Free! - Episode 12 [END]
Rin whiffs his individual heat after being scratched from the relay. His friends put him on their relay team, with Rei stepping aside. Friendship power! Uh, disqualification... And funny stuff at the end of the end.
It wouldn't be a sports club anime at a tournament without drama, right? Rin seems to have a fragile psyche, and totally blows his individual heat. His old friends are worried and go chasing after him. Rei tells them that Rin told him it wasn't Haruka beating him when he came back to visit from Australia that made him want to quit swimming. He had just hit a wall in training and was doubting himself. Rei comes up with the only solution to make things right: have Rin take his spot in the relay.
First they have to convince Rin to do that. We got some shouting, some grappling, and some wrestling (calm down fujoshi), and then everything is sorted. All the swim club members have their own moments of water zen that Haruka always has, and they place first in the relay, by the power of friendship, or something.
But not for long. They just broke a ton of rules to put Rin in the lineup, and they were disqualified. Ah well, there's always next year. Oh, we get to learn the first name of that little freshman always running after Rin: Ai. Another boy with a girl's name. If the teaser at the end of the show is true, we'll get to see more of him next summer.
And then we get funny resolution montage. Somebody is stashing old magazines of Ama-chan-sensei's bikini layouts in the locker room. I wonder who it could be...
Final Thoughts: Overall, a fun take on a sports club anime, Free! decided to concentrate on the bonds of friendship between the guys with girl names, and gave us funny moments that we would normally associate with a cute-girls-doing-cute-things anime. I've said before, this show was like K-ON's older brothers join the swim club. Same animation production house too. The friendship power thing is a bit of cliché, but with the gender bending tropes thrown around throughout the show, there was a bit more depth to it that had nice moments. This show also did not take itself seriously, knowing it was mixing girly themes in with a muscular sports anime, and really did a lot of winking at the audience through the little sister character of Gou, a girl with a boy's name. I'm sure the merchandising potential of this show will do great among girls, and some guys. Just don't expect to get any tips on competitive swimming from this show.
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