Free! Iwatobi swim club

I've been watching Free! Iwatobi swim club and first of all I want to say that it isn't Yaoi, everyone one who hasn't seen it seems to think it's a gay anime and yeah I guess I can sort of see why.


Free! is about  4 of guys with girly names who used to be in a swimming club when they were very young which disbanded after their fourth team mate left for Australia, the other 3 boys are reunited at high school and create a new swimming club.
The boy who moved to Australia as a little boy came back to japan with a sour attitude towards his old friends and swims for a rival school, the anime follows the efforts of the team to earn school funding, find a new team mate, win tournaments and patch things up with their old friend.

I guess the reason why people think it's a Yaoi and the reason it gets so much hate (from male anime fans in particular) is because it is so fanservice-y. (I didn't  know what fanservice was until recently and it is literally when a tv show/ film/comic book/whatever gives the audience what they want, I.E characters stripping at every opportunity, cameos, up skirt shots and other things that aren't really necessary to the plot but will hopefully please the audience.)

Fanservice for girls is  pretty rare in the west of the world and is usually really subtle, like in the first fantastic four film where the invisible woman has to take her clothes off because they change with her but then because she hasn't got to grips with her powers she ends up being visible and naked on a crowded bridge and when the human torch burns his clothes off that is fanservice just it's not as obvious and in your face as in Japanese anime.

Lots of anime use fanservice and if you like fanservice I suggest anime's like one piece and fairytail, they cater for women  with ripped men who always seem to be flashing a six pack but the fanservice is more aimed at men with scantily dressed clad women with huge chests, a weird anime with a bit for fanserivce is Sankarea which is about a romance between a boy with a creepy zombie fetish and a girl who died and was reanimated, the plot it's self is weird anyway but it being a romance I thought it would be aimed at girls but there was some clear male orientated fan service, the male fanservice in Sankarea confused me and I guess most anime fanservice will be for men however Free! is cool in the fact that the fanservice seems to be geared more towards girls than it is the guys.

Free! is other than it's plot and characterization is the fanservice for women in the form of topless men and you could argue that because it's about swimming they are obviously going to be in swim suits but the fanservice is more than that, now I like the fanservice don't get me wrong but I think it over shadows everything else that makes it so good.

I really love the characters you have Nanase Haruka:
A quiet boy who is sort of the main protagonist and he seems to have some kind of weird relationship with water bordering on romantic so he will only go some where if he can swim or if going there improves his chances of swimming in the future and he will strip in the presence of water.
He is close to  Nagisa Hazuki and very close to Makoto Tachibana  but is on bad terms with Rin Matsouka and feels guilty about beating him in a swimming race in middle school.
 Everyone says that he swims beautifully and Nagisa describes him as a dolphin he also likes eating mackerel.

Makoto Tachibana:
He is also pretty shy and is very relaxed, he seems to be scared of things like ghosts and haunted houses, as a child he was close to an elderly fisherman who won him some goldfish at a fair, the man died in a typhoon whilst fishing so when the goldfish died he buried them and made them a grave.
He keeps Haruka in check (like stopping him from stripping at inappropriate times.) he seems to get on with everyone but like everyone else Rin is talking to him, like all the other club members he gets depicted as an animal and he is described as a killer whale.

Nagisa Hazuki:
Nagisa is the cutest, the new swimming club was his idea and he is responsible for recruiting their fourth member Rei, he seems closest to Rei and likes to tease the other characters like adding chan to the end of the boys names but he still gets on with everyone but Rin, he mentions rock hopper penguins lot and likes squid.

Rin Matsouka:
He could be seen as the antagonist, before middle school Rin was a happy confident boy but since studying is Australia he has become mean and insecure and really hates Haru despite the fact he desperately wants to race and swim with him, upon returning to Japan he started attending Samezuka academy (which is a boarding school with a really good swim team) he and his sister lost their dad in a typhoon whilst he was fishing.
He feels guilty that maybe if it weren't for him being born his dad could have become an Olympic swimming and might still be alive.
He has sharp teeth and is often described as a shark.

Rei Ryūgazaki:
He used to be on the track team pole vaulting but was kicked off for being to technical and not working hard enough on the physical side of the sport, he was recruited for the swim team by Nagisa, he couldn't swim to begin with and was reluctant to join because he didn't think it was a very beautiful sport until he saw Haru swimming.
He is closest to Nagisa and sometimes feels like a replacement for Rin because of the teams history with him, he manged to learn the butterfly stroke, I think he is depicted as a butterfly because the butterfly is the only stroke he can do, often mentions butterflies and he nearly brought a swimsuit with butterflies on it, this would fit with the other animals as he is a bit of a misfit not being an aquatic animal.

Gou Matsouka:
Gou is the sister of rin and has a boyish name (like the other memebers of the swim team who are all boys with girlish names), she desperately wants her old happier brother back and helps manage the Iwatobi swim team.
She is often swooning over the boys in their swim suits however all the boys either seem to be oblivious to it or choose to ignore it.
She prefers to be called Kou because it's meant to be a girly pronunciation of her name but most people just call her Gou, the samezuka swim team's captain has a crush on her. 


I really like the anime and I would completely recommend it if the fanservice doesn't bother you. (but lets be honest if your a male anime fan you can't really complain when girls have to put up with the overwhelming amount of boobage when watching anime.) The plot was really sweet and endearing and can't wait for season 2 (I think there'll be a season 2 any way.)


I think it's great to have some fanservice for girls and I can only hope for a season 2 or something similar because I really enjoyed it.