Free! Timeless Medley-The Promise

Rin Matsuouka has always wanted to swim as part of a team, ever since his father showed him the joy of doing do.  After spending years in Australia, Rin returns to Japan and now takes his place as Captain of the Sumezuka High School Swim Team.  Joining the ranks of his final year is his best friend, Sousuke Yamazaki.  Along with genius backstroker Momotaro Makoshiba and the eager Aiichiro Nitori, Sumezuka might have a relay team to rival the boys of Iwatobi.  However, Rin and Sousuke’s personal trials might threaten their chances.  But the two made a promise a long time ago…and Rin is determined to keep it.

Rin Matsuoka takes center stage alongside the boys of Sumezeka Academy in the second part of the Free! Timeless Medley Duology, The Promise, and I’ve gotta say, it’s about damn time.  While the First Season of Free focused on Rin finding his passion again after losing his way, Eternal Summer aka Season Two, saw him building his own team as Captain and they were such a great bunch.  The Promise not only gives about 90% of it’s runtime to Sumezeka but it also does a fantastic job expanding everyones character arc and gives us a lot more footage in a Compilation Film than The Bond.  Overall, The Promise is a great movie…save for one nitpick I cant ignore when it comes to the finale.

Since we’re on the opposite end of the pool with Sumezeka, there isn’t a lot of retreading water when it comes to stuff already covered in The Bond.  Save for the odd one or two overlapping sequences, Sumezeka dominates The Promise.  Rin has always been one of the best characters in all of Free.  His heartbreaking struggle to find his love of swimming again was pretty powerful in Season One and his new task as Sumezeka Team Captain showed just how much he grew in Season Two, from arrogant jerk to confident leader.  Him getting his own movie is long overdue and for the most part, The Promise sticks to that notion.  From the get go, we get to see Rin and his sister, Gou, with their father before his untimely passing, and glimpse a bit more into his history with his childhood friend Sousuke.  Much of the latter we have seen in Eternal Summer but I always liked their friendship arc a bit more so it’s good to revisit.  Just like Haru and Mako in The Bond, all of Rin and Sosuke’s best scenes are in The Promise but they definitely had more new material thrown into their tale, which makes sense.  Eternal Summer seemed to focus more on Haru’s personal struggles rather than Rin’s (since Rin’s troubles were the main plot of Season One).  So a chance to expand is always welcome.  We even get a bit of a prologue to the Australia Episode between Rin, Makoto and Sousuke, which is good because as expected, Australia is almost completely absent since we saw that sequence in The Bond.

More time with Sumezeka means we get more time with Rin and Sousuke’s other teammates.  Momotaro continues to be one of the franchise’s unsung heroes with his stellar comedic timing.  Meanwhile, Ai gets a few new scenes with Sousuke, who sees his determination and drive and decides to train him to better his breast stroke.  Actually, The Promise does a better job showing the entire team dynamic and how it develops more than The Bond, which kind of kept Rei and Nagisa off to the side while Haru and Makoto remained front and center.  New sequences like these, plus all the Rin and Sousuke stuff makes me with that Sumezeka got it’s own spin off series to focus more on their side of things.  But The Promise works well enough on its own.  Heck, it even makes better use of flashbacks from both Season One of Free and High Speed! Free! Starting Days.  Unlike that brief connections The Bond had with the Free Prequel Movie, The Promise puts them to better use in order to parallel Haru and Rin’s different Middle School experiences, especially in their first years.  It’s a beautiful way to open the movie really and from there, Rin takes the reigns and carries the film and his team on his more than capable shoulders.  As far as Compilation Movies go, The Promise is surprisingly solid and a much better outing for Free than The Bond.

But there is one bothersome part of the film.  The majority of The Promise is Rin’s film and is an excellent stand alone movie in its own right.  However, following the films credits, there is a ten minute or so epilogue that serves to set up the next film in the franchise, Free! Take Your Marks, and subsequently Free’s Third TV Season, Dive to the Future.  I get that everything in Free has to be connected in some way and for the most part it’s done fairly well.  I think the tacked on bonus preview of things to come isn’t really needed and takes away from the amazing exclusive Rin experience we just had.  I guess if they wanted to work the same way as The Bond, they could just include the bit where Sousuke fills Rin in on the existence of Haru’s old teammate Ikuya.  But even then, I feel like we’re covering territory we’re going to go over in a little bit anyway.  So why ruin a nearly perfect experience?

My gripes with the epilogue aside, I loved Timeless Medley-The Promise.  Rin’s story is expanded in a lot of well done ways and as a result, the rest of the Sumezeka squad gets to shine like never before.  The humor, the swimming sequences and the strong, emotional moments of brotherhood sometimes outshine even the best Haru and Mako or Haru and Rin moments from any season of Free.  For a Compilation Film, The Promise works more than it has any right to.  I’m glad Rin finally got a movie of his own, the guy’s more than deserved it and im sure the fanbase would agree.  Well done Mr. Matsuoka.

9/10

Friday we’ve got one more Free movie to dig into.  Ever wondered what Haru and the Gang got up to before they decided to Dive to the Future?  Well whether you wanted to know or not or just want to hang out with the Free boys again, you’re gonna find out anyway.  Friday it’s the last of the Free films for now, Free! Take Your Marks, right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.  See ya then.