had a sudden revelation but i think free is very interesting in how they have the âstoic, lonerâ type as the main character. i think (and this is esp relevant in shonen series) that the happy(?), determined character with a distinct goal is typically the protagonist. ofc haru does have some characteristics typical of a main character (like how heâs able to attract so many ppl lolâŠ) but it is interesting and rather refreshing that the âcoolâ character is actually in the place of the main character for once, rather than the side (although often important and often one of the main characters even if theyre not the protag) character that the main character befriends. (tho thinking about it now, they def tried making haru slightly more typical of an mc in s3 with how ooc and friendly he was sometimes :/) rin is prob more typical of a main character than haru haha. and then that makes me think, what if free was told from rins pov instead? for one, the series i think wouldâve spent much more time in the childhood years (his dad, him meeting sousuke,etc) and esp of his australia years. but i wonder what else wouldâve changed and how different the development and tone would be haha
however i feel like not being the protagonist gave rin a lot more options with his story. would they have been able to fit rins regression in s1 if he was the main character? i think you hardly ever see the main character lose themselves and their character and goals like that to become a pure (to be frank) ass hole. main characters often edge gary/mary sue in that way that they are always the leading light bc theyâre the âhappy determinedâ person that guides others. some do have relapses but they never last as long as rins did, which was about a year without including the time he was like that in australia and i donât think they become as aggressive and mean to everyone as rin did too haha, usually only to the villain if anyone (but ig haru went against that grain too since he relapsed for almost the same duration bc of rin lol⊠but hes also not a typical mc and he didnât have a clear goal in the first place and they were able to skip over most of it)
either way, even with rin technically not being the protagonist, he sort of is. heâs def the second most important character and you canât even deny that if you dislike him. so much of free and its plot is driven by him even if itâs not exactly centered on him. even the final stroke character profiles says rin âlead(s) harukaâ and haru is âguided by rinâ. (and wow, that makes me realize that haru, like typical mc, guides all the others, but at the end of the day, itâs rin who guides haru đł)
but honestly i would love to see another world where free is in rins perspective, just to sate my curiosity. at the very least, i think a novel (spinoff?) in rins pov would be a very good and interesting idea that iâd love to read!!!
another thought regarding this post since i canât seem to shut up about it, but it makes me think they really need to talk to each other about their feelings and the motivations regarding their actions. because right now, they both feel like theyâve gotten abandoned by the other (haru bc rin gave up free and wonât be swimming with him against albert and rin bc haru didnât understand his decision and bc of the words he said to cut him off) but rlly they did that bc theyâre both trying to reach the world stage and donât want to be left behind hence their sacrifices. (haru giving up rin and rin giving up freestyle) in part 2 they need to realize that the world stage is going to be âboth of them together or nothingâ because like i said what motivates them is swimming together. both of them reaching the world stage separately is not going to be the same, because both of them being there isnât enough when they arenât swimming free for the team. and if they canât achieve that dream by staying together and swimming free, then itâs not worth being there. making those kinds of sacrifices arent worth it. all or nothing.
on another similar note, i think whats also holding back haru from the âall or nothingâ mindset iâm saying they need to take is that he feels like heâs running out of time before he reaches 20 and becomes a normal person (and then wonât have the ability to achieve his dream). this is his only and last chance, so he feels pressure to reach the world right away hence why he went for the short term solution of giving something up to get better instead of staying in the same path he was walking before or waiting and thinking of a better way.
i feel like through out the series it is rin âabandoningâ haru and it certainly has affected haru internally and has given him abandonment issues but that last scene in the final stroke feels more like haru abandoning rin by ending things with him (sounds like a break up lol but it lowkey highkey was...) though rin did say first that he was going to stop swimming free and haru may have felt that rin abandoned him to leave him to face albert and swim free alone. but i think haru cutting rin off (instead of the other way around like rin did when he left to aus and from isc after âthe raceâ) adds onto the role swap that i believe kyoani is going for because it seems like this time rin (and likely ikuya as well which brings another roleswap since ikuyas story was made to parallel rins very closely) will have to chase after haru and remind him that he shouldnt and doesnt have to swim alone in part 2
but another thing, perhaps haruâs abandonment issues (and his desire to swim with rin in general, though it is a bit deluded right now as hes freaking out thinking of the near future specifically regarding albert) are what is motivating him cutting rin in the first place. hear me out, so harus dream right now is to swim with rin on the world stage, but bc of albert, he fears that he is not good enough to achieve that dream. he doesnt think he can reach the world if he doesnt beat him. So that fear, also the fear of running out of time before he becomes a ânormal personâ, the desire to go to the world, and his competitiveness (since he wants to be the one that feels the water the best) made him hyperfocus on just getting better and thus lose sight of his friends and the motivation they bring him and that theyre really the reason hes there in the first place. and the only way to get better? it is to give something up, and so he does just that. he doesnt realize that that solution and beating albert are really just short term solutions to his problems and the long term effects esp regarding his relationships will be terrible
at the end of the day, both rin and haru just want to be standing next to each other on the world stage, but they are disillusioned from the path they should really take. haru doesnt think he can reach the world stage unless he gets better, and the only way that he can see himself doing that is following his coachs advice. and rin is scared he wont reach it either, so he gives up swimming free in order to focus on his âsuperiorâ stroke thatâll more likely bring him there. theyve forgotten how swimming together is what pushes them further in the first place, and that even if they both do reach the world with the methods theyre choosing, they wont really be together. i wonder whether part 2 will solve this by having them swim together through a free race, or through a relay. it depends on whether rin will take up freestyle again or not i guess. (itll be either âwe can face the world and albert together!!â or âeven if we dont swim the same style, we can still race together!!â)
edit: read some of my old posts again, and realized that perhaps besides harus fears and the other things i said, a reason haru is so disillusioned is that rin is not there to guide him. the final stroke character profiles says that haru is guided by rin and rin leads haru, but if rin doesnt swim free anymore, who can he look to for guidance? it doesnt help that haru wont confide to rin about any of this, and how haru sees that rin is disillusioned like him since he gave up freestyle. and this points another flaw in their current path; if they dont swim together, who can they look to for inspiration? both of them really look to each other for guidance, shown by how they both want to swim like the other, so if they dont swim together they wont really be able to move forward. so like i said, their current paths really are only short term solutions and wont work out in the end.
theyâre like i treasure you and our relationship so much idk what iâd do without you while simultaneously not realizing how much they mean to the other. i think rin esp doesnât realize how much he affects haru because he wasnât there with haru in junior high to truly see his effect on him and have it as comparison to how much better he got when rin came back while haru does know to a certain point and feels guilt over it because heâs seen rin cry because of him. but the multiple times rin has left him may also make him insecure of his worth to rin.
had a sudden revelation but i think free is very interesting in how they have the âstoic, lonerâ type as the main character. i think (and this is esp relevant in shonen series) that the happy(?), determined character with a distinct goal is typically the protagonist. ofc haru does have some characteristics typical of a main character (like how heâs able to attract so many ppl lolâŠ) but it is interesting and rather refreshing that the âcoolâ character is actually in the place of the main character for once, rather than the side (although often important and often one of the main characters even if theyre not the protag) character that the main character befriends. (tho thinking about it now, they def tried making haru slightly more typical of an mc in s3 with how ooc and friendly he was sometimes :/) rin is prob more typical of a main character than haru haha. and then that makes me think, what if free was told from rins pov instead? for one, the series i think wouldâve spent much more time in the childhood years (his dad, him meeting sousuke,etc) and esp of his australia years. but i wonder what else wouldâve changed and how different the development and tone would be haha
however i feel like not being the protagonist gave rin a lot more options with his story. would they have been able to fit rins regression in s1 if he was the main character? i think you hardly ever see the main character lose themselves and their character and goals like that to become a pure (to be frank) ass hole. main characters often edge gary/mary sue in that way that they are always the leading light bc theyâre the âhappy determinedâ person that guides others. some do have relapses but they never last as long as rins did, which was about a year without including the time he was like that in australia and i donât think they become as aggressive and mean to everyone as rin did too haha, usually only to the villain if anyone (but ig haru went against that grain too since he relapsed for almost the same duration bc of rin lol⊠but hes also not a typical mc and he didnât have a clear goal in the first place and they were able to skip over most of it)
either way, even with rin technically not being the protagonist, he sort of is. heâs def the second most important character and you canât even deny that if you dislike him. so much of free and its plot is driven by him even if itâs not exactly centered on him. even the final stroke character profiles says rin âlead(s) harukaâ and haru is âguided by rinâ. (and wow, that makes me realize that haru, like typical mc, guides all the others, but at the end of the day, itâs rin who guides haru đł)
but honestly i would love to see another world where free is in rins perspective, just to sate my curiosity. at the very least, i think a novel (spinoff?) in rins pov would be a very good and interesting idea that iâd love to read!!!
just watched the new final stroke trailer and iâm so excited my heart is literally pounding for rin and haru⊠AND MY LOVE RIN HAD SO MANY SHOTS !! and haru appearing at the tree again AHHHH with haru and swimming i feel like it always goes back to rin for him<3 âwhat are you swimming for?â you ask, albert? well haru can easily answer that. itâs for his friends, and especially rin!!!! (am i hella viewing things from shippers goggles? yes, but u have to admit thereâs some truth to it đ)
really unfair and sad that utsumi led the start of free but we wonât be able to see it end with her when she legitimately cared for and understood the characters the best
yea she didnât write high speed but ppl donât realize how much the studio tweaked the original manuscript to become what it is today i think i read before in an interview that rin was never a rival character to haru but he was changed or added for the plot of free and so we wouldnât have ever had remotely the same free that we know now AND she was a huge part in the construction of reiâs character both appearance and personality-wise AND she was the one who in the first place wanted free to be set when they were older not to mention all the other things she did generally as the director???
and iâve said this before and iâll say it again but maybe season 3 wouldnât have been so crap if we still had her bc she already had a vision of how the characters would develop and would make them consistent since she actually knew them and their relationships :))) instead of the regurgitated crap we actually got
sheâs not under any studio since she works freelance so i think they technically totally could hire her for free final stroke but i feel like it was AniDo/KyoAni who drove her away in the first place so i doubt she wants to come back bc of them... đ„ș idk the details of why she left even when i search so if anyone knows anything pls let me know đ
so iâve finally watched s3 of free! and i wanted to put my thoughts in about it and hopefully also get some ppl to reply (respectfully) with their own input? also sorry if my knowledge of free seems spotty or incomplete since i donât obviously have all free lore burned into my head so pls inform or correct me on anything iâm missing!
anyways before even watching s3, i noticed it was pretty widespread that s3 was rather disappointing or at least fell short to s1&2. and not only that, but i could see that s3 was likely going to be a bit disappointing just bc of how many less ppl were interested in it or even knew about it (ofc popularity=/=good but i doubted that the loss in numbers was just bc time had passed) sadly, the season actually exceeded my expectations of the worst.
first of all, i think way too many characters were introduced without any need of them being there. ofc not all of them seemed worthless to being there, but i think at least half of them didnât have a need of being there (or at least didnât need to appear as much as they did) or they couldâve at least waited to introduce them. donât get me wrong, i loved characters like isuzu and albert, but with how little they appeared or added to the plot, i donât think they were necessary at all. they introduced so many characters and kind of tried to forcefully endear them to us but it just seemed really shallow and random. i was really uninterested in the new iwatobi hs sc tbh (i love rei and nagisa, but i just donât feel anything for the new members tho it was funny how the new manager is interested in fat instead of muscles) i donât think isuzu was worth introducing, but i do get why they introduced albert at least. he was supposed to serve as their first rival introduced strictly from the professional world, and to emphasize there are many people above them not just in japan but the âworld stageâ but i definitely think they couldâve waited on that until the free 2021 movie tbh. plus i felt that any conflict he brought to haru was resolved within 1 maybe 2 episodes so yea they definitely didnât really need him bc he hasnât had much impact (yet) if anything, they couldâve just had him briefly appear at that training camp haru was at to race him and beat him to remind him that he still has a long way to go to get to the top. but all other appearances of albert were so extra and unnecessarily emphasized how inhumanely talented he was (the arcade scene, the thing with the chopsticks,etc) it just felt like really weak foreshadowing
also, the main conflict in s3 was just way too prolonged and solved unsatisfactorily. first of all, i donât know why the blame seemed to be shifted by ikuya and hiyori almost solely to haru, like yes he was the one who quit first but it wasnât an attack specifically to ikuya and the rest of them left too, so they shouldâve held more grudges on haru makoto and asahi rather than just haru (or if anything at least have more blame on asahi bc makoto at least talked to ikuya beforehand) like did he just forget asahi also made a promise to not move away? honestly from the content they gave us, iâd argue that asahi and ikuya were actually closer than how ikuya and haru were, since i feel like most of the latter relationship was based on ikuya admiring harus swimming.
second of all, hiyori was another character i found so unnecessary and just weirdly protective over ikuya. he repeatedly gets in the way between them and ikuya when ikuya never said he didnât want to talk to them (and itâs not like talking to them is gonna give him a health relapse) and so he just seemed to be there to prolong the conflict between them which was irritating. not even natsuya, ikuyaâs actual brother, was that obsessive over him so i really donât get hiyori. even sousuke, who was actually friends with rin before haru and the others were was not that possessive over rin, and there was actually pretty good reasoning why he had a grudge against haru (he didnât see haru taking swimming as seriously as rin and thought that would cause him to hold back rin who looked up to haru, and was jealous that haru who had the talent to swim the world stage with rin wasnât taking advantage of it when sousuke wanted to but couldnt bc of his injury) and like what right did he have to say to haru that his swimming hurts others when it didnât even affect ikuya negatively (instead it inspired him and led to him wanting to swim like haru) like how haru originally thought it did to rin and how it did to asahi in high speed 2?
third of all, like i said before the way they solved the conflict between ikuya and the rest made little sense. like yes harus swimming is magical but i donât get how swimming IM with him could instantly solve all the problems between them. (ik that it was based on the promise they made to race each other but iâll get into that part and how shallow it felt later) if anything, i think what wouldâve been more impactful was something happening to ikuya that made him realize that he can/should rely on/trust others, (maybe a more serious accident?) and enjoy swimming with a team and not just alone since his personal conflict was that he thought swimming alone was better than swimming with others when actually he was lonely (at least it was in starting days). and that wouldnât even have to be with haru and the others that he learns that lesson. it could be with his own university team and hiyori, which would give hiyori a much better purpose of being there. (or they couldâve just not had him exist) if they were so inclined to have closure between ikuya and the other boys by having them resolve ikuyas personal conflict, i feel like it shouldâve been at least haru AND asahi (maybe even makoto too but idk how thatd work when heâs no longer competing) racing him in the same race (if not them doing a relay but i guess they didnât want to make it too obvious than they already were that they were just recycling the plot of s1 (lol)) if anything i think they couldâve even waited for them to reconcile while they were on the olympic team, but ig kyoani didnât want to wait that long to reintroduce ikuya and wanted to use s3 to warm ppl up to the idea of ikuya being on the olympic team which they didnât do very well considering how bad the development was
also what was with ikuya saying he swims his own way while obviously taking sm inspiration fron the way haru swam? it was so contradictory and even as kids haru told ikuya to swim his own way when ikuya told him that he wanted to be like haru and he understood that obviously but didnât apply that to his actions at all? and iâm surprised haru was ok with ikuya blatantly copying him when i vaguely rmb that heâs been shown to get annoyed with even makoto when he seemed to be doing that?
another fault in having all these characters was that haruâs actual personality seemed to be taken away for the sake of these characters.
they wanted to establish a deeper relationship between ikuya and haru, but it just seemed so off the way they went about it in free! haru promising ikuya to race him just felt so ooc to me and had little emotional impact tbh bc of the lack of reasoning i felt haru had to agree to such a thing besides him promising ikuya that just bc he asked rather than bc he actually wanted to race ikuya. (while it took rin weeks to get haru to warm up to him and then agree to the relay, and seeing the process of haru getting used to the idea then openly enjoying swimming with the others was really touching) i think they just added that to make harus quitting have more impact on ikuya but i donât think it was necessary at all when they already made plans with the rest to swim the relay again and win. if they wanted to make it seem like ikuya and haru had more of a one on one relationship with each other they shouldâve gone into more about how haru saw the same darkness in ikuya that he did in himself like in high speed 2. make them bond over their similarities since iâm pretty sure ikuyas purpose as a character is to give haru a rival that is like how sousuke is to rin is; which is being rivals while being two of the same person. (in contrast to haru and rin who are very different and are rivals that inspire each other) but the way they try to establish the relationship between ikuya and haru pales sm in comparison to sousuke and rin that itâs a bit laughable, even more so in those occasional moments where they try to act like ikuya can measure up to rinâs impact on haru
another much more obvious event where haruâs character is forced to act ooc for the sake of the establishment of another character is with albert. yes, haru has grown a lot from the beginning of the series and has gotten a lot more open, expressive, and friendly, but thatâs mostly just to the friends around him, but thatâs not even to all of them (he still seems to find kisumi irritating and in TYM tries to leave at the sight of him lol) so him noticing, randomly approaching a stranger he doesnât know a single thing about to help them order food and then even going far as to have lunch with him was the most blatantly ooc thing in the season. i think he may be polite enough to help him order his food but i donât get why he even noticed albert in the first place. they shouldâve just left him noticing albert to be at the practice race. like i said that scene was just there to emphasize albertâs skill with the chopstick thing but i think saying he was the world record holder and also being way ahead of haru in the race was already enough
besides haruâs character, another character i felt they did wrong was makoto. besides the plot of s1 being recycled, s3 makoto seemed to just repeat the development he went through in s2. by the end of s2, he already establishes that he wants to coach swimmers. and at the end of s3 he comes to that same realization but acts like itâs something completely new to him introduced by nao that he never thought of before?? the only difference was that he said in s2 he wanted to help kids realize how great swimming is, which was sweet and suited his personality, but in s3 he says he wants to do it for athletes on the world stage. tbh i like either way, and the latter one would help him be able to stand with rin and haru who in s2 he was afraid of being left behind by (hence why he swam the free against haru in s2) but saying that being an olympic trainer can also help him inspire kids and show them swimming is fun makes no sense. choose a path you want for the character already and make it consistent does he want to help athletes in the world stage or does he want to help kids fall in love with swimming? bc i doubt any kids pay attention to the coach or trainers in the olympics rather than the actual athletes so that reasoning like i said didnât make sense.
and after haru lost what i think was the 200m (?) free at the All Japan Invitational, i found it weird that they had makoto there after to talk with haru and rin about the race? idk to me it just feels like itâs tradition for it to end up just being rin and haru talking when theyâre struggling with swimming (in s1 was their fight in front of the tree that looked like the one by their elementary, in s2 it was the australia trip) his presence didnât even feel necessary either, he just randomly interrupted the moment by saying his future plans after haru had that angst yell lol. it felt like just an appeal to mh shippers which is not a good enough reason at all
the last point i can remember at the moment is that the ending was so underwhelming. i donât understand why they couldnât have shown the ending to rin and harus 100m free race when the movie trailer already confirms that theyâre going to the olympics. why cut to albert watching them on the tv?? all this build up to not even show the results of it? I think this ending really just confirmed that s3 was so unnecessary and just there to warm ppl up to the olympic movie but not actually give us anything good or plot moving
anyways sorry for this dump. besides all these criticisms, i want to say there were parts of it that i enjoyed, i just didnât go into it bc this post is already so long, and me bagging on ikuya was not hate; i actually like him and the only time i teared up in s3 was in his race with natsuya lol. iâm afraid that at some parts i may have not expressed my thoughts exactly so please donât be too harsh if you engage, but iâd love to hear other pplâs analysis of s3 and the characters as well !!
Oh, I hugely agree. S3 lies back even further for me now and I was honestly many times throughout the season so bored that I couldn't keep up my attention. (Which was really disappointing since I was /so/ excited about the new season).
I'm gonna say a few words to some points but I think there's not much to add really, since most of it already describes what made the new season so spectacularly unspectacular.
Personally I think there are certain uh, choices, that led to this being a snore fest:
1.
I think you pointed out well that for one there were too many characters introduced with too little time. That alone doesn't have to mean anything, I mean. Haikyuu managed to do it! But the reason why s3 fails so spectacularly at it is because they tried to give everyone an equal part of the story (and more ships bc that's why people are watching, right) and because they overused well-earned tropes from prior season and shoehorned them into the new relationship dynamics for the sake of it. To name one is the overuse of Rin's crying to the point that I'm just not bothered anymore. It doesn't feel genuine anymore because it's not happening in peak moments anymore (like when they've won the relay or when he finally cracks and explains his feelings to Haru). It's overused for weak moments with a weak build up for a lazy way to conjure emotions in the viewer.
Then additionally I guess they set up that many characters for tons of future seasons or movies? I don't really know. But to summarize all the new characters: nobody knows what the fucking point of it was.
2.
Personally, I was especially disappointed how they handled Haru's relationship to his friends; to Rin, Makoto and others. It was nice seeing him open up (I think) and have a somewhat romantic first crush story with ikuya (that Starry night moment with the shooting star was personally a *chefskiss* moment and the only thing that made me look up from my phone, which is why it's even sadder to me that they basically gave ikuya his own ship and resolved it in a lazy way w him) but the interactions with Rin were basically nonexistent and with Makoto almost more disappointing.
After season 2 for the first time I felt some interest in Makoto's and Haru's storyline changing (from status quo level mutual acceptance to things even change between us) but it was gone with s3. Makoto returned to his role of never changing supportive side who does whatever he can to follow Haru (after he was build up to actually do something different, like you said, work with kids and so on). It was a lazy way to create a link between Makoto and Haru when they could have gone through the lengths of building an actual interesting storyline around their friendship (the issues of doing something different for the first time, Haru having to find friends on his own and resolving issues with them for the first time, etc). Instead they shoehorned the same plot device into season 3 for a quick fix and more ships in.
What I mean by that is that they basically repeated s1-2 plot by taking a person from Haru's childhood, giving the two a conflict because of Haru's swimming, adding the jealous third and supportive friend and resolving it all with the power of friendship and with Haru's swimming. It definitely worked in s1-2 by all the love and connection one established with the main cast little after little. And it's where s3 failed; by giving us the same plot but leaving out any actual work to build up deeper connections with the characters.
I'd be surprised if someone actually did find season 3 worthwhile, with it being basically a rewatch but with less build up, surprises, story tension, emotion and heart, or rewarding resolution for the viewer.
thanks for the reply !! it really made me consider things even more
yes, having a lot of characters itself isnât a bad thing but the way it was executed definitely was. maybe it was even harder for them to seamlessly fit them in bc free always focused more on the core 5 characters than others (they never even pay attention to other teams besides samezuka) (and the reason haikyuu is able to do it well is that they pay attention to other teams from the start? and also give them development when itâs actually relevant lmao) but they definitely couldâve done better at least with establishing the characters that were already given basis in high speed/starting days. like seriously they were already given great source material and they changed so much of it that starting days/s3 had only a shell of the interesting dynamics/plot the characters had in high speed2. esp with ikuya and haru- the dynamic we got in s3 was so shallow bc they really just repeated harus plot line with rin even having hiyori act in as sousuke as u described but with much less buildup and tension. instead the tension was just oddly forced by hiyoris unnecessary protectiveness and the conflict solved easily with a race. without the buildup that conflict makes less sense to me every time i think about it and makes me wish they actually explored something new and created ikuya and harus dynamic based on high speed 2 rather than repeat rin and harus bc their dynamics are fueled by something that they canât replicate with others and haru and ikuyas past tgt is just so different from the past he has with rin that having the same conflict and resolution makes no sense (esp since ikuyas past wasnât related only to haru; the whole team had left him but they hyperfixated on haru anyways)
oh yea i didnât even think about the rin crying thing until u pointed it out- i think what was so powerful about certain scenes in s1 and s2 is that theyâd be RARE occasions where the characters are showing extreme emotion and and it increased the impact of rin crying, haru smiling, haru yelling, rin laughing specifically with his eyes closed, etc. i totally agree that what they were also trying to do with making rin and haru so loose in their emotions was to make up for the lack of emotional impact the scenes of s3 had bc like u said they just shoehorned old tropes into the new characters/relationships except without having the build up and development they had in s1&2 so the scenes still felt empty :/
to your second point, god you had me thinking even more how much they did those three wrong esp makoto.
what iâm upset about regarding rin and haru is that haru is still hung up over the incident that happened the first winter rin came back from australia (as shown by how affected he was by hiyori saying that everyone who swims with him gets hurt, which i already explained was dumb in my original post) and they never really addressed that after ? honestly if they were gonna have that still haunt haru despite rei telling him rinâs actual feelings at the end of s1 they shouldâve had rin and haru talk about it which wouldâve been a nice way to show how theyâve grown and fit in interaction naturally into the season but no they never even had rin meet ikuya and hiyori until the road to the world movie which led only into a comedic scene (i havent watched the movie only clips but iâve heard that itâs better than s3 at least)
man but i really hate that line hiyori said and also how he said haru was an inferior copy of ikuya when haru is the one ikuya looks up to and based his freestyle on and what a surprise that i found out that those two lines were direct suggestions the director kawanami gave. :/
anyways, i also really wished they kept asahi and rin being childhood friends because of their dads having done the relay tgt back then. that couldâve also fit rin back into the storyline more and would be interesting to see their dynamic
and also why isnt the fact that sousuke/kisumi/rin were childhood friends explored more ?? i feel like they barely even have any interaction
besides rin, makoto and harus relationship really took such a disappointing turn. his character regressed from all the development he had in s2 just to go thru the same development he already went thru but this time worse. and when it seemed like they were going to explore a new dynamic between makoto and haru bc they were going from being next door neighbors to going to different colleges, they like u said put him back as the never changing supportive character. it wouldve been so nice to see how they developed on their own and not being attached to the hip but instead they just made makoto an accessory to haru. im convinced that had utsumi stayed the director we wouldâve gotten the interesting âeven we changeâ development we wanted bc unlike s3 she implied in an interview that she didnât see makoto and haru meeting often tho she didnât go into the details bc she wanted to keep it open at the moment :( but yea makotoâs role really regressed in the series to being just a shipping item bc tho he appeared pretty often he never really seemed to do anything besides shallowly support haru from the side (and i say shallowly bc he never stood up for haru or even comforted him) which is really an injustice to him and his previous goals
just generally the lack of focus on the core relationships just made s3 feel even more like filler bc the plot is (or at least it used to be) mainly driven by those main friendships. but instead like u said they tried to give everyone even small side characters bigger parts in the story than necessary
What u said also really made me realize that probably most of what happened in s3 was for the sake of more ships. hiyoriâs whole existence was really just a whole thing just to be able to neatly give ikuya his own ship. makoto regressed prob to keep the original dynamic that shippers are used to with makoharu. haru acted ooc so that they could force development between him and other characters for more ships. really thereâs prob more that i cant think of out of the top of my head
s3 just really was so shallow and even when they had the opportunity to make it heartfelt they never took it. like in the scene after haru lost the first race at the invitational and he confides in makoto and rin and they just laugh off his worries? what the heck was that
offhand but i also really disliked when azuma said that the reason haru slowed in the race was that he was scared that he was feeling himself overtake his limits in swimming. that just made no sense to me that haru would be scared of that when he has a competitive spirit even if he likes hiding it sometimes. the original implied reasoning that the reason he wasnât doing well was bc he didnât want to give up his relationships to reach the top just made much more sense since the basis of free is the friendships, even more so than the swimming (though that is what connects many of those friendships together) they couldâve addressed that and have rin appear to tell him that he was going to compete and keep his friends (since in s2 thatâs what he fought sousuke on; that both friendships and swimming were important to him and that focusing on his friends wasnât a waste of time) because what he gets strength from to swim is his friendships so haru could definitely do it too. and also have the rest of iwatobi sc reassure haru that heâd never lose them/theyâd always be there for him and thus bring back the point of free! really i think the director forgot what free was about and thatâs why the most s3 actually felt like free! was when haru and rin left their training camps and spontaneously ran to see their old highschools compete at nationals
god just seeing what free has turned into makes me so sad. i want to be excited like i originally was for new content esp the movie coming this year but with how bad the writing is now idk if i can bring myself to feel excited anymore bc i feel like iâll just end up being so disappointed and this just makes me wish they just ended it at s2 instead
so iâve finally watched s3 of free! and i wanted to put my thoughts in about it and hopefully also get some ppl to reply (respectfully) with their own input? also sorry if my knowledge of free seems spotty or incomplete since i donât obviously have all free lore burned into my head so pls inform or correct me on anything iâm missing!
anyways before even watching s3, i noticed it was pretty widespread that s3 was rather disappointing or at least fell short to s1&2. and not only that, but i could see that s3 was likely going to be a bit disappointing just bc of how many less ppl were interested in it or even knew about it (ofc popularity=/=good but i doubted that the loss in numbers was just bc time had passed) sadly, the season actually exceeded my expectations of the worst.
first of all, i think way too many characters were introduced without any need of them being there. ofc not all of them seemed worthless to being there, but i think at least half of them didnât have a need of being there (or at least didnât need to appear as much as they did) or they couldâve at least waited to introduce them. donât get me wrong, i loved characters like isuzu and albert, but with how little they appeared or added to the plot, i donât think they were necessary at all. they introduced so many characters and kind of tried to forcefully endear them to us but it just seemed really shallow and random. i was really uninterested in the new iwatobi hs sc tbh (i love rei and nagisa, but i just donât feel anything for the new members tho it was funny how the new manager is interested in fat instead of muscles) i donât think isuzu was worth introducing, but i do get why they introduced albert at least. he was supposed to serve as their first rival introduced strictly from the professional world, and to emphasize there are many people above them not just in japan but the âworld stageâ but i definitely think they couldâve waited on that until the free 2021 movie tbh. plus i felt that any conflict he brought to haru was resolved within 1 maybe 2 episodes so yea they definitely didnât really need him bc he hasnât had much impact (yet) if anything, they couldâve just had him briefly appear at that training camp haru was at to race him and beat him to remind him that he still has a long way to go to get to the top. but all other appearances of albert were so extra and unnecessarily emphasized how inhumanely talented he was (the arcade scene, the thing with the chopsticks,etc) it just felt like really weak foreshadowing
also, the main conflict in s3 was just way too prolonged and solved unsatisfactorily. first of all, i donât know why the blame seemed to be shifted by ikuya and hiyori almost solely to haru, like yes he was the one who quit first but it wasnât an attack specifically to ikuya and the rest of them left too, so they shouldâve held more grudges on haru makoto and asahi rather than just haru (or if anything at least have more blame on asahi bc makoto at least talked to ikuya beforehand) like did he just forget asahi also made a promise to not move away? honestly from the content they gave us, iâd argue that asahi and ikuya were actually closer than how ikuya and haru were, since i feel like most of the latter relationship was based on ikuya admiring harus swimming.
second of all, hiyori was another character i found so unnecessary and just weirdly protective over ikuya. he repeatedly gets in the way between them and ikuya when ikuya never said he didnât want to talk to them (and itâs not like talking to them is gonna give him a health relapse) and so he just seemed to be there to prolong the conflict between them which was irritating. not even natsuya, ikuyaâs actual brother, was that obsessive over him so i really donât get hiyori. even sousuke, who was actually friends with rin before haru and the others were was not that possessive over rin, and there was actually pretty good reasoning why he had a grudge against haru (he didnât see haru taking swimming as seriously as rin and thought that would cause him to hold back rin who looked up to haru, and was jealous that haru who had the talent to swim the world stage with rin wasnât taking advantage of it when sousuke wanted to but couldnt bc of his injury) and like what right did he have to say to haru that his swimming hurts others when it didnât even affect ikuya negatively (instead it inspired him and led to him wanting to swim like haru) like how haru originally thought it did to rin and how it did to asahi in high speed 2?
third of all, like i said before the way they solved the conflict between ikuya and the rest made little sense. like yes harus swimming is magical but i donât get how swimming IM with him could instantly solve all the problems between them. (ik that it was based on the promise they made to race each other but iâll get into that part and how shallow it felt later) if anything, i think what wouldâve been more impactful was something happening to ikuya that made him realize that he can/should rely on/trust others, (maybe a more serious accident?) and enjoy swimming with a team and not just alone since his personal conflict was that he thought swimming alone was better than swimming with others when actually he was lonely (at least it was in starting days). and that wouldnât even have to be with haru and the others that he learns that lesson. it could be with his own university team and hiyori, which would give hiyori a much better purpose of being there. (or they couldâve just not had him exist) if they were so inclined to have closure between ikuya and the other boys by having them resolve ikuyas personal conflict, i feel like it shouldâve been at least haru AND asahi (maybe even makoto too but idk how thatd work when heâs no longer competing) racing him in the same race (if not them doing a relay but i guess they didnât want to make it too obvious than they already were that they were just recycling the plot of s1 (lol)) if anything i think they couldâve even waited for them to reconcile while they were on the olympic team, but ig kyoani didnât want to wait that long to reintroduce ikuya and wanted to use s3 to warm ppl up to the idea of ikuya being on the olympic team which they didnât do very well considering how bad the development was
also what was with ikuya saying he swims his own way while obviously taking sm inspiration fron the way haru swam? it was so contradictory and even as kids haru told ikuya to swim his own way when ikuya told him that he wanted to be like haru and he understood that obviously but didnât apply that to his actions at all? and iâm surprised haru was ok with ikuya blatantly copying him when i vaguely rmb that heâs been shown to get annoyed with even makoto when he seemed to be doing that?
another fault in having all these characters was that haruâs actual personality seemed to be taken away for the sake of these characters.
they wanted to establish a deeper relationship between ikuya and haru, but it just seemed so off the way they went about it in free! haru promising ikuya to race him just felt so ooc to me and had little emotional impact tbh bc of the lack of reasoning i felt haru had to agree to such a thing besides him promising ikuya that just bc he asked rather than bc he actually wanted to race ikuya. (while it took rin weeks to get haru to warm up to him and then agree to the relay, and seeing the process of haru getting used to the idea then openly enjoying swimming with the others was really touching) i think they just added that to make harus quitting have more impact on ikuya but i donât think it was necessary at all when they already made plans with the rest to swim the relay again and win. if they wanted to make it seem like ikuya and haru had more of a one on one relationship with each other they shouldâve gone into more about how haru saw the same darkness in ikuya that he did in himself like in high speed 2. make them bond over their similarities since iâm pretty sure ikuyas purpose as a character is to give haru a rival that is like how sousuke is to rin is; which is being rivals while being two of the same person. (in contrast to haru and rin who are very different and are rivals that inspire each other) but the way they try to establish the relationship between ikuya and haru pales sm in comparison to sousuke and rin that itâs a bit laughable, even more so in those occasional moments where they try to act like ikuya can measure up to rinâs impact on haru
another much more obvious event where haruâs character is forced to act ooc for the sake of the establishment of another character is with albert. yes, haru has grown a lot from the beginning of the series and has gotten a lot more open, expressive, and friendly, but thatâs mostly just to the friends around him, but thatâs not even to all of them (he still seems to find kisumi irritating and in TYM tries to leave at the sight of him lol) so him noticing, randomly approaching a stranger he doesnât know a single thing about to help them order food and then even going far as to have lunch with him was the most blatantly ooc thing in the season. i think he may be polite enough to help him order his food but i donât get why he even noticed albert in the first place. they shouldâve just left him noticing albert to be at the practice race. like i said that scene was just there to emphasize albertâs skill with the chopstick thing but i think saying he was the world record holder and also being way ahead of haru in the race was already enough
besides haruâs character, another character i felt they did wrong was makoto. besides the plot of s1 being recycled, s3 makoto seemed to just repeat the development he went through in s2. by the end of s2, he already establishes that he wants to coach swimmers. and at the end of s3 he comes to that same realization but acts like itâs something completely new to him introduced by nao that he never thought of before?? the only difference was that he said in s2 he wanted to help kids realize how great swimming is, which was sweet and suited his personality, but in s3 he says he wants to do it for athletes on the world stage. tbh i like either way, and the latter one would help him be able to stand with rin and haru who in s2 he was afraid of being left behind by (hence why he swam the free against haru in s2) but saying that being an olympic trainer can also help him inspire kids and show them swimming is fun makes no sense. choose a path you want for the character already and make it consistent does he want to help athletes in the world stage or does he want to help kids fall in love with swimming? bc i doubt any kids pay attention to the coach or trainers in the olympics rather than the actual athletes so that reasoning like i said didnât make sense.
and after haru lost what i think was the 200m (?) free at the All Japan Invitational, i found it weird that they had makoto there after to talk with haru and rin about the race? idk to me it just feels like itâs tradition for it to end up just being rin and haru talking when theyâre struggling with swimming (in s1 was their fight in front of the tree that looked like the one by their elementary, in s2 it was the australia trip) his presence didnât even feel necessary either, he just randomly interrupted the moment by saying his future plans after haru had that angst yell lol. it felt like just an appeal to mh shippers which is not a good enough reason at all
the last point i can remember at the moment is that the ending was so underwhelming. i donât understand why they couldnât have shown the ending to rin and harus 100m free race when the movie trailer already confirms that theyâre going to the olympics. why cut to albert watching them on the tv?? all this build up to not even show the results of it? I think this ending really just confirmed that s3 was so unnecessary and just there to warm ppl up to the olympic movie but not actually give us anything good or plot moving
anyways sorry for this dump. besides all these criticisms, i want to say there were parts of it that i enjoyed, i just didnât go into it bc this post is already so long, and me bagging on ikuya was not hate; i actually like him and the only time i teared up in s3 was in his race with natsuya lol. iâm afraid that at some parts i may have not expressed my thoughts exactly so please donât be too harsh if you engage, but iâd love to hear other pplâs analysis of s3 and the characters as well !!
romaincrisis
turnnoffyourmind
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