Middle school freshmen Haruka and Makoto join the school swim team, and have to join forces with their new teammates to win.
Direction
Takemoto's water animation will make you FEEL wet.
Score
That orchestral swell when they dive? Goosebumps every time.
Acting
Uchiyama's Ikuya: the most emotionally repressed 13-year-old ever voiced.
Director
Yasuhiro Takemoto
Koki Uchiyama
Ikuya Kirishima (voice)
Nobunaga Shimazaki
Haruka Nanase (voice)
Tatsuhisa Suzuki
Makoto Tachibana (voice)
Satomi Sato
Nagisa Hazuki (voice)
Kenji Nojima
Natsuya Kirishima (voice)
Mamoru Miyano
Rin Matsuoka (voice)
Yoko Hikasa
Rei Ryuugazaki (voice)
Chihiro Suzuki
Kisumi Shigino (voice)
Aoi Yuuki
Sousuke Yamazaki (voice)
Satoshi Hino
Nao Serizawa (voice)
Toshiyuki Toyonaga
Asahi Shiina (voice)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This is technically a prequel to Free! but adapts the second High☆Speed! novel — Kyoto Animation basically said 'you're getting middle school angst whether you asked or not.'
The relay scene's water animation took months; KyoAni studied actual competitive swimmers to get the splash physics perfect — you can literally see Haruka's panic dissolve into flow state.
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