin realising that his own happiness isn’t with his father’s dream; it’s swimming together with the guys.
I was right to believe that Rin has been shouldering another person’s dream all his life.
I was right to believe that nothing we had seen until the point I wrote the analysis was Rin’s (except the relay four years ago), not even his swimming style. His style isn’t the free; it’s the butterfly.
I was right to believe that Rin’s dream was to swim with his friends.
What I didn’t get right was that what made Rin blind to his own dream wasn’t guilt (most probably), but his own misguided ambition.
And this is why I believe that Rin will swim with the Iwatobis in the same team.
In many ways, this is also Gou’s dream.
But, most importantly, we have this scene:
This scene is enormously important for Rin.
But it is equally important for Rei.
In the beginning of episode 11, we saw Rei’s insecurities reveal themselves full-time.
Rei is jealous and insecure here, but the problem here for him is not Rin himself; it’s how the other three, Makoto, Nagisa and especially Haruka perceive him.
It’s not Rin’s attitude that is the problem here; it’s the Iwatobis’. They are the ones who made Rei feel that way.
However, Rei won’t lash out to them, as he wrongly believes that by relieving his frustrations on Rin, things will change.
It’s pretty much how Rin has been treating Haruka all this time.
Rei here is Rin.
Rin here is Haruka.
And in the scene where they meet again, Rin comes clean; he opens up, explains his reasons, sorts out most of his feelings and his intentions and leaves Rei behind, with his head held high and his heart burning determination.
Rei has yet to do that for himself.
Love Rei and hate Rin all you want. Scream, deny and turn your eyes away; the fact is that no, Rin didn’t deserve Rei’s anger; Haruka, Makoto and Nagisa did. Just like Haruka didn’t deserve Rin’s; his own self did, but that’s an issue for another analysis I have in the works.
The main point is, for Rei and Rin to come both into an understanding (and they can do that only with Rei coming clean as well), they have to give apologies.
Rei to Rin and Rin to Haruka and the team.
Otherwise, their character arcs are left incomplete.
I’ve heard people saying that Haruka and Rin are the Blue Oni and the Red Oni: two sides of the same coin that mirror each other’s path in life.
I’ll say that Rin and Rei fit this description equally well: they are two frustrated boys who lash out to the wrong person, because they refuse to see who is really at fault here (the Iwatobis for Rei and his own self for Rin).
The director of Free!, Utsumi, said it best:
I want them to pay attention to what kind of bonds will be created from now on between the five boys, which include the four from Iwatobi and Rin. In reality everyone might think that it’s a “bond between four people”, but Free! insists on a “bond between five people”,
In episode 11, the Iwatobis came clean to the relationships among them.
They comforted Rei and told him he was irreplaceable.
However, the creators made Rin coming clean to him after this and Rei realised that he not free (HA-HA, get it?) from Rin’s influence, no matter what the Iwatobis tell him.
He’s insecure because of his poor performance. It’s another thing for Rei, that is both connected and separated from Rin: Rin is a better swimmer than Haruka, Rei is a greenhorn (again, let’s be honest). Swimming with Rin still makes Haruka nervous, to the point he loses sleep.
No one is completely free (ah, title drop everywhere) until the last episode. It’s Narration and Writing 101, folks.
Rin made a promise to show Rei his skills. Not only that, he wished the boy who thinks has replaced him good luck (in his own way) and to work together with the others.
Rin has accepted that he has been replaced.
Rei is afraid that he is just a replacement.
Yet, the Iwatobis said that every member is irreplaceable.
Gou’s dream is yet to be fulfilled.
Rin has yet to realise his own dream instead of being stuck chasing another’s (his father’s).
Rin has to show Rei his skills. It’s called Chekhov’s Gun. Had he not been fated to show it to him, it wouldn’t have been even mentioned.
But Rin is out of the relay. Out of his dream.
He has the 100m. free race. Which is not his dream, but his father’s. Where Haruka won’t even be there anymore to motivate him, but the Olympic dream. And said dream did squats for Rin in Australia.
I’m betting everything I have that Rin will blow this race; he hasn’t been focused on it at all since he saw the Iwatobis swim the relay and the feelings of nostalgia and jealousy hit him.
How on earth is Rin going to show Rei his skills, then?
I went back and checked the lyrics to Aqua Gate (Rin’s song) again.
This cloying uneasiness and bitter déjà vu
So intense that I try to tear myself away
Those memories encircle me with such genuine radiance
The true gateway
The true gateway. The memories (their relay) and bitter deja vu (Rei being with them instead of him) are the true gateway. The true dream for Rin: swimming with them.
Among the overlaid afterimages and never-ending echoes
Are my dreams, on the verge of being crushed
His dreams. What Rin is dreaming of truly. He’s on the verge of losing everything. He feels he has lost the chance to swim with them again (his own dream) now that he’s out of the relay and the 100m. free will suck for him; he loses (his father’s dream).
Rin will lose everything. By trying to combine his and his father’s dream, he loses both. Out of the relay, out of the 100m. free! race.
No one else will do / With a form uniquely mine
I’ll set my heart free, the way I’ve always longed to
"With a form uniquely mine." This line stands out to me the most, because it implies that Rin will swim butterfly. The question is, where? Where IS room for a butterfly, where he will "set his heart free", he will scream to the world (figuratively) that his own dream is something else than what he claims it to be.
And this is where I get scared with my thoughts.
Rin and Rei have to come to terms that they both belong to the Iwatobi period. Rei has a place there, as much as Rin does. They have to be free from the feelings of replacement and jealousy. They have to feel that they belong in the same place.
Swim together in a relay.
Shocked? Not as much as I was when it crossed my mind.
The question is: how? How on earth can they do that? They are both butterfly swimmers and there can be only one butterfly in a relay, right?
I can see Haruka giving his place to Rin. Gladly so.
So that Rei won’t feel replaced.
I can see Rin choosing to swim butterfly there.
I can see him swimming butterfly and WINNING. He’ll beat the fastest stroke with his own.
So he’ll show Rei how good he is.
So Rei will see “what’s so great about Rin-chan anyway”.
So Gou’s dream will come true.
So the ending will be mirrored in the story: all four will be there for Haruka to jump into the water.
Back in High Speed!, Haruka’s time was god awful.
I’m not kidding. Haruka was keeping back the whole team, because he couldn’t swim as he wanted to. He was falling behind.
It’s been nearly 2 weeks now since they all agreed to focus solely on the medley race, but their team still hasn’t quite come into its own, and their times aren’t getting any better—in fact, they’re worsening. And it’s all due to Haruka.
He’s lost that elegant swimming style he once had. Rin has tried pinpointing what’s changed, but he can’t find anything. Still, neither his strokes nor his kicks are giving him any propulsion, leaving him just pulling himself through the water with a stiff rhythm.
But Rin has said nothing about this to Haruka—he doesn’t have any advice to give, after all. Haruka had glided through the water, no resistance whatsoever, like some great seabird with wings spread
wide in the sky—exhibiting a style of swimming that was far removed from anything Rin had ever learned. But that Haruka and the one struggling in the water now…are like two different people.
He’s fighting against the water, pushing it away by force, with a strength different from that Makoto shows, nothing but desperation and struggling.
He’s nothing like how he was before…and with that perfect form lost from sight, now Rin doesn’t know what to strive for. With Haruka the way he is, Rin can’t aim for that perfection anymore.
But it’s not as if he can consult Haruka about this, and even if Haruka is stuck like this forever, it won’t change Rin’s conviction to swim as a team. But he’s certain that Haruka will surmount this eventually, though he’s not sure when—if it’ll be in time for the tournament or not.
Actually, Haruka became frustrated with his own loss and refused to speak with the others— OH WAIT.
To Rin, it’s as if time has stopped for Haruka alone, his body refusing to move forward. The distance between himself and the top swimmer only grows, bringing him in line with the swimmer in third now. Rin fears for one wild moment that Haruka’s arms and legs will just freeze, that he’ll drown like this, just like that day when he tried to go after Aki’s muffler…
After the turn, Haruka’s finally passed up by the swimmer in third, the one in fourth now lining up with him—but Haruka still just repeats basic, fundamental movements.
When he finally touches the wall…he’s been passed up by the swimmer in fourth place. His shoulders shake up and down with deep, ragged breaths unthinkable for swimming a mere 1000 meters. He ignores the hand Makoto extends to him, pulling himself up onto the poolside and tearing off his goggles and swim cap as he heads for the locker rooms. He passes by Aki on the way, but doesn’t even spare her a glance.
They all watch silently as Haruka leaves—there’s nothing they can say to him right now, nothing they know to say—and he finally disappears into the locker room.
Haruka knows how Rin feels. His own feelings of inadequacy almost costed them the cup.
Nagisa told him to “be himself”.
'Don't apologize. Just swim the way you want to.' Rin nods with a smile, silently directing this thought Haruka’s way.
What is driven home here is the message that you cannot swim well, if you don’t swim like YOU want to.
By the end, this is what we had:
Haru flies through the air, Rin’s voice ringing in his ears. This boy who had frustrated and irritated him so much…now feels somehow comforting, and Haruka can’t help smiling to himself at how strange that is.
He had no intention of holding it back anymore—Makoto’s feelings ignited within him, Nagisa’s feelings granted him wings, and Rin’s feelings became the breeze pushing him along, gifting him speed. There was nothing more to fear or worry about—he had but to swim, confident in his own feelings.
Now, it all exploded in a burst of light, propelling him through the water at high speed—straight for the goal.
Teamwork and be yourself. This is how you achieve your goal, High Speed! tells us.
This is what Rin unintentionally taught the others by gathering them together.
This is why Rin never did well in Australia.
And this is what he has to remember.
Passing through the gate / I won’t hesitate
Passing through the mind / I’ll never lose my way again
Passing through the gate / There’s no mistake
Passing through the mind / I’ll never lose my way again
Rin will find his way and he won’t stumble any more.
Everything in this series, from Haruka being open with his feelings towards others and Gou’s dream to have her old brother back, to Rei’s insecurities and the constant failure at his goals Rin is facing, is building up to this.
I don’t know if it’s possible, guys. I might be completely wrong in this analysis and my old one to come true. But, I’ve come to entertain the idea.
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