Monday, June 6, 2016

Free! Eternal Summer-The Complete Second Season


Another year begins for the Iwatobi Swim Team.  And time has not dulled the renewed friendship between Rin and his former teammates.  As Haruka, Makoto, Nagisa and Rei reunite for whole new season, the competition looks fierce and not just from Rin’s Samezuka Academy teammates.  Haru, Makoto and Rin all face an uncertain future as they enter their final year of High School.  Can Haru see past his love of the water to find out where he’s heading?  And who’s this mysterious new transfer student at Samezuka, who seems very familiar to Rin?  The boys are back and it looks to be the most intense summer yet.

Well, I kind of regret doing the first episode for a FIF recently.  Still, that weekly feature has always been a good one for potential setups for future series reviews.  But this quick a turn around?  I probably should have saved my thoughts for now.  But C’est la vie. 

Much like the first season, once I started Free! Eternal Summer, I couldn’t stop.  I was sucked right back into the world of the Iwatobi Swim Team and fully invested in the continuing adventures of Haru, Makoto, Nagisa, Rei and Rin.  Needless to say, even with it’s flaws, I loved Season Two and was shedding a couple of tears knowing that this was the end of the line.

As I said in my FIF post, I’m glad that we weren’t going to get a full retread of things with Rin and Haru.  That friendship had been fixed and was still going strong.  Rin got a more beefed up role as Captain of the Samezuka team and seemed to be in his element leading his teammates, including his protegee Ai and newcomer Momo (who had an strong crush on Rin’s sister, Gou, which lead to much hilarity).  Haru was pretty much the same “only swim free” lead we remember him to be and I knew pretty quick that when it came to dealing with the future, he was going to be the tough one to crack. 

In that regard, Haru became a bit of a pain and like Rin in Season One, it took FOREVER to draw out what his fears were and how to best deal with them.  I had similar issues with newcomer Sosuke.  Why would he keep his problems mute for so long and, I still don’t get this, what was his beef with Haru?  Was he jealous of his closeness with Rin?  Did he really think Haru was holding Rin back?  Rin seemed pretty dead set on what he wanted to do with his life, so nothing was holding him back.  If anything, Rin was trying to save Haru the same way he was rescued in Season One.  It was a lot of headscratching frustration indeed.

BUT this also gave us what probably ranks on my growing list of “Best Individual Episodes Ever.”  Rin and Haru’s trip to Australia was exactly the kind of episode Free needed to start it’s final run.  From Rin trying to speak English in a different country to seeing his kind host family to he and Haru having to share a bed (because of Haru’s female sounding name according to Rin), there was a good feel of Lost in Translation in this episode.  And since that movie is one of my favs, I was bound to love this episode just as much.  Rin and Haru have always been the heart of this show and having each others backs, helping each other find their future…it’s what this series is all about.

As expected, with Haru and Makoto destined to leave Iwatobi at the end of the year, Nagisa and Rei were left wondering what life would be after they’d left.  Rei didn’t get too much story this year, I felt.  Yeah he worked on learning how to swim all of the strokes but that was all.  Nagisa running away from home and detailing the rough home life he’s endured while trying to swim was a lot deeper.  In truth, im surprised both Rei and Nagisa kept it in so well until the last episode when they realized Haru and Makoto would be gone and their days of swimming together would come to an end.  Call it what you want, the bonds of brotherhood were as strong as ever this season and they tugged all the right feels.

I loved that Rin had his own team to go up against Iwatobi this year.  It provided some very entertaining, perfectly animated and excellently musical scored races.  Plus we got great opening title sequences out of these rivalries, even if some weren’t really explored as they could have been.  I wish we had a bit more bonding between Iwatobi and Samezuka.  But there was already a lot going on as is and even Rin’s team had their own issues to deal with heading into matches.  Truth be told, im surprised it was all balanced as well as it was, from Sosuke’s past to Ai’s need to be as good as Rin to Momo trying to hook up with Gou…and it all worked.  Just wish we had a little more competitive fun between the two teams as they gelled really well together.

The animation hasn’t changed much between seasons and really it doesn’t have to.  Everyone looked the same, acted the same, Rin still had his shark tooth filled smile.  Familiar is familiar and nothing about Season One animation was broken, ergo, it didn’t need to be fixed or updated.  The end credits sequence, featuring Haru, Rin, Mako, Nagisa and Rei in photoshoots as different career workers was endlessly entertaining.  Haru as a mermaid had shades of Zoolander’s “MER-MAN” written all over it, while Rin as the “sexy cop” will definitely have the ladies swooning more than they already are.

As Free! Eternal Summer reached it’s end, I found myself in a state similar to Season One, but only stronger.  I didn’t want this Anime to end.  Hearing Nagisa and Rei cry out their feelings made me feel exactly as they did.  I wanted to keep watching these guys race and get into adventures together.  This has been, overall, one of the best Anime watching experiences of my life, how could I want it stop?  But as Haru said, its never the end and they’ll keep swimming together even if theyre apart for a little while.  I’ll be looking to add this one to my collection soon so I can enjoy the journey again and again.  I cant help but feel with my own feelings about my own future that this Anime resonated with me more than I expected (that and the whole being a swimmer in high school bit).  If youre ever worried about such things as what to do with life and missing the things that make you most happy…pop this Anime in, it’s the definition of “feel good”. 

Swim fast, swim strong…swim FREE!!!

9/10

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